You know how when we start talking about raising taxes on the rich, who have gotten a free pass the last few decades how some Conservative politician or idiot radio-type is always bantering about how the richest 2% pay more than half in taxes or some garbage like that. Well, as always with the greediest and least patriotic among us that talk is just that, garbage.

If constructed, the facility will generate a generous annual profit stream for United Water. Yet, local water customers will pay for United Water’s gain in the form of the rate increases that will be necessary to address the costs of United Water’s capital investment, as well as the massive amounts of energy that it takes to run a desalination facility. Because it will draw from the Hudson River, the drinking water the plant produces may contain traces of radioactive chemicals that pose a threat to human health. The plant may also damage the local marine environments and could contribute to global warming. A desalination facility would be an impractical and damaging investment for a state trying to lower its carbon emissions.

Thom Hartmann talks with John Perkins author of Hoodwinked and Confessions of an Economic Hit man

According to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, the U.S. has spent on average about $265 million per day in Afghanistan since the invasion of that country in 2001 (which is a much lower estimate than that provided by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and others). Even at that rate, five months of military spending by the U.S. would meet Diouf’s goal, and that would be if the U.S. were the sole contributor. Consider pausing this Thanksgiving, which for many in the U.S. is a major feast, to reflect on the 10 children who die of hunger every minute, and how your elected officials are spending hundreds of billions in public funds on war.

The appeals court today rejected Soffar's argument that the trial judge erred by refusing to admit evidence that another man confessed to committing the murders, and that this man committed a series of highly similar robbery-murders in Tennessee. The man, Paul Reid, formerly of Houston, now awaits execution on Tennessee's death row. A photograph of Reid, taken in Houston nine days after the crime, strongly resembles the composite sketch the police prepared based on the description of the sole witness to the crime.

"Judge Stanwood R. Duval, Jr awarded over $719,000 to four different sets of plaintiffs who alleged that the MRGO, a 76-mile manmade waterway that allowed vessels to quickly get from the Gulf of Mexico to the Industrial Canal, exasperated the conditions that led to flooding in the St. Bernard area. The ruling could set a precedent for over 400,000 other residents who have filed damage claims against the government(.)"

After three decades of war, Afghanistan remains one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. It is also one of the most corrupt. Unemployment stands at 40 percent and more than half the country live below the poverty line. On top of that, violence is at its highest levels since U.S.-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taliban in late 2001. The report, based on a survey of more than 700 ordinary Afghans by British charity Oxfam and several local aid groups, found that 70 percent of people questioned viewed poverty and unemployment as the main drivers of the conflict.

Six months is all it took to flip Europe’s climate from warm and sunny into the last ice age, researchers have found

Even for The Weekly Standard, this bitter, juvenile McCarthyite attack on the ACLU by Thomas Joscelyn sputters with so much fact-free, impotent, and self-defeating rage that it's hard to believe it was printed. Right in the headline, it oh-so-cleverly smears the ACLU as "Al Qaeda's Civil Liberties Union"; it ends by proclaiming the group to be "al Qaeda's useful idiots"; and it's filled in the middle with all sorts of trite innuendo circa 2002 that anyone who believes in the Constitution -- i.e., radical "far leftist" doctrines such as "trials" and "due process" -- secretly harbors love for the Terrorists and hatred for America ("The ACLU has worked diligently to undermine America's stance in what was formerly known as the 'war on terror,' and has even been willing to disseminate propaganda on behalf of our jihadist enemies"). What the article actually -- and ironically -- reveals is how much contempt The Weekly Standard and much of America's Right has for the nation's core political values and how, in the process, they do more to aid Islamic extremists than even those who directly fund and advocate for them.

"A blistering critique of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's game plan for assessing the safety of the state's oil and gas facilities and operations by a national panel of experts calls into question Palin's claim that, as governor, she made safeguarding of Alaska's resources a priority," veteran Alaska oil and gas analyst Richard Fineberg, who consulted to the Palin administration in 2007 and early 2008 wrote on November 15. "The public would be well served by examination of Palin's executive style and performance as governor," Fineberg added, speaking to Truthout in Fairbanks, "It's important for people to know she was never there to do work, particularly at this time when she is once again in the public eye claiming to be a hard working Alaskan who cares for people in her state."---"When she announced the Alaska oil and gas infrastructure risk assessment project on May 1, 2007, it (the project) was supposed to take three years to complete," Fineberg continued, "But it took the Palin administration nearly two years just to come up with its plan, only to have its proposal soundly rejected by both the industry and the environmental community. At two to two and a half years, the project Palin launched is on hold and her successor looks for a new plan - and a new contractor to carry it out."

A long-awaited Justice Department watchdog report that is said to be highly critical of the legal work on torture that three attorneys who worked at the agency's powerful Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) conducted for the Bush administration will be released at the end of the month, Attorney General Eric Holder told lawmakers Wednesday in testimony before a Senate committee.---As I previously noted, the report, prepared by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), is said to have reached "damning" conclusions about numerous cases of "professional misconduct" in the legal advice former OLC attorneys John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury provided to the White House about the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques." OPR completed the report last December, but then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey and his deputy, Mark Filip, who commented on the findings, demanded Yoo, Bybee and Bradbury be given the opportunity to respond to OPR's conclusions, the Justice Department disclosed in a letter sent earlier this year to Whitehouse and Sen. Richard Durbin, (D-Illinois).

Another state finally coming around! Kentucky Equality Federation applauds legislation pre-filed by Representative Mary Lou Marzian (BR 93) to place the issue of same-sex marriage or civil unions back in the hands of Kentucky citizens. Earlier this year, Kentucky Equality Federation and Marriage Equality Kentucky began collecting signatures to present to lawmakers to repeal the law by giving voters another opportunity to vote on the issue. The "Marriage Declaration," started in July 2009. "I realize some will turn this into a religious debate, but we have separate of church and state; the Kentucky Constitution clearly states 'absolute and arbitrary power over the lives, liberty and property of freemen exists nowhere in a republic, not even in the largest majority,' and that is exactly what Section 223A of the Constitution has done. The Constitution also states 'the civil rights, privileges or capacities of no person shall be taken away, or in anywise diminished or enlarged, on account of his belief or disbelief of any religious tenet, dogma or teaching.'"

As in our country, people in Europe are enraged at those hustlers of high finance who wrecked the world's economies, then flexed their political muscle to get governments to replenish their bankrupt vaults. Infuriatingly, these bailed-out bankers have now returned to business as usual, including grabbing monstrous bonus payments for themselves. -- In Europe, such greed is not only being assailed politically, but it is also being cast as a matter of fundamental moral failure. As another of Britain's leading clergymen put it, "There is a general feeling that the level of bonuses we've seen have been obscene." --- The clueless bankster clique is actually claiming that we commoners should be applauding the return of their multimillion-dollar bonus bonanzas. Why? Because, they aver, the rich payouts allow them to contribute to charity. - Such narcissism reminds me of a story about a selfish, no-good rich man who died and tried to get into heaven. - As in our country, people in Europe are enraged at those hustlers of high finance who wrecked the world's economies, then flexed their political muscle to get governments to replenish their bankrupt vaults. Infuriatingly, these bailed-out bankers have now returned to business as usual, including grabbing monstrous bonus payments for themselves. -- In Europe, such greed is not only being assailed politically, but it is also being cast as a matter of fundamental moral failure. As another of Britain's leading clergymen put it, "There is a general feeling that the level of bonuses we've seen have been obscene." --- The clueless bankster clique is actually claiming that we commoners should be applauding the return of their multimillion-dollar bonus bonanzas. Why? Because, they aver, the rich payouts allow them to contribute to charity. - Such narcissism reminds me of a story about a selfish, no-good rich man who died and tried to get into heaven. - But you can't just walk through the Pearly Gates. - An angel reviews your life, then St. Peter decides if you can enter. To counter the angel's negative review, the rich man argued that he had a history of charitable giving. He'd once tossed a nickel into a beggar's cup, he pointed out. Plus, some years later, he had aided a poor woman by giving her a nickel. Then there was the time he put a nickel into the Salvation Army kettle. --- Hearing all this, the angel turned to St. Peter and asked, "What in the world should we do with this man?" - And St. Peter said, "Give him back his 15 cents, and tell him to go to hell!"

If you dislike Sarah Palin as much as I do, and dislike her new autobiography before you even read it, as I have, you will love this review by Ed from Instaputz. With the incision of a modern-day Mencken, Ed dissects the ghost-written piece of crap with uncanny accuracy. There is only this hope: that I too can become a millionaire without having anyone killed.

The British Antarctic Survey found that during past periods of high carbon dioxide, temperatures in Antarctica were up to 6C above current levels. - This could cause a sea level rise of up six metres, threatening coastal cities like London, New York and San Francisco. - It is the latest research to warn of the consequences of increased greenhouse gases on the Earth's climate. - Yesterday a study warned that carbon dioxide produced by man is now rising at record rates putting the world on a pathway for a 6C rise in temperature.

A brutal report issued Monday by a government watchdog holds Timothy Geithner -- then the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and now the nation's Treasury Secretary -- responsible for overpayments that put billions of extra tax dollars in the coffers of major Wall Street firms, most notably Goldman Sachs. - The authoritative new narrative describes how, while bailing out insurance giant AIG last fall, a team led by Geithner failed nearly every step of the way. - Instead of bargaining with AIG's numerous counterparties to resolve its billions of dollars in souring derivatives contracts, Geithner's team ended up paying top dollar for toxic assets -- "an amount far above their market value at the time," the report notes. - "There is no question that the effect of FRBNY's decisions -- indeed, the very design of the federal assistance to AIG -- was that tens of billions of dollars of Government money was funneled inexorably and directly to AIG's counterparties," the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program said. - Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Wachovia got full value for their derivatives contracts with AIG, and taxpayers got the bill. In total, $27.1 billion of public money was transferred to companies that did business with AIG. -- Throughout the bailout of AIG, the report says, the New York Fed failed to develop appropriate contingency plans; failed to properly assess the impact of its decisions; and generally engaged in negotiation strategies that were doomed to fail. -- Then, after Geithner's team paid off AIG's counterparties on Wall Street, it imposed "onerous" terms on the troubled insurer, the report says. - "The decision to acquire a controlling interest in one of the world's most complex and most troubled corporations was done with almost no independent consideration of the terms of the transaction or the impact that those terms might have on the future of AIG," the report finds.

The Progressive Book Club, Media Matters, and Max Blumenthal team up to fact check and debunk Sarah Palin's book. This is the first in a new partnership between Progressive Book Club and Media Matters - the Right Wing Book Watch

Health care is a fundamental human right no different than food, shelter, clothing, clean air and water, and other essentials to life and well-being, not something to be bought and sold as a commodity. --- Universal single-payer coverage is the solution, not America's dysfunctional for-profit model. -- If Obamacare is enacted, it will cost more, deliver less, leave millions uninsured, millions more underinsured and leave a broken system in place. - It will enrich the insurance, drug and large hospital chain cartels at the expense of universal coverage. - It will solidify a class-based system delivering the best care money can buy. - Others will get sub-standard treatment, and for millions none at all. --- The solution is everybody in, nobody out under a universal, single-payer system. - No one should accept less or politicians who won't provide it.

Under the House plan, we will gamble as we choose a plan, decide which corporation will be the best for us, hoping we pick one that is not dominated by corporate bureaucrats focused on rationing care to maximize their profits. Imagine real reform, as simple as adding people ages 55 to 65 years old to Medicare in 2010, 35-55 in 2011, and so on until everyone is included by 2013. If the Democrats can't stand up to insurance companies now, it will be even harder in the future when they have billions in more profits from Americans forced to buy their product.

U.S. history has seen many presidents elected on a wave of progressive promises, only to see them compromise again and again once in office, caving to the very interests, military and corporate, that they railed against so effectively. Barack Obama is only the latest to get elected on a promise to end a war and take care of working people, only to preside over an administration stacked with Wall Street types and wind up continuing a war he wanted to wind down. Americans voted for change and are getting frustrated with the lack of it, but our guests have both written about the powerful forces holding the status quo in place. John Perkins is the author of Hoodwinked and Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and has written about how corporations push politicians around and even threaten them with violence. Russ Baker, meanwhile, is the author of Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America and has written extensively about the military-industrial complex. They argue the only weapon we have is public opinion and public pressure–and we need to bring it to bear not just on the government, but on the corporations.