The amendment mandates that banks essentially could not lend out or invest more than 12 dollars for every dollar they keep in reserve -- It passed by a unanimous voice vote.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Harrison told The Associated Press he is appointing an ad-hoc committee of four Republicans and three Democrats who will begin meeting Tuesday. He said he expects to have a resolution to impeach ready before Christmas for the full Judiciary Committee to consider.

The supply of forests for offsetting pollution in developed countries is, potentially, almost infinite. There are an estimated 90 billion tons of carbon in Brazil's forests alone, and billions of tons more are sequestered in Indonesia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, and other nations with substantial tropical forests, which are considered the most vulnerable to deforestation. The world has a major stake in keeping all that carbon where it is. The question now being debated in Washington and Copenhagen is whether the fate of the forests—and their people—will rest on the ability of industries to pay for preserving distant trees rather than reducing emissions closer to home.

At the start of the Neolithic period – about 9500BC – scientists estimate that species were becoming extinct at a rate of 20-30 per year. Since the population explosion of modern humans, that is estimated to have increased to 20,000-30,000. Most have never been documented by scientists. And in a couple of decades, Wilson reckons this will have increased to 200,000-300,000. Wilson's proposed international initiative, which he has developed with Simon Stuart, the chairman of the Species Survival Commission, would document this species loss and work out how to tackle it.

The two countries' divergent views of the threat posed by Islamist extremists, and the Obama administration's efforts to press Pakistan to move against groups that menace Afghanistan have produced strains between the two countries and between Pakistan's civilian government and its powerful military and Inter Services Intelligence agency — and a growing drumbeat of Pakistani allegations about alleged nefarious CIA activities in Pakistan.

From the commentary: "It is time for ADL and other groups that monitor anti-Semitism to quit defending Christian Zionists and look honestly at the reasons why these millennial-driven activists have provided years of financial, logistical and political support for the expansion of the West Bank settlements. Anyone who preaches that a final Holocaust is necessary for the purification and regathering of Jews is not a friend of Israel."

Since Veterans Day, Thomas E. Mahany, a 62-year-old Vietnam War veteran, has been on a hunger strike in front of the White House to raise awareness about post-traumatic stress disorder and protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mahany recently wrote a letter to President Obama calling on him to "withdraw our military men and women from the Middle East now." He said he plans to only drink water "until specific action is taken by your administration and our military to stem the tragic and ever-increasing rise in the incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)" that has seen a meteoric rise over the years among those serving in the military. Earlier this week, Gen. Peter Chiarelli, vice chief of staff of the Army, told reporters that suicides among veterans and active-duty soldiers have already reached a record high this year and show no signs of abating. [Note: What was interesting was the wonderful response that Obama gave to this man. And speaking of responses, why are not more vets out camping on the White House steps in support of this guy?]

This summer, Perry signed off on the 200th execution of his career, a record unmatched even by his predecessor, George W. Bush. It is a grotesque figure, one that includes the killing of more than one prisoner with overwhelming innocence claims, including Reginald Blanton, who was executed last month. Robert Lee Thompson may have committed a violent crime, but in the end, he was not a murderer. The same cannot be said for Perry.

Across the nation many Progressives have been disillusioned with the leadership shown by President Obama on Healthcare. As a former single-payer proponent himself we simply hoped that he would fight harder for a better bill. Instead, he allowed the Congress to mostly write the healthcare bill and far from gave a ringing endorsement to a more Progressive direction. Many of us also feel this timidness also lost the momentum in a critical time for the debate.

George W. Bush, in the duplicitous run-up to the invasion of Iraq, insulated himself, closed his mind and refused to meet with civic associations in his own land. Like an autocrat bent on plunging a country into war and occupation, knowingly on false pretenses, he deliberately deprived himself of the information that might have restrained his disastrous, messianic militarism. Disastrous, not to him and Dick Cheney, but to our country, soldiers, and economy, and to the devastated Iraqi people and their ravaged nation. -- Who would have thought last year that on assuming the presidency, that you would consider plunging deeper in to this quagmire without an exit strategy? - The deeper you plunge, the greater your rejection of the history of occupations fueling insurgencies in that region. --- The more you insulate yourself from contrary judgments to those you have been receiving from your inner councils. Our country, its people and innocent Afghan people will pay the price. -- George W. Bush, in the duplicitous run-up to the invasion of Iraq, insulated himself, closed his mind and refused to meet with civic associations in his own land. Like an autocrat bent on plunging a country into war and occupation, knowingly on false pretenses, he deliberately deprived himself of the information that might have restrained his disastrous, messianic militarism. Disastrous, not to him and Dick Cheney, but to our country, soldiers, and economy, and to the devastated Iraqi people and their ravaged nation. -- Who would have thought last year that on assuming the presidency, that you would consider plunging deeper in to this quagmire without an exit strategy? - The deeper you plunge, the greater your rejection of the history of occupations fueling insurgencies in that region. --- The more you insulate yourself from contrary judgments to those you have been receiving from your inner councils. Our country, its people and innocent Afghan people will pay the price. -- You owe the American people an un-Bush-like explanation. - Why are you not receiving these groups of American from varied backgrounds and experience at the White House on this pending Afghan decision? - They may wonder, by contrast, why you have so many White House meetings with major corporate CEOs from Wall Street, from the health insurance companies and the drug companies. - Is not the White House the peoples' House? - Along with many other citizens in our country, I look forward to your response.

In 2007, Congress shut the door to corporate-provided air travel by passing the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act. This week, those idiots at the Federal Election Commission reopened the door.

Congressman DeFazio said yesterday: We think it is time, maybe, that we turn our focus to Main Street ... Unfortunately, the President has an adviser from Wall Street, Larry Summers, and a Treasury Secretary from Wall Street, Timmy Geithner, who don't like that idea. They want to keep the TARP money either to continue to bail out Wall Street...or to pay down the deficit. That's absurd... "[Obama] is being failed by his economic team ... We may have to sacrifice just two more jobs to get millions back for Americans.

Barack Obama has nominated the former President George Bush's press secretary, Dana Perino, for a spot on the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). The BBG oversees the US government-sponsored international broadcasting. "I'm honored by the president's announcement and I'm looking forward to serving on the bipartisan board, if I'm confirmed," Perino said after she was tapped for the key job late on Wednesday by the US president, reported AFP. Established in 1994, the BBG oversees all of the US government's non-military international broadcasting outlets, including Voice of America, Alhurra television, Radio Sawa, TV Marti, Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe. Politically conservative Perino is presently a Fox News contributor and holds a job, as a counselor, for the public relations firm Burson-Marsteller. Perino and other nominees need the Senate approval to be formally appointed to the top job. [Note: I am having deja vu.]

The problem, however, is that people like Palin stopped being funny a while ago. The prominence they enjoy in our political discourse is so far out of whack with their abilities and intentions that it vastly exaggerates their influence over a variety of very serious matters that affect each and every one of us. The British have the Monster Raving Loony Party, who are a joke and exert no real influence, and we have the Republican Party, filled with monster raving loonies who exert a tremendous amount of influence because the news media thinks we are a nation of people who like to look at car accidents on the highway, which, by and large, we are. We've been well-trained by 20 years of shock television to mistake clowns and jesters for serious people, and because of that mistake, these people's deranged opinions and deformed ideas get taken seriously. As digby recently noted on the excellent Hullabaloo blog, "I'm not saying that we should panic. These people are politically weak in their own right. But when I see the liberal gasbags on TV blithely dismissing this as if it's impossible that Americans could ever fall for such lunacy, I feel a little frisson of alarm. I've read too many accounts of people who, 80 or so years ago, complacently made the same assumption.

CNN en Español has been running a story all afternnon that men dressed as Venezuelan troops blew up two pedestrin bridges over the Santander River on the Venezuela-Colombia border. Colombian ministers denounced the actions today in both the OAS and the UN. Cnnenespañol.com does not yet have an article on the story. The demolition took place in the early morning hours, and no one was hurt. [Note: to be continued.]

The economic elite have launched an attack on the U.S. public and society is unraveling at an increased rate. You may have missed it in the mainstream news media, but statistical societal indicators are reading red across the board. Before exposing the root causes of this breakdown, let’s look at some vital statistics and facts...

THOSE WHO CLAIM to PROTECT DEMOCRACY MUST READ The settlements within Hebron have been declared illegal by the Geneva conventions. The official city maps, which are the documents used by Israeli courts, are wildly inaccurate. They claim that ghost streets, long sealed off by concrete and metal, are functioning thoroughfares and marketplaces. Walking through the streets of Hebron, you find a city carved up by the violent military presence and constant threat of settler violence. Some roads have a concrete barrier running along the edge, leaving a few feet for Palestinians to walk along while two wide lanes are reserved for settlers. The souks, Old City markets, have wire screens or makeshift netting overhead: insufficient protection for attacks from settlers living on the floors above. The wire screens are heavy with trash, bricks, giant concrete chunks, and exploded plastic bags that contained sewage and urine when they burst onto the people and racks of goods below. Hisham told us one young man was in a coma after a sharpened metal rod came through the screen and penetrated his skull. Now, when you look up, you can see piles of objects that got caught in the screen: crowbars, bricks, stones, chairs. While walking through a market, we saw a settler woman throw sand from her third story apartment down at a crowded market where Palestinians were shopping.

First there was Medicare for all 300 million of us. But that was a non-starter because private insurers and Big Pharma wouldn't hear of it, and Republicans and "centrists" thought it was too much like what they have up in Canada -- which, by the way, cost Canadians only 10 percent of their GDP and covers every Canadian. (Our current system of private for-profit insurers costs 16 percent of GDP and leaves out 45 million people.)--- Our private, for-profit health insurance system, designed to fatten the profits of private health insurers and Big Pharma, is about to be turned over to ... our private, for-profit health care system. Except that now private health insurers and Big Pharma will be getting some 30 million additional customers, paid for by the rest of us. Upbeat policy wonks and political spinners who tend to see only portions of cups that are full will point out some good things: no pre-existing conditions, insurance exchanges, 30 million more Americans covered. But in reality, the cup is 90 percent empty. Most of us will remain stuck with little or no choice -- dependent on private insurers who care only about the bottom line, who deny our claims, who charge us more and more for co-payments and deductibles, who bury us in forms, who don't take our calls.

Geithner, like Larry Summers inside the White House, has failed to respond to main street's needs directly and powerfully, and failed to stand up to Wall Street interests when they are inimical to sustained stability.

"The chief federal appeals court judge in San Francisco bluntly ordered the Obama administration Thursday to stop resisting his finding that the wife of a lesbian court employee was entitled to government insurance coverage."