How Sheriff Paul Babeu Inflated The Story Of His Wounded Deputy

Amplify’d from tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com

Experts are now seriously questioning Pinal County Sheriff's Deputy Louie Puroll's much-hyped tale of being shot by drug smugglers in a remote part of the Arizona desert. But even if every detail of Puroll's story is true, it still does not square with many of the claims the Sheriff's office has peddled about the case.

The department says the original criminal investigation "had concluded and the facts of the case confirmed the accounts of the event as Deputy Puroll described." And though the case has now been reopened, Babeu told local news this week that he "absolutely" still believes his deputy. Beside Puroll and his alleged attackers, who were never found, there were no other witnesses to the event.

But in the immediate aftermath of the April incident, and to this day, Sheriff Paul Babeu and the department have made statements about the event that clash with the recorded account that Puroll gave to detectives on May 6, and which was released to the public in early July (audio here). These statements have included exaggerations and unverified information, and have been repeated often by Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu as his national profile has grown as a voice on border security. Some of the claims have been walked back. Others have not. Read more at tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com

 

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The War Addicts - 2016 and Then Some

Amplify’d from www.tomdispatch.com

Sometimes it’s the little things in the big stories that catch your eye.  On Monday, theWashington Post ran the first of three pieces adapted from Bob Woodward’s new book Obama’s Wars, a vivid account of the way the U.S. high command boxed the Commander-in-Chief into the smallest of Afghan corners.  As an illustration, the Post included a graphic the military offered President Obama at a key November 2009 meeting to review war policy.  It caught in a nutshell the favored “solution” to the Afghan War of those in charge of fighting it -- Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General David Petraeus, then-Centcom commander, General Stanley McChrystal, then-Afghan War commander, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, among others.

Labeled “Alternative Mission in Afghanistan,” it’s a classic of visual wish fulfillment.  Atop it is a soaring green line that represents the growing strength of the notoriously underwhelming “Afghan Forces,” military and police, as they move toward a theoretical goal of 400,000 -- an unlikely “end state” given present desertion rates.  Underneath that green trajectory of putative success is a modest, herky-jerky blue curving line, representing the 40,000 U.S. troops Gates, Petraeus, Mullen, and company were pressuring the president to surge into Afghanistan.

The eye-catching detail, however, was the dating on the chart.  Sometime between 2013 and 2016, according to a hesitant dotted white line (that left plenty of room for error), those U.S. surge forces would be drawn down radically enough to dip somewhere below -- don’t gasp -- the 68,000 level.  In other words, three to six years from now, if all went as planned -- a radical unlikelihood, given the Afghan War so far -- the U.S. might be back close to the force levels of early 2009, before the President’s second surge was launched.  (When Obama entered office, there were only 31,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.)

And when would those troops dwindle to near zero?  2019?  2025?  The chart-makers were far too politic to include the years beyond January 1, 2016, so we have no way of knowing.  But look at that chart and ask yourself: Is there any doubt that our high command, civilian and military, were dreaming of, and most forcefully recommending to the president, a forever war -- one which the Office of Budget and Management estimated would cost almost $900 billion?

Of course, as we now know, the military “lost” this battle.  Instead of the 40,000 troops they desired, they “only” got 30,000 from a frustrated president (plus a few thousand support troops the Secretary of Defense was allowed to slip in, and some special operations forces that no one was putting much effort into counting, and don’t forget those extra troops wrung out of NATO as well as small allies who, for a price, couldn’t say no -- all of which added up to a figure suspiciously close to the 10,000 the president had officially denied his war commanders).

When, on December 1, 2009, Barack Obama addressed the cadets of West Point and, through them, the rest of us to announce the second surge of his presidency, he was at least able to slip in a date to begin a drawdown of U.S. forces.  (“But taken together, these additional American and international troops will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces, and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011.”)  Hardly a nanosecond passed, however, before -- first “on background” and soon enough in public -- administration spokespeople rushed to reassure the rest of Washington that such a transfer would be “conditions based.” Given conditions there since 2001, not exactly a reassuring statement.

Meanwhile, days before the speech, Afghan war commander McChrystal was already hard at work stretching out the time of the drawdown date the president was still to announce.  It would, he claimed, begin “sometime before 2013.”  More recently, deified new Afghan War commander General David Petraeus has repeatedly assured everyone in sight that none of this drawdown talk will add up to a hill of beans. Read more at www.tomdispatch.com

 

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Despite Dearth Of Evidence, Right Wing Voter Fraud Fear Machine Carries On

Amplify’d from tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com

Remember the dire warnings and shrill allegations of voter fraud surrounding the 2008 election? That ACORN would steal it, that the New Black Panthers were intimidating voters, that fraud across the county would be "rampant?"

They never panned out. ACORN no longer exists. (Although that hasn't stopped 20 percent of the American public from believing they'll try to steal the election.) The DOJ found that the New Black Panthers incident was isolated -- although that case found new life in allegations against the Justice Department itself (more on that below). A five-year effort by the Bush DOJ to weed out fraud, an effort the Obama team said was designed to suppress minority voter turnout, turned up "virtually no evidence."

Voter fraud "exists, and anyone who denies it has no credibility," J. Christian Adams told TPMmuckraker recently. "But it doesn't affect the outcome of elections as much as people say. I don't think that if there's 100 or 1,000 dead voters in, let's say, Texas ... I don't think it's going to affect the outcome of statewide elections."

And yet, with all the evidence against them, the fearmongers of voter fraud -- a mantle most recently taken up by the tea party -- soldier on.

Then there's former ACORN employee Anita MonCrief, a self-described whistleblower who's making the right-wing conference circuit and urging tea partiers to take up the cause of voter fraud. They should keep an eye on places like welfare offices and bus stops, she says, where liberal vote-stealers look for marks. As she tells it, the successors of ACORN use diversity as a ploy.

"I called it 'Operation Darkie Shield,'" she said at one recent conference. Read more at tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com

 

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Study Shows BP Oil Spill Could Have Been Prevented by Regulation

Amplify’d from inhabitat.com

A new report by Member Scholars of the Center for Progressive Reform on the principle cause of the Gulf Coast Oil Spill concludes that the spill was entirely preventable and points blame at regulatory agencies, BP and the oil industry for not being vigilant about warning signs. The study points its biggest finger at incredibly lax oversight by the now defunct government agency in charge of regulating offshore drilling, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) — which has been replaced by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. It notes that a policy of precautionary measures against known risks — however, slight — could have easily prevented the biggest environmental disaster in American history.

“BP is responsible for this disaster, without question,” said study co-author Alyson Flournoy, CPR Member Scholar and law professor at the University of Florida. “But the Minerals Management Service’s permissive approach to its regulatory responsibilities together with inadequate legislative mandates for safety and environmental protection, and Congress’s inadequate funding of MMS created an environment that allowed BP to take shortcuts with safety, with disastrous results.” The study goes on to say that instead of doing their own research into the best safety techniques for the industry to prevent disasters MMS just adopted the industry standard. Therefore, the industry wasn’t pushed by regulation to create new safer technology. Read more at inhabitat.com

 

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The Foreclosure Scandal

Amplify’d from motherjones.com

I haven't posted yet about the news that thousands of delinquent homeowners are being booted out of their houses in special "expedited" courtrooms using flimsy and often fraudulent documentation produced by foreclosure mills that handle thousands of cases with factory-like efficiency. Part of the reason is that lousy documentation aside, it wasn't clear to me how many people were actually being unfairly evicted. Mike Konczal sets me straight:

I was raised by a family in law enforcement, and as such, I tend to think people who are arrested are usually guilty. And I think that the people who are ending up inside the Florida bankruptcy courts are usually going to be people that shouldn’t be in their homes. It’s because of the fact that I and others usually believe this to be true that I think due process and the trust in the process of our courts is so incredibly important. It’s necessary to force the parties at hand to marshall evidence that they swear is true, and to present it to an impartial judge to render judgment after full consideration. This is America, where everyone gets a chance before the court. If this breaks, the weak and the innocent are the ones who suffer.

This is right. It's precisely when we're absolutely sure that someone is guilty that we need to be most careful about making sure we actually prove it. Beyond that, as Mike points out in the rest of his post, virtually all of these foreclosure problems could probably be resolved quickly and fairly amicably if banks were simply willing to share the loss with the homeowner. But they're not, and neither Congress nor the president has been willing to change the law to encourage this. It's all about protecting the banks, not anyone else. Read more at motherjones.com

 

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Jon Stewart On Dems Not Voting On Tax Cuts: 'We Came, We Saw, We Sucked' (VIDEO)

Amplify’d from tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com

Jon Stewart said last night that he's heard a lot about the enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans this election cycle, which he said amounts to this:

Salivating Republicans are already camping out in front of the polls like they're waiting for the next Harry Potter book, while Democrats remain at home watching tapes of Obama's 2004 "red and blue America" speech, weeping and kicking Funion dust out of their belly buttons.

But, as Stewart pointed out, a "no-brainer" for the Democrats might be to pass the middle class tax cuts right before the election -- but House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said that wouldn't happen. Stewart knew why: "Because we suuuuuuuck. We came, we saw, we suck."

See more at tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com

 

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Rupert Murdoch Defends Fox News’ Immigration Coverage While Calling For Path To Legalization

Amplify’d from thinkprogress.org

Today, Fox News Channel owner Rupert Murdoch testified before the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law Membership on the “Role of Immigration in Strengthening America’s Economy.” In his testimony, Murdoch called for comprehensive immigration reform which includes a path to citizenship that brings 11-12 million new people into the U.S. tax base. According to Murdoch, “it’s impossible to secure our borders without an overall package of reforms”:

Our partnership advocates reform that gives a path to citizenship to responsible, law-abiding immigrants who are in the U.S. today without proper authority. It is nonsense to talk about expelling 11 or 12 million people. Not only is it impractical, it is cost-prohibitive. A study this year put the cost of mass deportation at $285 billion over five years. There are better ways to spend our money. [...] A full path to legalization: requiring unauthorized immigrants to register, undergo a security check, pay taxes, and learn English would bring these immigrants out of a shadow economy and into our tax base. According to one study, a path to legalization would contribute an estimated $1.5 trillion to the gross domestic product over ten years.

Earlier this year, Murdoch indicated that the media should be involved in the push for comprehensive immigration reform. However, Fox News employees don’t seem to agree. The Wonk Room shows that more than any other network, Fox News has repeatedly and consistently advocated against immigration reform and referred to Murdoch’s proposal as “amnesty.”

See more at thinkprogress.org

 

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No net neutrality plan from Congress, so now what?

Amplify’d from arstechnica.com

Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) has thrown in the towel on net neutrality—at least for now. The Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee says he can't get any Republican support for his widely reported draft legislation on Open Internet rules.

"With great regret, I must report that Ranking Member Barton [R-TX] has informed me that support for this legislation will not be forthcoming at this time," Waxman declared in a statement sent to the press. "This development is a loss for consumers and a gain only for the extremes. We need to break the deadlock on net neutrality so that we can focus on building the most open and robust Internet possible." Read more at arstechnica.com

 

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80 Percent of Global Water Supplies at Risk

Amplify’d from news.nationalgeographic.com

River biodiversity and our water security are in serious trouble, according to a comprehensive survey of waterways released yesterday. At risk are the water supplies of nearly 80 percent of humanity, and two-thirds of the world's river habitats.

Hotspots of concern include nearly the whole of Europe, the Indian subcontinent, eastern China, southern Mexico, and the United States east of the Rockies.

But experts say there may be hope for restoring rivers and securing future water needs for cities, farms, energy production, industry—and for ecosystems—by "working with nature."

"We, as a global society, are taking very poor care of water resources," said survey co-leader Peter McIntyre, a zoologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. (See the UW website about the report.)

Rivers, wetlands, lakes, and the life that relies on them, are at risk around the world because of a variety of stresses, including overuse of water, pollution, introduction of exotic species, and overfishing, according to the new study, published today in the journal Nature.

The study maps out all of these stresses and nearly two dozen more; it is the first such detailed map of the threats to human water security and river biodiversity. (See our rivers photogallery.) Read more at news.nationalgeographic.com

 

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Black Wednesday for US Workers

Amplify’d from motherjones.com

For the American labor force, Wednesday was a brutal day in the US Senate. You can thank the Republican Party for that. In the waning days of the Senate's session, extensions of long-term unemployment insurance and an emergency fund subsidizing jobs around the country were blocked by GOP senators.

The unemployment insurance extension would've made it possible for jobless workers in states with high unemployment to collect 119 weeks of benefits. The current cut-off point is 99 weeks, the most in recent history. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) had for months pushed to add another 20 weeks onto the available 99 in states with 7.5 percent unemployment or higher. Joining her in demanding more relief for jobless workers were the "99ers," those out of work Americans who've exhausted all of their support funds and now have no safety net at all. But it was Sen. George LeMieux (R-Fl.) who stood in their way. LeMieux said Stabenow's proposal would add to the country's $13.5 trillion deficit and thus wasn't feasible:

"Without knowing how much it is going to cost and how we're going to pay for it, while we're all certainly sympathetic and want to work to make people go back to work—my home state of Florida certainly suffering with very high unemployment—we need to know how we're going to pay for it so we don't put this debt on our children and grandchildren."

Stabenow countered by saying, "The reality for us in America is that we will never get out of debt with more than 15 million people out of work." But the Michigan senator's request for unanimous approval of the extension was rejected. And with Republicans, uninterested in more jobless benefits, sure to gain seats in the House and Senate this fall, if not win one or both chambers, we've likely seen the last of Stabenow's proposal. Read more at motherjones.com

 

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VICTORIA AMAZONICA

Amplify’d from atlasobscura.com

This gigantic waterlily, also known as Victoria amazonica, can be found in the waters of the Amazon. At a stunning growth rate of six inches per day, this waterlily is a shocking display of botanic wonder. The leaves are said to be strong enough to support a human, and can grow up to seven feet in diameter.

Because of the conditions needed for the Victoria amazonica to grow, they are rarely found to survive more than a year outside of the Amazon. They thrive in hot, humid weather, and as the waters in the Amazon rise and fall, the stems must grow to keep up with the change.

In addition to magnificent leaves, the flowers that are produced bloom in the night blooming and scent the air. Female flowers, which are white, turn into male, pink flowers and are pollinated by beetles. Read more at atlasobscura.com

 

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Obama and the Progressive Paradox

Amplify’d from www.truthdig.com

A couple of hours before President Barack Obama offered a boffo revival of his 2008 campaign persona during a boisterous rally at the University of Wisconsin, Sen. Bernie Sanders was analyzing why the president was in a political pickle in the first place.

Sanders, the independent from Vermont who caucuses with the Democrats, speaks warmly of Obama. But unlike the man in the White House, Sanders actually is a socialist and believes devoutly in grass-roots, class-based politics.

And it is his faith in the power of a progressive movement organized around a clear set of commitments that lies at the heart of Sanders’ critique of where the president went wrong.

“Think back to two years ago,” Sanders said during an interview in the only Senate office decorated with a medallion of Eugene V. Debs, the legendary American Socialist leader. “There were rallies involving 80,000 to 100,000. Obama was running the best campaign I’ve seen in my lifetime—and I’m pretty critical.”

“Why are we where we are today?” he continues. “The most serious mistake the president made was not, in a sense, continuing the thrust of his campaign, and forgetting all he accomplished.”

Sanders does not discount what Obama and congressional Democrats achieved through the economic stimulus, health care and financial reform. But he argues that by replacing a mobilizing approach and clear progressive goals with an insider strategy aimed at compromising with a few moderate Republican senators, Obama deactivated his own enthusiasts. These are the very people the president was trying to motivate in Madison.

“While Obama and the Democrats have a large number of achievements, it was not enough,” said Sanders. “We needed to be bolder.”

Yet Sanders will do all he can to help Democrats win this fall, and therein lies the paradox for progressives. It’s true that many on the left are frustrated with White House calls for them to buck up and grow up. Jane Hamsher, who blogs at Firedoglake, sees the administration’s taunts as setting up the left as a “fall guy” if Democrats lose.

But progressives keenly understand how much their aspirations would be set back if an increasingly right-wing Republican Party wins one or both houses this fall. Read more at www.truthdig.com

 

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I.H.T. Special Report: Global Clean Energy | A Healthier, More Efficient Way to Cook

Amplify’d from www.nytimes.com

NEW DELHI — In tens of millions of homes in rural India, the kitchen is a cramped space with walls blackened by soot from open fire hearths.

Women spend hours every day in unventilated spaces cooking meals over smoky fires fueled by wood, dung and other biomass, often with small children in tow. The daily routine of inhaling toxic fumes is exacerbated by the long blow pipes that women use to keep cook fires burning.

This everyday scene has deadly consequences. Each year more than 1.5 million people worldwide die prematurely from lung cancer, emphysema, childhood pneumonia and other ailments caused by indoor air pollution — fumes from open cooking fires — according to the World Health Organization. In addition, millions of tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are generated every year because about three billion people worldwide rely on open cooking fires.

The easy solution would be to switch to cleaner fuel, like liquefied petroleum gas or kerosene. But these fuels are too expensive for many people in developing countries. Groups like Envirofit, a nonprofit organization based in Colorado, are offering another solution: clean cookstoves.

Envirofit says that its stoves reduce harmful emissions 80 percent compared with traditional cooking fires, use 60 percent less fuel and cut cooking time 50 percent. In addition to creating a healthier environment at home, women and children can devote less time to foraging for fuel.

Ron Bills, chief executive of Envirofit, first visited southern India in 2007 and saw how village women coped with the laborious task of cooking a meal. “You could see a woman blowing into a pipe to keep the fire lit, breathing smoke with a child in tow,” said Mr. Bills, formerly the chief executive of Segway, the maker of electric two-wheeled personal transporters. In the developed world “cooking a meal is something we take for granted. You just turn on the gas on your stove or turn on a microwave.”

Envirofit’s cylindrical metal stove looks like a lobster kettle or a small bucket. Wood or biomass is fed into an opening at the base of the stove and burned. Pots and pans rest on top. Simple as it looks, however, the design is based on five years of market research and a program of research, development and testing involving the Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory at Colorado State University, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and the Shell Foundation.

The push for clean cookstoves to reduce indoor air pollution was elevated from a public health backwater to a high place on the global agenda last week, when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton of the United States kicked off the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves in New York, at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative. The $60 million public-private campaign, led by the United Nations Foundation, aims to have 100 million households using clean, efficient cookstoves by 2020.

“Today we can finally envision a future in which open fires and dirty stoves are replaced by clean, efficient and affordable stoves and fuels all over the world — stoves that still cost as little as $25,” Mrs. Clinton said. “By upgrading these dirty stoves, millions of lives could be saved and improved.”

Through its commercially operated Indian division, Envirofit has sold more than 150,000 portable cookstoves in India, priced at $12 to $25.

Customers typically are people making $2 to $10 a day, but about 95 percent of stoves are bought in cash without loans. Read more at www.nytimes.com

 

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No, no, no. Of *course* Fox News isn’t trying to scare white folks.

Amplify’d from www.angryblacklady.com

As for hip-hop, Obama has mostly listened to Jay-Z, but he’s thrown a little Nas and L’il Wayne in the mix as of late because his aide, Reggie Love — really!  his name is Reggie Love!! — is helping him improve his “rap palate.”1

So guess how Fox Nation2 portrayed Obama’s musical tastes?

Well, like this, obvs:

Really Fox?  Re-heally?

Um, so… anyway…

I don’t really remember what the point of this post was…

Oh yeah.  Fuck you, Fox News.

Also?

2 Fox News’ response?  That Fox Nation and Fox News are “very much separate.”  Except when Fox News and Fox Nation are very much inseparable. Read more at www.angryblacklady.com

 

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Rand's Medical Group: Obama Hypnotized Voters

Voodoo powers? Seriously? What, did Rand Paul get baked and only make it half-way through LIVE AND LET DIE?

Amplify’d from www.rollingstone.com

So I was a little caught off-guard when my latest piece in the magazine, "Tea & Crackers," came out yesterday and I suddenly started getting scads of mail, both of the pro- and anti- variety. In my mind's eye I somehow thought it was coming out today or Thursday. In any case, there have been a couple of developments on the Rand Paul front since I wrote that piece, the biggest one being this AAPS story. The best writeup I've seen is by a very sharp guy I met while I was down in Louisville, Joe Gerth of the Courier-Journal.

Gerth wrote a story that hilariously reports that Paul is a member of a lunatic organization called the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. The AAPS is a group that was founded as a sort of alternative to the AMA, a group that many conservative doctors dislike. Rand Paul's mouthpiece, Jesse Benton, claims Rand's interest in the organization is limited to its opposition to non-market-based initiatives and to abortion. “Dr. Paul is member of AAPS because they believe that any health care reform should be market-oriented and embrace more freedom, not more government," Benton says.

But the AAPS has some bizarre official positions, including:

2) It has asserted that Barack Obama used hypnosis to attract support in his 2008 campaign. It published an article entitled, "Is Barack Obama a brilliant orator... or hypnotist?" From Gerth's article:

The paper claims to examine Obama’s speeches “word by word, hand gesture by hand gesture, tone, pauses, body language, and proves his use of covert hypnosis intended only for licensed therapists on consenting patients.” The paper goes on to say that Obama’s “mesmerized, cult-like, grade-school-crush-like worship by millions is not because ‘Obama is the greatest leader of a generation’ who simply hasn’t accomplished anything, who magically ‘inspires’ by giving speeches. Obama is committing perhaps the biggest fraud and deception in American history.” The AAPS article notes that the Obama campaign logo “might just be the letter ‘O,’ but it also resembles a crystal ball, a favorite of hypnotists.”   And it suggests that hypnosis is the reason some Jewish people backed him.   “It is also interesting that many Jews are supporting a candidate who is endorsed by Hamas, Farrakhan, Khalidi and Iran,” the article says.

I'm not even going to get into the almost painfully transparent racial terror here, insisting that a black president won voters over not on merit but via magical voodoo powers. This is not the first time this sort of argument has been made. The funny thing is that I first read this story not long after watching the excellent Oliver Parker version of Othello on cable and was struck by the hilarious similarity between the crackpot AAPS theory and Brabantio's famous speech cursing black Othello for using magic to seduce his daughter Desdemona:

Damn'd as thou art, thou hast enchanted her; For I'll refer me to all things of sense, If she in chains of magic were not bound, Whether a maid so tender, fair and happy. So opposite to marriage that she shunned The wealthy curied darlings of our nation, Would ever have, to incur a general mock, Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom Of such a thing as thou, to fear, not to delight.

Anyway, a lot of the background on Rand is so bizarre and out there that it almost can't affect him anymore -- it seems like the people who are determined to vote for him will do so even if he comes out tomorrow and says he's for forced segregation of straight and lesbian aliens on the planet Saturn. Read more at www.rollingstone.com

 

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Theoretical Egalitarians

Amplify’d from www.slate.com

Earlier this month I published a 10-part Slate series (PDF; serial version; slide show) about the 30-year rise in income inequality that Princeton's Paul Krugman has dubbed "The Great Divergence." In the first installment, I noted that in 1915, when the richest 1 percent accounted for about 18 percent of the nation's income, the prospect of class warfare was imminent. Today, the richest 1 percent account for 24 percent of the nation's income, yet the prospect of class warfare is utterly remote. Indeed, the political question foremost in Washington's mind is how thoroughly the political party more closely associated with the working class (that would be the Democrats) will get clobbered in the next election. Why aren't the bottom 99 percent marching in the streets?

One possible answer is sheer ignorance. People know we're living in a time of growing income inequality, Krugman told me, but "the ordinary person is not really aware of how big it is." The ignorance hypothesis gets a strong assist from a new paper for the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science: "Building a Better America—One Wealth Quintile at a Time." The authors are Michael I. Norton, a psychologist who teaches at Harvard Business School, and Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist (and blogger) at Duke. Norton and Ariely focus on the distribution of wealth, which is even more top-heavy than the distribution of income. The richest 1 percent account for 35 percent of the nation's net worth; subtract housing, and their share rises to 43 percent. The richest 20 percent (or "top quintile") account for 85 percent; subtract housing and their share rises to 93 percent. But when Norton and Ariely surveyed a group whose incomes, voting patterns, and geographic distribution approximated that of the U.S. population, the respondents guessed that the top quintile accounted for only 59 percent of the nation's wealth.

In his book The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki cites example after example in which collective judgment proves remarkably accurate. When a finance professor polled his class about the number of jelly beans in a jar, individual answers were all over the map, but when he averaged them, the group estimate was less than 3 percent off. When a British statistician reviewed tickets from a contest to guess the weight of an ox at a livestock fair, he found similarly diverse answers, but when he averaged them, the group estimate (1,197 pounds) was less than 0.1 percent off. Such "crowd-sourcing," however, turns out to be a terrible method for estimating the distribution of wealth. Norton and Ariely's respondents were off by 31 percent, even though wealth distribution (unlike income distribution) has remained essentially unchanged for a generation.

Norton and Ariely broke down the responses by income group and found the guesses became slightly more accurate as you moved up the income scale. But more striking was the uniformity among income groups. All five quintiles imagined the top quintile to possess about 60 percent of the nation's wealth. (Again, the real figure is 85 percent.) More surprising still, the average guess of a respondent who'd voted for George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election was not appreciably different from the average guess of a respondent who'd voted for John Kerry. The Kerry voters imagined the top quintile's share to be larger than the Bush voters did, but again, both figured it was about 60 percent.

See more at www.slate.com

 

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Obama to finally punish torturers!

Amplify’d from www.salon.com

For many people, one of the earliest and gravest disappointments in Barack Obama was his announcement that those who implemented a worldwide torture regime should not be punished in any way, because we must Look Forward, Not Backward.  He even chose a General neck-deep in detainee abuse to lead his war in Afghanistan, and chose a Bush-era CIA official who endorsed many "enhanced interrogation techniques" as his top Terrorism adviser.  Torture and other crimes was something to be forgiven and swept entirely under the rug.  Obama now appears to view such matters differently . . . . at least when the torturers are Iranian rather than American (h/t Atrios):

The Obama administration on Wednesday placed eight Iranian officials on a U.S. financial blacklist, saying they were responsible for beatings, killings and torture following Iran's disputed presidential election last year. The Treasury and State departments jointly announced that the sanctions, signed by President Barack Obama, target Iranians who "share responsibility for the sustained and severe violation of human rights in Iran." At a State Department news conference, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said this is the first time the United States has imposed sanctions on Iranians for human rights violations. "On these officials' watch or under their command, Iranian citizens have been arbitrarily arrested, beaten, tortured, raped, blackmailed and killed," Clinton said. "Yet the Iranian government has ignored repeated calls from the international community to end these abuses." Obama's order blocks any U.S. assets of the eight Iranians and prohibits Americans from doing business with them.

Numerous detainees in American custody were also beaten, tortured and killed.  The photos Obama caused to be suppressed -- even after two federal courts ordered them disclosed -- depicted multiple acts of detainee rape.  Thousands were arbitrarily arrested and detained by the U.S. without due process, and continue to be.  None of that resulted in a smidgen of accountability for the high-level government officials responsible for all of that, because the Obama administration formally took the position that they should be immunized.  Somehow, though, the same Obama officials manage with a straight face to stand up in public and impose penalties on Iranians for the same conduct.  Note, too, how freely the Associated Press uses the word "torture" to describe what the Iranians did, in contrast to the American media's refusal to use that term for what Americans did.

Can you believe those crazy, paranoid Muslims and Arabs who claim that the U.S. maintains completely different standards for itself and the rest of the world?  Such deranged, conspiratorial thoughts can mean only one thing:  They Hate Us For Our Freedom. Read more at www.salon.com

 

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Farmers Markets, Fall Edition: Healthy, Tasty, Budget-Friendly

Amplify’d from www.mint.com

If you’re not yet convinced that buying in season is a simple way to save money and eat well, head to the fall farmer’s market.

Although summer markets may offer the most variety, fall boasts tasty fare such as apples, carrots, beets and winter squash that can stay in your kitchen longer. Depending on how warm the weather has been where you live, there may still be one last gasp of summer fare, too.

The sheer quantity of fall produce — it is the harvest season, after all — drops prices as supermarkets and local farmers compete to have you buying from them. In addition to getting a good price, home cooks benefit from the fact that in-season vegetables and fruits are at their prime, flavor-wise. Even simple, fast preparations turn out amazing.

Here’s what fresh, cheap seasonal produce chefs around the country are buying now, and their suggestions for how home cooks can prepare it for maximum flavor. (Have more ideas? Post a favorite recipe in the comments.)  Read more at www.mint.com

 

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Coburn, DeMint Block National Women’s History Museum Because ‘Quilters’ And ‘Cowgirl’ Museums Already Exist

Amplify’d from thinkprogress.org

This week, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) made the “unilateral decision to end legislative activity in the Senate.” In co-opting complete control of Senate business, DeMint has picked up the mantle of veteran obstructionist Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) in blocking any bill that does not meet his personal “parameters.” Now, both Coburn and DeMint have joined forces to target a bill celebrating women’s history.

In a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Coburn and DeMint decided to place a “hold” on a bill “that would sell land near the Smithsonian Institution for the National Women’s History Museum.” The bill, which would allow a private group to use private funds to purchase the land, passed the House last year and has bipartisan support in the Senate. However, the two senators cite three objections to this “laudable undertaking”: taxpayer burden, abortion politics, and redundancy:

The senators say their concerns are financial: Though the museum would pay fair market value for the land, the group has raised little money. And they said the new institution would duplicate more than 100 similar museums — some of which already get taxpayer subsidies. Abortion politics are also in play: The senators’ action came two days after the Concerned Women for America, a conservative group, wrote DeMint asking for a hold. The group’s CEO, Penny Nance, wrote in July that the museum would “focus on abortion rights without featuring any of the many contributions of the pro-life movement in America.”[...] In their hold letter to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the GOP senators said the museum was “a laudable undertaking.” But while the museum isn’t asking for a subsidy now, Coburn and DeMint said “taxpayers simply cannot be guaranteed of this in the future.”

The reasons behind the hold “just don’t hold water.” First, as stated on the National Women’s History Museum organization’s (NWHM) website, the federal government “is not underwriting the cost of this museum with taxpayer dollars. It rests upon NWHM “to raise no less than $150 million to build this museum privately.” Secondly, according to NWHM CEO Joan Wages, there will be no reproductive rights exhibit because “we have to raise $400 million. We cannot afford, literally, to focus on issues that are divisive.”

And, as the New York Times’s Gail Collins revealed Sunday, the redundancy argument completely dries out under scrutiny. When asked what entities the new museum would duplicate, Coburn suggested that quilters and cowgirls were sufficient to tell the entire story of American women:

The office sent me a list of the entities in question. They include the Quilters Hall of Fame in Indiana, the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Texas and the Hulda Klager Lilac Gardens in Washington. There also were a number of homes of famous women and some fine small collections of exhibits about a particular locality or subject. But, really, Senator Coburn’s list pretty much proved the point that this country really needs one great museum that can chart the whole, big amazing story. Read more at thinkprogress.org

 

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