September 24, 2015

Kim Davis: Gawwwd is my boss

Published on Sep 22, 2015
Kim Davis has granted an interview with ABC News, and during the interview she was very open about the terrible things she’s gone through because she’s a Christian. The interviewer points out that many call her a hypocrite because of her four marriages and adulterous relationships. She says she’s not a hypocrite because she’s forgiven and “washed clean.” Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian (The Point) hosts of The Young Turks discuss.


http://www.mediaite.com/tv/kim-davis-i-have-friends-who-are-gay-who-i-denied-marriage-licenses/

September 24, 2015

Roaches really don't like exposure to light ...........

The brash CEO of a pharmaceutical company under fire this week for an extreme price increase of one of its drugs apparently is done defending himself to the public — at least for now.

Martin Shkreli, the 32-year-old founder and CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, took his Twitter account private Tuesday night after commenting prolifically on social media this week in defense of raising the price of a drug called Daraprim by more than 5,000%. The price jumped to $750 per pill, up from $13.50. His account went dark after Shkreli told NBC News and ABC News on Tuesday evening that he would back off the price hike so the drug is more affordable but Turing still makes "a very small profit."

Turing Pharmaceuticals has not responded to a request for comment. Shkreli did not tell NBC or ABC what the new price would be. Daraprim is used to treat toxoplasmosis, a parasitic disease that especially affects people with weakened immune systems, such as those with AIDS. It is considered the leading cause of death attributable to food-borne illness, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

....(snip)....

The Daily Beast reported Monday that in response to outrage over Daraprim's new price, Shkreli had tweeted that it was "a great thing for society" and tweeted lyrics to an Eminem song referencing giving the media the middle finger.

A reporter for FierceBiotech said in a post Sunday that Shkreli called him a moron in a Twitter exchange where the reporter had asked about the reason for the higher drug price. ................(more)

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2015/09/23/turing-pharmaceuticals-ceo-martin-shkreli-will-lower-price-of-daraprim/72670124/

September 24, 2015

Greece: No Lessons Learned

By Ashoka Mody, Professor of Economics at Princeton. Cross posted from Bruegel; originally published at Handelsblatt


In November 2003, former German Finance Minister Hans Eichel explained why the “deal” between Greece and its creditors is virtually certain to fail. Fending off the pressure then on Germany for more fiscal austerity in an economic recession, Eichel wrote in a Financial Times op-ed: “A policy geared solely to attaining quantitative consolidation targets in the short term runs the risk not only of curbing growth but also of increasing debt.”

Eichel’s theorem says that the latest Greek government, even if stable, will not overcome the illogic of the creditors’ program. Growth will be slower and deflation stronger than anticipated. The debt burden will continue to increase.In November 2003, former German Finance Minister Hans Eichel explained why the “deal” between Greece and its creditors is virtually certain to fail. Fending off the pressure then on Germany for more fiscal austerity in an economic recession, Eichel wrote in a Financial Times op-ed: “A policy geared solely to attaining quantitative consolidation targets in the short term runs the risk not only of curbing growth but also of increasing debt.”

Eichel’s theorem has proven stunningly durable through the Great Recession: persistent austerity is counterproductive, the more so the weaker the economy is. Everywhere, austerity has dragged down growth. Greece, which has undertaken the most severe austerity, has experienced the deepest economic contraction. Even the glimmer of Greek economic growth in 2014 came during a pause in austerity.

By most estimates, Greece is running a small primary fiscal deficit: government expenditures (not counting interest payments) exceed receipts. Achieving the creditors’ primary surplus target of 3.5% of GDP in three years will cause the economy to contract. But the projections claim that Greece will resume growth.

.......(snip).......

It gets worse. When, in 2003, Germany was freed of the shackles of fiscal austerity, world trade also zoomed up. For the four years, 2004-7, world trade growth averaged 9% a year. The claim to a German “miracle” is based on two years of 3.5% annual growth in 2006-7 amidst that buoyant world economy. Today, Greece is embarking on another round of austerity with world trade growth under 3% a year. The U.S. Federal Reserve, in its decision to not raise interest rates last week, emphasized how fragile the global economy is. The IMF has lowered its forecasts of world GDP growth and trade three times since the start of the year. ................(more)

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/09/greece-no-lessons-learned.html

September 24, 2015

How ‘Hobby Lobby’ Launched a Right-Wing Crusade

(The Nation)  Perhaps the most highly charged case of the 2013 term began life as a series of modified “corporate personhood” jokes. Does the post–Citizens United notion of corporate personhood include the right of a corporation to have and practice a religious faith? Can a craft store go to church? Where does it park? Does it quilt its own hat?


By the end of the term, nobody was laughing—especially not women. In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court held, by a 5–4 vote, that the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate violated the religious-freedom rights of corporations.

The ACA required that many employers provide comprehensive insurance—including pricey birth-control coverage—to their workers. The pill can cost upward of $25 a month, and the onetime cost of an IUD can reach $900, not including the cost of the doctor’s visit to have it inserted—sums that can be hugely consequential for most women workers. For some, these benefits can mean the difference between life and death, and they’re essential to economic parity and professional autonomy for most others. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted in her dissent: “[T]he cost of an IUD is nearly equivalent to a month’s full-time pay for workers earning the minimum wage.” But the craft-store chain Hobby Lobby and a cabinetmaker called Conestoga Wood Specialties argued in their pleadings that providing female workers with certain birth-control devices (specifically the IUD) and morning-after pills violated the business owners’ religious convictions because these things were used to cause abortions—a claim belied by medical science and the Food and Drug Administration, but deeply felt by the corporations’ owners.

In an unprecedented extension of religious freedom, the Supreme Court did two remarkable things. The majority recognized “closely held corporations”— a term left undefined in the ruling, but which, by some estimates, encompasses the vast majority of US corporations—as “persons” capable of “exercis[ing] religion.” The Court then determined that under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the religious rights of the employers ultimately outweigh the rights and economic needs of the women who work for them. In so doing, the Court allowed these companies, based on the asserted religious objections of their owners, to withhold basic health-insurance coverage from women. .....................(more)

http://www.thenation.com/article/how-hobby-lobby-launched-a-right-wing-crusade/

September 24, 2015

Why Are So Many Women Stumping for Trump?

Why Are So Many Women Stumping for Trump?

Thursday, 24 September 2015 09:59
By Eleanor J. Bader, Truthout | News Analysis


The website is unambiguously named: WomenforDonaldTrump.com. Launched in late July, the home page features several smiling 20-somethings holding signs: "I Believe in Trump"; "People for a Stronger America"; "Trump: Make America Great Again." The tagline - "Principle, Patriotism, Strength and Leadership" - sums up what they believe to be their candidate's most important attributes.

And there's more:

As women, Trump reminds us of something we haven't seen in a long time: strong, Alpha males in politics. Many of those whining about Trump's rise in popularity ... have forgotten what a MAN is. Trump takes the values conservative women hold precious: limited government, equal justice for all, the Constitution, life, secure borders, and most of all PRIDE IN BEING A PRINCIPLED COUNTRY and he refuses to back down ... It has been so long since we have seen this kind of strength (perhaps it has been relegated only to Wall Street and the business community as man-cuckholding (sic) feminism sweeps other areas of our national stage) and as women (we) appreciate seeing it again!

Yes, it's Donald Trump as "Real Man." In fact, Women for Donald Trump sees their candidate - a straight, 69-year-old, 6-foot-3, white father of five - as the prototype for American masculinity. Perhaps surprisingly, this model of manhood is catching fire.

A September Gallup poll showed Trump's support among GOP women at 54 percent, a 13-point jump from the previous month. This, despite the derogatory statements Trump hurled at Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, comedian Rosie O'Donnell and candidate Carly Fiorina. The upshot is that Trump can no longer be seen as a fringe candidate; he has rapidly ascended and is a contender in every sense of the word.

"It used to look like nominating Donald Trump would be an unmitigated disaster for the Republicans," Dean Debnam, president of Public Policy Polling, said in a statement. "But now he's doing better against Hillary Clinton than a lot of their perceived electable candidates." ........................(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/32939-why-are-so-many-women-stumping-for-trump

September 23, 2015

How ‘Hobby Lobby’ Launched a Right-Wing Crusade

(The Nation)  Perhaps the most highly charged case of the 2013 term began life as a series of modified “corporate personhood” jokes. Does the post–Citizens United notion of corporate personhood include the right of a corporation to have and practice a religious faith? Can a craft store go to church? Where does it park? Does it quilt its own hat?


By the end of the term, nobody was laughing—especially not women. In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court held, by a 5–4 vote, that the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate violated the religious-freedom rights of corporations.

The ACA required that many employers provide comprehensive insurance—including pricey birth-control coverage—to their workers. The pill can cost upward of $25 a month, and the onetime cost of an IUD can reach $900, not including the cost of the doctor’s visit to have it inserted—sums that can be hugely consequential for most women workers. For some, these benefits can mean the difference between life and death, and they’re essential to economic parity and professional autonomy for most others. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted in her dissent: “[T]he cost of an IUD is nearly equivalent to a month’s full-time pay for workers earning the minimum wage.” But the craft-store chain Hobby Lobby and a cabinetmaker called Conestoga Wood Specialties argued in their pleadings that providing female workers with certain birth-control devices (specifically the IUD) and morning-after pills violated the business owners’ religious convictions because these things were used to cause abortions—a claim belied by medical science and the Food and Drug Administration, but deeply felt by the corporations’ owners.

In an unprecedented extension of religious freedom, the Supreme Court did two remarkable things. The majority recognized “closely held corporations”— a term left undefined in the ruling, but which, by some estimates, encompasses the vast majority of US corporations—as “persons” capable of “exercis[ing] religion.” The Court then determined that under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the religious rights of the employers ultimately outweigh the rights and economic needs of the women who work for them. In so doing, the Court allowed these companies, based on the asserted religious objections of their owners, to withhold basic health-insurance coverage from women. .....................(more)

http://www.thenation.com/article/how-hobby-lobby-launched-a-right-wing-crusade/

September 23, 2015

In America, You Can Work Hard, Play By the Rules, and Still Get Screwed

from The Nation:


In America, You Can Work Hard, Play By the Rules, and Still Get Screwed
Being steadily employed ain’t what it used to be.

By Pat Tomaino , James M. Larkin andZach Goldhammer


 Last week we spoke about the surprising history of the bloody, decades-long fight for a two-day weekend, an eight-hour workday, for pensions, worker safety, and a minimum wage.

 But we also heard Calvin Coolidge’s famous line, that “the chief business of the American people is business.” Almost a century later, that’s still true. Ours remains the biggest economy in the world, and American workers remain more productive per capita than any (big) nation in the world.

 Americans spend more time working than doing anything else, and more than almost any other developed economy. A pre-crash study by the International Labor Organization found that we worked 137 hours more per year than Japanese workers, 260 more than Brits, almost 500 more than the leisure-loving French. And 86% of American men and 67% of women—sons and daughters of the union movement—work more than the union-preferred 40 hours a week.

 Then again, the United States is exceptional in other ways: Among OECD nations for the share of our people living in poverty (more than 14%, or almost 47 million people), and among almost all nations for offering, as part of the law of our land, neither paid maternal leave, nor paid sick leave, nor annual minimum paid time off.

And then there are the problems we cannot quantify—or even always see: The stresses and disappointments that pile up, disproportionately upon the 35 million Americans who earn less than $10.55 an hour. .................(more)

http://www.thenation.com/article/in-america-you-can-work-hard-play-by-the-rules-and-still-get-screwed/

September 23, 2015

Uruguay Does Unthinkable, Rejects Global Corporatocracy

Uruguay Does Unthinkable, Rejects Global Corporatocracy
by Don Quijones • September 22, 2015


[font size="3"][font color="blue"]The historic decision is met by a wall of media silence.[/font][/font]


Often referred to as the Switzerland of South America, Uruguay is long accustomed to doing things its own way. It was the first nation in Latin America to establish a welfare state. It also has an unusually large middle class for the region and unlike its giant neighbors to the north and west, Brazil and Argentina, is largely free of serious income inequality.

Two years ago, during José Mujica’s presidency, Uruguay became the first nation to legalize marijuana in Latin America, a continent that is being ripped apart by drug trafficking and its associated violence and corruption of state institutions.

Now Uruguay has done something that no other semi-aligned nation on this planet has dared to do: it has rejected the advances of the global corporatocracy.

[font size="3"][font color="blue"]The Treaty That Must Not Be Named[/font][/font]

Earlier this month Uruguay’s government decided to end its participation in the secret negotiations of the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA). After months of intense pressure led by unions and other grassroots movements that culminated in a national general strike on the issue – the first of its kind around the globe – the Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez bowed to public opinion and left the US-led trade agreement.

Despite – or more likely because of – its symbolic importance, Uruguay’s historic decision has been met by a wall of silence. Beyond the country’s borders, mainstream media has refused to cover the story. ...............(more)

http://wolfstreet.com/2015/09/22/uruguay-does-unthinkable-rejects-global-corporatocracy-tisa/

September 23, 2015

America Loves Pope Francis, But Not His Stance on Climate Change: Bloomberg Poll

Of course, the issue on which he's most credible


(Bloomberg) Americans love Pope Francis and his forgiveness agenda, but they're less enthusiastic about the judgments he's making about secular issues such as the the debate over climate change and income inequality, according to a new Bloomberg Politics poll completed on the eve of the pope's arrival for his first visit to the United States.

The survey gave Francis a 64 percent favorability rating, considerably higher than those of all the U.S. political leaders the poll asked about, and twice that of Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump.



The pope is admired by a majority of all ideological, generational, and religious groups: 86 percent of Catholics approve of him, but so do 55 percent of born-again Christians and 58 percent of Americans who adhere to no religion.

“I think he's giving the Catholic Church a new perspective, that it doesn't have to be so rigid,” said Lydia Becker, a 59-year-old Catholic who works as a dental assistant in Homestead, Florida. “He's more open to change. I just find him totally amazing.”

When it comes to the pope's messages of forgiveness or increased tolerance on traditionally hot-button social issues—abortion, gays, marriage, and immigration—Americans across party lines are overwhelmingly supportive of Francis.
But on the one global issue on which he’s staked so much of his reputation, with a June papal encyclical urging action to combat climate change, just one-third of those surveyed are supportive. .....................(more)

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-09-23/america-loves-pope-francis-but-not-his-stance-on-climate-change-bloomberg-poll

September 23, 2015

Bill Gross: Mainstream Americans Are Being ‘Cooked Alive’ by Lower Rates

(Bloomberg) Bill Gross said the Federal Reserve needs to raise interest rates as soon as possible, trading some near-term market losses for longer-term stability and a healthier financial system.

If zero interest rates become the long-term norm, economic participants will soon run on empty because their investments aren’t producing the gains or cash flow needed to finance past promises in an aging society, he wrote in an investment outlook on Wednesday for Denver-based Janus Capital Group Inc. That’s already beginning to happen in the developed world, where Detroit, Puerto Rico, and, he predicts, soon Chicago, struggle to meet their liabilities.

“My advice to them is this: get off zero and get off quick,” Gross urged the central bankers. It’s time for a “new thesis” that allows people in developed economies to save, enabling liability-based businesses models to survive and spurring more private investment, “which is the essence of a healthy economy. Near term pain? Yes. Long term gain? Almost certainly. Get off zero now!”

The Fed last week decided to keep its benchmark rate near zero, showing reluctance to end an era of record monetary stimulus in a time of market turmoil, rising international risks and slow inflation at home. Futures traders are betting the Fed is unlikely to act in October, as they put 41 percent odds on an increase in December and 48 percent in January, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. ................(more)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-23/gross-tells-fed-to-get-off-zero-now-as-economies-run-on-empty