READING FOR THE WEEKEND (Oct. 31, 2014)

Fellow Nobel Peace Laureates to Obama: Stain of U.S. torture is your job to repair (Common Dreams).

Casualties of The Gridiron ... a series of short story documentaries of retired NFL players who battle head trauma, crippling pain, and drug abuse (The Scene).

The crisis that changed Pope Francis, and the Catholic Church (Newsweek).

Idiot woman "improves" some of the country's most precious national parks with her "art" (Salon).


HALLOWEEN STUFF
13 facts you probably didn't know about Halloween (Business Insider).

Halloween trivia (Halloween Website).

Silly Halloween jokes for kids (RobynsFYI).

Silly Halloween jokes for the older crowd (Jokes4us).

THINGS WE SHOULD EMBRACE/CHEER
Unlike Walmart, Costco has no plans to cut employee benefits (Huffington Post).

What America can learn from Norway's success in regulating campaign finance (World.Mic).

How Germany managed to abolish university tuition fees (Epoch Times).


CONSERVATIVE  DELUSIONS ... AND REALITY 
Busted: More global warming denial "science" found to be unrealistic and inaccurate (Raw Story).

Standing tall in America. We're #1 ... When it comes to military budgets, knocking off wedding parties, military bases, etc. (Common Dreams).

Beautiful Disaster - The Republican hoax of the Texas Miracle (Progress Texas).

Kansas governor is forcing disabled people off Medicaid (Think Progress).

North Carolina's state of political hate (Center for Public Integrity).


INEQUALITY & SOCIAL MOBILITY
Grim numbers from the 2014 Global Wealth Report (Buzz Flash).

Compensation shrinks for all income groups - except the very highest (Al Jazeera).

7 things the middle class can't afford anymore (Wall St. Cheat Sheet).

Why can't we talk about social mobility (Prospect Magazine).


BRAZIL
Continuing Latin America's 'left turn,' Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff wins another term (Common Dreams).

In Brazilian city, homeless people face 'extermination' (Al Jazeera).


WHEN THE PRIVATE SECTOR HIDES BEHIND THE STATE
Jamie Dimon: U.S. must create a "safe harbor" where JPMorgan's corruption is not "punished" (William K. Black / New Economic Perspectives).

Booz Allen: the world's most profitable spy agency, or America's largest corporate welfare case (Bloomberg News)?

OK, this one's mine, but the taxpayer public subsidies for "private" market players pisses me off ... Why are we "privatizing" NASA (Mark Martinez Blog)?


MISCELLANEOUS
15 of the most awkward things to happen on a date (Huffington Post).

Dead babies near oil drilling sites raises questions for researchers (Denver Post).

For more teens, arrests by police replace school discipline (Wall Street Journal).

Paul Krugman's fear: "It's by no means clear" whether democracy or plutocracy will prevail in America (Salon).

- Mark

WHY ARE WE PRIVATIZING NASA?

Earlier this week the unmanned and "privately" owned Antares rocket exploded off the coast of Virginia after launch. The failed Antares launch is part of NASA's on-going effort to privatize our nation's space program.

Going up in smoke in the $200 million launch put together by contractor Orbital Sciences Corporation includes 5,000 pounds of cargo for the International Space Station (ISS), and extensive property damage to NASA's launch facilities.

Already beset by lengthy delays through its contracts with privately owned SpaceX, which ferries food, supplies, and scientific experiments to the orbiting laboratory, the Antares explosion raises many questions about NASA's plan to privatize space projects.

Let's start with this. If NASA is helping to subsidize Antares missions with NASA facilities, classified or proprietary information, and manpower what does this say about the "privatization" of space? How can a firm be private when NASA and the American taxpayer are underwriting "private" adventures, especially when they screw up so spectacularly?

Indeed, why should NASA, which has already given us the very successful Space Shuttle and Apollo missions suffer because a divided and inept Congress freezes budgets and argues over NASA's larger mission (but still finds the money to facilitate privatization)? Why is NASA helping a "private" company go through their data to help them find out why Antares exploded?  Who's paying for all this privatization?

Though NASA will continue doing business with the Orbital Sciences Corporations and ScienceX, here's my final question (in this post): With over 1,000 unmanned space missions carried out by more than 30 distinct NASA programs since 1958, why are we outsourcing unmanned missions - that NASA used to do in its sleep - to "private" companies that need massive federal support and subsidies to survive?

My regular readers, and those who have read my book, know the answer to this.

- Mark

THE U.S. COURT SYSTEM ... THE AVATAR OF THE RICH AND POWERFUL IN AMERICA?

After affirming that corporations are people who can spend as much as they want to voice their opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions in the Citizens United (2010) and McCutcheon (2014) cases continues to assault the integrity of democracy in America. It's also reinforcing the claim that "money is the mother's milk of politics."

Only this time the damaging effects of the two decisions are now creeping into our judicial system.

A team of independent researchers from the Emory University School of Law has released a stunning report - "Skewed Justice" - that documents the role of money in state judicial elections since the Citizens United decision came out in 2010. It's not good. The research documents two things:

1. CAMPAIGN ADS AFFECT JUDICIAL DECISIONS: The study found the more TV ads that aired during a state's supreme court judicial election season, the less likely justices are to vote in favor of criminal defendants. 

2. POLITICAL MONEY IMPACTS CRIMINAL DECISIONS: In states that once banned corporate and union spending on elections - bans that were removed by Citizens United - now have justices who are less likely to decide in favor of criminal defendants after the Citizens United decision.

Put another way, state level jurists - whether they acknowledge the trend or not - are being cowed by the threat of political ads because of the money powerful political and corporate interests can bring to the table. The impact this is having on our civil liberties is slow, but cannot be understated. As the authors of "Skewed Justice" note, "the influence of money has spread from civil cases to criminal cases, in which the fundamental rights of all Americans can be at stake."

Unfortunately, because of the corporate leanings of the Roberts-led U.S. Supreme Court, things aren't much better at the next level.

Writing in the NY Times, Thomas B. Edsall argues that the Roberts-led court has become a powerful legal escort for corporate and moneyed interests - a corporate and elite avatar, of sorts.

Political cartoon after the McCutcheon v. FEC, 2014.

Specifically, the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United (and then in McCutcheon) has effectively created a two-tiered system of justice in America - one for the well off, and one for the poor. By reaffirming that corporations are people, who can spend as much as they want, our nation's highest court has given corporate and financial elite groups a megaphone to make their political case.

By protecting and enhancing the political power of the rich when it comes to campaign finance, and then restricting the political leverage of the poor and minorities in voting rights cases, one thing has become clear: Our Roberts led U.S. Supreme Court is now taking sides, and don't care who sees it.

- Mark

WHAT'S WRONG WITH AMERICA? IT'S PRETTY SIMPLE

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D- MA), explaining what's wrong with democracy in America.

- Mark 

THIRD WORLD HEALTH CARE IN AMERICA - KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE EDITION

According to some very vocal members in the GOP, if you want great health care you need to stop being poor. From The Daily Show ...

The Daily Show

Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

- Mark 

KEEP THIS IN MIND WHEN YOU VOTE NEXT WEEK

If you want to see the accomplishments in chart form, click here.

- Mark 

IS LOUISIANA CONFISCATING PRIVATE LAND, AND HANDING IT TO BIG OIL? YOU BE THE JUDGE

By now many of you might have seen the two maps that show what's been happening to the state of Louisiana as the ocean creeps inward, and slowly absorbs portions of the state. In fact, since 1932 - according to the U.S. Geological Services - the state of Louisiana has lost just under 1,900 square miles of low lands to the Gulf of Mexico.

Louisiana's two states: The one we see in textbooks (left) and the one that's disappearing (right). 

This is the equivalent of losing the entire state of Delaware.

Yeah, I know Delaware's a small state, but it's still a state. Worse, Louisiana is poised to lose another 1,750 square miles to the ocean - an area larger than the state of Rhode Island - by  2064.

While losing your state to the ocean is a big deal, here's what's really bothering people in Louisiana. It turns out that as Louisiana sinks, farmers and families of the lost land are losing control of mineral rights to land that belonged to them but has been lost to eroding shorelines.

Worse, the families are losing their rights to the state of Louisiana, who says it has a public duty to seize land that sinks underwater, which they then hand over to the oil industry.

In Louisiana state law says that all 'navigable' water ways, and the land below it, be placed in the public trust, to be held and protected by the state of Louisiana (then we have the fracking-linked earthquakes and sinkholes in Louisiana; another story for another day).

There's much more to this story, which you can read here.

- Mark

THE REAL FRAUD BEHIND THE GOP'S VOTER ID LAWS EXPOSED BY REAGAN APPOINTED JUDGE

This should have been posted last week ...

For more on this story click here. For more on why voter ID laws have nothing to do with electoral fraud - and is really just an elections theft and voter intimidation tactic - click here, here, and here.

- Mark 

READING FOR THE WEEK (10-27-14)

Bring in the clowns ... oh, wait, they're already here. The House GOP's crumbling anti-Obama lawsuit (MSNBC).

The science behind why Fox News viewers are the most misinformed people in America ... authoritarian personalities have an emotional need for outlets that affirms what they already believe, and allow them to escape factual challenges to their beliefs (Alter Net).

Charter school power brokers turns public education into private profit centers (Nation of Change).

Drinking a 'medium' soda every day can age you as much as smoking (Mother Jones).


THIS STUFF SHOULDN'T BE HAPPENING
Man calls a suicide prevention hotline, SWAT team shows up and kills him (Free Thought Project).

Proposed Arizona law would allow employers to fire women for using whore pills (Jezebel).

Defense attorney: Vanderbilt football player was too drunk to rape (Jezebel).

Fox co-host says young women shouldn't vote or be on juries because "they don't get it" (Addicting Info).

Ooops ... Less than 4% of all Pakistanis killed by CIA drone strikes were listed as al-Qaeda members (Nation of Change).

Now congressional Republicans are digging through scientists' grant proposals (Mother Jones).

Texas detention center staff accused of sexual assault on women detained by the Department of Homeland Security for immigration (Russian Times).


VOTER ID CRAP
In Texas, it's easier to buy an assault weapon than to vote (Buzz Flash).

The next time someone says Voter ID laws don't keep people from voting, show them this (Addicting Info).

Texas election judge had to turn away 93-year-old veteran because of strict voter ID law (Think Progress).

With voter ID on hold, here's what Wisconsin Republicans have planned for election day (Think Progress).


CALIFORNIA DREAMING
Fracking threatens millions of Californians (Truth Out).

Sorry, California. Winter isn't going to fix your drought (Mother Jones).


THIS IS A GOOD START
Scientists just discovered how to determine if water contamination comes from fracking (Nation of Change).

Bolivia passes 'Law of Mother Earth' which gives rights to our planet as a living system (Bullhorn).

Let us all pray that at least Texas and Mississippi secede ... It's a start (Ring of Fire).


MISECELLANEOUS
Afghan Army Ranger veteran: Why do we keep thanking the troops (Common Dreams)?

This is what happens when the War on Drugs/Terror gets out of hand ... government seizure and extortion (Forbes).

The Impulse Society: How our growing desperation for instant connection is ruining us (Alter Net).

21 road rage facts and stats (Brandon Gaille).

- Mark

OBAMA vs. REAGAN, II: RESPONSES TO DEADLY VIRUSES

So, you want to criticize President Obama's response to Ebola?

FYI, here's the link to an earlier Reagan vs. Obama post on the economy. And, yeah, Obama's eating Reagan's lunch in that area too.

- Mark 

WHAT'S THE RISK OF CATCHING EBOLA?

Via NPR, we get the numbers explaining the risk of anyone contracting the Ebola virus in the United States ...

So, yeah, if you have friends or colleagues who buy into the Ebola hysteria you might want to get new friends (or try selling them a bridge in Iraq).

- Mark

NO, AMERICA DOES NOT HAVE THE BEST DEMOCRACY IN THE WORLD (perhaps the best money can buy, but not the best in the world)

What America can learn from Norway's success in regulating campaign finance ...

- Mark 

GOP & OBAMACARE ... THE WILIE COYOTE EXPERIENCE

I don't know who put this together, but this is funny ...

I have nothing to add.

- Mark 

THE UNFRIENDLY SKIES OF INEQUALITY

For those who don't like reading graphs and numbers on inequality in America, this helps us understand what's been happening to our economy and society over the past 40 years.

If this were a 2009-2010 airplane, we would probably see a few passengers being pushed out of the plane without a parachute ... with predictable results.

Just saying.

- Mark 

READING (10-23-14)

Which NFL team rules the U.S.? The geography of NFL fandom (The Atlantic).

How Germany managed to abolish university tuition fees (Truthout).

Zach Galifianakis says everything you want to say about Justin Bieber on "Between Two Ferns" (The Atlantic).

Holy Pornocopia, Batman ... The "Bible Belt" is the Porn Belt (Patheos)?


CONSERVATIVE MYOPIA
Conservatives continue to get Iraqi WMD story very wrong (MSNBC).

George W. Bush: The gift that keeps on giving (Truthout).


THINGS WE CONTINUE TO GET WRONG
$100 million in taxpayer subsidies to Big Oil promotes fracking in California (Buzz Flash).

The making of Ferguson: Long before the shooting of Michael Brown official racial-isolation policies created a powder keg (The American Prospect).

John Oliver on how America is turning its back on Middle Eastern translators who risked their lives (Truthdig).

President Obama putting key priorities on hold until after midterm elections (LA Times).

Journalist Risen: 'Mercenary Class' now a permanent fixture in National Security State (Bullhorn / Nation of Change).

IF THEY HATE US, THIS HELPS EXPLAIN WHY

Obama could reaffirm a Bush-era reading of a treaty on torture (NY Times).

Germany asked to send Ebola virus - along with other related diseases - to the U.S. Army. The Army declines to provide assurances that it will NOT 'weaponize' the virus (Russian Times).


A (SOMEWHAT) LONG BUT NECESSARY READ
The imperative of revolt (Chris Hedges / Truthdig).

VOTING AND THE SUPREME COURT
The U.S. Supreme Court allows Texas to use controversial voter-ID law (Washington Post).

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's critically important 5 a.m. wake-up call on voting rights (Slate).

Sweet irony ... An 1865 ruling in favor of Confederate soldiers just protected the vote for minorities in Arkansas (Slate).


AMERICAN DECLINE
The evaporation of democracy in America (Truthout).

The United States is #1 ... but in what (Truthout)?

Venezuela accorded a seat on the United Nations Security Council ... Washington suffers a setback to its prestige (Council on Hemispheric Affairs).

MISCELLANEOUS

23 things that could only exist in the Silicon Valley (Buzzfeed).

10 states most dependent on the federal government (Wall St. Cheat Sheet).

Judge deprives Monsanto of GM planting permit in Mexico, protects the bees (Nation of Change).

California Drought: Paradise Burning (The New Yorker).

Farms angry at Labor Department for cracking down on suspected labor abuses (Truthout).

- Mark

THE UNITED NATIONS: 69 YEARS OLD THIS WEEK

Below is animated map of how the United Nations has grown since its founding on October 24, 1945. Today the United Nations counts in with 193 nation-states as members.

_______________________________________________________

"UN member states animation" by Joowwww - Base image: Image:BlankMap-World-v7.png (Public domain) by Vardion

UN member join dates: http://www.un.org/members/growth.shtml

Changes in country borders: wikipedia:List of national border changes since World War I. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

_______________________________________________________

Interesting UN Trivia:

1. The Vatican (the Holy See) and Palestine have "Observer Status" while Intergovernmental Organizations - like the European Union, INTERPOL, and the International Criminal Court - are invited to participate as permanent members.

2. Taiwan is not a member of the United Nations but a Somalia is.

3. The Coca Cola company claims to have a presence in over 200 countries. Go figure.

- Mark

MINIMUM WAGE NOT A DOOR OPENING ENTRY WAGE ... IT'S AN ANCHOR WAGE FOR THE WORKING POOR

Fortune's Rick Ungar has an interesting article on Chris Christie's collapsing (collapsed?) presidential hopes. The interesting point of the article is what Ungar has to say about minimum wage. In a few words he makes it clear that at least 2/3 of our nation's more than 3.5 million minimum wage earners are young women.

___________________________________

What's interesting here is how our minimum wage demographics has changed.

FiveThirtyEight's Ben Casselman writes that in 1990 nearly 25 percent of minimum wage earners were teenagers, or people trying to supplement their income. Today, just 13 percent of our nation's minimum wage earners fit this category. Taking this to another level, census data shows that more than half of all workers who earn below President Obama's proposed $10.10 minimum wage are trying to support themselves.

In spite of what pundits and conservative politicians are saying, minimum wage is not an opening door entry wage for America's youth. It's a way of life anchor that's weighing down America's working poor.

So, once again, a rising tide does not lift all boats. With record corporate earnings and profits - especially in the financial sector - it's clear that tax cuts for the rich (a.k.a. "trickle down" economics) is a farce. It always has been.

- Mark 

DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA

How the top 1% shop on line ...

- Mark 

YOU KNOW YOU'RE IN WHINE COUNTRY WHEN ...

You know you're living in Whine Country when your local news stories include complaints from whiny millionaire peasants like this ...

- Mark 

PAYDAY LOANS AND WEALTH EXTRACTION IN AMERICA

How we punish the poor for being poor: The case of predatory subprime auto loans and financial fee games are reviewed here in Talk Poverty. It's really just wealth extraction, with the poor getting the short end of the stick (again). Here's John Oliver's humorous but sad take on payday loans ...

- Mark

FOR THE CONSPIRACY THEORY BUFFS OUT THERE ... ANOTHER ANTI-PETRODOLLAR CHIEFTAN DIES

Quick, what did Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, and France's Christophe de Margerie, the now former CEO of Total have in common? They all pondered a world where petroleum was no longer paid for in U.S. dollars.

One more thing. They're all dead now.

The Russian Times is reporting that Christophe de Margerie was among four people killed in a business jet crash in Moscow. The plane hit a snowplow on take-off.

Three months ago the CEO of Total - the 13th largest oil company in the world - Christophe de Margerie not only said "There is no reason to pay for oil in dollars" but also made it clear that he was interested in pursuing a natural gas project with sanctioned-drenched Russia.

While initial reports suggest that the reasons for the plane crash seem "obvious" the fact that Christophe de Margerie did not fully embrace the petrodollar politics surrounding global oil markets raises many issues that the conspiracy theory buffs will be sure to jump on.

Stay tuned.

- Mark 

TIME TO PANIC ... THE EBOLA VIRUS OF IGNORANCE IS SPREADING ACROSS THE U.S.

This is what happens when hysteria meets ignorance. Hundreds of parents in Mississippi removed their kids from school because the principal of the school visited Zambia, an independent nation-state on the African continent.

Let's start with this. Africa is a phenomenally large continent (no Sarah Palin, it's not a country). You could fit China, India, the continental United States, and a host of popular European nation-states on the African continent, and still have space left over for other countries.

In political terms, Zambia is about 9 or 11 countries (depending on your level of hysteria) removed from the Ebola outbreak region. In terms of distance, that's about 5,000 miles, as the crow flies. To give you an idea what this means, Mississippi is closer to drug and civil war ravaged Colombia (2,150 miles) and Bolivia (3,750 miles) than Zambia is to Sierra Leone.

Here's another crucial point. Zambia is Ebola-free.

But none of this matters. In America's petri dish of infectious media hysteria, what's one to do when ignorance mixes with such media sensationalism?

Here's the reality. People in Mississippi should be more concerned about their chances of contracting the measles from someone in Ohio (about 800 miles away), where there are over 130 reported cases of people infected with a virus that was once thought to be eradicated in the United States. The reason the measles has reappeared in Ohio - and in other parts of the United States - is a direct result of ignorance and media hysteria surrounding vaccines that gripped America about 20 years ago.

So, yeah, we never learn.

And lest people begin to point and laugh at Mississippi - recently ranked as the second most racist and second least educated state in the union - consider this: A teacher in Maine was prohibited from returning to the classroom after visiting Dallas, Texas.

Sigh.

- Mark

P.S.  One more thing. If you really want to know what's going to spread stuff like Ebola it's how the virus of political ignorance has hit states like Texas, which you can read about here.

3 CHARTS NO BANK WANTS YOU TO SEE ... ESPECIALLY BANK OF AMERICA

With the 85th anniversary of "Black Tuesday" and "Black Thursday" (1929) around the corner, many of you will find the 3 charts below interesting, and a bit disturbing ...

Bank clients crowd around, hoping to get their money out of the bank, 1929.

Over the years I've posted many times on the 2008 market collapse, the subsequent bailouts, and what they mean for the American economy. Remember this "the banks are really bankrupt" chart from Bloomberg View?

CHART #1: Bank profits collapse without government agency sponsored subsidies.

I originally posted Chart #1 over a year and a half ago as a part of a larger story to help illustrate how much our nation's biggest banks depend on taxpayer subsidized bailouts, credits, and other guarantees. Drawing from an International Monetary Fund (IMF) sponsored report, Bloomberg View put together some pretty scary numbers that tell us our nation's biggest banks would be virtually bankrupt without financial support from agencies sponsored by the federal government (specifically, the Federal Reserve and Treasury).

To repeat, our nation's biggest banks are probably bankrupt, but our trillion dollar subsidy and bailout programs keep them afloat.

Are you with me so far? Good, because it gets worse the closer we look. Check out this chart from Zero Hedge.

CHART #2: Bank of America spends almost $30 billion defending their practices.

This chart tells us what Bank of America has been spending on litigation since 2011. It adds up to almost $30 billion dollars.

Worse, as Zero Hedge points out, these litigation expenditures are not "one-time" or "non-recurring" expenses. They are regular and recurring cash outlays that are used to defend or pay off criminal activities that are "now an ordinary course of business" for Bank of America.

How does $30 billion in litigation costs stack up to Bank of America's net income between 2011 and 2014? Zero Hedge has an easy to read chart that explains it all. And it's not pretty.
 

CHART #3: Bank of America spends more defending itself than it has earned since (Q4) 2011. 

In a few words, between 2011 and 2014, Bank of America has spent more defending its criminal or incompetent practices in court than it has made during this period (in the FYI category, BofA has been doing stuff like this for some time now).

For those of you keeping score at home, this is what we have.

America's biggest banks are effectively bankrupt without federal subsidies (Chart #1).

Bank of America is spending billions of dollars defending criminal activities in court (Chart #2).

Bank of America has spent more money defending itself in court than they earned over the past 3 years (Chart #3).

I really can't add much more to this.

- Mark

ADDENDUM: For those of you looking for a great chart that ties federal assistance to market performance (and market declines) check out the chart in this post. We are living on borrowed time.

READING FOR THE WEEK (10-19-14)

How to recognize them: A visual history of the most popular market tops and bottoms (Zero Hedge).

Robert Reich: Why is the government subsidizing the 1 percent of colleges and universities (Alter Net)?

I lost my dad to Fox News: How a generation was captured by thrashing hysteria (Salon).

Neil deGrasse Tyson rips start-up culture: "Society has bigger problems than what can be solved with your next app" (Salon).

DOLLAR HEGEMONY ON THE ROPES
Defying the dollar ... Russia and China agree to currency swaps of over $20 billion (Russian Times).

BRICs establish $100 billion bank and currency pool to cut out western dominance (Russian Times).

BRICs agree to capitalize development bank at $100 billion (Russian Times).

Europe getting fed up with U.S. business influence (Russian Times).

Voiceprint harvesting - the next frontier in data privacy war (Russian Times).


STUFF WE SHOULD ALL BE TALKING ABOUT
It's a fake, fake, fake world (Nation of Change).

Ebola vaccine likely would have been found if not for the budget cuts (Huffington Post).

For Bank of America crime is now an ordinary course of business (Zero Hedge).

Elizabeth Warren on Barack Obama: "They protected Wall Street. Not families who were losing their homes. Not people who lost their jobs. And it happened over and over" (Salon).

Confirmed: California aquifers contaminated with billions of gallons of fracking water (Desmogblog).


TAKING OVER THE CURRICULUM?
Changes in AP history trigger culture clash in Colorado (Washington Post).

Denver students walk out in protest of conservative takeover of curriculum (Nation of Change).

Jefferson County school board isn't backing down in AP history fight (Daily Kos).


WHEN THE LAW SCREWS UP
Police chief receives probation for lying to FBI about sexual assault (Nation of Change).

Judge denies woman delay for maternity leave, then berates her for bringing baby to court (Huffington Post).

Yes, it's legal to film the cops --- and what's been filmed recently is appalling (Huffington Post).


MISCELLANEOUS
The police report from the Palin family brawl is full of crazy details (Huffington Post).

Key figures in CIA-crack cocaine scandal begin to come forward (Huffington Post).

Howard Dean slams Rick Perry as know nothing 'ignoramus' on Ebola (Crooks and Liars).

Google leads a corporate exodus from lobbying group ALEC (Nation of Change).

Matthew Shepard's parents: Why we didn't push for the death penalty for our son's killers(Gay Star News).

- Mark

EBOLA'S FIRST U.S. CASUALTY ... A VICTIM OF OUR HEALTH CARE SYSTEM TOO?

It turns out that Thomas Eric Duncan, the first man to die of Ebola in America, may have been a victim of America's health care system too.

In a letter to the Dallas News the family of Mr. Duncan writes that he first showed up at Dallas' Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital with a 103-degree fever, complaining of stomach pains. He also told the staff that he had been in Liberia, but left the country to be with family in the U.S. because of the Ebola threat.

But Mr. Duncan had a problem. He had no insurance.

He was released from Presbyterian Hospital with some antibiotics and Tylenol, and a 103-degree fever. The hospital is still not willing to discuss what happened the first time Duncan visited their Emergency Room. He would return two days later in an ambulance, vomiting and incontinent.

The difference between immediate treatment and non-treatment can be seen in how Duncan's nurse, Nina Pham, is doing and how things turned out for Mr. Duncan.

Mr. Duncan's family is now speaking out, in the hopes that no other family has to go through what they are going through now. Josephus Weeks, a U.S. Army and Iraq War veteran, has written the family's response to the media hype here.

Mr. Weeks is also Mr. Duncan's nephew.

One final thought. If the media gave as much attention to why Duncan was initially turned away as they are currently devoting to scaring America about the virus I'm guessing that our health care discussion would take a whole new turn.

- Mark 

OUR EBOLA SHINY SPOON MOMENT

Look at this and think about what you see ...

Does anyone see Ebola on this bubble chart list? Neither do I.

If you want a virus to fear try the measles. To date there have been a record 594 cases of measles reported in the U.S. All you need to do to increase your chances of contracting the measles - which was virtually eliminated from the U.S. 20 years ago - is to make sure you haven't been vaccinated, and go to the five (5) states where MMR vaccination hysteria reduced the "herd immunity" rate to less than 90 percent of the population.

Look, at the end of the day the media hysteria surrounding Ebola in America reminds me of the tabloid-like Summer of the Shark stories right before 9/11. It was quite pathetic. Many members of the media later apologized and promised to do better in the future.

They tried but learned that contemplation and thoughtful news presentation doesn't generate the viewership that hysteria does. Today's media hype over Ebola suggests we might as well let The Simpson's Kent Brockman report the news to us.

 As you can imagine, Fox News is leading the way ...

So, yeah, we're looking at shiny spoons, again.

Sigh ...

- Mark

* For the Ebola hypochondriacs out there this NY Times piece has some good hysteria reducing information.

* In case you're wondering, fear of being involved in a terrorist attack makes America pretty stupid too.

THE FED'S "TOUGH LOVE" POLICY - AND ITS REPUTATION - IS VIRTUALLY WORTHLESS ... HERE'S THE PROOF

Via Zero Hedge, we learn that in a speech on October 9, 2014 Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said that market players were making a mistake if they believed that the Federal Reserve would continue dumping cheap money into the economy every time the Dow Jones hiccups.

His tough love posture had him recommending that market players begin to recognize that the Fed was serious about removing its artificial crutch (low interest rates) that has created the conditions for markets to surge, saying "We should be willing to remove some accommodation ...".

Then something happened. The markets began to tank.

With markets tanking, on October 16th Mr. Bullard reaffirmed everything many of us have known for years. The Federal Reserve is really the only thing keeping the stock market inflated, commenting "if the market's right and this [market downturn] is portending something more serious for the U.S. economy, then the [Fed Open Market] committee would have an option of ramping up QE at that point."

Translation: We're willing to dump more money into the market.

And just like that, the stock market begins to recover.

Two things here. First, we're living in a Fed created market bubble. Period.

Second, if the Fed's new tough love policy - articulated by Mr. Bullard on October 9th - is any indication of their commitment to getting things right, we're screwed. I'd like to say that Congress needs to take over but they're probably more lost than the Fed when it comes to knowing what to do about our market situation. Their response to 2008 makes this much clear.

With trillions already committed to the next bailout, we're now inflating our way into a bubble collapse that will make 2008 seem like child's play.

- Mark 

WHICH CITY IN YOUR STATE MATCHES YOUR POLITICS?

Which town matches your liberal-conservative politics in each state. Click on the map in the link for a huge map ...

- Mark 

ONE BOOK BAKERSFIELD / ENRIQUE'S JOURNEY

For those of you in the Kern County / Bakersfield area ... Tonight I'll be one of the panelists discussing Enrique's Journey at St. Francis Catholic Church.

I hope to see you there.

- Mark 

CORPORATE OIL ESTIMATES ... ALL SMOKE & MIRRORS?

We're sitting on 10 billion barrels of oil! OK, make that two. What the fracking boom is doing to the corporate oil estimate game.

In the FYI category, here's the list of "proved reserves" versus "resource potential" held by 73 publicly traded exploration-and-production oil companies, as reported by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

- Mark