THE HEADLINES

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein (Bloomberg photo)

“YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO DO SOMETHING…TO LOWER PEOPLE’S EXPECTATIONS OF WHAT THEY’RE GOING TO GET.”

This is Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein opening the familiar pandora’s box of rhetoric designed to fundamentalism “change” — i.e; kill off — “entitlements” like Social Security and Medicare. Almost like clockwork, the election results are being used as a pretext to resurrect old arguments from the many lawmakers and business leaders that the voting produced a “mandate” to lower the federal debt and deficit by slashing spending. But now the anti-entitlement crowd has a shiny new toy to unleash on Washington. Blankfein and a who’s-who of prominent corporate and financial executives have formed the stylishly named “CEO Fiscal Leadership Council ” a lobbying group formed to press President Obama and Congress to not only slash spending on the government safety net, but produce a veritable grab bag of goodies for Wall Street and big businesses. Supposedly founded on the notion of fiscal discipline and a path to debt reduction, the centerpiece of the CEO group’s plan is a “territorial tax system” that would exempt all foreign earnings of U.S. companies from taxation, netting them $200 billion in profits. Most of the companies represented on the group also have billions of dollars in contracts or bailouts from the federal government on their resume. Who is supposed to be “lowering expectations,” again?

(Huffington Post)

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WORLD HEADED FOR “CLIMATE FISCAL CLIFF.”

Borrowing the wonky euphemism adopted by the media to explain Washington’s impending disaster of tax hikes and spending cuts, scientists and environmental activists describe the present situation of climate change as dire and headed for a “cliff” of its own if no action is taken. The proverbial clock is ticking at this week’s United Nations climate summit in Doha, Qatar. Scientists are tracking unforeseen and unprecedented fallout from a warming planet, while promises made by rich nations to fund a global initiative to curb emissions and help poorer nations combat the effects of climate change has gone largely unfunded.

(CBC)

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BEWARE THE “OVER-DIAGNOSIS” MEDICAL EXPERT CHARLATANS WHO ARGUE AGAINST ROUTINE MEDICAL SCREENINGS.

Kate Randall takes on the New York Times and other purveyors of medical health “information” for frequent publications that argue, for example, that routine breast cancer screenings do “more harm than good” for women’s health. Such journalistic pieces make broad but evidently unsupported claims that the number of people “saved” by virtue of such screenings is relatively small compared to the costs of same. Randall sees this as a cynical ploy to cut the costs of providing medical services to Americans by denying the efficacy of many forms of “preventive” medicine.

(World Socialist)

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WHY WAS PRESIDENT OBAMA SO WORRIED ABOUT LETTING HIS DRONE POLICY FALL UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF A POTENTIAL SUCCESSOR?

While publicly stumping for reelection and in the middle of a bitter presidential campaign, President Obama and the White House were busy behind the scenes working to “codify” official government policy on drone strikes.Obama has essentially become the “drone president,” giving direct orders that have killed thousands of suspected “terrorists,” civilians, and U.S. citizens in Pakistan, Yemen and other sovereign nations. Currently operating under no strict set of guidelines, the administration finally admitted the legal flux and risk of deadly drone strikes by rushing to create an official drone policy, both protecting Obama’s legacy and ensuring any possible successor in the White House did not have the same open authority over unmanned aerial strikes. This scenario begs the question of why the White House was so concerned about leaving their current drone policy intact for a potential new administration to uncover.

(New York Times)

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“BIG GOVERNMENT” TAKES AN UNHEALTHY INTEREST IN THE SEX LIVES OF WOMEN IN FLORIDA.

Outrage ensues following the inadvertent leaking of a survey sent by the state of Florida to thousands of young women across the state asking detailed and often graphic questions about their sexual relations. The recipients are lured in with the promise of a $10 gift card from the state health department in return for their answers to 46 survey questions, many dealing with issues of pregnancy and contraception. In addition to concerns raised after at least some of the surveys had been mailed to minors under 18, critics of the program allege that the state-issued survey may be used as a political tool by the “pro-life” administration of Gov. Rick Scott, or meant to intimidate women away from abortions or contraceptive use.

(South Florida Sun-Sentinel)

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Quote of the day…

Since Superstorm Sandy soaked the East Coast, there’s been a presidential election and a CIAsex scandal. So I can hardly blame you folks in California for forgetting that there are people like me who still have no heat or elevators in our buildings. I find it disturbingly easy to forget about such people myself as soon as I get a few blocks out of the blackout zone.

Barbara Garson, NYC resident, in article  published in Los Angeles Times.

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