Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011
, - Agence France-Presse (France)
Stephan: This was as predictable as spring following winter. We have financed two wars on borrowed money, and now the country that holds our markers, wants what it wants, and we can hardly say no.
Leaked diplomatic cables vividly show China’s willingness to translate its massive holdings of US debt into political influence on issues ranging from Taiwan’s sovereignty to Washington’s financial policy.
China’s clout — gleaned from its nearly $900 billion stack of US debt — has been widely commented on in the United States, but sensitive cables show just how much influence Beijing has and how keen Washington is to address its rival’s concerns.
An October 2008 cable, released by WikiLeaks, showed a senior Chinese official linking questions about much-needed Chinese investment to sensitive military sales to Taiwan.
Amid the panic of Lehman Brothers’ collapse and the ensuing liquidity crunch, Liu Jiahua, an official who then helped manage China’s foreign reserves, was ‘non-committal on the possible resumption of lending.’
Instead, ‘Liu — citing an Internet discussion forum — said that as in the United States, the Chinese leadership must pay close attention to public opinion in forming policies,’ according to the memo.
‘In that regard, the recent announcement that the United States intends to sell another arms package to Taiwan increases the difficulty the Chinese government faces in explaining any supporting policies to the Chinese public.’
His comments came days after the Pentagon notified Congress it was poised to […]
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Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011
MICHELLE GOLDBERG, - The Daily Beast
Stephan: Reality confronts ideology. The attack on Planned Parenthood using ideology rather than facts is part of the cancer devouring us. Women throughout America are going to have to go into the streets, I am afraid, in order to protect their right, indeed, their power to control their own bodies.
Michelle Goldberg is a journalist based in New York. She is the author of The New York Times bestseller Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism and The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power and the Future of the World, winner of the 2008 J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award and the Ernesta Drinker Ballard Book Prize.
The House may have voted to strip Planned Parenthood of funding, but the personal stories from Gwen Moore and Jackie Speier about an unplanned pregnancy and an abortion inspired women everywhere. The two congresswomen tell Michelle Goldberg why they decided to speak out.
In the end, Reps. Gwen Moore (D-WI) and Jackie Speier (D-CA) probably didn’t sway any votes by sharing their personal stories on the House floor on Thursday night. On Friday, 240 of 241 House Republicans voted to strip Planned Parenthood, the nation’s leading provider of reproductive health care, of government funding.
Article – Goldberg Speier Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif) talked about her abortion on the House floor on Thursday night during a debate on a proposal to cut federal funds for Planned Parenthood. (Charles Dharapak / AP Photo)
Nevertheless, when Moore stood up to talk about being an 18-year-old with an unplanned pregnancy, and Speier described having a second-trimester abortion after a wanted pregnancy went wrong, the effect was electrifying. With their candor, the two congresswomen inspired women all over the country and pierced through the sanctimonious abstractions dominating the debate. At least half of women have an unintended pregnancy at some point in their lives, and nearly a third […]
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Monday, February 21st, 2011
TODD NEALE, Staff Writer - MedPage Today
Stephan: This is another alarm going off. Self-mutilating extreme behaviors by the young correlate with periods of social toxicity and nihilism.
Source: Lewis S, et al 'The scope of nonsuicidal self-injury on YouTube' Pediatrics 2011; DOI: 10.1542/peds.2010-2317.
Videos posted online that feature self-injury are popular viewing among young adults and possibly teens — and some researchers worry that this may encourage copycat behaviors.
A study conducted using YouTube’s search option entering the keywords ‘self-injury’ and ‘self-harm,’ found that the 100 most frequently-viewed videos received more than 2.3 million views — and often contained graphic depictions of cutting, burning, and self-embedding, according to Stephen Lewis, PhD, of the University of Guelph in Ontario, and colleagues.
Most of the videos did not have warnings about the content or viewing restrictions, Lewis and co-authors reported online ahead of the March issue of Pediatrics.
Although the researchers did not evaluate the influence these videos may have on young viewers, they said that ‘the possible impact … is worrisome.’
In particular, they wrote, ‘The nature of nonsuicidal self-injury videos on YouTube may foster normalization of nonsuicidal self-injury and may reinforce the behavior through regular viewing of nonsuicidal self-injury-themed videos.’
Previous studies have shown that self-injury in the absence of suicidal thoughts occurs at rates of 14% to 21% among children, teens, and young adults, and places them at risk for interpersonal difficulties, elevated psychiatric symptoms, and even suicide.
The proliferation of video-sharing Web sites featuring these self-harm videos, […]
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Monday, February 21st, 2011
NATHAN DEIBENOW, - The Raw Story
Stephan: I completely agree with this assessment. This is part of the trend destroying the middle class. The Wisconsin business is about breaking the unions. The money issue is the sleight-of-hand. Conservative Governor Scott Walker gave business tax breaks of $150 million and he and the Republicans are now looking to make it back as a secondary effect of breaking the unions. Unions are the only organization of voting Americans not controlled by corporations or rich individuals. This whole strategem is so cynically transparent it might as well be written in neon.
The labor unrest in Wisconsin exposed the Republican Party’s plan to essentially divide-and-conquer the lower classes in America, a liberal author recently wrote.
‘The Republican strategy is to split the vast middle and working class – pitting unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers against non-public, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social Security against younger workers who don’t believe these programs will be there for them, and the poor against the working middle class,’ Robert Reich wrote on his blog Thursday.
He continued, ‘Wisconsin’s Republican governor Scott Walker and his GOP legislature are seeking to end almost all union rights for teachers.’
Reich, the author of ‘Supercapitalism,’ who served as President Bill Clinton’s secretary of labor, explained that blaming of public workers for budgetary matters at state levels is part of the GOP’s overall goal: to hide the economic excesses of the wealthiest Americans.
‘Republicans would rather no one notice their campaign to shrink the pie even further with additional tax cuts for the rich – making the Bush tax cuts permanent, further reducing the estate tax, and allowing the wealthy to shift ever more of their income into capital gains taxed at 15 percent,’ Reich wrote.
Specifically, the two other parts of the […]
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Monday, February 21st, 2011
Stephan: We are now entering a kind of Dickensian nightmare. Drug treatment and counseling is one the reasons violent crime involving drugs has dropped in recent years. This will now reverse, at least in Illinois. There will also be a sharp increase in the use of emergency rooms around the state, as those previously served by the drug centers revert to hospitals. The death rate will also go up, as will crime, as desperate addicts also revert. In the end this will probably end up costing the state most of what it saves, and will significantly coarsen life, particularly in large cities like Chicago. This is social policy driven by ideological 'values' instead of facts. It is no less hair-brained than communism; indeed it is its antipode.
The harsh reality of the budget cuts proposed by Illinois governor Pat Quinn will become very real for tens of thousands of residents, as the state prepares to kill all funding for its drug treatment and prevention programs.
Only federal Medicaid dollars will fund drug treatment centers starting March 15, meaning that services at centers statewide will face drastic cuts.
Sara Howe, CEO of the Illinois Alcoholism and Drug Dependence Association told the News-Gazette that ’80 percent of our clients on March 15 would be thrown out of care.’ That adds up to around 55,000 people who will lose their help battling drugs.
‘It’s the most devastating picture possible,’ Howe said.
According to Eric Foster, also of IADDA, that includes up to 32,000 youth who will lose access to prevention programs, with disastrous possible ramifications, The Telegraph reports.
With a mounting budget crisis over the past several years, funding for treatment and prevention programs has already been seriously eroded, as a separate News-Gazette piece reads:
Prairie [Treatment] Center’s funding was cut by $900,000 in 2008, forcing it to close its detoxification program and lay off 22 employees. The detox program reopened after some of the money was restored and six nurses were […]
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