HOT NEWS

BANK LOBBY DEFEATS OBAMA REFORM PLAN

Hill resisting financial plan by Sean Lengell

Congress appears set to ignore President Obama’s proposal that banks be required to offer “plain vanilla” financial products such as 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, giving the banking industry an early victory in its fight with the administration over how to reform the financial-services sector.

Barney Frank Vanilla

Barney Frank (D-MA) chairman of the House Financial Services Committee waits for President Barack Obama to speak about the global financial crisis at Federal Hall in New York, September 14, 2009. (REUTERS/Jeff Zelevansky)

Instead, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank will forge ahead with plans for a watered-down Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) — a blow to the administration’s push for tighter regulations and more control over the banking and financial-service industries.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/09/23-3

WHOOPS: Anti-ACORN Bill Ropes In Defense Contractors, Others Charged With Fraud by Ryan Grim.

Going after ACORN may be like shooting fish in a barrel lately — but jumpy lawmakers used a bazooka to do it last week and may have blown up some of their longtime allies in the process.

The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to “any organization” that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.

In other words, the bill could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex. Whoops.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/09/23-0

5 THINGS THE CORPORATE MEDIA DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW About Cannabis By Paul Armentano, AlterNet. Posted September 23, 2009.

Recent scientific reports suggest that pot doesn’t destroy your brain, that it doesn’t cause lung damage like tobacco — but you won’t hear it in the corporate media.

1.     Marijuana Use Is Not Associated With a Rise in Incidences of Schizophrenia

2.     Marijuana Smoke Doesn’t Damage the Lungs Like Tobacco 

3.     Cannabis Use Potentially Protects, Rather Than Harms, the Brain 

4.     Marijuana Is a Terminus, Not a ‘Gateway,’ to Hard Drug Use 

5.     Government’s Anti-Pot Ads Encourage, Rather Than Discourage, Marijuana Use

http://www.alternet.org/media/142815/5_things_the_corporate_media_don%27t_want_you_to_know_about_cannabis

Editor’s note: Come see Paul Armentano and many other top marijuana experts and advocates in discussion at NORML’s 38th national conference taking place this week from September 24-26 in San Francisco. Click here to learn more.

Learn even more at: https://johnlegry.wordpress.com/marijuana-papers/ MARIJUANA PAPERS.

WAKE UP CALL:

Dear all,

Wow. Monday’s Wake Up call was unbelievable – 2632 events in 134 countries, tens of thousands of phone calls crashing government lines, unbelievable creativity and diversity of events, directly reaching heads of state and cabinet ministers from Australia to Europe. Words can’t describe it — this video gets close:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/

The Wake Up call was covered by hundreds of major news outlets and made the evening news everywhere from Germany to New Zealand. Europe’s environment chief praised “the mobilisation of so many people by Avaaz.org”, the UK Prime Minister became the first major world leader to agree to our demand to go to Copenhagen and said that with “the pressure that can brought by organizations like yours…what people think is impossible can become possible”. The Spanish environment minister called the action “extraordinary”.

World leaders have heard us. But as Tuesday’s UN summit showed, one day of action won’t be enough to get real progress on climate. We need to come back again and again, louder and louder, until we get a fair, ambitious and binding climate treaty.

We’ll keep the pressure high through the TCKTCKTCK campaign until Copenhagen, with another global day of action on October 24th, and start planning right now for the LARGEST CLIMATE MOBILIZATION IN HISTORY ON DECEMBER 12th, in the final days of the Copenhagen negotiations.

Avaaz is now 3.6 million members strong in 14 languages, in every country of the world. On Monday, our movement took a huge step forward — we showed that we can not only send millions of messages to leaders or donate millions to worthy causes, but that in just a few days we can flood the streets and crash phone lines from Mexico City to Mumbai.

If we stick together, anything is possible.

With hope and excitement for the future,

Ricken, Ben, Paul, Milena, Alice, Luis, Brett, Taren, Margaret, Iain, Pascal, Graziela, Paula, Benjamin, Rajeev, Veronique, Raluca, Julius, Yuri, Saravanan, Vladimir, Tihomir, Sam, Emma and the whole Avaaz team

PS – the video above was made from over 10,000 wake up call pictures and 600 videos uploaded to Avaaz in just 24 hours! There were many tears among people making the video as we saw the amazing dedication of everyone, from the Avaaz community to our TCKTCKTCK campaign partners to people joining the first climate action of their lives. Click here to see the video of this amazing movement in action: http://www.avaaz.org/en/

Want to support Avaaz? We’re entirely funded by donations and receive no money from governments or corporations. Our dedicated online team ensures even the smallest contributions go a long way — http://www.avaaz.org/en/.

ABOUT AVAAZ Avaaz.org is an independent, not-for-profit global campaigning organization that works to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people inform global decision-making. (Avaaz means “voice” in many languages.) Avaaz receives no money from governments or corporations, and is staffed by a global team based in Ottawa, London, Rio de Janeiro, New York, Buenos Aires, and Geneva. Click http://www.avaaz.org/en/ to learn more about our largest campaigns.

LEGISLATORS FOR SALE!

Sly hard sells Louie.

WOW!

Published on Tuesday, August 4, 2009 by Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann

LEGISLATORS FOR SALE by Keith Olbermann – VIDEO:

http://www.commondreams.org/video/2009/08/04

Thank you, Mr. Olbermann.

Thank you, CommonDreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/

CommonDreams.org is a national nonprofit, progressive, nonpartisan citizens’ organization founded in 1997 by political activists Craig Brown and his late wife, Lina Newhouser.  They are a powerful online voice for change in America.  With millions of monthly readers, they have become one of the top progressive websites.  Check it out.  Here’s a sample of their fare.

LOCALIZED MAYHEM:

Published on Tuesday, August 4, 2009 by The Nation

Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder by Jeremy Scahill.  A former Blackwater employee and an ex-Marine who worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia.  “The two men claim that the company’s owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company.  the former employee also alleges that Prince ‘views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,” and that Prince’s companies “encouraged and rewarded the destructionof Iraqi life.'”

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/04-9

THE GREEN GREEN HILLS ARE BLACK:

Published on Monday, August 3, 2009 by Canada.com

Carbon Credits: ‘Cure Worse Than the Disease’ by Kevin Dougherty.  Quebec – Carbon credits – to package and trade offsets to greenhouse gas emissions – won’t work, says McGill University economist Christopher Green, “rejecting the argument of Premier Jean Charest who wants the Montreal Exchange to be the carbon market for all of Canada.”

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/03-6

Published on Monday, August 3, 2009 by Inter Press Service

The Biggest Shift from North to South: ‘Time to De-Grow’ – Q&A: Claudia Ciobanu interviews economist Serge Latouche.  BUCHAREST –  He calls for “abandoning the objective of growth for growth’s sake, an insane objective, with disastrous consequences for the environment.”  The need for a de-growth society stems from the certainty that the earth’s resources and natural cycles cannot sustain the economic growth that is the essence of capitalism and modernity.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/03-2

Published on Monday, August 3, 2009 by The Guardian/UK

Will a Warmer World Make Us Sicker? by Roberta Kwok.  Scientists are piecing together how climate impacts disease, strange patterns are emerging: mosquito outbreaks can follow drought, shorter migrations can make butterflies sick, and more birds (not fewer) can ward off West Nile virus.  From Conservation magazine, part of the Guardian Environment Network.  In the late 1990s, a set of alarming maps created a stir in the scientific community. “Based on predictions by a team of Dutch and Australian researchers and initially published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, the maps charted how global warming could increase the risk of malaria in seemingly unlikely locales: northern countries such as Poland, the Netherlands, and Russia.”

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/03-3

Published on Monday, August 3, 2009 by The Independent/UK

Warning: Oil Supplies Are Running Out Fast by Steve Connor.  Catastrophic shortfalls threaten economic recovery, says world’s top energy economist.  “The world is heading for a catastrophic energy crunch that could cripple a global economic recovery because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a leading energy economist has warned.”

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/03

Published on Tuesday, August 4, 2009 by The Globe and Mail (Canada)

Modified Corn Seeds Sow Doubts by Martin Mittelstaedt.  Next spring, farmers in Canada will be able to sow one of the most complicated genetically engineered plants ever designed, a futuristic type of corn containing eight foreign genes.  “But a controversy has arisen over the new seeds, which were approved for use last month by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency: Health Canada hasn’t assessed their safety.”

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/04-5

Published on Tuesday, August 4, 2009 by The Guardian/UK

Crackdown Against ‘Environmental Criminals’ Follows Greenpeace Report by Damian Carrington and Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro.  Shoe Brands Get Tough on Leather Suppliers to Save Amazon Rainforest.  Some of the world’s top footwear brands, including Clarks, Adidas, Nike and Timberland, have demanded an immediate moratorium on destruction of the Amazon rainforest from their leather suppliers in Brazil.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/04-1

Published on Tuesday, August 4, 2009 by The Guardian/UK

Obama’s Green Credentials Tested by Battle Against Mountaintop Mining by Suzanne Goldenberg.  James Hansen and Darryl Hannah among those opposing open-cast coal extraction that destroys mountains and forests.  “Like other opponents of mountaintop removal, [they] had been counting on Obama, with his election promises of a clean energy economy, to shift the power balance away from coal. But those hopes evaporated in May when the EPA signed 42 permits for mountaintop removal while turning down only six — a higher ratio even than during the latter part of the George Bush presidency. Some 170 more permits are pending, according to the Sierra Club.”

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/04-2