Also Try Archives Budget Deficit Child Heroes Civil Liberties and Security Conservative Views Current Events Lessons Democracy and Corporate Power Democracy and Media Economy Election Reform Immigration Iraq News Presidential Election 2008 Progressive Views Religion and Politics Social Security Swine Flu Terrorism Veterans Discussions By the People Dialogues About Democracy (PBS - By the People) "Bringing the views of 'ordinary' citizens to a national discussion on the important issues of the day." Game Budget Hero Game (AmericanPublicMedia.org) Provides a game that lets you spend the federal budget over the next 50 years and see the consequences. Lesson Plans -02-26-10 Officials: Orca Trainer Likely Made a Mistake (CBS News) "The killer whale that drowned a veteran trainer was just curious about her ponytail and dragged her into the water to investigate a new toy, the former head of animal training at SeaWorld Orlando said Friday." 02-10 Lists -001 Federal Stimulus Funds (Awesome Library) Provides information to help track the use of funds allocated in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). -Catastrophic Climate Change (Awesome Library) "Our quality of life cannot survive in a world with massive climate change…and massive climate change is very likely unless we aggressively sequester the carbon dioxide (CO2) already in the atmosphere." -Contact Legislators (Congress.org) Provides information on U.S. senators and representatives, committees, state legislators, governors, federal government officials, and judicial members. Materials Voter Registration Forms by State (Federal Election Commission) Provides forms to register, organized by state. Multimedia -02-22-10 How to Stop a Runaway Car (ABC News) Shows how hard it may be to stop a car that accelerates on its own. Pumping the brakes can cause the brakes to go out quickly. Turning the engine off will get rid of power assist, making steering very hard; the driver may also accidentally lock the steering in the process of turning the engine off. The correct thing to do is to put the transmission in neutral and press on the brakes; once stopped, turn off the engine. 02-10 -Is Obama's Stimulus Working? (CNN News) Panelists discuss the situation. 01-10 News -001 Can We Prevent Global Warming? (Newsweek.com) Secretary of Energy Chu: "Right now, the climate scientists feel that if all humans shut off carbon emissions today, it will still glide up by about 1 degree centigrade. In the business-as-usual scenarios, Nicholas Stern says there's a 50 percent chance we may go to 5 degrees centigrade.... And certain tipping points might be triggered. We can adapt to 1 or 2 degrees. More than that, there is no adaptation strategy." "So the big fear is that once the tundra thaws, those microbes wake up, they digest all that carbon. It goes up in the atmosphere. At that point, no matter what humans do, it's out of our control. This is the realization in the last decade that has caused many of us to get very, very concerned. Adaptation at 1 or 2 degrees will be painful, it will cause a lot of hurt and pain, but adaptation at 5 or 6 degrees—I'm terribly frightened that that's catastrophic." 04-09 -001 Provisions of the Proposed Health Care Reform Bill (MSNBC News) "Proposed changes to the Senate-passed health care bill include a scaled-back tax on high-cost health insurance plans – a provision that is widely unpopular with House Democrats – and more money to help states pay for an expansion of Medicaid, the state-federal health program for the poor and disabled. The new measure, called a reconciliation bill, also would take additional steps to close a gap in Medicare prescription drug coverage and to help low- and middle-income Americans purchase health insurance through new insurance exchanges." 03-10 -01-26-10 Young Boy Raises $220,000 for Haiti (CNN News) "He's no Wyclef Jean or George Clooney, but that hasn't stopped the British 7-year-old from raising more than £136,000 ($220,000) for victims of the Haiti earthquake." "[Charlie] Simpson, who's from Fulham, West London, started out hoping to raise just £500 -- around $800 -- for UNICEF's earthquake appeal by cycling five miles around a local park." 01-10 -02-02-10 White House: Republicans Claim Credit for Projects They Voted Against (ABC News) "ABC News' Ann Compton reports: The White House has the names, dates, and even photographs to challenge Republican members of Congress who voted against the Recovery Act and its spending last year, but who also went home to claim credit for projects the stimulus brought to their districts." 02-10 -02-08-10 Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield Announces 40% Hike (CBS News) "The Obama administration is asking why Anthem Blue Cross is raising its health insurance rates by nearly 40 percent for some California customers while making handsome profits -- and is pointing to the rate hike as evidence of why health care reform needs to pass." 02-10 -02-08-10 Safest Cars (ABC News) "Drawing from research conducted by Consumer Reports and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, as well as from interviews with auto safety experts such as Kelley Blue Book's executive editorial director Jack Nerad, ABCNews.com has compiled its own roundup of the safest car choices for drivers of all stripes." 02-10 -02-10-10 Obama Administration Announces New Federal Climate Change Agency (U.S. News) " The Obama administration is proposing a new agency to study and report on the changing climate." "Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, planned to announce Monday that NOAA will set up the new Climate Service to operate in tandem with NOAA's National Weather Service and National Ocean Service." 02-10 -02-10-10 Poll: Republicans Think Palin More Qualified to Be President Than Obama (CBS News) "A non-partisan Research 2000 survey of 2,000 Republicans has found that a majority believe Sarah Palin is more qualified to be president than Barack Obama and that nearly two in three believe Mr. Obama is a socialist." "Thirty-one percent say 'Barack Obama is a racist who hates White people,' and another one in three aren't sure." 02-10 -02-12-10 Behind the Troubles at Toyota (Time.com) "What makes the recall since November of nearly 9 million Toyotas that are susceptible to uncontrolled acceleration and balky brakes such a shocking story is not so much the company's manufacture of some shoddy cars or even its dreadful crisis management — though those are errors that will cost it more than $2 billion in repairs and lost sales this year. It's something more pernicious: the vapor lock that seems to have seized Toyota's mythologized corporate culture and turned one of the most admired companies in the world into a bunch of flailing gearheads. Not only is Toyota producing more flawed cars than in the past, but an organization known for its unrivaled ability to suss out problems, fix them and turn them into advantages is looking clueless on all counts." 02-10 -02-13-10 Poll: Most Americans Unaware They Got a Tax Cut (CBS News) "Of people who support the grassroots, 'Tea Party' movement, only 2 percent think taxes have been decreased, 46 percent say taxes are the same, and a whopping 44 percent say they believe taxes have gone up." "Those answers must frustrate the president who has highlighted its tax cuts for the middle class in almost every speech." "In his Super Bowl Sunday interview with Katie Couric, he touted the tax cuts in the stimulus package: "We put $300 billion worth of tax cuts into people's pockets so that there was demand and businesses had customers." "While the majority of the tax cuts, passed last February, affected 95 percent of working families, when they took affect by April of 2009, the monetary value was not too large -- most families saw about $70 more in take home pay every month. Individual workers saw about $13 more a week." 02-10 -02-15-10 Additional Credit Card Protections to Start (CBS News) "Later this month, the remaining provisions of the "Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009" go into effect. The changes are intended to protect customers." 02-10 -02-15-10 Microsoft Introduces "Windows Mobile 7" for Cell Phones (CBS News) "The software, which was unveiled Monday at the Mobile World Congress, is a dramatic change from previous generations of the software that used to be called Windows Mobile. But Microsoft is, for now, sticking to its model of making the software and selling it to phone manufacturers, rather than making its own phones." 02-10 -02-16-10 Obama Announces Support for New Nuclear Power Plants (BBC News) "President Barack Obama has announced more than $8bn (£5bn) of federal loan guarantees to begin building the first US nuclear power stations for 30 years." 02-10 -02-17-10 Haiti: A Nation of Amputees (Time.com) "It looks even harder after the earthquake, given the overwhelming demand for artificial limbs: of the 250,000 people injured, doctors estimate as many as 100,000 are amputees. And that doesn't count the victims who will probably need limbs amputated down the line because of wound infections." "(To get a sense of scale: the years of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq have, so far, produced just about 1,000 amputees among U.S. military personnel.)" 02-10 -02-17-10 Report Card on the Stimulus (Time.com) "The general public's opinion of the bill that authorized the government to spend $787 billion to create jobs and end the recession is that it has been a dud." "Overall, economic forecasters such as Moody's Economy.com and IHS Global Insight say the bill generated paychecks for anywhere from 1.5 million to 2 million people who would have been out of work this past year without the stimulus." "But what makes the bill's success hard to judge is that it was oversold. Before the stimulus was passed, a report from President Obama's economic advisers predicted that the bill would ensure that the unemployment rate would remain at 8% or below. By that estimate, the bill looks like a failure. A few months ago, the unemployment rate hit 10%; currently it is 9.7%." "Another problem is that the bill included a huge jumble of programs." 02-10 -02-19-10 Capture of Afghanistan Taliban Military Chief in Pakistan (Time.com) "Only after a careful process of identification did Pakistani and American officials realize they had captured Mullah Baradar himself, the man who had long overseen the Taliban insurgency against American, NATO and Afghan troops in Afghanistan." "Mullah Baradar is talking a little, though he is viewed as a formidable, hard-line opponent whose interrogation will be a long-term effort, according to American and Pakistani officials." "Alex Strick van Linschoten, a Dutch researcher who has lived for several years in Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, said Taliban representatives reacted with fury to Mullah Baradar’s arrest and were unlikely to be amenable to political approaches any time soon." 02-10 -02-21-10 America's Falling Crime Rate Over 20 Years (Time.com) "In his book why crime rates fell, Tufts University sociologist John Conklin concluded that up to half of the improvement was due to a single factor: more people in prison. The U.S. prison population grew by more than half a million during the 1990s and continued to grow, although more slowly, in the next decade. Go back half a century: as sentencing became more lenient in the 1960s and '70s, the crime rate started to rise. When lawmakers responded to the crime wave by building prisons and mandating tough sentences, the number of prisoners increased and the number of crimes fell." 02-10 -02-21-10 Editorial: Fixing the Senate With Real Filibusters (Time.com) " 'The Republicans' indiscriminate use of the filibuster has made it all but impossible to conduct everyday business in the Senate. On an almost daily basis, the Republican minority — just 41 Senators — stops bills from even coming to the floor for debate and amendment,' Democratic Senator Tom Harkin wrote recently in the Huffington Post. 'In the 1950s, an average of one bill was filibustered in each two-year Congress. In the last Congress, 139 bills were filibustered. The Republican abuse of the filibuster is unprecedented, routine, and increasingly reckless.' " "It has been more than two decades since the last time we saw the majority actually make the minority put up or shut up on a filibuster." 02-10 -02-21-10 Feds Open Criminal Probe into Toyota (CBS News) "Federal prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into Toyota's safety problems, the company acknowledged Monday as it prepared to answer questions on Capitol Hill about its widespread vehicle recalls." 02-10 -02-21-10 House Panel Says Toyota Misled Public on Accelerator Problem (New York Times) "Leading Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee said Monday that Toyota relied on a flawed study in dismissing the notion that computer issues could be at fault for sticking accelerator pedals, and then made misleading statements about the repairs." "Editor's Note: Some German-made cars have a safety feature that always allows the brake pedal to override the accelerator pedal. See "How to Stop a Runaway Car." 02-10 -02-22-10 Fixing a Broken Government (CNN News) Provides a special program to examine how government is broken and how to fix it. 02-10 -02-22-10 Toyota U.S.A. President: Recall May Not Fully Solve Problem (New York Times) "A Toyota executive told the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Tuesday that the company’s huge recall might 'not totally' solve the problem of unintended sudden acceleration in its vehicles." "Asked why Toyota had moved away from a business model that prized quality and openness, Mr. Lentz offered a simple explanation: 'We lost sight of our customers.' " " 'We outgrew our engineering resource,' he said. 'We’re suffering from that today.' ” 02-10 -02-22-10 Velvet Revolution: Top Bush Administration Lawyers Found Guilty of Misconduct by DOJ (Velvet Revolution) "Late Friday, the Department of Justice issued its long awaited report on the actions of the DoJ lawyers who authored the infamous legal memos authorizing torture. The report consisted of two parts: the first is a 300-page report from the DoJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility concluding that the attorneys, specifically John Yoo and Jay Bybee, engaged in 'professional misconduct.' The second is a 69-page cover letter from career Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis finding that the lawyers exercised 'poor judgment.' The OPR finding would under normal circumstances require transmittal to the state bar for disciplinary proceedings. However, Mr. Margolis, a 17-year employee of the DoJ who was in a supervisory position when the legal memos were written, has specifically refused to allow the OPR report to be transmitted." 02-10 -02-23-10 Editorial: Broken Government (Time.com) "According to the Census, median household income in 2008 was $50,303, a decrease from $51,295 in 1998, when the numbers are adjusted for inflation. In other words, over the last decade, America has been in decline." "This pain is blamed on Washington, but the anger is not directly connected to any policy, proposed or in place. Americans know that the president's health care reform effort only tackles a small part of the problem (health costs) imperfectly, and that its biggest change impacts a small percentage of the population (the uninsured). The jobs bill currently being debated in the Senate—the latest in what has become a biannual event—is not going to solve the underlying issues. It is a band-aid. Both parties are simply unsure what to do, so they are retreating to their poll-tested standbys. Republicans want to cut your taxes and voucher-ize your entitlements. Democrats want to increase subsidies and your entitlements.” 02-10 -02-27-10 Chilean Earthquake Was One of the Largest Ever (USA Today) "One of the largest earthquakes ever recorded tore apart houses, bridges and highways in central Chile on Saturday and sent a tsunami racing halfway around the world. Chileans near the epicenter were tossed about as if shaken by a giant, and authorities said at least 214 people were dead. The magnitude-8.8 quake was felt as far away as Sao Paulo in Brazil — 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) to the east." 02-10 -02-27-10 Why the Chilean Earthquake Was Expected (Time.com) "Scientists still can't predict exactly when earthquakes will occur, but the massive temblor that struck off the coast of Chile early Saturday was anything but unexpected. Chile sits on the Ring of Fire, the volatile, 40,000 km-long (25,000 MILE) zone that encircles the Pacific Ocean and includes the most seismically dangerous ground on the planet. The unstable plate tectonics along the Ring produce some 90% of the world's earthquakes as well as most of its volcanic eruptions." 02-10 -02-28-10 Are Liberals Smarter than Conservatives? (Time.com) "A libertarian (and, as such, nonpartisan) researcher, Satoshi Kanazawa of the London School of Economics and Political Science, has just written a paper that is set to be published in March by the journal Social Psychology Quarterly. The paper investigates not only whether conservatives are dumber than liberals but also why that might be so." The author reports on the conclusions of various studies with uncertain overall results. "The jury may be out on whether conservatives are less intelligent than liberals, but there's evidence that they may be physically stronger." 02-10 -03-01-10 Obama Plans Reduction of Nuclear Arsenal (BBC News) "The review comes as the US and Russia appear close to a new deal to cut their nuclear arsenals, despite Moscow's concerns over Washington's missile defence plans." "The document will also set the tone for the next five-yearly review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT agreement, to be held in May." 03-10 -03-02-10 Ford Number 1 in Car Sales (CNN News) "While Ford (F, Fortune 500) reported a 43% increase in U.S. sales in February, much of the gain was due to a 74% jump in fleet sales to businesses. Rental car companies alone accounted for just over 30,000 vehicle sales. Without the rental companies, Ford sales would have been up only 13% in the month." 03-10 -03-02-10 Toyota Offers 0 Percent Financing (CNN News) "Toyota called the incentive program, which begins immediately and runs though April 5, 'the company's most far-reaching sales program in its history,' in a corporate announcement." 03-10 -03-03-10 Half of Health Care Dollars Are "Wasted" (CNN News) "Consider this: For every dollar the nation spends on health care, 50 cents is wasted." "According to a 2008 report by Pricewaterhouse Cooper's Health Research Institute, wasteful spending accounts for $1.2 trillion of the $2.2 trillion spent on health care in the United States. The medical waste includes costs associated with inefficient insurance claims processing, defensive medicine, preventable hospital readmissions, medical errors, and unnecessary emergency room visits." 03-10 -03-03-10 Scientists Take Steps to Defend Work on Climate Change (New York Times) "For months, climate scientists have taken a vicious beating in the media and on the Internet, accused of hiding data, covering up errors and suppressing alternate views. Their response until now has been largely to assert the legitimacy of the vast body of climate science and to mock their critics as cranks and know-nothings." "But the volume of criticism and the depth of doubt have only grown, and many scientists now realize they are facing a crisis of public confidence and have to fight back. Tentatively and grudgingly, they are beginning to engage their critics, admit mistakes, open up their data and reshape the way they conduct their work." 03-10 -03-04-10 Ten Owners Say Toyota Gas Pedal Fix Isn't Working (USA Today) "Ten Toyota owners have told federal safety officials that the recall repairs didn't work and that their cars still accelerate when they're not supposed to.” 03-10 -03-04-10 Undersea Methane May Speed Climate Change (USA Today) "It lurks beneath the sea." "No, not The Blob, but something perhaps far more sinister: methane, a potent greenhouse gas 30 times better than carbon dioxide at trapping atmospheric heat." "Research released Thursday finds that underground methane appears to be seeping through the Arctic Ocean floor and into the Earth's atmosphere, thanks to a weakening of the protective layer of permafrost at the bottom of the ocean. Once released into the atmosphere, methane could wreak havoc with the world's climate.” 03-10 -03-05-10 Protests Nationwide Over Education Budget Cuts (CNN News) "A California movement protesting $1 billion in budget cuts to the state's university system appeared to have burgeoned into a nationwide demonstration on Thursday." "Students and professors in dozens of states were challenging administrators and state lawmakers over budget cuts and tuition increases that they say are reducing students' class options and increasing their expenses." "Some of the demonstrations turned chaotic. In Oakland, California, police arrested 160 protesters who shut down a major freeway, according to city police spokeswoman April McFarland.” 03-10 -03-08-10 Academy Award Winners 2010 (People.com) Provides coverage of the Oscars race. 03-10 -03-08-10 Editorial: How Obama Is Making the Same Mistakes as Bush (Time.com) "Candidate Obama's repudiation of Bush's eight-year presidency was focused on his predecessor's ideology. He should have taken stock of Bush's executive process as well." 03-10 -03-08-10 Editorial: Why Avatar Lost (Time.com) "Over the decades, the membership has shown a fondness for small dramas with an obvious social message and a prejudice against gigantic science-fiction pictures that use pioneering techniques to create a compelling new world — albeit with their own obvious social message. Avatar is every bit as political as The Hurt Locker in its eco-friendly theme, and much more boldly anti-military: by the end of the movie, viewers are meant to be cheering for the deaths of the U.S. soldiers trying to occupy Pandora. It didn't help. The Oscar voters saw Avatar (if they did watch it) as just another genre film. No sci-fi movie has ever won Best Picture." 03-10 -03-08-10 Insurers Hike Rates (CBS News) "As Obama administration officials push the president's health care plan, exhibit A is a stunning series of rate hikes by private insurance companies." 03-10 -03-09-10 Israel Announces More Housing in East Jerusalem (Time.com) "This appears to be the diplomatic equivalent of an ambush. Vice President Biden, on a visit to Israel, spent the day talking up the close relationship between Israel and the United States." "Then Israel, playing not-quite gracious host, announced the construction of 1,600 new homes for Jews in the disputed territories of East Jerusalem, a move that kicks sand in the face of Obama Administration requests to stop such settlement expansion." 03-10 -03-12-10 Experts: Doctors Testing Too Much (Time.com) "Too much cancer screening, too many heart tests, too many cesarean sections. A spate of recent reports suggest that too many Americans — maybe even President Barack Obama — are being overtreated." 03-10 -03-14-10 Famous Muslim Cleric Issues Fatwa Against Terrorism (CNN News) "Sheikh Dr. Tahir ul-Qadri: At a news conference in London, England, on Tuesday, the renowned Islamic scholar issued a fatwa -- a religious ruling -- condemning suicide bombers as destined for hell, removing extremists' certainty of earning paradise after death." "The 600-page fatwa is arguably the most comprehensive theological refutation of Islamist terrorism to date. Qadri said his aim was to set an important precedent that might allow other scholars to similarly condemn the ideas behind terrorism." 03-10 -03-16-10 Using "Deem and Pass" to Vote on Health Care Reform (MSNBC News) "Scenario No. 1: The Senate bill is deemed passed with the passage of the House Rule for debate. So once the House passed the rules for debating the reconciliation package, the Senate bill could immediately be sent to president for his signature." "Scenario No. 2: The Senate bill is deemed passed with the House's passage of the reconciliation bill. Since the vote on 'the rule' happens before the vote on reconciliation, this would delay the bill being sent to Obama." " 'Deem and Pass' has been used often and by both parties. Democrats point out that Republicans used it quite a bit in the 1990s, in fact -- though not for something quite as large as this." "In this Congress, Democrats used 'Deem and Pass' for raising the debt ceiling, which was tucked into the PayGo bill." 03-10 -03-18-10 Health Care Reform Ready for Vote on Sunday (CNN News) " A long-awaited compromise health care bill drafted by top Democrats will cost $940 billion over the next 10 years, according to a preliminary analysis released Thursday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.The bill cuts the deficit by $138 billion during that period of time, the Budget Office report said. It would further reduce the deficit by an additional $1.2 trillion in the following decade, two House Democratic sources told CNN." "The measure extends health insurance coverage to 32 million Americans, helping to guarantee that 95 percent of Americans will be covered, the sources said. It also reduces Medicare expenditures by 1.4 percent annually while extending Medicare's solvency by at least nine years, they added." "The release of the Congressional Budget Office estimate sets up a likely vote on passage of the health care bill Sunday. Democratic leaders have said the measure will be publicly available for 72 hours before any vote." "The House will consider two measures Sunday: an $875 billion plan that the Senate passed in December and the revised $940 billion measure." "If the $875 billion Senate bill passes, it will go to President Obama's desk to be signed into law. If the revisions are approved, they still will have to clear the Senate." 03-10 -03-18-10 Study: The Case for Global Climate Change Stronger (Time.com) "By looking at a wide range of observations from all over the world, the Met Office study concludes that the fingerprint of human influence on climate is stronger than ever. "We can say with a very high significance level that the effects we see in the climate cannot be attributed to any other forcings [factors that push the climate in one direction or another]," says study co-author Gabriele Hegerl of the University of Edinburgh." 03-10 -03-19-10 Self-Executing Rule for Health Care Reform (Time.com) "The House Democratic leadership now expects to schedule a vote on the Senate health care bill and send it to President Obama's desk next Friday, March 19, or Saturday, March 20." 03-10 -An Energy Crisis Looms (Time.com) "If the world continues to guzzle oil and gas at its present pace, global temperatures will rise by an average of 6°C by 2030, causing 'irreparable damage to the planet.' " 11-09 -Barack Obama Biographical Information and News (Awesome Library) Provides biographical information and news stories on the 44th President of the United States. 01-09 -Children Under 10 Will Need Two Swine Flu Shots (U.S. News) "Still confused about what's going to happen with swine flu shots next month? You're not alone. The federal government and individual states still haven't told us how they're going to distribute the vaccine, or when. Yesterday's chirpy press release from the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases made it easy to think that all children will need just one swine flu immunization, but that's not true. The younger a child is, the less well his or her immune system responded to the swine flu vaccine in clinical trials. So children under age 10 will need two doses of swine flu vaccine, one month apart, according to the NIAID itself." 09-09 -Editorial: Global Financial System Still At Risk (MSNBC News) "A year after the panic that brought the world’s financial system to the brink of collapse, the Group of 20 nations will now assume the role of a permanent council on global economic cooperation. But there is still no global regulatory framework to prevent another major market meltdown." 09-09 -Fact Check on Sarah Palin's Book (CBS News) "PALIN: She says her team overseeing the development of a natural gas pipeline set up an open, competitive bidding process that allowed any company to compete for the right to build a 1,715-mile pipeline to bring natural gas from Alaska to the Lower 48." "THE FACTS: Palin characterized the pipeline deal the same way before an AP investigation found her team crafted terms that favored only a few independent pipeline companies and ultimately benefited a company with ties to her administration, TransCanada Corp. Despite promises and legal guidance not to talk directly with potential bidders during the process, Palin had meetings or phone calls with nearly every major candidate, including TransCanada." 11-09 -GAO: Execs Gained Millions as Pension Funds Were Depleted (USA Today) "Top executives at four companies that jettisoned their employee pension plans received $49.5 million in retirement and severance benefits in the years before the companies filed for bankruptcy, while retirees saw their benefits cut by as much as two thirds, congressional investigators conclude in a report to be released today." 11-09 -Haiti Updates (CNN News) Provides ongoing information and news about the situation in Haiti after the earthquake. 02-10 -Health Care Lobbyists Rise to Power (CBS News) "The pharmaceutical industry is putting its army of lobbyists into overdrive as Congress works to complete a health care reform bill." "There are 3,000 registered health care lobbyists on Capitol Hill -- that's six for every single member of Congress. And in many cases, those lobbyists are former members of Congress who shaped laws that benefitted the industry they joined." 10-09 -House Passes Health Care Reform Bill (CBS News) "In a victory for President Barack Obama, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives narrowly passed landmark health care legislation to expand coverage to tens of millions who lack it and place tough new restrictions on the insurance industry. Republican opposition was nearly unanimous." "The 220-215 vote late Saturday night cleared the way for the Senate to begin debate on the issue that has come to overshadow all others in Congress. But it will be tougher to get Senate approval because Democrats will need 60 out of 100 votes to end debate and bring legislation to a final vote, and several moderate Democratic senators still have reservations." 11-09 -How Bad Is Britain's Nationalized Health-Care System? (Time.com) "In recent weeks, opponents of Barack Obama's health-care-reform plans have criticized Britain's National Health Service (NHS) in an effort to counter the President's proposals for greater government involvement in health care." "The NHS is a rare example of truly socialized medicine. Health care is provided by a single payer — the British government — and is funded by the taxpayer. All appointments and treatments are free to the patient (though paid for through taxes), as are almost all prescription drugs. The maximum cost of receiving any drug prescribed by the NHS is $12." "Like most developed countries, Britain ranks above the U.S. in most health measurements. Its citizens have a longer life expectancy and lower infant mortality, and the country has more acute-care hospital beds per capita and fewer deaths related to surgical or medical mishaps. Britain achieves these results while spending proportionally less on health care than the U.S. — about $2,500 per person in Britain, compared with $6,000 in the U.S. For these reasons, the World Health Organization (WHO) ranked Britain 18th in a global league table of health-care systems (the U.S. was ranked 37th). However, there are measures by which the U.S. outperforms Britain: for instance, the U.S. has lower cancer mortality rates." 09-09 -How Lobbyists Won on Health Care (Time.com) "The drug industry's legion of registered lobbyists numbers 1,228, or 2.3 for every member of Congress. And its campaign contributions to current members of Waxman's committee have totaled $2.6 million over the past three years." 10-09 -How to Not Get H1N1 Flu (Time.com) "Keeping your hands clean can stop viruses that are living and breeding around you from causing infection." 09-09 -Medicare Advantage Cuts Could Affect Millions (U.S. News) "Democrats say they're not trying to kill the program, but they are trying to change it. Between the House and Senate healthcare bills, they've proposed cutting $120 billion to $150 billion from Medicare Advantage over the next decade. The savings are a major slice of how Democrats intend to pay for reform." 11-09 -Olympics Coverage (Awesome Library) Provides coverage for the 2010 Winter Olympics. 02-10 -Poll: Majority Backs Public Option (MSNBC News) "As Democratic congressional leaders and White House officials work to shape health care bills that will go to the House and Senate floors, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that support for a government-run health plan to compete with private insurers has rebounded from its summertime lows and now wins clear majority support from the public." 10-09 -Poll: Public Option at Highest Popularity Yet (MSNBC News) "According to the poll, 48% say they favor a public health plan administered by the federal government that would compete with private insurers, compared with 42% who oppose it. That's a shift from last month, though within the margin of error, when 48% opposed the public option and 46% supported it. And it's a 10-point swing from August, when 47% were in opposition and 43% were in favor." "In another question asked a different way -- is it important to give people a choice of a public option? -- a combined 72% answered that it was either 'extremely important' or 'quite important,' while just 23% said it was 'not that important' or 'not at all important.' Those numbers are virtually unchanged from last month." 10-09 -Steps for a Health Reform Bill to Become Law (MSNBC News) Explains the steps. 09-09 -Study: Reducing Emissions Not Enough (MSNBC News) " 'People have imagined that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide the climate would go back to normal in 100 years, 200 years; that's not true,' lead author Susan Solomon told reporters." "Instead, the team concluded, warming tied to higher CO2 'is largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop.' " "Before the industrial revolution the air contained about 280 parts per million of carbon dioxide. That has risen to 385 ppm today, and politicians and scientists have debated at what level it could be stabilized." 01-09 -Swine Flu Update for the U.S. (CDC.gov) "Human cases of swine influenza A (H1N1) virus infection have been identified in the United States. Human cases of swine influenza A (H1N1) virus infection also have been identified internationally. The current U.S. case count is provided below." -The White House (WhiteHouse.gov) Provides information from the White House. "WhiteHouse.gov will be a central part of President Obama's pledge to make his the most transparent and accountable administration in American history." 01-09 02-06-10 Toyota Knew About Brake Problem (CNN News) "Prius hybrid cars coming off Toyota's assembly line in Japan have had an improved version of the software used to control the cars' brakes since January." "That's little consolation to those driving Priuses made before then which seem to be the source of mounting complaints about brake performance and have been linked to four crashes." 02-10 Legal News (FindLaw.com) Provides legal news related to current events. 09-08 Maps in the News (Maps.com) "Maps give context to today's news and headlines." News Calendar (ABC News) Provides a calendar of political events. 3-05 News Sources (Awesome Library) Provides sources of national and world news, by subject or country. News and Current Events (About.com) Provides news. News on Hurricanes (Awesome Library) Provides hurricane news. 09-07 Political Headline News (Yahoo) Provides headline news. 2-02 Political Polls (PollingPoint.com) Provides results of political polls on key U.S. issues. 12-05 Social Security (Awesome Library) Provides news and facts on social security and proposed changes to social security. 2-05 Stories of Heroes and Goodness (MSNBC) Provides uplifting stories. 12-06 Supreme Court News (ABC News) Provides news on the U.S. Supreme Court. 9-05 Supreme Court News (MSNBC News) Provides news on the changing U.S. Supreme Court. 01-06 U.S. Supreme Court Rulings (Yahoo News) Provides the latest Supreme Court rulings. 11-01 Washington Week News Transcripts (PBS.org) Provides the texts of news shows by date. 02-06 Papers "The Future Is Drying Up" (New York Times) "When I met with [Secretary of Energy] Chu last summer in Berkeley, the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, which provides most of the water for Northern California, was at its lowest level in 20 years. Chu noted that even the most optimistic climate models for the second half of this century suggest that 30 to 70 percent of the snowpack will disappear. 'There’s a two-thirds chance there will be a disaster,' Chu said, 'and that’s in the best scenario.' " 10-07 - Editorial: Why Elections in Afghanistan Were Never the Answer (Time.com) "...Afghanistan is in the grip of a civil war that pits a U.S.-backed political establishment, which includes both Karzai and Abdullah, against the Taliban." "No one actually voted for the Taliban, of course, and its call for a boycott of the poll was enforced by threat of death. But whether out of fear, political choice or sheer indifference, 12 million voters — representing 70% of the electorate, compared with just 30% in 2004 — stayed away from the ballot stations. A runoff election was expected to see an even smaller turnout." The author concluded that "any political solution in Afghanistan will have be negotiated on the basis of the real distribution of power, rather than votes cast in an election staged in the heat of a civil war." 11-09 -10 Things to Do While You're Unemployed (U.S. News) "Sure, while you're unemployed, job No. 1 is to look for another job. However, job hunting should not be the only thing you do while out of work." "You should also devote a bit of time and energy to doing something interesting that you can talk about at job interviews." 10-09 -A Massive Transfer of Power to the Treasury Department (Time.com) "To put the bailout plan, [sic] in some kind of perspective, Paulson would rule over a pile of assets that exceeds the annual Pentagon budget of $507 billion by nearly 50 percent. For at least the next year, and perhaps for years after, Treasury's spending authority will make it harder for the next President to fulfill campaign promises and pump money into new priorities." 09-08 -America's Dwindling Water Supply (CBS News) "After doing the dishes - 12 gallons per load - running the washing machine - 43 gallons per load - and watering the lawn - 10 gallons per minute - by the time we [Americans] go to bed, we've used up to 150 gallons." "By comparison, people in the U.K. use a quarter of that - 40 gallons of water a day. The Chinese average just 22 gallons per day. And in the poorest countries like Kenya, people use less than the minimum 13 gallons to cover basic needs." "Because Americans use so much, the report card shows water is an emerging crisis here." "Experts do agree: Demand is greater than supply. And 36 states face water shortages in the next three years." 01-10 -Best Leaders (US News) Provides articles on leadership in government and other fields and identifies persons that U.S. News editors believe are good leaders. 04-08 -Car Safety (Awesome Library) Provides information on car safety, such as recalls and old tires sold as new. 02-10 -Climatologist: 450, the CO2 Red Line? (ForeignPolicy.com) "Twenty years ago, when global warming first came to public consciousness, no one knew precisely how much carbon dioxide was too much. The early computer climate models made a number of predictions about what would happen if we doubled the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to 550 parts per million. But, in recent years, as the science has gotten more robust, scientists have tended to put the red line right around 450 parts per million. That’s where NASA’s James Hansen, America’s foremost climatologist, has said we need to stop if we want to avoid a temperature rise greater than two degrees Celsius. Why would two degrees be a magic number? Because as best we can tell, it’s where the melting of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets would become rapid and irrevocable. The ice above Greenland alone contains about 23 feet of sea-level rise, which is more than enough to alter the Earth almost beyond recognition." 01-09 -Derivatives and Funding for the SEC (U.S. News) "Despite the trillion-dollar meltdown now underway, the number of SEC enforcement personnel will decline from 1,209 this year to 1,177 in 2009. In all, the SEC expects to have 3,771 employees next year. For comparison, the Smithsonian Institution budget for 2009 includes funding for 4,324 employees." "Those pitiful numbers lead us to the innumerable problems posed by derivatives, the same financial instruments that led to the chaos at Enron, which before it failed operated a huge—and almost completely unregulated—derivatives exchange business. According to the Bank for International Settlements, the global derivatives market is now worth some $676.5 trillion. That's $676,500,000,000,000. That's a fivefold increase over the value of derivatives that were traded in 2003. Further, that $676.5 trillion is 51 times America's current gross domestic product." 09-08 -E.P.A. Announces New Clean Air Standards (New York Times) "The EPA proposal presents a range for the allowable concentration of ground-level ozone, the main ingredient in smog, from 60 parts per billion to 70 parts per billion." "The Bush standard adopted in 2008 was 75 parts per billion. Since 1997, it had been 84 parts per billion." "The stricter limit comes with additional costs, from $19 billion up to $90 billion a year by 2020, according to EPA." "The new limits -- which are presented as a range -- will likely put hundreds more counties nationwide in violation, a designation that will require them to find additional ways to clamp down on pollution or face government sanctions, most likely the loss of federal highway dollars." 01-10 -Editorial - Global Terror, Local Wars (Christian Science Monitor - Grier and Bowers) "In 2003, there were 175 significant global terror events - only 1.5 percent of those casualties were US citizens." "Indeed, this struggle may not be global, or even best described as 'war,' at all. The main fronts might instead be seen as separate hot spots, each on its own time cycle, each roiled by its own clashes of power and religion, each perhaps better fought in different ways. 'The bottom line is they are not connected,' says Bruce Hoffman, a terror expert at the RAND Corp. in Washington." "Terrorism, after all, is not an ideology, such as communism. It is a technique - a tool that employs fear as a means of political coercion." 9-04 -Editorial - Terrorists Require the Partnership of Mass Media (Christian Science Monitor - Felling) "Troubling questions abound: Does terrorism exist without the media? Does coverage of terrorist acts empower or encourage the people behind them? If terrorism is directed more at the audience than at its victims, shouldn't television journalists stop giving terrorists the forum they covet?" "Certainly, television news covers terrorist attacks for the high-minded journalistic objective of informing viewers. But the zeal with which fear has been commoditized - from shark attacks to child kidnappings to the Washington sniper - is a product of TV executives realizing that frightened people put down the remote control and await news updates, ratcheting up ratings points. Unfortunately, this living-room fearmongering plays right into the hands of terrorists who are attempting to rattle every American, turning television news reporters into de facto publicists for terrorists." "Nearly 20 years ago, the eminent Washington reporter David Broder suggested that 'the essential ingredient of any effective antiterrorist policy must be the denial to the terrorist of access to mass media outlets.' He said this in a different era, before 24-hour news channels were in hot competition for Americans' attention. He's still right." "Amateur cooks learn quickly that pouring water on a grease fire only makes it worse. Broadcasters must realize that their coverage might be doing the same. Like cutting off the oxygen that sustains a flame, a few internal shifts in reporting policy would traumatize viewers less and could save lives." 9-04 -Editorial: A better Bailout (TruthOut.org) "There are four fundamental problems with our financial system, and the Paulson proposal addresses only one. The first is that the financial institutions have all these toxic products - which they created - and since no one trusts anyone about their value, no one is willing to lend to anyone else." "The Scandinavian countries showed the way, almost two decades ago. By issuing preferred shares with warrants (options), one reduces the public's downside risk and insures that they participate in some of the upside potential. This approach is not only proven, it provides both incentives and wherewithal to resume lending. It furthermore avoids the hopeless task of trying to value millions of complex mortgages and even more complex products in which they are embedded, and it deals with the 'lemons' problem - the government getting stuck with the worst or most overpriced assets." 10-08 -Editorial: An Answer for Why the Financial Institutions Collapsed (CBS News) " 'These investment banks were not only selling the securities that turned out to be terrible investments, they were selling insurance on them?' Kroft asks." " 'Well, it made it easier to sell the terrible investments if you could convince the buyer that not only were they gonna get the investment, but insurance,' Greenberger explains." "But when homeowners began defaulting on their mortgages, and Wall Street's high-risk mortgage backed securities also began to fail, the big investment houses and insurance companies who sold the credit default swaps hadn't set aside the money they needed to pay off their obligations." "Editor's Note: "Credit default swaps" are fancy words for "insurance policies." 10-08 -Editorial: Are Big Profits for the Financial Sector Good for the Rest of Us? (Time.com) "The 1960s were by most measures the best decade ever for growth and widening prosperity in the U.S.; the past decade has been a bust. Yet the financial sector was relatively tiny in the 1960s and huge in the 2000s. Could this mean that good times for finance are bad for the rest of us? Philippon says it isn't that simple. The 1990s, for example, were good for both Wall Street and Main Street. His theory, which fits the historical evidence well, is that the financial sector's share of the economy should increase when there are fast-growing companies needing outside funding, like railroads in the late 19th century, manufacturers in the 1920s and tech firms in the 1990s. If financing wasn't in great demand in the booming 1960s, perhaps that was a warning sign of stagnation to come rather than evidence of the uselessness of financiers." "Over the past decade, though, reality took a detour from Philippon's theory. Corporate America's need for outside financing fell, but the financial sector refused to shrink; it pumped out ever riskier products until the system nearly collapsed. Why the refusal? Maybe the pay was too good." 10-09 -Editorial: Death of Habeas Corpus (MSNBC News - Keith Olbermann) Congress passed a law that now allows the President, on his own, to decide who is an enemy. Such a person can then be placed in prison without trial, a court hearing, or any legal process to determine if he or she really is an enemy of the United States. This law is a clear violation of basic rights according to legal scholars, such as Senator Arlen Specter, Chairman of the Judicial Committee of Congress. Keith Olbermann notes, "The reality is without habeas corpus, a lot of other rights lose their meaning. But if you look at the actual Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments of that pesky Constitution, you’ll see just how many remain for your protection." "So as you can see, even without habeas corpus, at least one tenth of the Bill of Rights, I guess that’s the Bill of Right, now—remains virtually intact. No. 3 is still safe." "We can rest easy knowing that we will never, ever have to quarter soldiers in our homes as long as the third amendment still stands strong." 10-06 -Editorial: Defining Terrorism (Christian Science Monitor - Jenkins) "What is terrorism? Consensus has been elusive. But now that the United States is officially at war with terrorism, definition is crucial." "The term has been applied promiscuously to all forms of violence. But to get beyond propaganda, terrorism must be defined according to the quality of the act itself, not the identity of the perpetrators or the nature of their cause. An act is not terrorism simply because one opposes the cause, or because someone labeled 'terrorist' carries it out. Nor is an act not terrorism because a cause is deemed noble. Ends do not justify means." "That said, what are the qualities of terrorism?" "What sets terrorism apart from other violence is this: terrorism consists of acts carried out in a dramatic way to attract publicity and create an atmosphere of alarm that goes far beyond the actual victims. Indeed, the identity of the victims is often secondary or irrelevant to the terrorists who aim their violence at the people watching. This distinction between actual victims and a target audience is the hallmark of terrorism and separates it from other modes of armed conflict. Terrorism is theater." 11-05 -Editorial: Economic Summit Fell Short (New York Times) "In normal times we don’t expect a lot from summit meetings. But with the global economy imploding, leaders at Thursday’s meeting of the world’s top 20 economic powers had an urgent responsibility to come up with concrete policies to fix the global financial system and restore growth. They fell short." "Where they fell dangerously short was their refusal to commit to spend the hundreds of billions of dollars in additional fiscal stimulus that the world economy needs to pull out of its frighteningly steep dive. With consumer spending and business investment collapsing around the world, rich countries are the only ones that have the resources to do what is needed." 04-09 -Editorial: Financial Institutions Become Wealthier--At Taxpayer's Expense (New York Times) "Even as the economy continues to struggle, much of Wall Street is minting money — and looking forward again to hefty bonuses." "Many Americans wonder how this can possibly be." "With interest rates so low, banks can borrow money cheaply and put those funds to work in lucrative ways, whether using the money to make loans to companies at higher rates, or to speculate in the markets." "A big reason for Goldman Sachs’s blowout profits this year has been the willingness of its traders to take big risks — they have put more money on the line while other banks that suffered last year have reined in such moves." 10-09 -Editorial: For the Bailout to Work, the Housing Market Must Mend (USA Today) "Washington's financial bailout plan is now law. So the credit spigot will start flowing again, banks will resume lending, and an economic recovery can begin, right?" "Wrong. Experts say the most important thing that needs to happen before the $700 billion bailout even has a chance of working: Home prices must stop falling. That would send a signal to banks that the worst has passed and it's safe to start doling out money again." Editor's Note: Huh? Wasn't the purpose of the bailout to create credit flow? If the bailout isn't creating credit flow, what is it doing? 10-08 -Editorial: How China Is Capitalizing on the Economic Crisis (Time.com) "Once shy of making major foreign investments, Beijing has gone on the prowl for resources and underpriced assets across the globe. Cash-rich Chinese companies, backed by soft loans from state banks and re-energized by lower labor costs as jobs dry up, are descending on Central Asia, Africa and even Western Europe to snap up assets." 04-09 -Editorial: Is Obama Green Enough? (Time.com) " 'The world was hopeful that Obama would care about global warming, but he has been completely missing in action on this,' says Phil Radford, executive director of Greenpeace USA." "Radford is not being entirely fair: Obama has increased alternative-energy funding to record levels and assembled a green team of advisers. They include his Energy Secretary, the Nobel Prize — winning Steven Chu, who told me recently that 'the climate-change problem is at least equal in magnitude' to World War II. He's right. And if Obama wants to win this war, he's going to have to fight, not just make peace." 05-09 -Editorial: Is the Press Misreporting the Environment Story? (Time.com) "Rather than a stenographer, Pooley would prefer to see the media adopt the position of an "honest referee — keeping score, throwing flags when a team plays fast and loose with the facts, explaining to the audience what's happening on the field and why." In an issue as complex as climate change, the country badly needs smart, fair umpires, and the media can play that role. But the wave of cutbacks and closings that have hit the American media could make that all but impossible. Referees need to know the game cold, and climate change demands day-in, day-out experience from dedicated reporters. But a dwindling few media outlets are willing to pay for that kind of coverage at a time when the economy is crashing — Time's corporate cousin CNN has eliminated its entire full-time science section." 03-09 -Editorial: Is the U.S. a "Christian Nation?" (CBS News) "Ultimately, the question of whether America is a "Christian nation" depends in large part on how you define the phrase. If a 'Christian nation' is simply a nation made largely of Christians, then America is undeniably one. Despite the increase in non-religious Americans, they are still outnumbered more than 6-1 by Christians, according to Gallup." "But if a 'Christian nation' is something else – a nation on which laws, behavior and policy are fundamentally tied to Christian ideals – then the question is more complex." 04-09 -Editorial: Mexican Drug Cartels Operating in 230 U.S. Cities (Cafferty File) "The Obama administration says it will send hundreds of federal agents and crime-fighting equipment to the Mexican border in an effort to prevent drug-related violence from spilling over into this country. It’s a little late — the Mexican drug cartels are already active in 230 American cities." 03-09 -Editorial: Obama's Style a Challenge for Europe (Christian Science Monitor) "Ahead of his visit, in inconclusive meetings in Brussels, there was uncertainty and bickering. What's causing stress in the European Union is not US badgering and unilateralism, but the Obama dynamic of moving toward agreement, concensus, and multilateralism, say some economists and political scientists." " 'President Bush was an extraordinary catalyst for Europe, a bogeyman. Even people with diverging views on economic and foreign policy were united against the US policy,' says Karim Bitar, a Paris consultant and scholar at the Institute for International and Strategic Relations. 'But now the US can no longer be accused of all the world's ills. The truth is, Europeans now think more about America than about Europe. There is no European consensus on the most basic questions of our future, what we should be. Under Bush, we could evade them. Not now.' " 04-09 -Editorial: Prosecute the Crimes of the Bush-Cheney Era (CNN News) "The Bush presidency is thankfully over...but the damage he and Dick Cheney did continues to press on the nerve of the American people like an impacted wisdom tooth. And until the questions surrounding arguably the most arrogant and perhaps most corrupt administration in our history are addressed, the pain won't go away." "It's too late for George W. Bush to resign the presidency. But it's not too late to put the people responsible for this national disgrace in prison." 05-09 -Editorial: Republicans Need a Vision for Governing (MSNBC News) "To truly succeed at governing, the party needs to create a foundation that has voters believing Republicans want to govern again, not just tear down Democrats or the government." "It is time for Republicans to provide their own vision." 05-09 -Editorial: Supreme Court Backs More Corporate Political Spending (Politico.com) "The Supreme Court on Thursday opened wide new avenues for big-moneyed interests to pour money into politics in a decision that could have a major influence on the 2010 midterm elections and President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign." "The long-awaited 5-4 decision overruled all or parts of two prior rulings by the court that allowed governments to restrict corporations and unions from spending their general funds on ads expressly urging a candidate’s election or defeat." 01-10 -Editorial: The Myth of Fair Elections (Observer Guardian - Harris) "There is little doubt that at a grassroots level America's election is in disarray and being abused. And at a time of narrow election victories where presidential races come down to a single state (Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004) a microscope is instantly cast on that state's electoral practises. And lo, they are found wanting. Or open to fraud. Or being abused. Or local groups (from both sides) are going hell for leather to keep the other side from the polls. This is not because this is being planned out of Washington and targeted into those key states. It is because it is actually happening all over the country. We just notice because it has come down to the wire at that particular state." "You don't need to be a conspiracy theorist to be seriously worried about this state of affairs. In many ways, it is more worrying that the system is not being deliberately stolen from on high. It is actually broken from the ground up." 09-06 -Editorial: The Right Focus in Education Is Relationships and Rigor (New York Times) "The Obama approach would make it more likely that young Americans grow up in relationships with teaching adults. It would expand nurse visits to disorganized homes. It would improve early education. It would extend the school year. Most important, it would increase merit pay for good teachers (the ones who develop emotional bonds with students) and dismiss bad teachers (the ones who treat students like cattle to be processed)." Editor's Note: David Brooks, author of this article, is a conservative columnist for The New York Times and commentator for The Newshour with Jim Lehrer. 03-09 -Editorial: U.S. No Longer the Clear Superpower (Christian Science Monitor) "Two American icons, General Electric and Berkshire Hathaway, lost their triple-A credit ratings. Then China, America's largest creditor, called for a new global currency to replace the dollar just weeks after it demanded Washington guarantee the safety of Beijing's nearly $1 trillion debt holdings. And that was just in March." "These events are the latest warnings that our world is changing far more rapidly and profoundly than we – or our politicians – will admit. America's own triple-A rating, its superpower status, is being downgraded as rapidly as its economy." "In Iraq, despite efforts in Washington to make "the surge" appear to be a stunning US victory, analysts most familiar with the region have already declared Iran the strategic winner of the Bush administration's war against Saddam Hussein. The Iraq war has greatly empowered Iran, nurturing a new regional superpower that now seems likely to be the major architect of the new Iraq." According to Robert Pape of the National Interest, " 'If present trends continue, we will look back at the Bush administration's years as the death knell of American hegemony.' " 04-09 -Editorial: What About the Auto Workers? (MSNBC News) "What will a solution look like? It will almost certainly have to involve major subsidies for the new industries to locate in the worst hit regions of the country (and that will mean making sure the new employers hire ex-union workers, as many new concerns have been unwilling to do). It will hopefully involve a real effort to transform major universities like the University of Michigan into tech-industry centers; they will never be Silicon Valley, but they can be small tech centers of the kind that have developed around Boston and Los Angeles." 03-09 -Editorial: What Brought Down Wall Street? (MSNBC News) "Lenders, for one, demanded lots more freedom. But they 'were a different kind of animal' from airlines and trucking firms, which the Carterites also deregulated, [Carter administration's aviation czar Alfred E.] Kahn says. 'They were animals that had a direct effect on the macroeconomy. That is very different from the regulation of industries that provided goods and services. ... I never supported any type of deregulation of banking.' " 09-08 -Editorial: What Caused the Need for the Bailout? (MSNBC News) "Once in the U.S., the redeployed Chinese savings allowed a multi-decade shopping spree to continue. U.S. consumers bought houses, cars and goods at a record clip earlier this decade, pushing consumer spending to a record 70% of economic activity in recent years. Meanwhile, Americans stopped saving altogether - the personal savings rate was negative for some years during the housing bubble, showing that U.S. consumers were outspending their income." "But this shopping spree - Americans have been spending some $700 billion annually more than they produce, borrowing the difference from overseas creditors - couldn't last forever. Once house prices stopped rising, consumers pulled back and the U.S. economy slowed. Nonfarm payrolls have now shrunk in eight consecutive months, and banks that only a few years ago were showing record profits are now bleeding red ink." 09-08 -Editorial: What's Still Wrong With Wall Street (Time.com) "Are you furious? If not, you should be. The giant financial institutions that make up Wall Street have been bailed out, thanks to trillions of dollars of our money, and are on track to hand out record-breaking multibillion-dollar bonuses while millions of regular folks are hurting. Even outside the gilded halls of Wall Street, there's no shortage of good cheer: many economists say the Great Recession has ended, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke keeps seeing 'green shoots' in the economy." "But the only green shoots that many non–Wall Street types have seen lately are the weeds sprouting in the parking lots of abandoned malls. Unemployment is marching toward 10%, and house foreclosures are still rising. If you're a day late with your credit-card payment or overdrawn by a few bucks on your ATM card, the bank (which your tax money helped bail out) is still sticking you with obscene fees and charges." 10-09 -Editorial: Where Is the Tipping Point for Disaster? (Time.com) "When asked to quantify the impact of climate change, scientists come up with a lot of interesting answers, no two of them quite the same. For the lay person, then, perhaps the simplest way to understand it is to imagine a distant asteroid, somewhere out in space, on a collision course with Earth. It's not clear when or where the asteroid will hit, or exactly how severe the consequences will be. But it is clear that when it happens, the consequences will be far worse — and last far longer — than any natural disaster humanity has ever known." 03-09 -Editorial: Why We Have a Crisis and What's Next (CNN News) "This is because the credit crisis reflects something more fundamental than a serious problem of mortgage defaults. Global investors, now on the sidelines, have declared a buyers' strike against the sophisticated paper assets of securitization that financial institutions use to measure and offload risk." "In recent years, our banks, borrowing to maximize the leverage of their assets at unheard-of levels, produced mountains of financial paper instruments (called asset-backed securities) with little means of measuring their value. Incredibly, these paper instruments were insured by more dubious paper instruments." "Therefore, the housing crisis was a mere trigger for a collapse of trust in paper, followed by a de-leveraging of the entire global financial system. As a result, we are experiencing the painful downward reappraisal of the value of virtually every asset in the world." "Most banks are leveraged by more than 10 to 1. Translation: The U.S. financial system will have a whopping $15 trillion to $20 trillion less credit available next year than was around a year and a half before. The cost of money is rising and the availability shrinking." "We need a private/public global bank clearing facility. The bankers don't trust each other. The central banks, working with the private institutions in providing enhanced data, need to begin to refashion the world's financial architecture." 10-08 -Editorial: Why the Car Companies Are in Trouble (New York Times - Thomas Friedman) "How could these companies be so bad for so long? Clearly the combination of a very un-innovative business culture, visionless management and overly generous labor contracts explains a lot of it. It led to a situation whereby General Motors could make money only by selling big, gas-guzzling S.U.V.’s and trucks. Therefore, instead of focusing on making money by innovating around fuel efficiency, productivity and design, G.M. threw way too much energy into lobbying and maneuvering to protect its gas guzzlers." 11-08 -Editorial: Will the Next Election Be Hacked? (RollingStone.com - Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.) According to Ion Sancho, an election supervisor in Leon County, Florida, "With a few key people in the right places, it would be possible to throw a presidential election." Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. spoke with a Diebold voting machine consultant who reported that in 2004 unauthorized and secret changes were made on voting machines. "According to [consultant] Hood, Diebold employees altered software in some 5,000 machines in DeKalb and Fulton counties [in Georgia] - the state's largest Democratic strongholds. To avoid detection, Hood and others on his team entered warehouses early in the morning." "The United States is one of only a handful of major democracies that allow private, partisan companies to secretly count and tabulate votes using their own proprietary software. Today, eighty percent of all the ballots in America are tallied by four companies - Diebold, Election Systems & Software (ES&S), Sequoia Voting Systems and Hart InterCivic." 09-06 -Elder Statesmen Warn of Energy Crisis Looming (CBS News) "A bipartisan group of 27 American elder statesmen is sending an open letter to both presidential candidates and every member of Congress saying the United States faces 'a long-term energy crisis' that threatens the security and prosperity of future generations if swift action is not taken." 07-08 -Financial Crisis Hurts State Pensions and Budgets (ABC News) "The financial crisis on Wall Street is causing waves in statehouses across the country, where various governors are grappling with budget deficits, dwindling finances and plummeting pension funds." "As the credit market shut down at midday Monday, Massachusetts was unable to borrow the final portion of a $400 million loan from Wall Street investors to make quarterly aid payments to cities and towns and had to dip into its own funds to make up the $170 million shortfall." 09-08 -Five Differences Between House and Senate Health Care Reform Bills (Time.com) "With the passage of sweeping reform legislation on a rare Christmas Eve session of the Senate, the long debate over health care reform has now reached its final stage. But as much as Senate Democrats and the White House will celebrate their historic achievement this holiday season, they still have genuine obstacles to overcome before they can get a bill to President Obama's desk in the New Year." 12-09 -Five Steps to Survive the Financial Crisis (U.S. News) "It would be nice if the average American was prepared for ups and downs in the economy, but many simply aren't. More than a third of Americans have less than $10,000 in total savings and investments outside of their home and retirement plans, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute. Meanwhile, the median credit card debt for the average U.S. household in 2008 was $7,066 according to CardTrak.com." 03-09 -Four Lessons From Flight 253 (Time.com) "Not until Northwest Flight 253 was beginning its final descent into Detroit, at about 11:40 Christmas morning, did a handful of passengers step in to do what all the early-warning systems and security personnel could not: stop a terrorist trying to detonate a bomb on a plane on the quietest morning of the year." "It turns out that Washington's way of ranking likely terrorists, which was overhauled after Sept. 11, still resembles a Rube Goldberg contraption. There are four different U.S. terrorism databases, and yet Abdulmutallab's name never rose above the least threatening one." 01-10 -German Federal Court Rejects Voting Machines (Bundes-Verfassungs-Ggericht) "However, the Federal Voting Machines Ordinance (Bundeswahlgeräteverordnung) is unconstitutional because it does notensure that only such voting machines are permitted and used which meetthe constitutional requirements of the principle of the public nature ofelections. According to the decision of the Federal ConstitutionalCourt, the computer-controlled voting machines used in the election ofthe 16th German Bundestag did not meet the requirements which theconstitution places on the use of electronic voting machines." Editor's Note: Voting machines were rejected because they did not allow public scrutiny of the individual ballots. This standard would also be relevant to voting machines in other countries, such as the United States. 03-09 -Health Care and Retirement (Time.com) "One of the most underestimated costs in retirement is health care, and for good reason. The figures can be staggering. A healthy 65-year-old couple should plan on $305,000 in out-of-pocket health costs during their retirement, according to a study by the Employee Benefit Research Institute." 01-10 -How Much Carbon Is Too Much? (Nature.com) "More than 100 countries have adopted a global warming limit of 2 °C or below (relative to pre-industrial levels) as a guiding principle for mitigation efforts to reduce climate change risks, impacts and damages1, 2." 05-09 -How Sweden Handled a Similar Financial Crisis (New York Times) "The country was so far in the hole in 1992 — after years of imprudent regulation, short-sighted economic policy and the end of its property boom — that its banking system was, for all practical purposes, insolvent." " 'But Sweden took a different course than the one now being proposed by the United States Treasury. And Swedish officials say there are lessons from their own nightmare that Washington may be missing.' " "Sweden did not just bail out its financial institutions by having the government take over the bad debts. It extracted pounds of flesh from bank shareholders before writing checks. Banks had to write down losses and issue warrants to the government." 09-08 -Lessons of Europe's Biggest Bailout (Time.com) "In the largest financial services deal ever signed, Fortis — part of a consortium alongside the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Spain's Santander — put up $34 billion in return for ABN's Dutch banking business, among other assets." 09-08 -Living on Nothing But Food Stamps (New York Times) "About six million Americans receiving food stamps report they have no other income, according to an analysis of state data collected by The New York Times. In declarations that states verify and the federal government audits, they described themselves as unemployed and receiving no cash aid — no welfare, no unemployment insurance, and no pensions, child support or disability pay. "Their numbers were rising before the recession as tougher welfare laws made it harder for poor people to get cash aid, but they have soared by about 50 percent over the past two years. About one in 50 Americans now lives in a household with a reported income that consists of nothing but a food-stamp card." 01-10 -Marines End Role in Iraq (CBS News) "The U.S. Marine Corps wrapped nearly seven years in Iraq on Saturday, handing over duties to the Army and signaling the beginning of an accelerated withdrawal of American troops as the U.S. turns its focus away from the waning Iraqi war to a growing one in Afghanistan." 01-10 -Medical Loss Ratio (Wikipedia.org) "In insurance, the Loss ratio is the ratio of total losses paid out in claims plus adjustment expenses divided by the total earned premiums.[1] For example, if an insurance company pays out $60 in claims for every $100 in collected premiums, then its loss ratio is 60%." "Loss ratios for health insurance generally range from 60% to 110%.[2] Loss ratios for property & casualty insurance (e.g. automobile insurance), typically range from 40% to 60%.[3]. Insurance companies that have very low loss ratios are criticized for overcharging and making excess profits. Such companies are collecting significantly more premium than is paid out in claims. Insurers that consistently experience high loss ratios may be in poor financial health. They may not be collecting enough premium to pay claims, expenses, and still make a reasonable profit." 12-09 -Minimizing Your Own Risks in the Financial Chaos (New York Times) "Consider a few modest but concrete things you can do that could reduce your exposure to four of the big areas of risk — investments, job security, your mortgage and insurance — that have been front and center this week." "Some of these suggestions may have more impact for you than others, but they all can help you feel as if you’ve taken back some measure of control." 09-08 -Obama Refuses to Ban Land Mines (CBS News) "A leading human rights organization today harshly criticized President Obama for failing to sign on to the Mine Ban Treaty. The treaty, which has been signed by 156 countries, bans the use, stockpiling, production or transfer of land mines." 11-09 -Report Card on Obama's First Year (Time.com) Provide Time's assessment of President Obama's performance. "While the nation's 44th President has not been overmatched, he has not yet mastered the role either. A look at five things Obama is doing better than you may realize — and five things he is doing worse." 01-10 -Report: Carbon Pollution to Grow by 40 Percent (MSNBC News) "The amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide seeping into the atmosphere will increase by nearly 40 percent worldwide by 2030 if ways are not found to require mandatory emission reductions, a U.S. government report said Wednesday." "The EIA report said that "much of the increases in carbon dioxide emissions is projected to occur among the developing nations" including China and India." "It said 94 percent of the world's expected increase in industrial energy use between now and 2030 is expected in the economically developing countries, with Brazil, Russia, India and China expected to account for two-thirds of that growth." 05-09 -Report: Climate Change "Catastrophic" (CNN News) "More than 300 million people are already seriously affected by the gradual warming of the earth and that number is set to double by 2030, the report from the Global Humanitarian Forum warns." "The report's startling numbers are based on calculations by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that the Earth's atmosphere warmed by 0.74 degrees Celsius (1.33 degrees Fahrenheit) from 1906 to 2005, with much of that increase coming in recent decades. The panel predicts that by 2100 temperatures will have increased a minimum of two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels regardless of what's agreed in Copenhagen." 05-09 -Report: Global Warming May Be Twice as Bad as Expected (USA Today) "Global warming will be twice as severe as previous estimates indicate, according to a new study published this month in the Journal of Climate, a publication of the American Meteorological Society." "The research, conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), predicts a 90% probability that worldwide surface temperatures will rise more than 9 degrees (F) by 2100, compared to a previous 2003 MIT study that forecast a rise of just over 4 degrees." "The projections in the MIT study were done using 400 applications of a computer model, which MIT says is the most comprehensive and sophisticated climate model to date." Editor's Note: See catastrophic climate change. 05-09 -Social Security Surplus Quickly Disappearing (Time.com) "If you count the $17 billion in income taxes expected to be paid on Social Security benefits, the system will still manage to provide a slight surplus for federal coffers in fiscal 2009. But from 2010 through 2012 there are small projected deficits, and after heading back into the black from 2013 to 2015 the program will become a growing drain on federal finances after that, projects the CBO." "Back in 1983, when Social Security last faced deficits, Congress approved a set of Social Security reforms that included a graduated hike in the payroll tax and an increase in the retirement age. Thanks to those changes, payroll tax receipts surpassed benefits in 1985, and the system has been operating at a surplus ever since." 04-09 -Soldiers sent to Iraq Despite Illness or Injury (ABC News) "A recent Army inspector general's report says the process for deciding a soldier's fitness for combat is so confusing that it increases the chance of sending ailing troops to war." 03-09 -State Department Changes Visa Policy (CNN News) "The State Department on Thursday is directing its embassies around the world to include information on whether a person has a U.S. visa when they send special cables to Washington containing information on potentially suspect individuals, CNN has learned." "The order comes in the wake of a failed Christmas Day attempt to blow up a U.S.-bound jetliner. The change was prompted by preliminary reviews ordered by President Obama of the terror attack." 12-09 -Stimulus Funds: Where They Are Going (CNN News) "Businesses receiving federal contracts under President Barack Obama's economic stimulus program reported creating or saving more than 30,000 jobs in the first months of the program, according to data released Thursday by a government oversight board. " "The numbers, based on jobs linked to less than $16 billion in federal contracts, represent just a sliver of the $787 billion stimulus package. But they offer the first hard data on the early effects of the program." 01-10 -Study: Global Warming Is Irreversible (TruthOut.org) "As carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise, the world will experience more and more long-term environmental disruption. The damage will persist even when, and if, emissions are brought under control, says study author Susan Solomon, who is among the world's top climate scientists." 01-09 -Study: Preventing H1N1 From Spreading(U>S. News) "Perhaps I should take a hint from a coworker who yesterday forwarded me a study showing that H1N1, the virus that causes swine flu, remains contagious long after those first few can't-get-out-of-bed days." "The study, published last week in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, found that H1N1 is most contagious within the first three days after symptoms appear but that infected individuals could still spread the disease after a week." "Bottom line: If you've got flulike symptoms, do your best to avoid close contact with others for several days or even a week. Skip family gatherings, especially if you know that certain high-risk individuals may be present: kids younger than 5 years old; seniors over 65; pregnant women; and those with asthma, diabetes, impaired immunity, or heart or lung conditions. While the CDC no longer recommends that we stay home from work or school until all our symptoms are gone, the agency does still have this recommendation in place for healthcare workers or those visiting relatives in the hospital." 10-09 -Study: What Makes a Terrorist? (New York Times) "Most researchers agree that justification for extremist action, whether through religious or secular doctrine, is either developed or greatly intensified by group dynamics." "Counterterrorism rhetoric like former President George W. Bush’s description of a planned tactic against Al Qaeda — 'to smoke them out and get them running and bring them to justice' — often serves to unify the group. So do invasions and escalations of campaigns against them, which can draw more sympathizers to the group. Most terrorist groups crumble quickly because of internal strife, many experts say." "Arie W. Kruglanski, a professor of psychology at the University of Maryland, College Park, who has studied videotapes of suicide bombers’ final words and interviews with their mothers, argues that the overarching motivation of suicide bombers is the quest for personal significance, the desperate longing for a meaningful life that appears only to come with death." "Recruits are often promised an exciting, glamorous adventure and a chance to change the world. But what they often find, Dr. Horgan said, is that the groups they join are rife with jealousies and personal competition." 01-10 -Taxing the Wealthy (Christian Science Monitor) "In the history of taxation, the wealthy have always paid a higher rate. But rates have swung wildly over time. Economists studying past rate changes have had trouble identifying clear effects." "Perhaps the best analog to Obama's plan is the 1993 tax hike under President Clinton. Congress raised rates to the same levels Obama is proposing for Americans making at least $250,000 a year. An economic boom followed Mr. Clinton's move." "That doesn't mean, however, that the two were necessarily related, says Joel Slemrod, an economist at the University of Michigan and the former editor of the National Tax Journal." " '[Obama's] proposal is to move back to top rates [that] the country had not that long ago, and it's hard to find evidence that they had a noticeable deleterious effect on the economy,' Professor Slemrod says. 'Having those tax rates then and knowing the economy did well doesn't prove what the role of tax rates was. It could be true that performance would have been even better without them.' " 04-09 -The $55 Trillion Question (CNN News - Fortune) "In just over a decade these privately traded derivatives contracts [of "credit default swaps" or CDS] ballooned from nothing into a $54.6 trillion market. CDS are the fastest-growing major type of financial derivatives. More important, they've played a critical role in the unfolding financial crisis. First, by ostensibly providing 'insurance' on risky mortgage bonds, they encouraged and enabled reckless behavior during the housing bubble." 10-08 -The EPA Declares CO2 in the Air a Danger (Time.com) "The Environmental Protection Agency took a major step Monday toward regulating greenhouses gases, concluding that climate changing pollution threatens the public health and the environment." 12-09 -The U.S. Economy in Time Pictures (Time.com) Provides a summary of high's and low's in the U.S. economy since 1929. 10-09 -Time's Top Ten News Stories of 2009 (Time.com) Provides Time's selections. 12-09 -Twelve Leading Republicans for President 2012 (ABC News) "The 2012 presidential election is years away, but there is already a growing crop of Republicans who are toying with the idea of seeking the GOP's presidential nomination." 01-10 -Unsustainable Deficit Is Projected (USA Today) "President Obama's budget would generate unsustainably large deficits averaging almost $1 trillion a year over the next decade, according to new estimates released Friday." "The dismal deficit figures, if they prove to be accurate, inevitably raise the prospect that Obama and his allies controlling Congress would have to consider raising taxes after the recession ends or else pare back his agenda." 03-09 -We Are Not Doing What Is Necessary to Avoid Climate Change (Time.com) "But there is one number that may not get discussed much at Copenhagen, even though it is as important as all the others: $10.5 trillion. That is the additional investment needed between now and 2030 to set the world on the path to low-carbon development, according to the International Energy Agency — a number that is far above the pittance the world currently spends on clean-energy research and development. As Jesse Jenkins and Devon Swezey of the think tank Breakthrough Institute wrote on Dec. 7, 'Without measurable progress that dramatically increases global investments in clean energy, we can forget stabilizing global temperatures or atmospheric carbon dioxide at any level.' " "Beyond the policy wars in the halls of U.N. summits and on Capitol Hill, the battle against climate change requires better and cheaper forms of alternative energy, which will need to be deployed fast. Unfortunately, they don't exist." Editor's Note: Fortunately, the last statement is incorrect. Decaying organic waste puts 8 times more CO2 into the air each year than human activity. The answer for now is not high-tech alternative energy, recycling, or energy efficiency. The way to reverse the amount of CO2 in the air quickly is to biochar instead of burning forest and agricultural waste. In addition, we need to convert coal-fired power plants to burning biomass. These two actions, undertaken globally, can save our climate from a catastrophe. 12-09 -Why Powerful People Overestimate Themselves (Time.com) " 'By producing an illusion of personal control,' the authors write, 'power may cause people to lose touch with reality in ways that lead to overconfident decision-making.' " 03-09 -Writing a Letter to the Editor (Chicago Tribune) "The maximum length for a letter is 400 words, but a clever writer understands how to make the point and increases the chances of being printed with a lot fewer words." 07-07 25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis (Time.com) "In the wake of the housing bust, which toppled Countrywide and IndyMac Bank (another company Mozilo started), the executive's lavish pay package was criticized by many, including Congress. Mozilo left Countrywide last summer after its rescue-sale to Bank of America. A few months later, BofA said it would spend up to $8.7 billion to settle predatory lending charges against Countrywide filed by 11 state attorneys general." 03-09 25 Trends that Changed the USA (USA Today) "Today, USA TODAY editors and reporters pick the 25 most important trends of the past quarter-century." 07-07 A President's Ultimate Test: Courage (MSNBC News) Michael Beschloss summarizes, "if you explore American history you will find that at crucial moments we have been startlingly dependent on having a chief executive who demonstrates what I call presidential courage—the bravery and wisdom to risk his popularity, even his life, for a vital, larger cause." "During the next president's term, there may be one blinding moment when we desperately need a president to make the same kind of self-sacrificing decision that courageous predecessors did." 05-07 A Theory of Affluence (New York Times) "For thousands of years, most people on earth lived in abject poverty, first as hunters and gatherers, then as peasants or laborers. But with the Industrial Revolution, some societies traded this ancient poverty for amazing affluence." "Historians and economists have long struggled to understand how this transition occurred and why it took place only in some countries. A scholar who has spent the last 20 years scanning medieval English archives has now emerged with startling answers for both questions." 08-07 Alan Greenspan and the Failure to Regulate (New York Times) "For more than a decade, the former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has fiercely objected whenever derivatives have come under scrutiny in Congress or on Wall Street." "As the nascent derivatives market took hold in the early 1990s, and in subsequent years, critics denounced an absence of rules forcing institutions to disclose their positions and set aside funds as a reserve against bad bets." "Time and again, Mr. Greenspan — a revered figure affectionately nicknamed the Oracle — proclaimed that risks could be handled by the markets themselves." "The derivatives market is $531 trillion, up from $106 trillion in 2002 and a relative pittance just two decades ago. Theoretically intended to limit risk and ward off financial problems, the contracts instead have stoked uncertainty and actually spread risk amid doubts about how companies value them. 10-08 America's Water Infrastructure Crisis (USNews.com) "Rep. Earl Blumenauer called for a Clean Water Trust Fund at a rally today in support of buttressing America's aging infrastructure." "Organized by Food & Water Watch, the rally highlighted a number of ills facing the country's water and sanitation systems. The average American pipe is 33 years old, while 72,000 miles of pipe are 80 years or older. Holding up today's Washington Post with a story detailing how a failed water main impeded efforts to fight a fire in a city neighborhood, group President Wenonah Hauter announced that it's 'time Congress does something about the water infrastructure crisis we're facing.' " 10-07 Both Political Parties Blame Bush for Economic Disaster (New York Times) "These experts, from both political parties, say Mr. Bush’s early personnel choices and overarching antipathy toward regulation created a climate, that, if it did not set off the turmoil, almost certainly aggravated it." "The president’s first two Treasury secretaries, for instance, lacked the kind of Wall Street expertise that might have helped them raise red flags about the use of complex financial instruments that are at the heart of the crisis." 09-08 Budget Deficit (Awesome Library) Provides news and facts on budget deficits. 09-08 Checks and Balances in the U.S. Government (BBC News) "The US is a federal republic of 50 states. The framers of the Constitution, drafted in 1787, wanted to block any individual or group from gaining too much control, so they established a government of separate institutions that share powers. Authority is divided into three tiers of national, state and local government, with the American people electing officials to serve in each tier. At the national level the government is split into three autonomous branches - legislative, executive and judicial. Each has its own distinct responsibilities, but they can also partially limit the authority of the others through a complex system of checks and balances." 04-07 Clinton's Foreign Policy Experience Examined (U.S. News) "To hear Hillary Rodham Clinton tell it now, she had a lot more going on as first lady than she let on at the time. On the presidential campaign trail, Clinton frequently makes the pitch that she is uniquely qualified to pass the 'commander in chief' test in large part because of her foreign policy and national security experience in Bill Clinton's White House." 03-08 Credit Card Traps (PBS.org) "Every credit card for a credit card company is like a lottery ticket. They're just waiting to see who's going to maybe stumble a little. Maybe get into trouble on a car loan. Maybe nothing at all except they just look vulnerable. They're just in the right zip code. They're just the right profile for people who won't be able to run any place else. And those are the ones you slam. Those are the ones you hit with the 29 percent interest rate, the 35 percent interest rate, the new fees. And then, because of course if you can't pay it, then you get hit with a fee for not paying or for paying late, for going over limit. And the game is afoot. With any luck at all from the credit card company's perspective, these people will become little annuities that will just keep generating profits for the credit card companies for months, for years, maybe forever." 12-08 Current Society and Community Issues in Depth (NOW with Bill Moyers) "When PBS and Bill Moyers launched NOW, it was to illuminate stories that weren't being covered on any other public affairs broadcast, and under Moyers' leadership, NOW has pursued the truth behind the headlines. 'We are continuing to take a thoughtful look at the events shaping our world,' says Moyers, who has received every major broadcast journalisim award including more than 30 Emmy Awards." 12-03 Editorial: A Nation of Christians Is Not a Christian Nation (New York Times - Meacham) "In an interview with Beliefnet.com last weekend, Mr. McCain repeated what is an article of faith among many American evangelicals: 'the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation.' " However, "the only acknowledgment of God in the original Constitution is a utilitarian one: the document is dated 'in the year of our Lord 1787.' Even the religion clause of the First Amendment is framed dryly and without reference to any particular faith. The Connecticut ratifying convention debated rewriting the preamble to take note of God’s authority, but the effort failed." "Thomas Jefferson said that his bill for religious liberty in Virginia was 'meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindu, and infidel of every denomination.' When George Washington was inaugurated in New York in April 1789, Gershom Seixas, the hazan of Shearith Israel, was listed among the city’s clergymen (there were 14 in New York at the time) — a sign of acceptance and respect. The next year, Washington wrote the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, R.I., saying, 'happily the government of the United States ... gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance. ... Everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.' " 10-07 Editorial: Abuse of Prisoners Was Policy (New York Times - Editors) "When the abuses at Abu Ghraib became public, we were told these were the depraved actions of a few soldiers. The Yoo memo makes it chillingly apparent that senior officials authorized unspeakable acts and went to great lengths to shield themselves from prosecution." 04-08 Editorial: American Citizens Ignore Administration Lies at Our Peril (International Herald Tribune) "Ten days ago The New York Times unearthed yet another round of secret Department of Justice memos countenancing torture. President George W. Bush gave his standard response: 'This government does not torture people.' " "Of course, it all depends on what the meaning of 'torture' is. The whole point of these memos is to repeatedly recalibrate the definition so Bush can keep pleading innocent." "By any legal standards except those rubber-stamped by Alberto Gonzales, we are practicing torture, and we have known we are doing so ever since photographic proof emerged from Abu Ghraib more than three years ago." 10-07 Editorial: Does Obama's Winning Streak Prove Race Doesn't Matter? (US News) "In a ringing endorsement that connected his brother JFK’s legacy with the inspirational qualities of the candidate, Ted Kennedy hailed Obama's campaign as being 'about the country we will become, if we can rise above the old politics that parses us into separate groups and puts us at odds with one another.' " 10-08 Editorial: Election Reform Needed (CNN News) "Given that the primary system gives particular influence to party activists who are usually on the extreme end of the political spectrum, potential candidates are forced to think about how their decisions will play to them rather than moderates." "One potential reform has to come from the media. If the major news outlets devote more attention to policymaking and less to the statements of potential candidates, there will simply be fewer opportunities for people like Romney (or any comparable Democrat when a Republican is in the White House) to run this early. Nobody will be listening. The endless campaign thrives on receiving media attention." "The second change has to come from government. The White House and Congress must tackle campaign finance reform and attempt to restore some of the system that had been put into place as a result of the Watergate scandal. Only with public finance, enforced contribution limits and possibly expenditure limits would the nation be able to dampen the fundraising pressures on candidates." 06-09 Editorial: How America Is Squandering Its Wealth (US News) "Most important is to see the connection between the American way of life and the foreign policy that our government conducts. There are some critics of American foreign policy, Noam Chomsky, for instance, who portray U.S. foreign policy as a great conspiracy where certain elites pull the wool over the eyes of the people to benefit themselves and their cronies. I've come to believe that U.S. foreign policy is broadly conceived to reflect the will of the American people." 08-08 Editorial: The Bush Legacy (CNN News) "I think the single most significant bad decision George Bush made came early in his presidency. It was a decision widely applauded at the time and with much bipartisan support. Remember the Bush tax cuts?" "Remember their effect on America's finances? In 2000, the Clinton administration had almost balanced the federal budget and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office was projecting that over the next 10 years the United States would have budget surpluses that would add up to $5.6 trillion." "By the spring of 2002, two-thirds of that projected surplus had evaporated and the rest disappeared soon thereafter. It was the most profoundly un-conservative act of Bush's presidency. Rather than pay down debt and save in the good times for the inevitable bad times, Bush squandered it all so that all of us -- particularly high income earners -- could indulge in a bit more consumption." "And now, when times have gotten bad and we sorely need that reserve, we're clean out of cash. The federal budget deficit will likely range from $1.2 to $1.8 trillion over the next few years. Imagine what we could have done by either saving that money or spending it wisely on an energy revolution, on upgrading the infrastructure, on modernizing the health-care system." 01-09 Editorial: The End of American Capitalism? (MSNBC News) "The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression is claiming another casualty: American-style capitalism." 10-08 Editorial: The Hidden Cost of War (U.S. House of Representatives - Paul) "A free society produces more wealth for more people than any other. That wealth for many years can be confiscated to pay for the militarism advocated by those who promote preemptive war. But militarism and its costs undermine the very market system that provided the necessary resources to begin with. As this happens, productivity and wealth is diminished, putting pressure on authorities to ruthlessly extract even more funds from the people. For what they cannot collect through taxes they take through currency inflation-- eventually leading to an inability to finance unnecessary and questionable warfare and bringing the process to an end. It happened to the Soviets and their military machine collapsed. Hitler destroyed Germany’s economy, but he financed his aggression for several years by immediately stealing the gold reserves of every country he occupied. That, too, was self-limited and he met his military defeat. For us it’s less difficult since we can confiscate the wealth of American citizens and the savers of the world merely by printing more dollars to support our militarism. Though different in detail, we too must face the prospect that this system of financing is seriously flawed, and our expensive policy of worldwide interventionism will collapse. Only a profound change in attitudes regarding our foreign policy, our fiscal policy, and our monetary policy will save us from ourselves." 6-05 Editorial: The Meaning of Obama's Win (Time.com) "Remember this day, parents told their children as they took them out of school to go see an African-American candidate make history. An election in one of the world's oldest democracies looked like the kind they hold in brand-new ones, when citizens finally come out and dance, a purple-thumb day, a velvet revolution." 11-08 Editorial: The Merit of Diversity (CNN News) "More than 20 years ago, I got into an argument with a college roommate over affirmative action -- one I've thought about since President-elect Barack Obama began nominating people to serve in the Cabinet and White House staff." 11-08 Editorial: The Scuffle Over Torture (MSNBC News) "So what do you call simulated drownings — waterboarding — and slapping and freezing, techniques that were approved in a 2005 secret Department of Justice legal opinion? If the Eighth Amendment prohibits American police from waterboarding suspects, common sense tells me it's illegal." "But legal or not, the important thing to remember is that torture doesn't work. When I was in the CIA I never came across a country that systematically tortures its citizens and at the same time produces useful intelligence. The objective of torture, invariably, is intimidation." "When Stalin asked the KGB to find out how to make an atomic bomb, the KGB didn't kidnap and torture American and British scientists. It recruited spies. And Stalin got his bomb." 10-07 Editorial: The War As We Saw It (New York Times) "As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)" "A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families. "As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event." 08-07 Editorial: We Can't Drill Our Way Out of Our Fuel Crisis (Time.com) "The reality is that whether the U.S. drills or not, it really doesn't make a difference — not against the sheer scale of the energy and climate crisis facing America and the rest of the world. (Indeed, the other 6.3 billion people factor into this equation too.) The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently estimated that under a business-as-usual scenario — which the U.S. seems intent on abiding — global oil demand would rise 70% by 2050. That increase represents five times as much oil as Saudi Arabia produces annually. You could drill America with exploratory wells until it looked like Swiss cheese and still not make much of a dent in that figure." 08-08 Editorial: Where Did the Trillions in the Stock Market Go? (Time.com) "If you're looking to track down your missing money — figure out who has it now, maybe ask to have it back — you might be disappointed to learn that is was never really money in the first place." "Robert Shiller, an economist at Yale, puts it bluntly: The notion that you lose a pile of money whenever the stock market tanks is a 'fallacy.' He says the price of a stock has never been the same thing as money — it's simply the 'best guess' of what the stock is worth." 10-08 Editorial: Why Your Bank Is Broke (Time.com) "There's little hope that the type of shares the government is buying in banks as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) will plug the hole in the banking system's bucket. Paul Miller, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets who has written a number of reports on the capital issues of banks, says the only way to solve the problem is for the government to stop buying preferred shares and start taking direct ownership stakes. Of course, the issue with that approach is that the problem at the banks is so large, Uncle Sam may end up owning a good portion of the banking sector. Few seem to want nationalization. Unfortunately, that could be the only way out." 01-09 Election Reform Energy and Taxes (MSNBC News) Robert Hefner tells Fareed Zakaria: "Philosophically, I believe it is much better to tax consumption [of oil and coal] that is creating great costs and risks to society than to tax labor and capital that we want to grow and flourish." 09-07 Expert: Suicide Bombers Not Motivated Primarily by Religion (MSNBC News) Tucker Carlson: "I should also say you’ve compiled the world’s largest database on suicide terrorism. You studied every suicide bombing in the world since about 1980, so you’re a good guy to ask, obviously, the guy to ask. You make the point, if I understand it correctly, that, most of the time, suicide bombing is a response to foreign occupation, you say, not a product of religious extremism." Robert Pape: "Yes. Over 95 percent of all suicide terrorist attacks around the world since 1980 have in common not religion, but a clear strategic purpose, to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland or prize greatly." 7-05 Greenspan Admits 'Mistake' (MSNBC News) "Accused of contributing to the meltdown, but denying that it was his fault, Greenspan told a House panel the crisis left him — an unabashed free-market advocate — in a 'state of shocked disbelief.' " 10-08 Gross National Product Report: What It Means (U.S. News) "The data confirm that the U.S. economy is not just slowing; it's shrinking. Consumer spending saw its steepest fall since 1980, as more Americans kept their wallets closed in the face of higher unemployment and sagging home values." 10-08 Hearings of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations) Provides recent hearings. 09-08 How U.S. Credit Problems Went Global (Time.com) "Anyone who clinged to the notion that the risks lurking in America's mortgage pool were a local concern has now been proven wrong. The U.S. subprime mortgage market — turned sour by borrowers with poor credit struggling to meet payments as interest rates rise — is fast becoming a global worry. With huge chunks of this debt packaged up and sold to financial companies across the world, bad loans are roughing up banks and markets just about everywhere." 08-07 How the Falling Dollar Affects Americans (Christian Science Monitor) "US consumers' standard of living may drop as they pay more for foreign goods, but demand for American labor will rise, say economists." 09-07 How to Know If the Stimulus Plan Is Working (MSNBC News) "Yet while job creation is arguably the most important goal of the stimulus package, other parts of the bill will have a much more immediate and visible impact. Food stamp increases and extensions of unemployment benefits will be among the first noticeable effects of the package. Tax credit payments for individuals and families would follow, along with other tax breaks and incentives. Rising consumer confidence and lower unemployment will be far more gradual, and aren't likely to surface until late 2009 at the earliest." 02-09 How to Remove Yourself From a Social Network Like Facebook (Time.com) "Need to disappear from Facebook or Twitter? Now you can scrub yourself from the Internet with Web 2.0 Suicide Machine, a nifty service that purges your online presence from these all-consuming social networks." "But be warned: As in life, resurrection is impossible." 01-10 Interrogator: Why Saddam Pretended to Have WMD (CBS News) " 'It was very important for him [Saddam] to project that [he had weapons of mass destruction] because that was what kept him, in his mind, in power. That capability kept the Iranians away. It kept them from reinvading Iraq,' Piro says." 01-08 Is Natural Gas Our Next Clean Energy Source? (MSNBC News) Fareed Zakaria tells Robert Hefner: "Natural gas is plentiful and clean, but when you add up the costs of exploration, storage and delivery, it's also expensive." "Could you use the grid that pipes gas into people's homes to deliver natural gas as fuel for cars?" "America has a very undervalued asset in the million-mile pipeline grid that delivers natural gas to towns and cities, and directly to over 60 million American homes. You can put a small compressor appliance in your garage and fuel your automobile every night from the natural gas that is already connected to your house. Natural gas is also an excellent fuel to generate electricity. Prior to the Fuel Use Act in 1978 that prohibited the use of natural gas for power generation, Oklahoma generated over 80 percent of its electricity with natural gas. Today about 85 percent of Singapore's electricity is generated by natural gas, and they are headed toward 100 percent." 09-07 Islamists (Wikipedia.org) "Islamism refers to a set of political ideologies derived from various religious views of Muslim fundamentalists, which hold that Islam is not only a religion, but also a political system that should govern the legal, economic and social imperatives of the state. Islamist movements seek to re-shape the state by implementing a conservative formulation of Sharia. [1] Islamists regard themselves as Muslims rather than Islamists, while moderate Muslims and liberal movements within Islam reject this notion." 01-06 Judge: Justice Can Be Served Within the U.S. Constitution (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) "U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour said the successful prosecution of Ahmed Ressam should serve not only as a warning to terrorists, but as a statement to the Bush administration about its terrorism-fighting tactics." " 'We did not need to use a secret military tribunal, detain the defendant indefinitely as an enemy combatant or deny the defendant the right to counsel,' he said Wednesday. 'The message to the world from today's sentencing is that our courts have not abandoned our commitment to the ideals that set our nation apart.' " 7-05 Leading Sunni Cleric Gives His Formula for Success in Iraq (Time.com) Harith al-Dari, head of the Association of Muslim Scholars, Iraq's top Sunni cleric gives his view on how the civil war in Iraq can be ended: "For there to be any meaningful reconciliation, he says, the government must first dismantle the interior and defense ministries, which are currently controlled by Shi'ite parties, and bring back some senior officers from the old army. 'Once these ministries are under the control of professionals instead of sectarian interests, you will see peace returning quickly,' he says. 'And then the Americans can leave with their dignity and leave us with ours.' " 05-07 Media in a Democracy (Boston Review - McChesney) "An informed, participating citizenry depends on media that play a public service function. As James Madison once put it, 'A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both.' But these democratic functions lie beyond the reach of the current American media system. If we are serious about democracy, then, we need to work aggressively for reform." "What kind of reform? In broad terms, we need to reduce the current degree of media concentration, and, more immediately, blunt its effects on democracy. More specifically, we need special incentives for nonprofits, broadcast regulation, public broadcasting, and antitrust." 11-02 Media in a Democracy - A 12-Step Approach (The Nation - Chester and Larson) "For this is a twelve-step plan on behalf of a more democratic media system, a collective effort to ensure that alternative, independent voices will still be heard over the growing din of conglomerate media culture." 11-02 Military Budget in the United States (National Priorities Project) "Military spending consumes 26 cents out of every individual income tax dollar. It makes up about 20% of total federal spending and over half of the discretionary budget." "The United States is the world's biggest military spender, accounting for over 40% of world military spending, and amounting to more than 30 times what the 'rogue' countries spend (Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, Syria). The Pentagon pays for more helicopters, airplanes and warships than all of these countries combined, and the capabilities of U.S. weaponry are unrivaled in the world." 2-04 Military Terms (MSBC News) A squad is comprised of 10-11 soldiers. A platoon has four squads. A company has two or more platoons and has 130-150 soldiers. "A battalion, usually about 400-strong, is comprised of three rifle companies, a combat support company and a headquarters company." A brigade "contains around 2,500 people commanded by a colonel." "One division is made up of at least three brigades with between 10,000 and 20,000 soldiers." 03-07 Moderate Muslims Speak to Christians (Christian Science Monitor) "The open letter from 138 prominent Muslims – including imams, ayatollahs, grand muftis, sheikhs, and scholars – said 'the future of the world depends on peace between Muslims and Christians,' urgent language indicating a concern that tensions between the two faiths are in danger of spiraling out of control." "The Muslim signatories are authoritative, representing all major schools of Islamic thought, as well as influential at the grass-roots level, say scholars of Islam." "With its call for finding common ground in the foundational principles shared by the two faiths, the letter presents a significant counterweight to the voices of radical Islam on the global stage and is being heralded by Christian clergy and scholars as of historic import." 10-07 Nation's Top Accountant: The U.S. Is Headed for a Fiscal Catastrophe (ABC News) "As Steve Kroft reports, David Walker is an accountant, the nation’s top accountant to be exact, the comptroller general of the United States. He has totaled up our government's income, liabilities, and future obligations and concluded the numbers simply don’t add up." "David Walker is a prudent man and a highly respected public official. As comptroller general of the United States he runs he Government Accountability Office, the GAO, which audits the government's books and serves as the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress." "Asked if he knows any politicians willing to raise taxes or cut back benefits, Walker says, 'I don't know politicians that like to raise taxes. I don't know politicians that like to cut spending, but I think what we have to recognize is this is not just about numbers. We are mortgaging the future of our children and grandchildren at record rates, and that is not only an issue of fiscal irresponsibility, it's an issue of immorality.' " 03-07 National Council of Churches: Torture Unacceptable (National Coucil of Churches) "The General Assembly of the National Council of Churches USA and Church World Service commended the U.S. Senate’s 'anti-torture provisions' in the 2006 Defense Appropriations bill." "But as the House of Representatives begins debate on the bill, some high ranking U.S. government officials have declined to support the provisions." " 'As delegates to the General Assembly of the National Council of Churches USA and Church World Service, we find any and all use of torture unacceptable and contrary to U.S. and international legal norms,' the delegates said." " 'We find it particularly abhorrent that our nation's law makers would fail to approve the pending legislation disavowing the use of torture by any entity on behalf of the United States government,' the statement said." 11-05 Orman: Pay off Credit Card Debt First (MSNBC News) "The best way to insulate yourself is to get out of credit card debt once and for all. If you pay off your balance, you don’t have to worry about the interest rate on your card. If you pay off your bal­ance, you are less likely to have your credit card limit reduced; and even if it is reduced, it will not have a negative impact on your FICO score." 01-09 Political Ads Do Not Have a "Truth in Advertising" Obligation (Time.com) "Candidates are not held to the same commercial standard, and the reason is simple: their statements and advertisements are considered 'political speech,' which falls under the protection of the First Amendment. The noble idea undergirding what otherwise seems like a political loophole is the belief that voters have a right to uncensored information on which to base their decisions. Too often, however, the result is a system in which the most distorted information comes from the campaigns themselves. " "But it's not just that candidates are allowed to launch unfounded attacks against their opponents or make false claims about their own records. Broadcasters are actually obligated to run their ads, even those known to be false. Under the Federal Communications Act, a station can have a blanket policy of refusing all ads from all candidates. But they cannot single out and decline to air a particular commercial whose content they know to be a lie." 11-08 Political Campaigns - Finances (Federal Election Commission) Monitors and reports on contributions to political campaigns. Presidential Personalities (American Psychological Association) "As part of their The Personality and the President Project, psychologist Steven J Rubenzer, Ph.D., of Houston, Texas and co-authors Thomas Faschingbauer, Ph.D., of Richmond Texas and Deniz S. Ones, Ph.D., of the University of Minnesota, used several objective personality instruments to analyze the assessments made by more than one hundred presidential experts who were instructed to assess the lives of presidents they studied. The experts were instructed to look only at the five-year period before their respective subject became president to avoid the influence that life in the White House might have had on their behavior." "Results of the research indicate that great presidents, besides being stubborn and disagreeable, are more extraverted, open to experience, assertive, achievement striving, excitement seeking and more open to fantasy, aesthetics, feelings, actions, ideas and values. Historically great presidents were low on straightforwardness, vulnerability and order." "Achievement striving was found to be one of the best correlates of greatness in the oval office and competence was also a big predictor of presidential success." 12-03 Press Freedom Index of 2008 (World Press) Provides a ranking of nations in terms of freedom of the press, with "1" being best (Iceland) and "173" being worst (Eritrea). Public Opinion on Current Issues (Public Agenda Online) Provides results of surveys of public opinion on key issues related to health, education, and other current concerns. Role of Media in Terrorism (Guardian Unlimited) "Journalists must urgently debate whether their coverage of crises such as the hostage-taking in Iraq is driving terrorists to commit ever more outrageous atrocities, a top BBC executive said last night." Editor's Note: The Awesome Library does not cover hostage-taking activities because coverage is necessary for terrorists to "gain full value" from their hostage-taking. Further, the Awesome Library staff strongly encourage other media not to cover hostage-taking events. Rules for Winning a Debate (CNN News) Paul Begala provides his 10 recommendations for winning a debate. 10-08 Russia's Transformation from Friend to Foe of America (MSNBC News) "Instead, Putin is fast becoming the self-styled architect of an 'alternative pole of power' to the United States. Abroad, he has forged alliances with pariah states. At home, he has become something very close to an autocrat, creating puppet opposition parties, cracking down on dissidents and strangling media freedom." "What changed? How did Putin go from Bush's friend and ally to being an assertive nationalist, befriending and arming America's enemies? To hear the Russians tell it, it's the United States's fault. Putin's trust was betrayed by Washington, says Georgy Arbatov, former head of the Duma's Defense Committee. First, the United States ignored Russian objections to invading Iraq, then it encroached on Russia's traditional sphere of influence in the Baltics, Central Asia, the Caucasus and Ukraine." 07-07 Sea Change in Politics (MSNBC News) "The 2008 race for the White House that comes to an end on Tuesday fundamentally upended the way presidential campaigns are fought in this country, a legacy that has almost been lost with all the attention being paid to the battle between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama." "It has rewritten the rules on how to reach voters, raise money, organize supporters, manage the news media, track and mold public opinion, and wage — and withstand — political attacks, including many carried by blogs that did not exist four years ago. It has challenged the consensus view of the American electoral battleground, suggesting that Democrats can at a minimum be competitive in states and regions that had long been Republican strongholds." 11-08 Selling Our Infrastructure to Foreign Investors? (New York Times) "The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that the United States needs to invest at least $1.6 trillion over the next five years to maintain and expand its infrastructure. Last year, the Federal Highway Administration deemed 72,000 bridges, or more than 12 percent of the country’s total, “structurally deficient.” But the funds to fix them are shrinking: by the end of this year, the Highway Trust Fund will have a several billion dollar deficit." " 'We are facing an infrastructure crisis in this country that threatens our status as an economic superpower, and threatens the health and safety of the people we serve,' New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg told Congress this year. In January he joined forces with Mr. Schwarzenegger and Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania to start a nonprofit group to raise awareness about the problem." 08-08 States Now Tied to Big Tobacco (MSNBC News) "On Nov. 23, 1998, the nation's four largest cigarette sellers agreed to pay $200 billion over 30 years in what seemed like a victory for David over Goliath. The money was supposed to help the states pay for health care and anti-smoking campaigns. Instead, much of it -- even payments that aren't due for 20 years -- has already been spent on politically popular tax breaks through complicated borrowing schemes initiated by Wall Street investment banks." "Because these states have essentially borrowed against future payments from the tobacco industry, they are now dependent on the continued vitality of cigarette sales. If Big Tobacco stumbles, states will be on the hook for these massive, billion-dollar loans. In other words, David and Goliath are now allies." 11-08 States in Economic Crisis (MSNBC News) "With the economy in a slide and the housing market in crisis, states are collectively rolling up tens of billions of dollars in budget deficits in one of the worst financial crunches in the U.S. since the 1970s." 07-08 Study: Immigrants Are a Small Percent of Prison Population (Time.com) "Despite our melting-pot roots, Americans have often been quick to blame the influx of immigrants for rising crime rates. But new research released Monday shows that immigrants in California are, in fact, far less likely than U.S.-born Californians are to commit crime. While people born abroad make up about 35% of California's adult population, they account for only about 17% of the adult prison population, the report by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) showed. Indeed, among men ages 18 to 40 — the demographic most likely to be imprisoned — those born in the U.S. were 10 times more likely than foreign-born men to be incarcerated." 02-08 Study: We Have Left-Wing Brains and Right-Wing Brains (LATimes.com) "Even in humdrum nonpolitical decisions, liberals and conservatives literally think differently, researchers show. "Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work." 09-07 Survey: Americans Switching Faiths (US News) "The U.S. religious marketplace is extremely volatile, with nearly half of American adults leaving the faith tradition of their upbringing to either switch allegiances or abandon religious affiliation altogether, a new survey finds." 2-08 Survival Guide for Airports (ABC News) "If you fly, you will get stuck. Unfortunately for many people, this is not an uncommon situation regardless of any airport's rating. We all get upset when our air travel plans are upended. That said, there are things you can do to make the best out of a bad airport situation." 02-09 Teens Help Soldiers Call Home (USA Today) "At the holidays, for a soldier at war, there's nothing like a phone call home. Brittany and Robbie Bergquist have provided more than $1.4 million worth of them — 24 million precious minutes." 11-07 The Geneva Conventions (MSNBC News) Provides the Geneva Conventions, international agreements adopted by the United States regarding the humane treatment of prisoners and limits on the conduct of war. President Bush has proposed legislation to allow the Geneva Conventions to be re-interpreted by the CIA. 09-06 The Real Meaning of 4,000 Dead (Time.com) "When you are evaluating the price of the war, weighing potential rewards versus cost in blood and treasure, I would ask you to consider what is worth the lives of three of your loved ones? Or eight? Or more? It would be a tragedy for my 8 and 3 to have died without us being able to complete our mission, but it maybe even more tragic for 8 and 3 to become anything higher." 03-08 The Trillion-Dollar Solution to the Credit Shortage (New York Times) "The result has been a drastic contraction of the amount of credit available throughout the economy. By one estimate, as much as $1.9 trillion of lending capacity — the rough equivalent of half of all the money borrowed by businesses and consumers in 2007, before the recession struck — has been sucked out of the system." "Banking chiefs, who have come under sharp criticism for not making more loans even as they have accepted billions of taxpayer dollars to prop themselves up, say it is the markets, not the banks, that are squeezing American borrowers." "The Obama administration hopes to jump-start this crucial machinery by effectively subsidizing the profits of big private investment firms in the bond markets. The Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve plan to spend as much as $1 trillion to provide low-cost loans and guarantees to hedge funds and private equity firms that buy securities backed by consumer and business loans." 02-09 Time's 100 Most Influential Persons (Time.com) Starting with Barack Obama, list its choices for the 100 most influential persons for the United States. 04-09 Time's 100 Most Influential Persons by Category (Time.com) Time lists its choices for the 100 most influential persons by category. 05-09 Tracking Stimulus Spending (CNN News) "The $862 billion economic stimulus package 'was never intended to save every job,' Obama said on Wednesday at the White House marking the anniversary of his signing the bill. 'Businesses are the true engine of growth (and) always will be. But during a recession ... what government can do is provide a temporary boost.' " 03-10 U.S. Casualties in Iraq (Washington Post) Provides information about each U.S. service member who died in Iraq. U.S. Report on Iran Branded "Misleading" by Regulatory Agency (BBC News) "The UN nuclear watchdog has protested to the US government over a report on Iran's nuclear programme, calling it 'erroneous' and 'misleading'." 09-07 Veteran Report Card (Huffington Post) "From their flag lapel pins to their yellow ribbon bumper stickers, every politician in America wants you to believe they "support the troops." But actions speak louder than words. When veterans' issues actually came to a vote in Washington, what did your representatives do?" 10-08 Warrantless Spying Program May Affect Balance of Power (Christian Science Monitor) "Washington is immersed in a furious debate over the legality of the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program - and the argument's outcome may affect the balance of power in the US government for decades to come." " 'This is a defining issue in the constitutional history of the United States,' constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein testified Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee." 03-06 What Did the Banks Do With Your Cash? (ABC News) "The heads of eight major banks that received $125 billion in taxpayer bailout funds were largely unapologetic for their role in helping to create the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression as they testified before Congress this morning." 02-09 What To Do With Your Retirement Money Now (CBS News) "Contributor Ray Martin offers some specific advice for workers in different generations, as well as suggestions for how their portfolios should be allocated." 10-08 What to Expect From the Economic Crisis (Time.com) "The pain will soon come to Main Street — in Beijing and Brussels as much as in Boise. Economists are already outlining the downward spiral that they predict will follow. Banks will cut back on their lending to households and businesses. Mortgages and car loans will become harder to get. That in turn will stifle consumer spending and crimp investment in companies, leading to production cuts and job losses. Judging by previous crises, it can take about 18 months to two years for a financial squeeze to spread to the rest of the economy, which means that 2009 is shaping up to be a bleak year everywhere." "If the global financial meltdown can be traced to an American export — the subprime mess — the U.S. will import the consequences. As the go-go economies of China and India hit the brakes, so too will demand for American goods and services." 10-08 White House Power vs. Individual Constitutional Rights (Christian Science Monitor) "At issue is whether the White House has the power to keep an alleged victim from seeking redress in US courts." "The [federal] judge threw out the [Masri] suit on state-secrets grounds, and a federal appeals court panel upheld the dismissal on the same grounds." "In his appeal to the Supreme Court, Masri is asking the justices to examine whether the government properly invoked the state-secrets privilege or simply used the privilege to avoid being held accountable for alleged torture and other illegal and unconstitutional activities." " 'The whole reason for the court system is to protect individual rights that wouldn't be protected in the political process,' says Amanda Frost, a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, who also teaches at American University's Washington School of Law." 09-07 Why AIG Stumbled and Taxpayers Own It (CBS News) "Of all the corporate bailouts that have taken place over the past year, none has proved more costly or contentious than the rescue of American International Group (AIG). Its reckless bets on subprime mortgages threatened to bring down Wall Street and the world economy last fall until the U.S Treasury and the Federal Reserve stepped in to save it." 05-09 Wolff: Global Food System Can't Survive (CNN News) "As the nation marks World Hunger Relief Week, more people are asking: Why are so many people starving and what, if anything, can be done to eradicate hunger?" "Wolff thinks hunger can be conquered. Her group produces 'Medika Mamba,' energy dense, peanut butter food that's designed to ensure Haitian children survive childhood. Medika Mamba is easy to make, store, preserve and distribute, she says." "Patel says '2008 was a record year in terms of harvest. There's more food per person in 2008 than there's ever been in history. The problem is not food, but how we distribute it.' " 11-08 Woodward: Surge Success Greatly Caused by Secret Program (CNN News) "The dramatic drop in violence in Iraq is due in large part to a secret program the U.S. military has used to kill terrorists, according to a new book by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bob Woodward." 09-08 Worst Presidents (U.S. News) "Credit, or blame, for the first scholarly ranking of the presidents usually goes to Harvard historian Arthur Schlesinger Sr., who conducted a poll for Life magazine in 1948. He asked 55 specialists in American history to rate the presidents as great, near great, average, below average, or failure. Claiming the cellar of that list were Warren G. Harding and, in ascending order, Ulysses S. Grant, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Calvin Coolidge, John Tyler, Benjamin Harrison, and Herbert Hoover." 05-08 Projects -Donate to Relief for Haiti (HopeforHaitiNow.org) "This is your time to help." "100% of funds raised will go towards relief efforts in Haiti and there are NO backend costs. Additionally, the Entertainment Industry Foundation has waived all administrative fees." 01-10 Cap and Trade Game (MSNBC News) Game simulates "cap and trade" to reduce air pollution. Editor's Note: The designers of the game assume that the cost for reducing emissions may always be high. 11-09 Find Events for Volunteering (USAService.org) "Barack Obama is calling on Americans of all ages to step up and help our fellow citizens however we can." 01-09 Homes for Our Troops (HomesforOurTroops.org) Builds specially adapted homes for severely disabled veterans. 04-08 New Voters Project (NewVotersProject.org) Provides activities to help "reengage young people in the political process. Over 28 million eligible voters between the ages of 18 and 24 years old could be a powerful voting bloc in the upcoming elections." 04-08 Using Editorial Cartoons to Teach Current Events (Cagle.com) "This is the Teachers' Guide for using the Professional Cartoonists Index web site in your classes. We have developed lesson plans for using the editorial cartoons as a teaching tool in Social Sciences, Art, Journalism and English at all levels --click on the icons to the left to visit our lesson plans." 04-08 Writing to the Media - Contacts (Congress.org) Provides information for writing letters to the editors and other media campaigns. 7-05

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