Why It Would Be Really Bad If Rick Perry Runs for President

Rick Perry hasn't officially declared his candidacy, but ads are already on the air in Iowa. Here's why you should be worried he might run for president.

By Sarah Jaffe, AlterNet

Posted on August  2, 2011

"Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention." - Molly Ivins

Texas Governor Rick Perry has been flirting with the idea of running for president for months now. While the three-term Republican has danced around an official announcement, ads calling him “a better option” are already airing on Fox News (naturally) in Iowa, funded by the political action committee “Jobs for Iowa.” Related super PACs have been created in South Carolina and Florida.

The governor Molly Ivins called “the Coiffure” has claimed he's brought jobs to Texas, passed a laundry list of conservative dream legislation, and managed to become the longest-serving governor in the history of the state. With a relatively lackluster—or outright strange--Republican field this year, Perry appears to have a better-than-most shot at capturing the nomination, bringing not only conservative and Christian credentials but a veneer of respectability and accomplishment that candidates like Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain lack.

As Perry oozes toward an announcement—he says he's waiting til after Labor Day—under the pretense that he's fixed Texas' economy and is a more moderate option than Michele Bachmann but a better evangelical base-pleaser than Mormon Mitt Romney, we thought it was a good time to take a look at the Texan. Here are 10 reasons Rick Perry is just as bad as Michele Bachmann—and a whole lot more likely to actually win the nomination.

1. Separation of church and state? What separation?

On August 6, Perry and right-wing evangelical leaders are sponsoring a a prayer rally in Houston's Reliant Stadium dedicated to “the One True God through his Son Jesus Christ.”

Perry's message on the event's website reads:

“Right now, America is in crisis: we have been besieged by financial debt, terrorism, and a multitude of natural disasters. As a nation, we must come together and call upon Jesus to guide us through unprecedented struggles, and thank Him for the blessings of freedom we so richly enjoy.”

Allan E. Parker Jr., the organizer who referred to the rally as for “The One True God,” also wrote that it would be “idolatry of the worst sort for Christians to gather and invite false gods like Allah and Buddha and their false prophets to be with us at that time.”

So much for religious tolerance.

Even Houston-area clergy members have spoken out against the rally's exclusive nature and the extreme figures involved in it, saying in a joint letter, “We are concerned that our governor has crossed the line by organizing a religious event rather than focusing on the people’s business in Austin.”

It's even more out of line if said governor wants to be president.

2. Secession

Before he makes up his mind about being president, Perry ought to decide whether he wants to be a part of the United States.

Back in 2009, during Perry's bumpy reelection race, the governor told a Tea Party crowd:

"There's a lot of different scenarios...We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot."

Rush Limbaugh was a fan of Perry's statements, and Texas Republicans too. Perry later affirmed his stance, saying:

“We are very proud of our Texas history; people discuss and debate the issues of can we break ourselves into five states, can we secede, a lot of interesting things that I'm sure Oklahoma and Pennsylvania would love to be able to say about their states, but the fact is, they can't because they're not Texas."

3. Keep your Rick out of my uterus

Just like Republicans in Congress and around the country, Rick Perry's opposition to “government intrusion” doesn't apply to women.

Not only that, but a bill to require all women to have an ultrasound before they can get an abortion was the first major bill debated in the House, and was declared an “emergency” by Perry himself.

As Texas State Representative Carol Alvarado noted in that session, the bill's author didn't understand how intrusive his own bill was. She gave the legislature an in-depth description of a trans-vaginal sonogram, which would be required for women eight to 10 weeks pregnant.

“This is not the jelly on the belly that most of you think, she said as she held up a vaginal probe. 'This is government intrusion at its best.'”

The bill has no provision for victims of rape or incest. It does, however, give Perry more social conservative credentials to trumpet on the campaign trail.

In addition to his changing concerns over government intrusion, Perry's also got a bit of a consistency problem where states' rights are concerned--once again, when it comes to women's bodies. Perry recently said he wanted Roe v. Wade overturned so states could decide for themselves. But then he declared his support for a federal constitutional amendment that would overturn Roe and ban abortion nationwide.

Consistency doesn't matter, apparently, when it comes to abortion. But Perry's  assault on female sexuality continued, this time on pre-teen girls:

 He signed an executive order mandating that all 11- and 12-year-old girls in Texas be given the vaccine Gardasil (Merck) for prevention of human papillomavirus (HPV), the most commonly transmitted sexual disease in the United States.

In 2007, the vaccine's manufacturer, Merck, immediately mounted a massive lobbying effort of state legislatures around the country to get Gardasil added to their respective lists of state-mandated vaccines. But in Texas, Gov. Perry chose to bypass the legislature and on Feb. 2, 2007, he issued an executive order making Texas the first state in the country requiring all sixth-grade girls to receive the three-shot vaccination series (which cost about $120 per shot). The move generated a fierce public debate. Conservatives slammed Perry for promoting what they saw as an intrusion by the state into private health decisions of parents and their children.

Many doctors, including Bill Hinchey, the president of the Texas Medical Association at the time, questioned the wisdom of rushing to mandate a drug that had been on the market for less than a year.

 The controversy over Perry's decision deepened as it came to light that his former chief of staff was a lobbyist for Merck and that his chief of staff's mother-in-law, Rep. Dianne White Delisi, was the state director of an advocacy group bankrolled by Merck to push legislatures across the country to put forward bills mandating the Gardasil vaccine for preteen girls.

Roughly 60 state lawmakers called on Perry to rescind the order. He refused. Just six weeks after Perry put pen to paper, the Texas House rebuked him on March 14, 2007, passing HB 1098, overturning his executive order by a vote of 119-21. The Senate followed suit the following month by a vote of 30-1.

"Just because you don't want to offer up 165,000 11-year-old girls to be Merck's study group doesn't mean you don't care about women's health, doesn't mean you don't care about young girls," Republican state Rep. Dennis Bonnen added.

And, in fact, two years later the National Vaccine Information Center issued a report raising serious questions over the harmful side effects of the drug. A few months after that, an editorial on Gardasil in the Journal of the American Medical Association declared that "serious questions regarding the overall effectiveness of the vaccine" needed to be answered and that more long-term studies were called for.

4. Voter ID, please

"This is what democracy really is all about," Perry said, signing Texas's new voter identification bill into law. "It's the integrity of every vote; that every vote counts. Today we take a major step in protecting the most cherished right of Americans."

The bill makes “illegal voting” a felony; it too was an “emergency” item for Perry's third term as governor. It requires a voter to present one of five forms of ID—a drivers' license, military ID, passport, concealed handgun license, or a state voter ID card that Texas must provide.

"I think it's about disenfranchising groups of people who do not historically vote for the Republican Party," State Rep. Dawnna Dukes said when the bill was passed. Black and Latino voters, the elderly and the poor—all typically Democratic constituencies—are disproportionately less likely to have one of those forms of ID and thus to encounter problems at the polls. In a state like Texas, with a large immigrant population, voter ID is not a neutral issue, but rather another obstacle making it less likely people will vote.

Like other governors around the country, Perry pushed for the voter ID bill despite a lack of any proof that “illegal voting” is actually a problem.

5. The great economy LIE

Rick Perry likes to claim—and conservatives like to believe--that Texas' economy is a shining beacon of hope for the country. And it is—if you like your hope low-wage, low-benefit and deficit-ridden.

Texan Jim Hightower wrote:

“...Perry-jobs are really 'jobettes,' offering low pay, no benefits and no upward mobility. In fact, under Rickonomics, Texas has added more minimum wage jobs than all other states combined! After 10 years in office, Gov. Perry presides over a state that has more people in poverty and more without health coverage than any other.”

A miracle!

Of course, that's exactly the kind of job growth the country as a whole is seeing now, and it's just fine with the big-money base of the Republican party. As Joshua Holland wrote in AlterNet recently, even as Texas added those “jobettes,” its unemployment rate magically increased to 8 percent from 7.7 percent—and 23 states have a better employment rate than the miraculous Texas.

So much for that economic miracle. Texas's economy is more of an example of the mess the entire country is heading for unless we see a dramatic change in priorities. 

6. Education

Back in March, the Texas state capitol in Austin saw thousands of protesters descend on the grounds for a rally against a proposed $10 billion—yes, billion—in education cuts to the state. Representatives from 300 school districts, students, teachers, parents, and others marched and called on Perry to use the state's “rainy day fund” to cover the shortfall in schools rather than lay off a projected 189,000 education workers.

Of course, the budget cuts are still coming.
Aside from the impact such layoffs will have on the economy, since a good chunk of the new jobs Perry touts as part of his economic miracle were in schools, there's the actual impact on the state's students. It's not just public schools that take a hit—universities will see their budgets slashed and financial aid eliminated for 43,000 students.

One Texas school attempted to trademark its mascot and sell advertising space on its school buses and Web site in order to raise desperately needed cash. The New York Times called Perry's impending cuts “the largest cuts to public education since World War II."

As Dana Goldstein noted, Texas is a right-to-work state where less than 2 percent of teachers are unionized. There's no big bad teachers' union to be the villain here. Just workers about to be out of jobs, and kids—and the economy--suffering the consequences.

7. Follow the money

The question voters should ask first of any candidate is “Where's the money coming from?” Particularly in the post-Citizens United age, with the birth of the new “super PACs,” groups that can accept unlimited donations from individuals and corporations to pay for political advertising and organizing, campaigns for office are getting expensive and someone's got to be footing the bill.

Since ads for Perry are already airing in Iowa before he's even made up his mind to run, it's worth a look at who's paying for Perry propaganda.

Jobs for Iowa, the PAC paying for the Iowa ads, was registered with the FEC on June 21. Its treasurer is Robert Jentgens, who formerly worked on Mitt Romney's 2008 campaign. Also registered are Veterans for Rick Perry and Americans for Rick Perry, as well as Texas Tea Party Patriots PAC (though after Rick Perry's primary challenge from the Tea Party-backed Debra Medina it might not be fair to assume that they have any interest in Perry).

Americans for Rick Perry raised $193,000 in just eight days in June, the majority of which comes from Harold Simmons, who Dave Montgomery at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram called “a Dallas multibillionaire who is developing a controversial nuclear waste disposal site in West Texas.” They claim another $207,000 in July.

Montgomery noted:

“Environmentalists say that Simmons' donations to Perry and state lawmakers helped fuel approval of the waste disposal site despite concerns over groundwater contamination, but a spokesman for the project said the application was rigorously vetted and approved only after added protections were included.”

Perry's last election campaign, his third, generated more than $77 million in contributions, as Texas allows unlimited individual donations as well. Montgomery wrote that Perry's donors are “the elite of Texas business and industry,” including Simmons and Houston builder Bob Perry (no relation).

Paul Blumenthal at the Huffington Post wrote that the Americans for Rick Perry PAC was the first time a super PAC had been used by supporters for a campaign that doesn't, technically, exist yet. If Perry's well-connected supporters in the energy and finance industries, among others, are this excited about him now, imagine the money that will flow if he actually announces.

8. Drill, baby, drill

Obviously the governor of Texas has some oil connections. But with Perry as a candidate, we're almost certain to have more of the sort of pro-oil, anti-environment rhetoric that suffused Sarah Palin's tenure on the Republican ticket.

After all, when the BP spill was still churning oil into the Gulf of Mexico, Perry called it “just an act of God” and warned against any “knee-jerk reaction” that might include things like halting deepwater drilling until the dangers could be assessed. Unsurprisingly, Perry also got $129,890 from the oil and gas industry for his last reelection campaign.

Increases in oil prices tend to be good for Texas—bringing jobs and a rise in GDP for the state—but they're a drain on the rest of the country. And the last thing the country needs is a president who's more interested in maintaining oil profits than preventing more oil-related disasters.

9. Flip-flopping on immigration

Texas' population has grown 20 percent during Perry's time in office, and much of that growth has been immigration from Latin America. Up until he began toying with the idea of a presidential run, Perry was a moderate on immigration.

Even last year, he criticized Arizona's SB 1070, and way back in 2001 he signed the state DREAM Act into law. So why the sudden change?

Shani O. Hilton at ColorLines writes:

“...Perry’s apparently positioning himself to be a social conservative darling. On immigration, he recently revived a bill that would crack down on so-called 'sanctuary' cities — localities where the government prohibits police officers from asking about the immigration status of legally detained residents.”

The sanctuary cities bill would allow police to inquire about immigration status of any person arrested or detained—even at a routine traffic stop.

It's worth noting that Perry's big business buddies oppose this legislation—and that his willingness to make them angry might just be the clearest sign yet that he's aiming for the national stage.

10. Executing an innocent man

Rick Perry has presided over the execution of 232 people, more than any other governor in history. (The previous record, 152, was held by George W. Bush.) Most of those are forgotten, but a few of them stick out.

Liliana Segura wrote:

“Outside of Texas, the name Cameron Todd Willingham did not mean much to most people until the fall of 2009. In a 17-page article published by The New Yorker magazine, a curious and brave woman, a brilliant fire expert, and an investigative journalist re-opened the case against this man who was put to death for killing his children. The 'classic arson case' was picked apart, revealed to have been based on junk science and a misguided sense of expert intuition. Proof of the flawed fire investigation had been rushed to Rick Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole before the execution, to no avail. Five years later, the article uncovered new evidence to all but confirm what a number of people had suspected for years: That the state of Texas had executed an innocent man.”

Perry's utter lack of interest in examining the evidence of Willingham's innocence shows us something about the man, of course. (It won't be the first time a presidential candidate faces down a questionable execution on the campaign trail. Bill Clinton, back in 1992, interrupted his campaign in New Hampshire to fly home to Arkansas, where a severely mentally challenged man sat on death row. Clinton wasn't going back to stop the execution, though. He was going to preside over it. And one of George W. Bush's first acts as governor of Texas was to reject clemency for a man who had severe brain damage and an IQ of 60. He was executed the evening of Bush's inauguration.)

The Willingham execution might not even be the most controversial example of Perry's execution mania. Just last month, he executed Humberto Leal Garcia Jr., a Mexican citizen, over the objections of the Mexican government, his own president, and the International Court of Justice. Even George W. Bush, in 2005, ordered all states to comply with the international law mandating consular access to officials from their home country for foreign nationals. Rick Perry was the only one not to comply.

For conservatives, all of this is just more red meat. As Megan Carpentier wrote at the Guardian, this execution “won't harm Perry's political career one iota. Sadly, it might even help it.”

Historic Heat Wave Expanding Again Across South, Plains

(As of 2:30pm today, Tuesday, August 2, 2011, it is 110°F here. Dang! It's supposed to reach 111°F before cooling off.--jef)

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by James West, August 2, 2011

While a cold front slicing across the northern High Plains will bring the dangerous heat to a screeching halt along the U.S. Northern-tier today, the same will not be true for the central and southern Plains and Mississippi Valley through much of this week. The high heat and humidity will expand from the southern Plains to the Carolinas by mid-week.

 

The dangerous and record-shattering heat will rage on across the central and southern Plains and Middle and Lower Mississippi valleys through the rest of the week and through the weekend. Long-range computer forecasts show the heat persisting through at early next week, if not longer. 

 

Dallas/FW will see another 100-plus day today; it will be the 32nd consecutive day with triple-digit temperatures seen in the Metroplex, 39th day this summer. Fort Smith, Ark., will add to its already record consecutive triple-digit streak. 

 

High temperatures reaching the 100s and 110s will expand and cover more than ten states stretching from Texas to North Carolina this week. 

 

The longevity of the massive heat wave is being fueled by a sprawling ridge of high pressure centered in the Plains. This bubble of high pressure will expand eastward across the Mid-South and into the Carolinas by the middle and end of the week, suppressing cloud cover and thunderstorm development and allowing the mercury to skyrocket. Added to the mix will be the oppressive humidity, meaning heat indices will top out at 105 to 115 degrees. 

 

Excessive Heat Watches and Warnings stretch from northern Texas into the Mid-Mississippi and Tennessee valleys, including Dallas, Tulsa, Okla., Kansas City, Mo., St. Louis and Memphis, Tenn. Heat Advisories extend from the Gulf Coast to the Upper Great Lakes, including New Orleans, Des Moines, Iowa, Chicago and Indianapolis. More heat-related advisories will likely be required for later this week as far east as the Carolinas. 

 

The prolonged heat is putting stress on the most vulnerable residents; local media are reporting more than 60 heat-related deaths nationwide, with at least a dozen deaths in the St. Louis area.

Unemployment is Obama's Bigger Problem Than the Debt Ceiling

John Nichols - The Nation

The big story out of Washington—and rightly so—is the debt ceiling deal that President Obama compromised to the point of losing. The president abandoned his 2008 campaign promise to be an absolute defender of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, so he will have very little indeed to run on in 2012.

But that won’t be what beats him.

Because the biggest story in America is a different one from the biggest story in Washington. Americans are not that into the debt ceiling debate. Polling has suggested that  a quarter of Americans are “closely following” the fight.

The issue that Americans have been following closely, and will continue to follow straight through the 2012 election cycle, the issue that tops the polls on the list of concerns, is the jobs crisis. Americans are worried about unemployment and underemployment.

And on Friday they got a lot more worried.

The Los Angeles Times headline was stark: “Dismal Jobs Report Shows Unemployment Rising to 9.2% (U3).”

The New York Times headline was, if anything, bleaker: “Job Growth Falters Badly, Clouding Hopes for Recovery.”

The 9.2% official unemployment rate—up from 9.0 percent two months ago and 9.1 percent a month ago—is only a pale shadow of the real rate. Categorized in official terms as the “U6” unemployment, the real rate includes the offically unemployed as well as Americans who are underemployed and those who have given up on the search for work. It stands at more than 16% nationally. And in depressed states, such as Michigan (which Obama carried handily in 2008 but where is approval ratings are now troublingly low), it is well over 20%.

The official and the real unemployment rates are devastating. These numbers are some of the worst since the Great Depression. But they are not getting the response that high unemployment rates got from Democrats in the Depression era of other periods of economic downtown in the years since.

President Obama and his team have never focused on job issues with the intensity that is needed. And now they are simply being ridiculous.

David Plouffe, the president’s political czar, said on the eve of the release of Friday’s dismal jobs numbers that he does not believe that the high unemployment rate poses a threat to President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. (Oh, really? Exactly how out of touch ARE Obama's Democrats?--jef)

Speaking to reporters this week, Plouffe said, “The average American does not view the economy through the prism of GDP or unemployment rates or even monthly jobs numbers. People won’t vote based on the unemployment rate, they’re going to vote based on: ‘How do I feel about my own situation? Do I believe the president makes decisions based on me and my family?’ ” (Oh, is this guy in for the rudest awakening come Nov. 2012.--jef)

The almost 10 percent of Americans who are officially unemployed probably don’t feel all that great about their situation. The same goes for the the tens of millions of additional Americans who are underemployed or who have fallen off official radar because they have given up on the search for work in communities where there are simply no jobs to be had.

The unemployed, the underemployed and the abandoned add up to one in five Americans. And an awfully lot of them live in battleground states such as Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania —all of which President Obama won in 2008, all of which President Obama needs to win in 2012.

Now, let’s be clear, no one in their right mind thinks that the Republicans who would be president are any more concerned about jobless Americans than is the Obama administration.
But neglecting unemployment as an issue—or presuming, as Plouffe does, that Americans will give Obama the benefit of the doubt—is political madness.

When unemployment reaches the level that it has nationally, and the even higher levels that it has in battleground states, potential Obama voters start losing faith that “the president makes decisions based on me and my family.”

Some of the disappointed may still vote for Obama out of fear of the Republicans, some will find social issues that draw them to the Republicans, but millions will simply stay home —as they did in 2010.

That’s the danger heading into the 2012 race, and it is more profound today than at any time in Barack Obama’s presidency.

Obama is toying with the notion of running for reelection as the president who did what George Bush could not: cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

That calculus suggests that Obama and his team really are out of touch with the electoral dynamic.

But that is not the most politically tone deaf scheme to come out of the president’s camp.

While the president’s apparent willingness to take the best argument available to Democrats going into the 2012 election cycle—the promise that they will defend Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security—suggests that Obama learned nothing from the Democratic party’s devastating electoral experience in 2010, his top political aide’s statements with regard to unemployment suggest that his team has learned even less.

No president since Franklin Roosevelt has won re-election when the unemployment rate was over 7 percent. And Roosevelt won because he ran as a candidate who was fully willing to use the power of the federal government to create jobs —and programs like Social Security.

The notion that a Democratic president can win re-election with an unemployment rate that is edging upward and a deal to cut Social Security is not merely unrealistic. It is evidence of a disconnect that could devastate not just Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012 but Democratic prospects for years to come.

Obama's Bad Bargain

(Now, is everyone clear that President Obama is a corporatist fraud and not the progressive "man of the people" he pretended to be during the campaign? Any questions? Can we proceed knowing this without the silly "hopes" that he'll "change" back into the candidate Obama who was elected under false pretenses?--jef)

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William Greider  - The Nation

The most distressing outcome of the deficit hysteria gripping Washington may be what Barack Obama has revealed about himself (if you weren't already aware, that is--jef). It was disconcerting to watch the president slip-slide so easily into voicing the fallacious economic arguments of the right. It was shocking when he betrayed core principles of the Democratic Party, portraying himself as high-minded and brave because he defied his loyal constituents. Supporters may hope this rightward shift was only a matter of political tactics, but I think Obama has at last revealed his sincere convictions. If he wins a second term, he will be free to strike a truly rotten “grand bargain” with Republicans—“pragmatic” compromises that will destroy the crown jewels of democratic reform.


The president has done grievous damage to the most vulnerable by trying to fight the GOP on its ground—accepting the premise that deficits and debt should be a national priority. He made the choice more than a year ago to push aside the real problem—the vast loss and suffering generated by a failing economy.

As a conservative reformer, Obama embraced a bizarre notion of “balance.” The budget cuts he first proposed would have punished the middle class and vulnerable three times with a big stick, shrinking Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits while hitting the wealthy only once with a modest tax increase. When Democrats complained that this wasn’t fair, Obama adjusted the “shared sacrifice” to a dollar-for-dollar ratio. Take a dollar from working stiffs who need these programs, take a dollar from the super-rich who don’t need a tax break. How fair is that?

Obama’s facile arithmetic essentially scrapped the Democratic Party’s longstanding commitment to progressive taxation and universal social protections. The claim that cutting Social Security benefits will “strengthen” the system is erroneous. In fact, Obama has already undermined the soundness of Social Security by partially suspending the FICA payroll tax for workers—depriving the system of revenue it needs for long-term solvency.

The mendacity has a more fundamental dimension. Obama helped conservatives concoct the debt crisis on false premises, promoting a claim that Social Security and other entitlement programs were somehow to blame while gliding over the real causes and culprits. Social Security has never contributed a dime to the federal deficits (actually, the government borrows the trust fund’s huge surpluses to offset its red ink).

This mean-spirited political twist amounts to blaming the victims. There should be no mystery about what caused the $14 trillion debt: large deficits began in 1981, with Ronald Reagan’s fanciful “supply side” tax-cutting. Federal debt was then around $1 trillion. By 2007 it had reached $9 trillion, thanks to George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy and his two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus the massive subsidy for Big Pharma in Medicare drug benefits. The 2008 financial collapse and deep recession generated most of the remainder, as tax revenues fell drastically. Obama’s pump-priming stimulus added to the debt too, but a relatively small portion.

Whatever supposed solutions Congress eventually enacts, the misleading quality of the debt crisis should become widely understood once the action is completed. The debt and deficits will probably keep expanding, because the economy will remain stagnant or worse, with near 20 percent REAL unemployment and falling incomes, and that is fundamentally what drives deficits higher. It should become obvious that deficit reduction did nothing to revive economic growth or to create jobs. In fact, cutting federal spending may make things worse, because it withdraws demand from the economy at the very moment when demand for goods and services is woefully inadequate.

At some point, then, the president will have to change his tune. Instead of mimicking the penny pinchers, Obama will have to say something about the nation’s real problem—the sick economy and the terrible consequences facing millions of families. But it’s not clear he will have much to say beyond small-bore suggestions and the usual pep talks. If he does a sudden about-face and proposes big ideas for job creation, will anyone believe him?

The White House evidently thinks it’s good politics for 2012 to dismiss the left and court wobbly independents (I don't know a single independent voter who likes Obama's presidency--jef). Obama no doubt assumes faithful Democrats have nowhere else to go. It’s true that very few will wish to oppose him next year, given the fearful possibility of right-wing crazies running the country. On the other hand, people who adhere to the core Democratic values Obama has abandoned need a strategy for stronger resistance. That would not mean running away from Obama but running at him—challenging his leadership of the party, mobilizing dissident voices and voters, pushing Congressional Democrats to embrace a progressive agenda in competition with Obama’s.

To be blunt, progressives have to pick a fight with their own party. They have to launch the hard work of reconnecting with ordinary citizens, listening and learning, defining new politics from the ground up. People in a rebellious mood should also prepare for the possibility that it may already be too late, that the Democratic Party’s gradual move uptown is too advanced to reverse. In that event, people will have to locate a new home—a new force in politics that speaks for them.

Who Wins, Who Loses in the Debt Deal...

George Zornick - The Nation

August 1, 2011  

Congress might pass a debt deal this week that would raise the debt ceiling into 2013 and reduce government spending by $2.5 trillion. After all the debate over who would be affected—or not—what does the final policy scoreboard say?

In short, it’s a rout of the lower and middle classes by the wealthiest Americans. Since the deal relies entirely on spending cuts with no revenues—don’t believe the White House spin that revenues are possible, because that would require Republicans to suddenly desire them—the wealthy escape any sacrifice since very few of them rely on the government services that will be cut.

Rather, as Brookings Institution senior fellow William G. Gale writes, “Low- and middle-class households have seen stagnating or declining earnings over the past few decades, and they have been hit hard in the Great Recession by the housing market collapse and the job market collapse. Now, they are being asked to shoulder—via spending reductions—all of the fiscal reduction agreed to so far.” (Yes, that Brookings Institution).

How specific cuts will be determined, and who exactly is affected, is still hard to know. The deal truly “kicks the can down the road,” in the overused Washington parlance. The $917 billion in “immediate” cuts are not really immediate, nor enumerated. Federal spending will operate under caps over the next ten years equal to $917 billion less than what was projected, but the exact areas of reduction are unknown and obviously depend quite a bit on political outcomes. The caps are relatively modest until 2013, and a Republican Congress with a budget proposal from President Rick Perry would make much a different decision about where to cut than would Obama, Pelosi and Reid.

Then, $1.5 trillion in additional cuts will be determined by a so-called super committee of six Democrats and six Republicans. Entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are subject to “across-the-board” cuts here, and if no agreement is reached by November 23, a “trigger” will be pulled, with the gun aimed squarely at senior citizens and the Pentagon.

So there are a lot of permutations for these cuts—but make no mistake about who is exposed, and who isn’t. Cuts are guaranteed, revenue is not. Here’s a quick rundown of the larger bill:

Who is exposed:

Veterans: Almost half of the first round of cuts will come from “security spending,” which includes the Pentagon budget but also the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department and notably veterans benefits and compensation. The White House assured veterans they won’t be harmed if the trigger is pulled, but did not assure them they are safe from any of the preceding cuts. More than 2.2 million veterans have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since September 11, 2001, many of whom have been seriously injured and require extensive care. The Disabled Veterans of America already has said it is “anxious” to see how these spending cuts are assembled.

Students: Graduate students would be the hardest hit, as the bill proposes an elimination of the interest subsidy on federal student loans for “almost all” of them. This means that beginning July 1, 2012, grad students will be responsible for the interest on their loans while in school and during any subsequent deferment period. Also, while the federal government currently offers subsidies for on-time payments in order to promote responsible pay-backs, they will be eliminated under the debt ceiling deal. Also, education accounts for the largest share of non-defense discretionary spending. It’s nearly inconceivable that budget-cutters won’t target that juicy budget line in making their cuts.

Seniors: As noted, Medicare is subject to across-the-board cuts in the super-committee, and if the trigger is pulled, provider payments will be slashed—though only up to 2 percent. The makeup of the super-committee and outside-the-Beltway campaigns to protect Medicare will determine a lot about the degree of cuts, but remember that inside the Beltway, the “left” side of the debate has been defined by President Obama and the Gang of Six as raising the eligibility age to 67 and/or $500 billion in cuts. So this probably won’t end well.

The poor: Again, Medicaid will be subject to cuts by the super-committee. The Republican position, articulated in the Ryan budget, is a devastating 35 percent reduction in the next ten years, even as health costs rise. (However, Medicaid is protected from any cuts if the trigger should go off). Beyond that, federal housing assistance is the fourth largest slice of non-defense discretionary spending and is thus a likely target for cuts.

The unemployed: Unlike what happened during the December showdown over the Bush tax cuts, the White House was unable (or unwilling) to secure any extension of help for the jobless. That December extension will expire at the end of this year, and this was one of the last best shots to make sure that 3.8 million people won’t lose their benefits at that point.

Who’s protected:

The wealthy: Up until very recently, Obama and most Democrats were demanding that wealthy Americans pony up for some deficit reduction. The demands were admittedly narrow, and focused on itemized deductions on people who owned private jets or multiple homes—but both groups are exempted from sacrifice under the current deal. The super-committee could theoretically approve tax increases, including ending those loopholes, but House Speaker John Boehner has already sworn  that won’t happen, and it’s tough not to believe that. If the Republicans on the committee refuse to back down on revenues, as they have in every recent negotiation, Democrats on the committee will be facing Medicare-slashing trigger unless they acquiesce—as they have in every recent negotiation.

Wall Street tycoons: In his budget proposal earlier this year, Obama recommended taxing the profit share of private equity managers, venture capitalists and other Wall Street high-rollers at the ordinary personal income tax rate, instead of at the smaller capital gains rate. No such deal was struck under the current bill, so these mega-rich traders won’t spend a penny reducing the deficit—again, unless Boehner undergoes a religious experience and appoints pro-tax, anti–Wall Street Republicans to the super-committee. (He’d have to spend a long time looking first).

Oil and gas companies: Obama repeatedly demanded that oil and gas companies lose their tax breaks, since they are raking in record profits and enjoy many deductions and subsidies in the tax code. “If we choose to keep a tax break for oil and gas companies that are making hundreds of millions of dollars, that means we’ve got to cut some kids off from getting a college scholarship [and] that means we’ve got to stop funding grants for medical research,” Obama said in June. Since those tax breaks were preserved, in hindsight that soundbite was of a prediction than a warning.  

The Wilful Ignorance That Has Dragged the US to the Brink

Tuesday, August 2, 2011 by The Independent/UK

The Tea Party version of the American Revolution is not just fundamentalist. It is also Disneyfied, sentimentalised, and whitewashed

by Sarah Churchwell

Here's a monumental historical irony: a moment in the origins of the United States that every American schoolchild learns to view with pride, the Boston Tea Party, has now become a symbol of our (inter)national shame. In one sense, it is difficult to know what to say in response to the utter irrationality of the Tea Party's self-destructive decision to sabotage the American political process – and thus its own country's economy, and the global economy.

Last week, while the US government was locked in stalemate and risked defaulting on its national debt for the first time in its history (and thus also defying the Constitution that Tea Partiers supposedly hold sacred, which declares in the 14th Amendment that it is illegal for Congress to default), Michele Bachmann instructed her followers not to listen to those who attempted to "scare" them with untruths that the US would default if it didn't raise the debt ceiling. When, of course, that is precisely what it would have done. But the Tea Party has never let facts get in the way of its belief system, and now that belief system is genuinely threatening the wellbeing of the nation they claim to love.

Mottos are supposed to express a philosophy: in so far as the Tea Party can be said to have anything so exalted as a philosophy, their motto is quite telling. They are one of the most inaccurately named movements in American political history, but that inaccuracy is itself emblematic of the party's adamantine ignorance. Any American schoolchild can tell you the motto of the historical Boston Tea Party from which they take their name and – they mistakenly believe – their inspiration: "No taxation without representation."

Impatient with those extra two words, evidently, the Tea Party has truncated this proposition to something simpler: "No taxation." Never mind that the US has among the lowest levels of taxation in the developed world, matched only by Mexico and Chile (are these the nations the Tea Party would like to emulate?). Never mind that the nation's actual Founding Fathers were perfectly prepared to pay taxes – they just thought those taxes should purchase them a democratic voice in their own government.

The motto that came out of the Constitutional Convention was not "In God We Trust": it was "E Pluribus Unum," out of many, one. The phrase "In God We Trust" emerged from the American Civil War, but it wasn't put on US currency until the Cold War, in 1955. The following year, the same year he signed the Civil Rights bill into law, Eisenhower made it the nation's motto.

In other words, In God We Trust is an act of revisionist history and retrospective religiosity, reinserting religion into our national history. But the attempt to create one from many has led to Civil War more than once (the American Revolution was a civil war), and parts of the South regularly seceding (the South and other states threatened to walk out of the Constitutional Congress, did secede in the 1860s, and revolted again in 1944, with the so-called 'Dixiecrats.')

Texas was forever threatening to secede. The Tea Party could secede with my blessing: E Pluribus Unum is clearly not a motto that they are prepared to embrace – despite their supposed reverence for the Founding Fathers and the American Constitution.

Anyone who followed last year's midterms and knew anything about American history already realised this. Tea Party candidates kept invoking semi-mythical figures such as Paul Revere, who was not a Founding Father at all: in fact, most of Revere's supposed story was a legend written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1860 to rouse popular sentiment on behalf of the Union cause in the Civil War – in other words, to maintain the spirit of E Pluribus Unum and fight against divisive polarisation.

Tea Partiers love mentioning Thomas Paine because they think they share his "Common Sense" (otherwise known as a sense held in common) but they haven't bothered to read it, and are clearly unfamiliar with essays such as "Public Good", in which Paine wrote that, especially while at war (as America currently is, of course): "To have a clear idea of taxation is necessary to every country, and the more funds we can discover and organise, the less will be the hope of the enemy."

As Harvard historian Jill Lepore argued last year in her brilliant The Whites of their Eyes: The Tea Party's Revolution and the Battle over American History, none of the people voting for the Tea Party candidates knows any of this because they haven't studied American history since grade school, when all American schoolchildren learn a simplified, cartoon version of the American Revolution (which we would never call the "War of Independence").

It is a Sesame Street version of the American constitution and politics, a myth that is being treated as the alpha and omega of our political and legal reality. This is one reason why it has a quasi-religious aspect: it's a myth of genesis, it's a creation myth about America that is just as simple as the idea that God created man and woman: the Founding Fathers created America.

The Tea Party version of the American Revolution is not just fundamentalist: it is also Disneyfied, sentimentalised, and whitewashed. It rests on a naïve, solipsistic and exceptionalist faith that for America it will all work out in the end, because America is "the greatest nation in the world". They take solace in tautology: America is great – this they know – because Fox News tells them so.

Their goal, as others have said, is to roll back the clock a century and more. In 1892, when the robber baron and corrupt financier Jay Gould died, Mark Twain wrote a scathing epitaph: Gould, he said, "reversed the commercial morals of the United States. He had put a blight upon them from which they have never recovered, and from which they will not recover for as much as a century to come. Jay Gould was the mightiest disaster which has ever befallen this country."

It has been a century and we have surely not recovered: but we have managed to create an even mightier disaster. It remains to be seen whether we will recover, but it is long past time to stop making declarations of independence. We need to get back to work forming a more perfect union – or any union at all.

Lowering America’s War Ceiling? Imperial Psychosis on Display

Tuesday, August 2, 2011 by TomDispatch.com
by Tom Engelhardt
  

By now, it seems as if everybody and his brother has joined the debt-ceiling imbroglio in Washington, perhaps the strangest homespun drama of our time.  It’s as if Washington’s leading political players, aided and abetted by the media’s love of the horserace, had eaten LSD-laced brownies, then gone on stage before an audience of millions to enact a psychotic spectacle of American decline.

And yet, among the dramatis personae we’ve been watching, there are clearly missing actors.  They happen to be out of town, part of a traveling roadshow.  When it comes to their production, however, there has, of late, been little publicity, few reviewers, and only the most modest media attention.  Moreover, unlike the scenery-chewing divas in Washington, these actors have simply been going about their business as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening.

On July 25th, for instance, while John Boehner raced around the Capitol desperately pressing Republican House members for votes on a debt-ceiling bill that Harry Reid was calling dead-on-arrival in the Senate, America’s new ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, took his oath of office in distant Kabul.  According to the New York Times, he then gave a short speech “warning” that “Western powers needed to ‘proceed carefully’” and emphasized that when it came to the war, there would “be no rush for the exits.”

If, in Washington, people were rushing for those exits, no chance of that in Kabul almost a decade into America’s second Afghan War.  There, the air strikes, night raids, assassinations, roadside bombs, and soldier and civilian deaths, we are assured, will continue to 2014 and beyond.  In a war in which every gallon of gas used by a fuel-guzzling U.S. military costs $400 to $800 to import, time is no object and -- despite the panic in Washington over debt payments -- neither evidently is cost.

In Iraq, meanwhile, in year eight of America’s armed involvement, U.S. officials are still wangling to keep significant numbers of American troops stationed there beyond an agreed end-of-2011 withdrawal date.  And the State Department is preparing to hire a small army of 5,000-odd armed mercenaries (with their own mini-air force) to keep the American “mission” in that country humming along to the tune of billions of dollars.

In Libya, the American/NATO war effort, once imagined as a brief spasm of shock-‘n’-awe firepower that would oust autocrat Muammar Gaddafi in a nanosecond, is now in its fifth month with neither an end nor a serious reassessment in sight, and no mention of costs there either.  In Yemen and Somalia, the drones, CIA and military, are being sent in, and special operations forces built up, while in the region a new base is being constructed and older ones expanded in the never-ending war against al-Qaeda, its affiliates, wannabes, and any other nasties around.

(At the same time, the Obama administration is leaking information that the original al-Qaeda teeters at the edge of defeat, even as it intensifies the CIA’s drone war in the Pakistani tribal borderlands.)  And further expansion of the war on terror -- watch out, al-Qaeda in North Africa! -- seems to be a given.

Meanwhile back in Washington -- not, mind you, the Washington of the debt-ceiling crisis, but the war capital on the banks of the Potomac -- national security spending still seems to be on an upward trajectory.  At $526 billion (without the costs of the Afghan and Iraq wars added in), the 2011 Pentagon budget is, as Lawrence Korb, former assistant secretary of defense under President Ronald Reagan, has written, “in real or inflation adjusted dollars… higher than at any time since World War II, including the Korean and Vietnam Wars and the height of the Reagan buildup.”  The 2012 Pentagon budget is presently slated to go even higher.

Senator John McCain recently raised the question of Pentagon spending in tight times with General Martin Dempsey, the newly nominated chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  He asked about a plan proposed by President Obama to cut $400 billion in Pentagon funds over twelve years, as well as proposals kicking around Congress for cutting up to $800 billion over the same period.

General Dempsey replied, “I haven’t been asked to look at that number. But I have looked and we are looking at $400 billion.  Based on the difficulty of achieving the $400 billion cut, I believe achieving $800 billion would be extraordinarily difficult and very high risk.”

In little of the reporting on this was it apparent that Obama’s $400 billion in Pentagon “cuts” are not cuts at all -- not unless you consider an obese person, who continues eating at the same level but reduces his dreams of ever grander future repasts, to be on a diet.  The “cuts” in the White House proposal, that is, will only be from projected future Pentagon growth rates.  Nor were the “savings” of up to one trillion dollars over a decade being projected by Senator Harry Reid as part of his deficit-reduction plan cuts either, not in the usual sense anyway.  They are expected savings based largely on the prospective winding down of America's wars and, like so much funny money, could evaporate with the morning dew. (In his last minute deal with John Boehner, President Obama's Pentagon "savings" have, in fact, been reduced to a provisional $350 billion over 10 years.)

So here’s a question at a moment when financial mania has Washington by the throat: How would you define the state of mind of our war-makers, who are carrying on as if trillion-dollar wars were an American birthright, as if the only sensible role for the United States was to eternally police the planet, and as if garrisoning U.S. troops, corporate mercenaries, and special operations forces in scores and scores of countries was the essence of life as it should be lived on this planet?

When I was a kid, I used to be fascinated by a series of ads filled with visual absurdities, in which, for instance, five-legged cows floated through clouds.  Each ad’s tagline went something like: What’s wrong with this picture?

So imagine two worlds, both centered in Washington.  In one, they’re heading for the exits, America’s credit rating is in danger of being downgraded, jobs are disappearing, infrastructure is eroding, home ownership levels are falling rapidly, foreclosures are sky-high, times are bad, and even the president admits that the political system designated to make things better is “dysfunctional”; in the other, the exits are there, but there’s no rush to use them, not with those global ramparts to be guarded, those wars to be fought, and a massive national security complex -- larger than anything ever imagined when the U.S. still faced a nuclear-armed superpower enemy -- to feed and cultivate.

Now tell me: What’s wrong with this picture?

Two worlds, two productions, one over-the-top and raising fears of bankruptcy, the other steady as she goes -- and (so it seems) never the twain shall meet.  And yet look again and those two worlds will fuse before your eyes, those two Washingtons will meld into a single capital city.  Then it will be clearer that the actors at center stage and those traveling in the provinces are putting on linked parts of a single performance. The financial problems of one will turn out to be inextricably linked to the other; the lack of an effective stimulus package in the first connected to the endless series of stimulus packages -- all that failed “nation-building” in the imperium -- in the second.

Like some Roman god, it turns out that schizophrenic Washington has two faces, each reflecting a different aspect of American decline.  In one, everybody can spot the madness.  In the other, it’s less evident, even though untold American treasure -- literally trillions of dollars communities here desperately need -- has been poured into a series of wars, conflicts, and war preparations without a victory, or even a significant success on the horizon.  (Greeted as if World War II had been won, the killing of Osama bin Laden should have been a reminder of the success of the Global War on Terror for a man with few “troops” and relatively modest amounts of money who somehow managed to land Washington in a financial and military quagmire.)
One American world, one Washington, is devouring the other.  Think of this as the half-hidden psychodrama of this American moment.

Put another way, for months Americans have been focused on raising that debt ceiling, as onscreen countdown clocks ticked away to disaster.  In the process, few have asked the obvious question: Isn’t it time to lower America’s war ceiling?

The Four Great Hypocrisies of the Debt Deal

vidlink

“We have, in this deal, declared that we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all political incumbents are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Re-nomination, re-election, and the pursuit of hypocrisy.

“We have superceded Congress to facilitate 750 billion dollars in domestic cuts including Medicare in order to end an artificially-induced political hostage crisis over debt, originating from the bills run up by a Republican president who funneled billions of taxpayer dollars to the military-industrial complex by unfunded, unnecessary, and unproductive wars, enabled in doing so by the very same Republican leaders who now cry for balanced budgets – and we have called it compromise.

“Where is the outrage to come from? From you!

“It will do no good to wait for the politicians to suddenly atone for their sins, they are too busy trying to keep their jobs to do their jobs. It will do no good to wait for the media to remember its origins as the free press, the watchdog of democracy envisioned by Jefferson, they are too busy trying to get exclusive details about how exactly the bank robbers emptied the public’s pockets to give a damn about telling anybody what they looked like or which way they went. It will do no good to wait for the apolitical public to get a clue, they can’t hear the clue over all the scandal and chatter and diversion and illusion.

“The betrayal of what this nation was supposed to be about did not begin with this deal and it surely will not end with this deal. There is a tide pushing back the rights of each of us and it has been artificially induced by union bashing and the sowing of hatreds and fears and now this evermore institutionalized economic battering of the average American. It will continue and it will crush us because those that created it are organized, and unified, and hell-bent. And the only response is to be organized, and unified and hell-bent in return.

“We must find again the energy and the purpose of the 1960s and the 1970s, and we must protest this deal and all the goddamn deals to come in the streets. We must rise, nonviolently, but insistently. General strikes, boycotts, protests, sit-ins, non-cooperation, takeovers. But modern versions of that resistance, facilitated and amplified by a weapon our predecessors did not have: the glory that is instantaneous communication.

“First you’ve got to get mad! I cannot say to you meet here at this hour or that one, and we’ll peacefully break that back of government that exist merely to get its functionaries re-elected. But I can say that the time is coming for the window for us to restore the control of our government to ourselves will close, and we had damn well better act before then because this deal is more than a tipping point from where the government goes from defending the safety net to gutting it. This is wrong!”

Federal court rules human genes can be patented

(This is ridiculous and adds more corporate control over people. Can a patent owner sue you for patent infrignement if you possess the same DNA s/he patented? Total bullshit!--jef)

By Eric W. Dolan - RAW Story
Monday, August 1st, 2011

 

 

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in a 2 to 1 decision Friday that human genes can be patented because the DNA extracted from cells is not a product of nature.
The court held (PDF) that Myriad Genetics can patent two human genes used to predict the risk of breast and ovarian cancer in women, overturning a previous decision by a federal district court in March 2010. But the court ruled that the method used to determine a patient's risk of cancer was not patentable.

The lawsuit, Association for Molecular Pathology, et al. v. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, et al., was filed in May 2009 on behalf of researchers, women patients, cancer survivors and scientific associations against the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, as well as Myriad Genetics and the University of Utah Research Foundation, which hold the patents on the genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2.

The lawsuit was filed by the Public Patent Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, who claimed patents on human genes violate the First Amendment and patent law because genes are "products of nature."

The court disagreed.

"In this case, the claimed isolated DNA molecules do not exist as in nature within a physical mixture to be purified," Judge Alan D. Lourie wrote for the majority. "They have to be chemically cleaved from their chemical combination with other genetic materials. In other words, in nature, isolated DNAs are covalently bonded to such other materials. Thus, when cleaved, an isolated DNA molecule is not a purified form of a natural material, but a distinct chemical entity. In fact, some forms of isolated DNA require no purification at all, because DNAs can be chemically synthesized directly as isolated molecules."

Judge Kimberly A. Moore added in a concurring opinion that isolated DNA "is a distinct molecule with different physical characteristics than the naturally occurring" DNA found in nature, noting that the DNA found in nature "is part of a much larger structure, the chromosome."

In his dissenting opinion, Judge William C. Bryson advocated the "common sense view" that "patents are for inventions" and "a human gene is not an invention." He also warned that "if sustained the court’s decision will likely have broad consequences, such as preempting methods for whole-genome sequencing."

"Because the native BRCA genes are chemically bonded to other genes and histone proteins, the majority concludes that cleaving those bonds to isolate the BRCA genes turns the isolated genes into 'different materials,'" Bryson added. "Yet there is no magic to a chemical bond that requires us to recognize a new product when a chemical bond is created or broken, but not when other atomic or molecular forces are altered."

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has already granted thousands of patents on human genes. It is estimated that nearly 20 percent of human genes are patented.

Researchers Expose Cunning Online Tracking Service That Can’t Be Dodged

By Ryan Singel - WIRED July 29, 2011 |

 

Researchers at U.C. Berkeley have discovered that some of the net’s most popular sites are using a tracking service that can’t be evaded — even when users block cookies, turn off storage in Flash, or use browsers’ “incognito” functions.

The service, called KISSmetrics, is used by sites to track the number of visitors, what the visitors do on the site, and where they come to the site from — and the company says it does a more comprehensive job than its competitors such as Google Analytics.

But the researchers say the site is using sneaky techniques to prevent users from opting out of being tracked on popular sites, including the TV streaming site Hulu.com.

The discovery of KISSmetrics tracking techniques comes as federal regulators, browser makers, privacy activists and ad tracking companies are trying to define what tracking actually is. The FTC called on browser makers to add a “Do Not Track” setting that essentially lets users tell websites to leave them alone — though it doesn’t block tracking on its own. It’s more like a “privacy, please” sign on a hotel door. One of the big questions surrounding Do Not Track is about web analytics software, which sites use to determine what’s popular on their site, how many unique visitors a site has a month, where users are coming from, and what pages they leave from.

In response to inquiries from Wired.com, Hulu cut ties with KISSmetrics on Friday.

UPDATE 5:00 PM Friday: Spotify, another KISSmetrics customer named in the report, said that it was concerned by the story:

“We take the privacy of our users incredibly seriously and are concerned by this report,” a spokeswoman said by e-mail. “As a result, we have taken immediate action in suspending our use of KISSmetrics whilst the situation is investigated.” /UPDATE

“Hulu has suspended our use of KISSmetrics’ services pending further investigation,” a spokeswoman told Wired.com. “Hulu takes our users’ privacy very seriously. We have no further comment at this time.”

KISSmetrics is a 17-person start-up founded in 2008 and based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Founder Hitten Shah confirmed that the research was correct, but told Wired.com Friday morning that there was nothing illegal about the techniques it was using.

“We don’t do it for malicious reasons. We don’t do it for tracking people across the web,” Shah said. “I would be having lawyers talk to you if we were doing anything malicious.”

Shah says KISSmetrics is used by thousands of sites to track incoming users, and it does not sell or buy data about those visitors, according to Shah. After this story was published, the company tweeted a link that explains how its tracking works.

So if a user came to Hulu.com from an ad on Facebook, and then later, using a different browser on the same computer, visited Hulu.com from Google, and then at some point signed up for the premium service, KISSmetrics would be able to tell Hulu all about that user’s path to purchase (without knowing who that person was). That tracking trail would remain in place even if a user deleted her cookies, due to code that stores the unique ID in places other than in a traditional cookie.

The research was published Friday by a team UC Berkeley privacy researchers that includes veteran privacy lawyer Chris Hoofnagle and noted privacy researcher Ashkan Soltani.
“The stuff works even if you have all cookies blocked and private-browsing mode enabled,” Soltani said. “The code itself is pretty damning.”

The researchers were reprising a study from 2009 which discovered that some of the net’s biggest sites were using technology from online ad tracking firms Clearspring and Quantcast to re-create users’ cookies after users deleted them. The technique involved using a little known property of Flash to hold onto unique ID numbers. Then, if a user deleted her cookies, the companies would check in the secondary stash for the user ID, and use it to resurrect the traditional HTML cookies.

That finding led to inquiries from regulators and a class action lawsuit alleging that websites and the tracking companies were unfairly monitoring users. That suit was settled for $2.4 million in cash and a promise by Clearspring and Quantcast not to use that method again.

One of the sites named in that suit was Hulu, but its part of the settlement only required that the company tell users if it was using Flash to store cookies and provide a link in the policy that would show users how to turn off Flash data storage. However with KISSmetrics running, even knowing how to do that wouldn’t have saved a user from persistent tracking.

This go-round the researchers’ report found only two sites that were recreating cookies after users deleted them — and Hulu.com was the only one doing so for tracking users across the entire site.

The researchers dug into Hulu.com’s tracking code and discovered the KISSmetrics code. Using it, Hulu was able to track users regardless of which browser they used or whether they deleted their cookies. KISSmetrics used a number of methods to recreate cookies, and the persistent tracking can only be avoided by erasing the browser cache between visits.

They also say that Shah’s defense that the system is not used to track people around the web doesn’t hold up.

“Both the Hulu and KISSmetrics code is pretty enlightening,” Soltani told Wired.com in an e-mail. “These services are using practically every known method to circumvent user attempts to protect their privacy (Cookies, Flash Cookies, HTML5, CSS, Cache Cookies/Etags…) creating a perpetual game of privacy ‘whack-a-mole’.”

“This is yet another example of the continued arms-race that consumers are engaged in when trying to protect their privacy online since advertisers are incentivized to come up with more pervasive tracking mechanisms unless there’s policy restrictions to prevent it.”

They point to their research that found that when a user visited Hulu.com, they would get a “third-party” cookie set by KISSmetrics with a tracking ID number. KISSmetrics would pass that number to Hulu, allowing Hulu to use it for its own cookie. Then if a user visited another site that was using KISSmetrics, that site’s cookie would get the exact same number as well.

In this screenshot provided by U.C. Berkeley's Chris Hoofnagle, the IDs numbers for all three cookies are exactly the same.

So that makes it possible, the researchers say, for any two sites using KISSmetrics to compare their databases, and ask things like “Hey, what do you know about user 345627?” and the other site could say “his name is John Smith and his email address is this@somefakedomainname.com and he likes these kinds of things.”

Shah did not respond to a follow-up e-mail seeking clarification on his first answers.

KISSmetrics is used by a number of prominent websites, which Wired.com is not naming until we have time to contact them.

Berkeley researcher Soltani, who consulted for the Wall Street Journal’s reporting on privacy, notes that the code includes function names like “cram cookie.”

One of the techniques used involves using something called ETags in the browser cache, a once-theoretical technique that’s never before been seen in the wild on a major site, according to the researchers.

The research also found that many top websites have adopted new ways to track users using HTML5 and that Google tracking cookies are present on 97 of the top sites, including government sites such as IRS.gov.

A screenshot of a browser cache cookie, which researchers say has never been seen in the wild before.

Further resources:

• The actual Flash/HTML5/Cache/Etags respawning code used by KISSmetrics on Hulu: code, pastebin
• Hulu’s own code to respawn cookies: code, see it on ShowMyCode by entering http://www.hulu.com/guid.swf?v2
• The full report from the Berkeley researchers
• An image from Ashkan Soltani showing tracking ID being set in a browser even with cookies blocked and in ‘private’ browsing mode.

See Also:

• You Deleted Your Cookies? Think Again
• Privacy Lawsuit Targets Net Giants Over ‘Zombie’ Cookies
• Ad Firm Sued for Allegedly Re-Creating Deleted Cookies
• Online Tracking Firm Settles Suit Over Undeletable Cookies

What the USDA Doesn't Want You to Know About Antibiotics and Factory Farms

— By Tom Philpott  | Fri Jul. 29, 2011| Mother Jones

Here is a document the USDA doesn't want you to see. It's what the agency calls a "technical review"—nothing more than a USDA-contracted researcher's simple, blunt summary of recent academic findings on the growing problem of antibiotic-resistant infections and their link with factory animal farms. The topic is a serious one. A single antibiotic-resistant pathogen, MRSA—just one of many now circulating among Americans—now claims more lives each year than AIDS.

Back in June, the USDA put the review up on its National Agricultural Library website. Soon after, a Dow Jones story quoted a USDA official who declared it to be based on "reputed, scientific, peer-reviewed, and scholarly journals." She added that the report should not be seen as a "representation of the official position of USDA." That's fair enough—the review was designed to sum up the state of science on antibiotic resistance and factory farms, not the USDA's position on the matter.

But around the same time, the agency added an odd disclaimer to the top of the document: "This review has not been peer reviewed. The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Department of Agriculture." And last Friday, the document (original link) vanished without comment from the agency's website. The only way to see the document now is through the above-linked cached version supplied to me by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

What gives? Why is the USDA suppressing a review that assembles research from "reputed, scientific, peer-reviewed, and scholarly journals"?

To understand the USDA's quashing of a report it had earlier commissioned, published, and praised, you first have to understand a key aspect of industrial-scale meat production. You see, keeping animals alive and growing fast under cramped, unsanitary conditions is tricky business. One of the industry's tried-and-true tactics is low-level, daily doses of antibiotics. The practice helps keep infections down, at least in the short term, and, for reasons no one really understands, it pushes animals to fatten to slaughter weight faster.

Altogether, the US meat industry uses 29 million pounds of antibiotics every year. To put that number in perspective, consider that we humans in the United States—in all of our prescription fill-ups and hospital stays combined—use just over 7 million pounds per year. Thus the vast bulk of antibiotics consumed in this country, some 80 percent, goes to factory animal farms.

For years, scientists have worried that the industry's reliance on antibiotics was contributing to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance. The European Union took action to curtail routine antibiotic use on farms in 2006 (taking Sweden's lead, which had banned the practice 20 years before).

But here in the United States, the regulatory approach has been completely laissez-faire—and the meat industry would like to keep it that way. The industry claims that even though antibiotic-resistant bacteria have been found both in confined animals and supermarket meat, there's simply no evidence that livestock strains are jumping to the human population.

Here is where we get back to that now-you-see-it, now-you-don't USDA research summary, which reads like a heavily footnoted rebuttal to the industry line. Assembled by Vaishali Dharmarha, a research assistant at the University of Maryland, the report summarizes research from 63 academic papers and government studies. Here are few of her findings:

• "Use and misuse of antimicrobial drugs in food animal production and human medicine is the main factor accelerating antimicrobial resistance."

• "[F]ood animals, when exposed to antimicrobial agents, may serve as a significant reservoir of resistant bacteria that can transmit to humans through the food supply."

• "Several studies conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on antimicrobial-resistant Salmonella showed that [antibiotic resistance] in Salmonella strains was most likely due to the antimicrobial use in food animals, and that most infections caused by resistant strains are acquired from the consumption of contaminated food."

• "Farmers and farm workers may get exposed to resistant bacteria by handling animals, feed, and manure. These exposures are of significant concern to public health, as they can transfer the resistant bacteria to family and community members, particularly through person-to-person contacts."

• "Resistant bacteria can also spread from intensive food animal production area to outside boundaries through contact between food animals and animals in the external environment. Insects, flies, houseflies, rodents, and wild birds play an important role in this mode of transmission. They are particularly attracted to animal wastes and feed sources from where they carry the resistant bacteria to several locations outside the animal production facility."

Naturally, such assertions didn't please the meat industry—and the fact that they were backed up by dozens of peer-reviewed science papers no doubt only sharpened the sting. In the trade paper National Hog Farmer, a National Pork Producers Council official lashed out. Perhaps lacking factual ammunition, the official resorted to an attack on the researchers' credentials:

"We find it very disappointing that a research assistant at a university, who is not an Agricultural Research Service scientist, can develop and post such a review without it going through an agency or peer review process."

Well, the pork producers can rest a bit easier. The researcher, Dharmarha, has been silenced. Not only has her report been erased from the USDA site, but she has been forbidden to talk to media. I reached her by phone Thursday. She told me that she didn't know why the report had been taken down, and that she could make no further comment. She referred me to her superior, Tara Smith of the USDA's National Agriculture Library. Smith has yet to return calls or emails.

But Dharmarha's report remains available, due to the the miracle of Google search's cache and the diligence of the Union of Concerned Scientists' staff, and what it's telling us is disturbing: In addition to mountains of cheap product, the food industry is churning out a major public-health menace. And instead of informing the public about it, the USDA seems intent to keep it on the down-low. Justin Tatham of the Union of Concerned Scientists, who has been observing the drama since it started in June, put it to me like this: "As a science-based group, we're concerned about how the USDA is withholding this information from the public."

For me, what's even more disturbing is that government regulators know that serious trouble is brewing from antibiotic abuse on factory farms and seem incapable of acting to stop it.

Dharmarha's heresies are not the first time a government-associated person has bluntly held forth on the topic. In 2009, Josh Sharfstein, then deputy commissioner of the FDA, delivered damning testimony before the US House of Representatives. He opined that routine use of antibiotics on farm animals should be severely restricted—banned outright for non-medical uses like growth promotion and used only "under the supervision of a veterinarian" to treat sicknesses.

But by January of this year, Sharfstein had resigned from his post. The FDA maintains its official stance that antibiotics should be used "judiciously" on factory farms, and it leaves it to the industry to define what that means.