http://www.cnn.com/…

A coalition of Democrats and some Republicans reached a compromise that trimmed billions in spending from an earlier version of the Senate economic stimulus bill.

CNN obtained, from a Democratic leadership aide, a list of some programs that have been cut, either entirely or partially:

Partially cut:

• $3.5 billion for energy-efficient federal buildings (original bill $7 billion)

• $75 million from Smithsonian (original bill $150 million)

• $200 million from Environmental Protection Agency Superfund (original bill $800 million)

• $100 million from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (original bill $427 million)

• $100 million from law enforcement wireless (original bill $200 million)

• $300 million from federal fleet of hybrid vehicles (original bill $600 million)

• $100 million from FBI construction (original bill $400 million)

Fully eliminated

• $55 million for historic preservation

• $122 million for Coast Guard polar icebreaker/cutters

• $100 million for Farm Service Agency modernization

• $50 million for Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service

• $65 million for watershed rehabilitation

• $100 million for distance learning

• $98 million for school nutrition

• $50 million for aquaculture

• $2 billion for broadband

• $100 million for National Institute of Standards and Technology

• $50 million for detention trustee

• $25 million for Marshalls Construction

• $300 million for federal prisons

• $300 million for BYRNE Formula grant program

• $140 million for BYRNE Competitive grant program

• $10 million state and local law enforcement

• $50 million for NASA

• $50 million for aeronautics

• $50 million for exploration

• $50 million for Cross Agency Support

• $200 million for National Science Foundation

• $100 million for science

• $1 billion for Energy Loan Guarantees

• $4.5 billion for General Services Administration

• $89 million General Services Administration operations

• $50 million from Department of Homeland Security

• $200 million Transportation Security Administration

• $122 million for Coast Guard Cutters, modifies use

• $25 million for Fish and Wildlife

• $55 million for historic preservation

• $20 million for working capital fund

• $165 million for Forest Service capital improvement

• $90 million for State and Private Wildlife Fire Management

• $1 billion for Head Start/Early Start

• $5.8 billion for Health Prevention Activity

• $2 billion for Health Information Technology Grants

• $600 million for Title I (No Child Left Behind)

• $16 billion for school construction

• $3.5 billion for higher education construction

• $1.25 billion for project based rental

• $2.25 billion for Neighborhood Stabilization

• $1.2 billion for retrofitting Project 8 housing

• $40 billion for state fiscal stabilization (includes $7.5 billion of state incentive grants)

I’m mainly happy about the broadband stuff being cut. As far as I know the government isn’t destroying that industry yet with subsidies. I’d like to keep it that way. Unfortunately that belief is not shared by much of the tech site authors.

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http://rawstory.com/…

Former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice, who helped expose the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping in December 2005, has now come forward with even more startling allegations. Tice told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann on Wednesday that the programs that spied on Americans were not only much broader than previously acknowledged but specifically targeted journalists.

“The National Security Agency had access to all Americans’ communications — faxes, phone calls, and their computer communications,” Tice claimed. “It didn’t matter whether you were in Kansas, in the middle of the country, and you never made foreign communications at all. They monitored all communications.”

Tice further explained that “even for the NSA it’s impossible to literally collect all communications. … What was done was sort of an ability to look at the metadata … and ferret that information to determine what communications would ultimately be collected.”

According to Tice, in addition to this “low-tech, dragnet” approach, the NSA also had the ability to hone in on specific groups, and that was the aspect he himself was involved with. However, even within the NSA there was a cover story meant to prevent people like Tice from realizing what they were doing.

“In one of the operations that I was in, we looked at organizations, just supposedly so that we would not target them,” Tice told Olbermann. “What I was finding out, though, is that the collection on those organizations was 24/7 and 365 days a year — and it made no sense. … I started to investigate that. That’s about the time when they came after me to fire me.”

When Olbermann pressed him for specifics, Tice offered, “An organization that was collected on were US news organizations and reporters and journalists.”

“To what purpose?” Olbermann asked. “I mean, is there a file somewhere full of every email sent by all the reporters at the New York Times? Is there a recording somewhere of every conversation I had with my little nephew in upstate New York?”

Tice did not answer directly, but simply stated, “If it was involved in this specific avenue of collection, it would be everything.” He added, however, that he had no idea what was ultimately done with the information, except that he was sure it “was digitized and put on databases somewhere.”

Tice first began alleging that there were illegal activities going on at both the NSA and the Defense Intelligence Agency in December 2005, several months after being fired by the NSA. He also served at that time as a source for the New York Times story which revealed the existence of the NSA’s wireless wiretapping program.

Over the next several months, however, Tice was frustrated in his attempts to testify before Congress, had his credibility attacked by Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, and was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in an apparent attempt at intimidation.

Tice is now coming forward again now because George Bush is finally out of office. He told Olbermann that the Obama administration has not been in touch with him about his latest revelations, but, “I did send a letter to, I think it’s [Obama intelligence adviser John] Brennan — a handwritten letter, because I knew all my communications were tapped, my phones, my computer, and I’ve had the FBI on me like flies on you-know-what … and I’m assuming that he gave the note to our current president — that I intended to say a little bit more than I had in the past.”

This video is from MSNBC’s Countdown, broadcast Jan. 21, 2009.

Rob… I hope you aren’t part of this.

http://www.boston.com

Massachusetts officially decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana yesterday, but many police departments across the state were essentially ignoring the voter-passed law, saying they would not even bother to ticket people they see smoking marijuana.

“We’re just basically not enforcing it right now,” said Mark R. Laverdure, chief of police in Clinton, a Central Massachusetts town of about 8,000 residents, who said the law was so poorly written that it cannot be enforced. “You’ll probably have a lot of officers that, unless there’s a caller complaining about it, won’t even bother with it. They probably handled a lot of it informally before and probably more so now.”

Andrew J. Sluckis Jr., chief of police in Auburn, said his 39 officers would not be issuing $100 citations for possession of an ounce or less of marijuana, as required under the ballot initiative known as Question 2.

“If the Legislature enacts some changes, we’ll be happy to do it in the future, but as it stands now we’re not going to be issuing civil citations,” he said. If an officer spots someone smoking marijuana, he said, “We will confiscate it and the person will be sent on their way.”

“It is frustrating,” he added, “because we have to deal with a law that is almost non-enforceable at best.”

John M. Collins, general counsel for the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, said he had been fielding calls from dozens of members across the state who believe the law is so flawed that it is “going to become a joke.”

The ballot question passed in November with 65 percent of the vote. Backers said they were frustrated that possession of small amounts of marijuana in Massachusetts was a criminal offense, punishable by up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $500. Those convicted of possession could also receive a criminal record that could taint their job prospects for years, the backers said. Under the ballot measure that took effect yesterday, possession of an ounce or less is a civil violation, punishable by a $100 fine, with no risk of a criminal record.

Police say they have two main problems with the law.

Many complain that their current citation books lack a check-off box for marijuana possession and they have yet to receive updated ticket books, although temporary forms are available through a state website.

More fundamentally, they complain that officers have no way of determining the identity of people they stop on the street for smoking marijuana. Before the law was changed, officers could arrest them, or threaten them with arrest to force them to show identification. Now, they say they cannot force users to show IDs, and cannot arrest them if they refuse to identify themselves. And they say there is no penalty if a marijuana user gives a false name to a police officer.

“Many of them are saying that until the law gets straightened out, we’re not going to let our people waste their time chasing their tails on this,” Collins said.

But some police departments have resolved to enforce the law, despite their reservations. Boston and Worcester, for example, sent out training memos detailing the ins and outs of the law.
Read More…

http://online.wsj.com/…

AP/USAF We could use some more F-22s

The Department of Defense is preparing budget cuts in response to the decline in national income. The DOD budgeteers and their counterparts in the White House Office of Management and Budget apparently reason that a smaller GDP requires belt-tightening by everyone.
That logic is exactly backwards. As President-elect Barack Obama and his economic advisers recognize, countering a deep economic recession requires an increase in government spending to offset the sharp decline in consumer outlays and business investment that is now under way. Without that rise in government spending, the economic downturn would be deeper and longer. Although tax cuts for individuals and businesses can help, government spending will have to do the heavy lifting. That’s why the Obama team will propose a package of about $300 billion a year in additional federal government outlays and grants to states and local governments.

A temporary rise in DOD spending on supplies, equipment and manpower should be a significant part of that increase in overall government outlays. The same applies to the Department of Homeland Security, to the FBI, and to other parts of the national intelligence community.

The increase in government spending needs to be a short-term surge with greater outlays in 2009 and 2010 but then tailing off sharply in 2011 when the economy should be almost back to its prerecession level of activity. Buying military supplies and equipment, including a variety of off-the-shelf dual use items, can easily fit this surge pattern.

For the military, the increased spending will require an expanded supplemental budget for 2009 and an increased budget for 2010. A 10% increase in defense outlays for procurement and for research would contribute about $20 billion a year to the overall stimulus budget. A 5% rise in spending on operations and maintenance would add an additional $10 billion. That spending could create about 300,000 additional jobs. And raising the military’s annual recruitment goal by 15% would provide jobs for an additional 30,000 young men and women in the first year.

So building death machines and expanding the military industry complex will make things better? Ignoring the MIC component completely it’d seem to me that opportunity cost alone would show this to be false. By definition the free market is the most efficient use of resources at any particular time. The further you get away from someone’s top priority the worse you make things. Throwing money at multimillion dollar flying death machines is pretty low on most people’s list. People want defense from possible harm but F-22s and the American MIC don’t provide that. They make us less safe. These Keynesians are destroying us from within and pissing off others without.

http://www.breitbart.com/…

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/…

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested Tuesday on charges of conspiring to get financial benefits through his authority to appoint a U.S. senator to fill the vacancy left by Barack Obama’s election as president.According to a federal criminal complaint, Blagojevich also was charged with illegally threatening to withhold state assistance to Tribune Co., the owner of the Chicago Tribune, in the sale of Wrigley Field. In return for state assistance, Blagojevich allegedly wanted members of the paper’s editorial board who had been critical of him fired.

A 76-page FBI affidavit said the 51-year-old Democratic governor was intercepted on court-authorized wiretaps over the last month conspiring to sell or trade the vacant Senate seat for personal benefits for himself and his wife, Patti.

The affidavit said Blagojevich discussed getting a substantial salary for himself at a nonprofit foundation or an organization affiliated with labor unions.

It said that Blagojevich also talked about getting his wife placed on corporate boards where she might get $150,000 a year in director’s fees.

He also allegedly discussed getting campaign funds for himself or possibly a post in the president’s cabinet or an ambassadorship once he left the governor’s office.

“I want to make money,” the affidavit quotes him as saying in one conversation.

U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald said in a statement that “the breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering.”

“They allege that Blagojevich put a for sale sign on the naming of a United States senator,” Fitzgerald said.”

Among those being considered for the post include U.S. Reps. Danny Davis and Jesse Jackson Jr.

Blagojevich also was charged with using his authority as governor in an attempt to squeeze out campaign contributions.

His chief of staff, John Harris, also was arrested.

One down. 49 to go.

I wonder who he crossed.  Was it just Obama and friends? Perhaps he was just seen as too aggressive. If you’re going to be a crooked politician (did I repeat myself?) you need to be less… truthful… about your desires and intentions.

http://www.themilitant.com/…

The Socialist Workers National Campaign Committee filed a request with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) October 30 for a renewal of its exemption from requirements to report the names of financial contributors.

The party’s exemption request is part of the fight of workers, farmers, and their organizations to be able to engage in political activity, including election campaigns, free from government, boss, and right-wing spying and harassment.

The request was filed on the party’s behalf by attorneys Michael Krinsky and Lindsey Frank of the internationally renowned law firm Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky & Lieberman.

The FEC has continuously granted six-year exemptions to the SWP’s campaign committees since 1979, most recently in 2003.

In this year’s request to the FEC, 62 incidents of harassment from 2002 until 2008 are documented, including “physical attacks on SWP campaign supporters and offices, threatening mail and telephone calls, job firings and discrimination, and harassment of SWP supporters and campaign efforts by federal and local law enforcement as well as private individuals.”

Among the incidents:

• The Sept. 11, 2004, firebombing of the SWP campaign offices in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. A brick wrapped in incendiary material was thrown into the display window featuring campaign materials and political books, setting the headquarters on fire and threatening the lives of people living in the apartment upstairs.
• On May 16, 2007, two FBI agents arrived unannounced at the home of David Arguello, the 2006 SWP candidate for U.S. Congress in San Diego, California, on the pretense that they had information from an anonymous source that he advocated violence against the U.S government. The FBI agents interrogated Arguello about his political views and activities and his interest in unionizing his workplace.
• In October 2005, Lisa Potash, Socialist Workers candidate for president of the city council in Atlanta, Georgia, was fired from her job at Hormel Meats Corporation after her campaign was widely publicized in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

If their community has news sites called The Militant its not entirely surprising that one of their candidates was approached about advocating violence.

It seems odd to me that anyone would care that there were self described socialists. I’d think “capitalists” are hated moreso right now and you don’t hear of their homes being firebombed. Especially considering the president elect is practically a Fabian.

http://www.ballot-access.org/…

In every presidential election starting in 1888, at least one socialist party has participated. The Socialist Labor Party ran a slate of unpledged presidential electors in 1888 in New York state.

If one adds together the presidential vote of all the parties with these words in their party name: “Socialist”, “Communist”, “Socialism” and “Workers”, and calculates the percentage of the vote cast for such parties for president, one finds that the lowest percentage in history was in 2000, when such parties polled less than .02% of the vote. 2008 appears likely to be the second such presidential election. The combined vote in 2008 for the Socialist Workers, Socialist, and Party for Socialism and Liberation presidential candidates appears to be just barely under .02% (specifically, .019%). The worst year for such parties for president was 2000, when it was only .017%. In 2004 the percentage was .021%.

That’s because the major parties adopted the palatable parts of their platform.

“The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”
– Norman Thomas