Short video and transcript. “The inequities in our economy are piling up: trillions for war, trillions for Wall Street and tens of billions for the insurance companies. Banks and other corporations are sitting on piles of cash of taxpayer’s money while firing workers, cutting pay and denying small businesses money to survive."

A federal judge in Kentucky has rejected a motion by tobacco companies to block key provisions of the new law giving the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the power to regulate tobacco products.

“The injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest,” Goldman’s Griffiths said Oct. 20, his voice echoing around the gold-mosaic walls of St. Paul’s Cathedral, whose 365-feet-high dome towers over the City, London’s financial district. “We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieving greater prosperity and opportunity for all.” via Profit `Not Satanic,’ Barclays Says, After Goldman Invokes Jesus – Bloomberg.com. I didn’t believe this story was true at first — thought it had to be a spoof. But it turns out to be true. The great banks of the world have gone on a p.r. counteroffensive in Europe, and are sending spokescrooks in shiny suits into churches to persuade the masses that Christ would have approved of the latest round of obscene bonuses. Goldman Sachs international adviser Brian Griffiths explains it this way: that Christ’s famous injunction to love others as one would love oneself actually means that one should love oneself as one would love oneself. This seemingly baffling outburst by a Goldman executive in what appears to have been a prepared speech — someone actually wrote this, and thought about it, before saying it out loud — gets even weirder when one tries to figure out what could possibly have motivated this person, and by extension his employer Goldman Sachs, to make such statements in such a place as St. Paul’s Cathedral.

“I have decided not to offer a single payer alternative to the health reform bill at this time. Given how fluid the negotiations are on the final push to get comprehensive health care reform that covers millions of Americans and contains costs through a public option, I became concerned that my amendment might undermine that important goal.”

Gordon Brown will today make clear he will not be "deterred, dissuaded or diverted" from Britain's mission in Afghanistan, despite a new poll showing nearly three-quarters of people believe UK troops should be withdrawn within 12 months. He will use a keynote speech to stress that "we cannot, must not and will not walk away," adding that international efforts "will succeed or fail together".

Richard Dawkins was recently issued a challenge --disprove creation in one sentence. I can do that myself. Here it is: If we can see Andromeda --some 2.5 MILLION years distant from earth --then creationism is false!

Press attention, money, and political capital in Maine focused on a wedge issue — gay marriage. But proponents and opponents alike used plenty of money from outside the state to influence the vote.

Will was repudiated by his own newspaper’s newsroom, whose reporters, Juliet Eilperin and Mary Beth Sheridan, noted satellite data showing that the average multiyear wintertime sea ice cover in the Arctic in 2005 had declined, which “contradicts data cited in widely circulated reports by Washington Post columnist George F. Will that sea ice in the Arctic has not significantly declined since 1979.” So too did Andrew Freeman, at the Post’s weather blog ...

The US government is now so totally under the thumbs of organized interest groups that “our” government can no longer respond to the concerns of the American people who elect the president and the members of the House and Senate. Voters will vent their frustrations over their impotence on the president, which implies a future of one-term presidents. Soon our presidents will be as ineffective as Roman emperors in the final days of that empire.Republicans and Democrats saw opportunities to create new sources of campaign contributions by privatizing as many military functions as possible. There are now a large number of private companies that have never made a dollar in the market, feeding instead at the public trough that drains taxpayers of dollars while loading Americans with debt service obligations.

A series of internal government reviews have presented the Obama administration with a dire portrait of Afghanistan’s military and police force, bringing into serious question an ambitious goal at the heart of the evolving American war strategy — to speed up their training and send many more Afghans to the fight.

The move came Wednesday night in Amherst, Mass., on a voice vote of town meeting members. The town is also now officially on record as urging Congress to lift its ban on moving cleared detainees to the US – and has gone so far as to identify two detainees it would like to welcome to Amherst.Amherst’s resolution to take in cleared detainees – of which there are at least 60 out of the 215 held in the US camp for terrorism suspects – is a first for a US municipality, says Nancy Talanian, director of No More Guantánamos, a citizen organization founded this year to support President Obama’s plan to close the Guantánamo facility in Cuba.

Between John Boehner waving the constitution at a tea party rally against health care and believing he was quoting from it when he was quoting the Declaration of Independence, or actor John Ratzenberger calling healthcare reform the product of "Woodstock Democrats whose philosophy comes from overseas", Republicans are finally exposing themselves to one truth that is self-evident - they are either lying or dumb.

A month ago, I sent an email to over fifty leaders and thinkers in the Jewish and progressive world, asking them what they thought about the conflict in Afghanistan. I wrote: I keep asking myself an old question that seems ever more relevant today in the context of Afghanistan: When is war justified?---I invited a response, and got two, one from a leading activist rabbi, Arthur Waskow, and one from a leading radical journalist, Greg Palast. ZEEK is reprinting them with the hope of starting a richer conversation.---Rabbi Arthur Waskow Who can think up the most cockamamie plans for Afghanistan?---Here are two ideas way outside the box, outside the Beltway: Fire all US generals and diplomats in Afghanistan. Send five women U.S. Senators to negotiate with Afghan women and all male Afghan factional leaders (including the varied Taliban factions) with two promises: (1) Any governance agreement unanimously agreed-to will be backed up by billions in U.S. economic aid, delivered as dollar bills in suitcases, if necessary; (2) If no such agreement is reached, all U.S. involvement in Afghanistan ends at once. Same if a unanimous agreement breaks down.---

The United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly in favor of a report, which accuses Israel of war crimes as well as crimes against humanity during the weeks-long onslaught on the Gaza Strip. 114 states endorsed a resolution supporting the report by a Human Rights Council panel led by the South African judge Richard Goldstone in Thursday's UN vote while only 18 states including the US objected to the report's adoption. Forty-four countries also abstained including France, Britain and Russia. The assembly's resolution demands that both the Israelis and the Palestinians carry out investigations within three months. It also pushes for Security Council attention.

Like a horror movie monster, the former vice-president keeps coming back to sink his teeth into Obama's foreign policy.

The General Assembly today endorsed the report of the United Nations investigation which found that both Israeli forces and Palestinian militants were guilty of serious human rights violations during the conflict in the Gaza Strip at the start of the year. After two days of debate in the Assembly, at UN Headquarters in New York, 114 Member States voted in favour of a resolution endorsing the report’s findings and its recommendations for further action. Eighteen States voted against the resolution and another 44 countries abstained.

If people were pissed off about AIG's temporary decline and permanent bonuses, CIT's bankruptcy ought to enrage them. The giant lender to businesses is heading for a quick in-and-out in bankruptcy court, and when it emerges, taxpayers will be the ones who have gotten the ol' in-out: CIT won't have to repay its $2.33 billion TARP bailout. CIT's been in deep trouble for way more than a year. Meanwhile, some of its execs have reaped special bonuses. Its H.R. director, Jim Duffy, has received a $450,000 cash bonus for what the company called his "exceptional performance." What did he do? "Mr. Duffy's achievements in 2008 include the design and implementation of a process to reduce our total headcount by 22% ... along with the successful deployment of talent and development programs targeted at retaining CIT's key talent," according to CIT's proxy filing last April. That message to taxpayers was approved by CEO Jeff Peek. That was the same month that Peek's wife, Liz Peek (a former journalist), wrote an anonymous, weepy tell-all for Portfolio about the sad plight of TARP wives. And that was the same month that Portfolio itself went out of business.

New York City may be the dirtiest city in the country (per square foot), but New York City residents have the lowest carbon footprint in the nation on a per capita basis. David Owen, author of Green Metropolis, explains why.

Not only does Stewart nail the crazy politics, the convoluted logic, the Rube Goldberg chalkboard, the tears, the ticks and the goofy mannerisms, but it is so on the mark that we find ourselves concluding that Howard Beale seems stable compared to Glenn Beck. I am sure the writers and actors over at SNL are kicking themselves in the ass for missing this one.

Wars reduce the GDP, destroy jobs, reduce productively, and increase the trade deficit! If wars are 'bad' for the economy, then how are they sold so easily? The quick response: they are sold with focus group tested bullshit!