When I was 26, I found out I was going to hell. Young, impressionable, and without a strong faith, I listened intently as the pastor of a church I was visiting described in graphic detail the tortuous, unquenchable flames that would burn human bodies forever and ever. He spoke of worms eating away at decaying flesh, total darkness without the presence of God, and worst of all, no release from those horrors for all eternity. I certainly didn't want to be one of those unfortunate many to feel the flames licking at my feet soon after leaving life in this world. So I took out the proper fire insurance and asked Jesus to save me from my sins and, therefore, from eternal torment in hell. Whew! That was 25 years ago, and hell is still a hot topic.

Hell haunts me deep down inside, where I fear to tread and fail to admit uncertainty lest ripples of doubt disturb my secure little world of faith, lest someone find out and think me less Christian and more heretic. I have no intention of doing away with hell. I can't -- certain verses in the Bible won't allow me to do that. So I am very concerned about remaining faithful to the Christian scriptures; but I'm even more concerned about remaining faithful to the God of love, who loves the worst of the worst, the world's enemies, including, even, the Hitlers, the Idi Amins, and the Osama bin Ladens of the world. Our traditional views of hell as a place of eternal punishment where unbelievers dwell in undying flames contradict the image of God as merciful, forgiving, and compassionate. Our traditional focus on hell as an evangelistic tool does not genuinely communicate the very heart of the gospel. If we receive Jesus as Savior merely because we want to avoid hell, we miss the entire point.

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My legal and advocacy work both in the U.S. and abroad has given me the unique opportunity to view challenges faced by the Muslim community in multifarious socio-political settings. What is clear to me is that the challenges faced, and to be faced in the coming century, by the Muslim community require the utilization of the same individual and societal instruments under evaluation. These include the appropriate and permissible application of individual and communal freedoms, the freedom as an individual to study one's faith and offer new and relevant interpretations of such, and the freedom for a community as a whole to practice its faith in the public and private sphere. And so, I see major challenges faced by the Muslim community in the twenty-first century as coming from two arenas: 1) intra-community differences, such as disparate interpretations of gender roles, or differing theological and historical critical interpretations of the Quran; and 2) extra-community relations, such as variant understandings of how self (Muslim) versus other (non-Muslim) should interact and the responsibilities of each toward the other.

Much of my legal and advocacy work while at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a non-profit, non-partisan law firm that protects the free expression of all faiths, has been in Muslim communities in the Muslim world, particularly in Egypt and Pakistan, where the central short and long-term challenge is a government that is authoritarian and/or corrupt. State control of religion, whether through monitoring of mosque sermons or prosecution of "deviant" interpretations -- Shia, Koranist, Ahmadi, or even Sunni -- under national security pretexts, politicizes religion so that "Islam" ultimately becomes a tool to be manipulated by the state to best serve its interests. The realization of religious freedom, free speech, and other fundamental human rights is dependent on adequate checks on government power. With activists routinely imprisoned and harassed, the countercurrent to government restrictions is always struggling to gather momentum.

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Anyone who has read Founding Brothers, or any other great read about the men who founded this country, can't help but be blown away by how different politics were back then.  John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the Federalists and anti-Federalists, were locked in an epic ideological struggle, the result of which has shaped the entire development of this nation.  At the end of the day, neither Adams nor Jefferson wanted to surrender the rights that the Americans had fought so bravely to secure.  Jefferson believed that the largest threat to these freedoms was a strong national government, and Adams believed that both external and internal threats, combined with the weakness of the early nation, could inevitably lead to the fall of the United States, dissolving the American dream in cataclysm.  Somewhere along the road, the debate became more defined as the tension between liberal interpretation (loose, spirit of the law, pragmatic) and the conservative interpretation (strict, cautionary, individualistic) of the Constitution of the United States.  The Federalists believed that the best way to secure liberty was to ensure strength, security, and prosperity for the people of the United States.  Problems and threats were to be treated pragmatically in order to form a more perfect union.  The anti-Federalists feared the construction of a dragon that would devour itself, a strong centralized government that would replace the King with a bureaucracy and special interests.  Trading big government for security and prosperity was not a risk the anti-Federalists were willing to take.

I could write about how neither the modern Democrats nor the modern Republicans fit the liberal nor conservative label.  After all, it is the "Conservative" party that would like to define marriage, revise the 14th amendment, mandate English as the official language of the United States, and even change the way senators are elected.  Perhaps the most glaring departure from strict interpretation would be the method that congress has used to wage war without a declaration of war by congress, and this is made even more striking when wars are waged preemptively.  On the other hand, proponents of gay marriage are very happy that our founding fathers didn't define marriage in our founding documents.

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Weekly Mulch: Fighting the Joe Millers of the World

by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger

Joe Miller, Sarah Palin's choice candidate for one of Alaska's Senate seats, does not believe in climate change. That didn't bother Alaska voters: this week, Miller bested Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the state's Republican primary. If that weren't worrisome enough, it also emerged that the fossil fuel industry spent eight times more than environmental groups on lobbying in 2009, the year the House passed the climate change bill. It's been a bad year already for environmental causes, and as the November election edges closer, progressives might want to start working overtime to regain momentum on climate and energy issues.

Murkowski was solidly against the idea of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulating carbon. But she was willing to talk about cap-and-trade programs, and at the very least, she was willing to admit climate change was happening. Depending on how November's election shakes out, the shift towards climate-denial in Congress may only worsen. A slew of Republican candidates are convinced that, as one put it, "only God knows where our climate is going," as Care2 reports.

A tougher tomorrow

Current political trends bode badly for the planet. If Congress couldn't pass climate legislation while are in Democrats control of the House and Senate, there's little hope that lawmakers will step up when facing opponents who don't believe in climate change.

Carla Perez has a few ideas about how progressives and environmentalists can fight back -- and they begin with accepting that, yes, giving up fossil fuels would mean sacrifice, but it wouldn't be the end of the world. Perez, a program coordinator at social justice group Movement Generation, appeared recently on National Radio Project's Making Contact and imagined how life would look without fossil fuels:

No iPods. No iPads. No plasma TVs. No motorized individual vehicles. No plastic bags. No pleather boots for $9.99 from Payless.... Then again, no island of plastic twice the size of Texas. No plumes of sulfuric acid over Richmond, California. No skyrocketing rates of cancer and diabetes concentrated in native and people of color communities all over the world. No spontaneous combustion of flames off of contaminated rivers.

"How bad would it be?" she asked.

Target practice

To move from iPods to environmental justice, though, people like Perez will have to keep politicians like Joe Miller out of Washington. In an interview with Yes! Magazine, Riki Ott, a marine biologist and Exxon Valdez survivor, makes a good point about the challenges that environmental advocates face.

"This BP disaster, like the Exxon-Valdez, is more than an environmental crisis--it's a democracy crisis," Ott says. "Right now we're playing the game: Going through regulatory arenas, tightening some laws. But that's not good enough. The real question is, how do we get control of these big corporations?"

Electing politicians that don't take corporate money or listen to industry lobbyists will help. Another way to move away from the dominance of fossil fuel companies is offering real alternatives to using their products.

Brave new NOLA

In New Orleans, in the five years since Katrina hit, the people rebuilding the city have worked to create greener alternatives, as Campus Progress reports. Here's just one example:

Go Green NOLA encourages homebuilders to think small, since smaller homes use less energy. The group also makes suggestions such as installing windows and insulation systems with special attention to local weather and climate -- think: humidity, and lots of it--and using shade trees and other landscaping to help beat back the southern sun.

Change can happen without devastation preceding it. In Massachusetts, the Green Justice Coalition worked to ensure that environmental justice provisions made it into the state's $1.4 billion energy efficiency plan, The Nation reports. What's more, the coalition made certain that Massachusetts citizens would feel the impact of the new plan directly:

There will be a financing plan to make energy-saving home improvements more affordable. Many of the 23,300 jobs to be generated by the plan will go to contractors who pay decent wages and meet "high road" employment standards. Finally, four pilot programs across the state will test a radically new outreach model by going door to door and mobilizing low- and moderate-income families in building greener neighborhoods.

Women lead the way

Progress doesn't happen on its own, of course. At RH Reality Check, Kathleen Rogers suggests that female leaders make all the difference. "Women get the connections between climate change, public health and economic growth, because climate change is disproportionately affecting women," she writes. "A new generation of women entrepreneurs, leaders and civil society, have demonstrated the potential for being the solution to the climate crisis. But they must be mobilized and given an opportunity to influence government and business."

Rogers is right. Leaders are out there. Just listen to the whole of Carla Perez' comments on Making Contact. The Green Justice Coalition's Phyllis Evans also gets it. And even Sen. Murkowski was willing to work on climate change compromises, on some level.

Of course, it's not just women who can lead the country and the planet away from current environmental and democratic crises. Paths forward are emerging; anyone can follow them.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

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by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger

After decades of misguided policies and patchwork practices, the high human costs of our disordered immigration system are only starting to emerge. Stricter immigration policies and overcrowded detention centers aren't making our streets safer or our social services more accessible.

Instead, mounting evidence shows that our immigration policies are just creating a space for immigrants to be brutalized--socially, financially and physically. From reports of sexual abuse inside of detention centers to news of legal residents being denied social services, the ineffectiveness of the prevailing system has never been more apparent, nor the need for reform so great.

Women and children sexually assaulted in detention centers

As Michelle Chen writes at Colorlines, allegations of sexual abuse within a Texas detention center have sparked investigations by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch. According to reports, a guard at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center sexually assaulted several women while transporting them prior to their release.

Human Rights Watch, which this week released a comprehensive report on sexual abuse in detention, regards the incident as representative of a larger problem that affects both women and children caught in the web of the detention system. From the report:

Children, too, have apparently been subject to alleged abuse in Texas immigration detention facilities, although their care is overseen by the US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), rather than ICE. Nine Central American children, one of whom was identified as 16 years old, reported sexual and physical abuse while in the custody of Texas Sheltered Care [...] the children were fondled, groped, and forced to perform oral sex on one guard, and some were beaten by other guards.

While sexual assault is pervasive within the prison system, women in the immigration detention are particularly vulnerable. The threat of deportation and the lack of comprehensive oversight of detention centers (many of which are operated by for-profit corporations rather than ICE itself) both contribute to a culture of impunity. The fact that most individuals detained in ICE facilities are non-criminals only renders the situation even more reprehensible.

As Chen points out, it is likely many victims of abuse have already been deported, were offered no recourse, and have no incentive to report the crimes now.

Marginalizing undocumented victims of violent crime

Outside of detention centers, immigrant victims of violent crime are similarly handicapped by the justice system. While U-visas are available to undocumented crime victims who cooperate with prosecutors, Elyse Foley of the Washington Independent reports that such visas are issued inconsistently and at the discretion of local law enforcement.

In Maricopa County, Arizona (the land of Sheriff Joe Arpaio) former Attorney General Andrew Thomas allegedly ignored numerous requests for U-visas because he believed that undocumented immigrants were trying to use them to stay in the country.

Such politicking on the part of local law enforcement can have disastrous consequences, particularly in Arizona, where Arpaio's aggressive policing of immigrants has created a culture of fear. Local immigrant rights groups now claim that migrants are refusing to report even violent crimes committed against them for fear of being arrested for their immigration status.

Criminalizing immigrants clogs the system

The impunity with which crimes are committed against immigrants, both in and out of detention, isn't likely to end as long as our immigration system remains overcrowded and mismanaged. But, as Jim Loebe writes over at AlterNet, "real reform is still a long way off." The government continues to increasingly criminalize immigration violations. Citing a new paper by the Global Detention Project, Loebe argues that more people, not less, are going to end up in detention in coming years, in spite of the president's promise of reform.

Certainly, the Obama administration's enforcement programs, from expanding the controversial Secure Communities program to the new border security bill, have been successful at detaining and deporting record numbers of undocumented immigrants. But in spite of President Barack Obama's assurances that his programs only target dangerous immigrants, the majority of those deported and in detention have no criminal records. Our broken system even penalizes refugees and asylum seekers, many of whom find themselves incarcerated for months or years while their cases are processed.

The unexpected impact of health care reform

In this anti-immigrant climate, legal immigrants and their American children are also facing unprecedented challenges, even as other citizens are enjoying greater security.

At The American Prospect, Maria C. Abascal argues that, while health care reform clearly excludes undocumented immigrants, it also hurts legal immigrants in less obvious ways. Not only are legal residents subject to a five-year waiting period to qualify for Medicaid (meaning low-income migrants and their children will likely remain uninsured), some analysts also believe that "health reform reduces the likelihood of immigration reform because it significantly increases the fiscal cost of amnesty."

While the anti-immigrant sentiment that infused the health care debate earlier this year certainly suggested that reform wouldn't be kind to the undocumented, few could have guessed that the Affordable Care Act would impact legal migrants and their American children so unfortunately. It begs the question: Should comprehensive immigration reform becomes a reality, what kind of unintended consequences might it bring, and who might it ultimately hurt?

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse . This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

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Not surprisingly, I've been paying a lot of attention lately to the general interest books on the PRC that have been coming out, in part due to my perennial desire to keep learning about the country and in part to see what sort of competition there is for my own China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know. In the crowded field of recent publications, the hardest to categorize is probably Richard Baum's latest, China Watcher: Confessions of a Peking Tom (University of Washington Press, 2010). This is because it is less one text than three rolled together.

It's a concise survey of recent Chinese political history. But it's also a potted history of the American China studies establishment -- or, rather, that establishment's social scientific wing of which Baum is part, since humanities fields such as history and literature get only glancing attention. And it's a memoir of one leader of that establishment's life in Chinese studies, a coming of age and career highlights tale that often showcases the author's puckish side. One choice anecdote, for example, involves a young Baum's ultimately unsuccessful effort to fast-talk his way into a visa for travel into mainland China, back in the 1960s when Americans could very rarely get them. His ploy was to make the most of a mislabeled photograph in a pro-Communist Hong Kong newspaper that referred to him as a "friend of China" enamored of Mao's writings, and also described him as a French merchant seaman rather than a graduate student from California.

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One cannot help but note an eerie similarity between the birthright debates raging in the US and the State of Israel. Both nations are badly in need of resetting their immigration policies in the face of a rapidly globalizing flat planet. Both must face up to the reality that immigration is innate and inevitable not to mention key to a nation's vigor and long term vitality. Both have to contend with the reality that porous borders are here to stay and that mass deportation of illegal aliens is just not an option. Both would do well to embrace a rich multicultural future in lieu of a monochromatic past. And yet, both nations are home to regressive factions intent on stemming illegal immigration by targeting birthright citizenship. Tuning out constitutional, statutory and common law considerations, jus soli opponents appear equally oblivious to notions enunciated in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.

The leading protagonists at the center of these inter-continental anti-immigration movements, strange bedfellows that they are, do, surprisingly, share a great deal in common. At the US corner is Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce who as of late is being egged on by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and other Johnny-come lately hill notables. Not one to pull punches, Senator Pearce, flush from landing Arizona's SB 1070 immigration law, calls 'em like he sees 'em. Shades of gray between ebony and ivory need not apply. When it comes to illegal immigrants, Senator Pearce is on record saying, "I will not back off until we solve the problem of this illegal invasion. Invaders, that's what they are. Invaders on the American sovereignty and it can't be tolerated."

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The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was a B-movie that played like a 2.5 hour episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (not even peak seasons 3-7). It was elevated to something considered high art because it had subtitles and had a somewhat more overt sexuality than most American cinema. We are so starved for interesting female characters that we elevated Lisbeth Salander to some kind of fem-super hero/empowerment figure purely because she was a little more interesting and had more back story than the stock female love interest. To paraphrase Aaron Sorkin, we are so thirsty for water than we'll drink the sand. Take away the overt sexual content, and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo remains a perfectly entertaining, if overlong and plodding, diversion for an evening rental, the kind of thing that Paramount used to toss out with regularity in the mid-to-late 1990s. So what does it mean that David Fincher has cast Rooney Mara to portray the iconic character in the American remake?

Melissa Silverstein over at Women and Hollywood took understandable umbrage at the flurry of articles discussing just which young actress would be playing Peter Parker's girlfriend (who apparently might not be Mary Jane) in the upcoming Spider-Man reboot. The finalists are apparently Emma Roberts, Teresa Palmer, Lilly Collins, and Imogen Poots, and Ophelia Lovibond. Her annoyance stems from the phrasing of these articles, which basically amounts to 'which promising young actress gets to play the quasi jail-bait piece of meat that Spidey rescues and then makes out with?' I wrote about this back in March. It's the dilemma of most working actresses, forced to choose either no mainstream work or be stuck playing the 'token female character/love interest'. I'm less offended in this case because we're talking about Spider-Man here. If we knew which one of Parker's comic book girlfriends was in the reboot, the articles simply would have read 'who's playing Mary Jane/Gwen Stacey/Betty Brock/etc', and they would likely contain a token amount of comic book backstory. But the obstacle that actresses face, being cast only in relation to the male lead, is a fair charge and one worth repeating.

I have been on vacation from work and blogging for a month, which has its great benefits, namely rest, head-clearing and time to be with my family uninterrupted. I have tried my hardest to not respond to some of the big issues of the day, resting my mind and hands from entering the fray of public opinion. I have a few more days of rest, but I found myself, after not attending a press conference this morning with my interfaith friends on the issue of the Cordoba House Islamic Center and mosque in NYC, needing to put some thoughts down and share some of my observations. This issue has been riveting America and I know that many, many voices have entered the conversation, some helpful, reasoned and passionate, others divisive, unreasonable and passionate. I have read in the polls that a serious majority of Americans are against this Islamic Center being built in its current desired location, two blocks or so from the site of the Twin Towers, Ground Zero, which, after nine years, still sits as an empty hole, a gaping reminder that we, as a country, have not been very successful at the healing, reconciliation and moving forward that is necessary after such a massive national tragedy. I cannot speak to all the reasons why folks are so against this center being built, but I do know that some of the factors are fear and sadness, anger and confusion. This Islamic Center issue is only a symptom of the larger healing that has not taken place, and this alone is very troubling to me.

I am a man who believes in reconciliation and honest dialogue as the most healthy way to heal after tragedy. I lived in Kingston, NY in 2001 and had friends and family in New York City on that fateful day, September 11. My kids were born 4 weeks later and we gave our son the middle name Shalom, meaning "peace, wholeness" in Hebrew. We knew that bringing kids into the world, especially after 9/11, was going to require us to dig deep inside of us to remain committed and passionate about peace, harmony and the heart-seeded belief that people, at their core, have the capacity to live together, understand one another and work for the betterment of all humanity. I have Muslim friends who are peace-loving, honest and amazing individuals who are working for a better of understanding of their religion, working to counter the extremist elements of their people that have hijacked and brought havoc onto them and our world in the name of a God that is not recognizable to most Muslims, and who are working to protect their families and friends against the anger and violence that many Americans are subjecting them to, falling prey to the vicious stereotypes and scapegoating that my people, the Jewish people, have suffered for generations. There are Muslim extremists and Jewish extremists and Christian extremists and nonsectarian extremists and they all want the same thing: a world that looks only like them, following their understanding alone of how the world should operate. I know Jews who are intolerant and Muslims who are intolerant; I know Jews who are tolerant and Muslims who are tolerant; I know intolerant and tolerant Christians as well. There are extremists in the Middle East and here in America. There are extremists everywhere. The key, for me, is that we have to seek out and elevate the tolerant voices, highlighting the good in others, the desire for understanding and connection that the majority of human beings in our world share. Our society, and our media, have chosen to drive us into this train wreck of sound bite living, sparking catchy names like "Ground Zero Mosque," even when, and often especially when, they don't represent the whole truth. This Islamic Center is not at "ground zero," but a few blocks away. But, its catchy and as we see, it sticks to us like glue. When are we going to rise up and reject the sound bite abyss that we have allowed ourselves to be swallowed whole into?

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One of the most critical functions of government is to protect our health from hidden dangers in our homes, schools, and workplaces.  In particular, we rely upon our government to protect us from dangers that we, as individuals, are powerless to address.  Major milestones in the field of public health improvements in the last century include vanquishing threats like botulism, smallpox, and polio, as well as protecting people and the environment by tackling chemical contamination left over from decades of unregulated dumping of hazardous wastes.  Today, we face another urgent call for our government to step in and protect future generations from a serious health threat that lurks in schools and homes.    

Hundreds of recent health studies prove exceedingly low levels of lead exposure are dangerous – even at levels that were previously believed “safe.”  Small amounts of lead leaching from our plumbing can cause kidney disease, hypertension, reduced brain function, hearing loss, nervous system disorders, bone marrow damage, and even death.  Lead in the bloodstream robs us of our future because it is even more toxic to children.  There is simply no reason that lead should still be allowed in our drinking water plumbing.

In response to the dangers of lead, our government has taken steps to reduce our exposure.  In the 1970s, the use of lead in paint and gasoline was phased out.  In 1986, a federal law was enacted to reduce lead in our drinking water plumbing.  However, faucets sold today can still contain up to a quarter pound of lead and still be labeled as “lead-free” under the 1986 federal law.  Here is how it works.

This 1986 federal law, and a subsequent amendment in 1996, established requirements for “lead free” drinking water plumbing.  However, under the heading of “things aren’t always what they seem to be,” this federal law actually allows up to 4 percent lead content in faucets and up to 8 percent lead in drinking water pipes.  The typical household faucet weighs about six and a half pounds.  That means a typical household faucet can contain up to a quarter pound of lead and still be labeled “lead free” under the federal safe drinking water law.  We’ve long known that lead contained in a faucet or other household plumbing will leach into the drinking water as that water passes through the plumbing.  So how safe can a faucet be that contains a quarter pound of lead?

California Pioneers the Path

Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (D-California) wants to remedy this injustice and has introduced a federal bill, H.R. 5289, to truly eliminate lead from our drinking water plumbing.  H.R. 5289 is closely patterned after legislation that I authored while serving in the California Legislature.

In February 2006, while serving as the chair of the Assembly Health Committee in the California Legislature, I introduced a bill to create the toughest lead standard in the world for drinking water plumbing.  The plumbing industry fought hard to weaken the law (sound familiar?) as it moved through the California Legislature.  Having failed in that effort, they made an aggressive pitch to Governor Schwarzenegger to veto my bill, claiming that the lead standard in my bill could not be manufactured by the faucet industry.  But Governor Schwarzenegger showed a strong commitment to a more healthy future for our children and he signed my Assembly Bill 1953 into law.  Today, every major plumbing company is manufacturing and selling faucets in California that meet this tough new lead standard which will help achieve “zero leaching of lead” from faucets in homes and in our schools.  I am proud that California became the first state (and the first government in the world) to enact a lead content standard this stringent for protecting children’s health.  Since California enacted this new lead content standard for drinking water plumbing, two other states – Vermont and Maryland – have also enacted statutes modeled after my bill.  With Representative Eshoo’s H.R. 5289, this same vital public health benefit can be enjoyed by the entire nation.

H.R. 5289 provides robust protections and appropriate governmental oversight to ensure that faucet companies actually comply with the tough standard set forth in the Eshoo bill.  H.R. 5289, as part of a larger bill dealing with drinking water protections, was passed by the House just before its summer recess. Industry lobbyists say they support the bill, but they tried to make “minor” amendments to this bill that would allow private laboratories, rather than the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), certify that their faucets are safe.  The manufacturers would like to be allowed to make their own determinations as to how to test and demonstrate compliance with the new lead standard.  In other words, industry says “trust us.”  We should not be fooled into allowing the proverbial fox to guard the henhouse.

Why is government oversight so important to ensure lead is kept out of our faucets?  Most faucets are made of copper, zinc, and lead.  Lead, the most toxic of these metals, is also the cheapest.  Over the past twenty years, plumbing fixture manufacturing has moved offshore. Now, the vast majority of faucets sold in the U.S. are manufactured overseas where there is little regulatory oversight, leading to familiar product recalls for imported toys, pet food, and building materials.  We now have abundant proof that in today’s global economy the complex, impossible-to-track material supply chain and the drive for profit can be a deadly combination.  Now more than ever, we need strong governmental oversight over these imported faucets to ensure that they are meeting the strong federal standard.  We cannot risk the health of our children by allowing self-certification of faucets.    

Lead is Worse than You Think

There is no doubt that lead in faucets is a serious hazard.  The USEPA and California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment both conclude that 15-20 percent of children’s lead exposure comes from drinking water.  The USEPA further states, “The most common problem is with brass or chrome-plated brass faucets and fixtures which can leach significant amounts of lead into the water.”

While safe for no one, lead is particularly toxic to children.  On average, children under the age of six will absorb and retain about 50 percent of the lead they ingest.  Unlike some other contaminants that the body is able to remove, lead accumulates over time and can cause irreversible brain injury in children.  A 2009 study revealed that lead can permanently affect children’s ability to think and to control their behavior and emotions.  Recent medical studies have pointed to lead as a cause of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), with a 2006 medical study concluding that lead exposure accounts for 290,000 excess cases of ADHD in children.  If that isn’t bad enough, recently published medical studies link children’s exposure to lead with committing violent crime later in life, including murder, which is associated with more severe cases of childhood lead poisoning.

Recent investigations have revealed the startling truth about the lead our children are exposed to in their schools.  In 2004, it was reported that 80 percent of schools tested in the Seattle School District had at least one fountain that dispensed water with lead levels above the USEPA’s limit, and one even dispensed water with a lead concentration 80 times higher than the limit.  In 2009, it was reported that 92 percent of the schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District had at least one fountain dispensing water with levels of lead above the USEPA’s limit.  Despite these alarming discoveries, there are no laws that require school districts to test their fountains.  In fact, California lawmakers introduced bills in 2008 and 2009 to require testing of school drinking water fountains for lead, and both bills failed.  Sadly, California regulators have known about the problems for decades.  A 1998 report by the California Department of Health Services (DHS) estimated that 18 percent of California’s public elementary schools had lead levels in their drinking water that were above the USEPA’s limit.  The more recent comprehensive testing completed in Seattle and Los Angeles suggests that the DHS estimate was a significant underestimate.  To stop the lead poisoning of our children, it is critical that the federal government act now to prohibit the use of lead in drinking water plumbing.

Clearly there are tremendous costs to society if we don’t get the lead out of our faucets.  Childhood lead poisoning costs the U.S. as much as $319 billion annually in lost productivity.  H.R. 5289 would save billions in long-term public health costs and would reduce childhood lead exposure and its horrifying effects.  This is an indisputably cost-effective intervention.

Faucet industry lobbyists are hard at work to weaken H.R. 5289 to their advantage.  They argue that they can best determine whether their products comply with the proposed standard, and that government agencies such as the USEPA shouldn’t stand watch.  We have seen this before – industry argues that only they can understand and regulate their complex business.  The BP oil rig disaster and recent financial meltdown make it all too clear that self regulation leaves all of the power in the hands of the regulated industry.  We and future generations will suffer from these stunning examples of industry’s failure to self-regulate.  In light of the evidence, why should we trust the faucet industry to police itself, particularly when we are dealing with something as toxic as lead?  

Now it’s time for the U.S. Senate to follow the House’s lead to enact the same standard that has been enacted in California, Vermont, and Maryland.  

Industry tried to weaken California’s safe lead standard and failed.  Now they are playing the same game at the federal level.  Let’s not give them the chance to win at our expense.  H.R. 5289 should be adopted without industry amendments and without delay.

Wilma Chan, former California State Assemblywoman

 

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Whenever I blather on about the death of the mainstream, mid-budget, star-driven thriller, the prime example that comes to mind is the Alex Cross franchise. Paramount used to thrive on said pot-boilers, and two of the more successful entries were adaptations of two books in James Patterson's long-running Alex Cross series. I can't count the number of times my wife has casually asked me why Paramount didn't make more. Aside from whether or not star Morgan Freeman was interested, the best I could figure is that a regime change took hold at Paramount, and the new bosses wanted in on the mega-blockbuster game. After all, why spend $50 million and hope to gross $100 million worldwide, when you could spend $150 million, and hope to God that you made at least $300 million worldwide? Well, it appears that saner heads have prevailed, as psychologist/detective/federal agent/super hero Alex Cross is returning to the big screen. And taking over for Morgan Freeman is Idris Elba, a respected character actor from The Wire, The Office, and several film turns (Daddy's Little Girls, The Losers, 28 Weeks Later, etc) who is about to become a superstar.

In quick succession J. Christian Adams, a former Justice Department attorney, strongly implied in his testimony to the Civil Rights Commission that the word came down from on White House high to the Justice Department to dump a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia. Adams just as strongly implied that the White House put the word out to play hard ball on discrimination cases when the victims are minorities, and soft peddle the same type cases when the victims are white. The conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch quickly announced a lawsuit against the DOJ to hand over documents on the case. Not to be outdone, Rush Limbaugh gassed that Obama hates America (meaning whites) and that he's deliberately torpedoing the economy to "pay back" the nation for 230 years of racial sins against blacks.

Any other time, and with any other president, this would be treated exactly for what it is, sheer lunacy. But this not any other time, and the president is Obama. The suspicion that always lurks close to the surface is that an African-American, once in a position of power, will turn the tables and "pay back" whites for the decades of slavery, Jim Crow segregation, racial violence, abuse, degradation and exclusion. The two-decade assault on affirmative action firmly implanted the widespread belief that unfit and unqualified minorities -- and especially blacks -- were hell bent on shoving whites aside and grab all the plum positions. It was reverse discrimination and racism. It was a short step from this to the notion that racism is virtually dead in America, except for the racism of blacks. This set the stage to tag Obama the reverse racist.

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The lengths to which pundits, analysts, and establishment political leaders have always gone to avoid using dreaded populism in their political strategies for Democrats has always been remarkable to me. From Republicans since Richard Nixon, appeals to a moralist and angry middle class are all politically brilliant, but Democrats, so it is said, should avoid it as a political tactic because it doesn't work. When Lee Atwater observes that "the swing vote in every Presidential election is populist in nature", he is a genius. When Democrats start sounding like populists, we are told it just doesn't work.

From the DLC to the New Democrats to the folks at Third Way to columnists like David Broder and David Brooks to authors and analysts like Matt Bai, the advice is to be careful about seeming too angry and too anti-business. Some argue that a democratic, progressive populism has never worked in American politics, that it was at its highest point under William Jennings Bryan and he was still a loser. Some will deign to admit that FDR showed a populist streak, but then say that no one else with a similar message has won a Presidential election. The more thoughtful of these analysts, such as Bai, point to demographic and economic changes as the reason. Bai believes that "the only potent grass-roots movement to emerge from this moment of dissatisfaction with America's economic elite exists not in support of the president or his party, but far to the right instead, in the form of the so-called Tea Party rebellions that are injecting new energy into the Republican cause." He goes on to argue:

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Military spending is moving to the forefront of Washington policy prattle. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates got headlines early this week when he proposed some changes in command structures along with other organization adjustments which in aggregate could save billions of dollars over five years. Skeptics saw the initiative as a ploy to take the steam out of rising concern for the spiral in defense spending at a time of heightened anxiety over long-term budget deficits. In truth, Gates' cost cutting measures would just nibble around the edge of our vast military establishment, replenished each year by $750 - 800 billion (including ad hoc Iraq/Afghanistan appropriations). For example, he talks of a 30 percent reduction in the number of contractors but is unable to tell Congress how many the Pentagon employs in total -- even without counting the 150,000 or so who serve as hired help in our two wars. He foresees defense spending actually going up in real terms -- just by a somewhat lesser amount due to his projected cuts.

Even these very modest and qualified initiatives have the uniform services and their allied businesses bristling. For the past decade they have developed a deep sense of entitlement. Their presumed entitlement has no basis in law as do the much maligned Social Security programs funded through dedicated withholdings entirely separate from the tax revenues that keep the Pentagon machine well lubricated. There indeed does exist a defense establishment whose self-interested thinking pervades what passes for strategic planning in Washington these days. That was demonstrated when the Congress called upon the United States Institute of Peace to conduct an 'independent' review of needs and programs juxtaposed to the Quadrennial Defense Review made public this spring. The USIP project had as co-chairs Bush administration National Security Advisor Steven Hadley and Clinton administration Secretary of Defense William Perry. They led a twenty member panel chosen by DoD and Congress whose distinctive trait was that all but one had some financial stake in the Pentagon's activities.

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My iPhone 4 has become as invaluable to me as lined Moleskine journals and fine point black pens. When gallery hopping throughout Los Angeles, I often take my own photos of the art works to more effectively illuminate my notes, which rarely adhere to any linear narrative. I have always seen the iPhone as a vehicle that drives connectivity, insists on synchronicity with other Apple products, and most importantly, stores hundreds of pictures of art works past. While I don't venture too often into the "App Store" because I would rather spend my money on books, recent news that David Hockney uses his iPhone and an application called Brushes to sketch new works forced me to reconsider my position on the matter of paid applications.

Perfectly suited for the iPhone (and now of course the iPad), Brushes gives users the options of colors, brush type, and even if they wish to paint on a blank screen or over an existing photograph. A hyper zoom feature insures that even the smallest areas of the screen will not go unnoticed or untouched by the artist's hand. After reading the article (found below) on Hockney's exploration of a new painterly medium, I decided to purchase the application myself and give it a try. After all, David Hockney and I are now on the same playing field, using the same device, and the same application. Trying to "paint' with your index finger is as awkward as trying to write your name with your non-dominant hand. I suppose it takes a certain something to make those pixels resonate as something other than computer rendered objects.

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From absorbing the press hype prior to the World Cup final it would seem that either Spain has already won or that the Dutch are one of the weakest teams to make the final. If Spain are over looking the Dutch they are making a huge mistake. The Dutch have won every game they have played in the tournament and have often done so through grit, determination, and at times individual brilliance. Spain have not played a better side this tournament.

In a previous post I slagged off Spain -- in a slightly over the top and provocative way -- for boring stifling play - i.e. they use possession to stifle not to open up their opponents and create chances. Whether one loves or hates Spain's style, I think it is worth noting that they have been playing on a bit of a knifes edge throughout the tournament and the bounces have largely gone their way. Against Germany, Ramos could have been called for a penalty for clipping Ozil's heels in the box. Against Paraguay they could have easily fallen behind both on a correct, but marginal, offside decision and as a result of a penalty that was saved. Roque Santa Cruz also nearly equalized at the death. And against Portugal, while Spain again dominated possession, Portugal created some dangerous chances on the break and looked a bit vulnerable during Portugal's late flourish. This is not to say that Spain didn't "deserve" to win each of these games -- but winning by such small margins (no team has scored fewer goals and gotten to the World Cup final) is always a dangerous way of winning.

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by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger

Anti-immigrant forces have adeptly shaped the ongoing immigration debate into an issue of crime and punishment. Now, the pending passage of a $600 million border security bill could breathe new life into the narrative of the criminal immigrant - despite the increasing safety of our border communities.

The sentiment is familiar, if false: Crime in Mexico fuels migration, which breeds violence on the border, which must then be combated within our cities. The undocumented must be punished for stealing our jobs, stealing our services and ruining our neighborhoods. In Arizona, lawmakers like state senator Russell Pearce (who claims that his ring finger was shot off by a Latino gang member) used just that rhetoric to justify the passage of SB 1070 and other anti-immigrant laws.

The reality is far different. Not only do Mexicans and immigrants experience the worst of drug-related border violence, immigration enforcement programs have shifted their resources from combating trafficking to deporting non-criminal immigrants.

Securing the border against non-criminals

At ColorLines, Julianne Hing reports that a border security bill passed by the Senate last Friday would provide $600 million in funding for unmanned aerial drones, communications equipment and 1,500 new enforcement agents on the U.S.-Mexico border. The sum is in addition to $701 million recently approved by the House for similar militarization efforts at the border.

The Obama administration quickly affirmed its support of the bill, which was re-introduced in the House and will go before the Senate for another vote today. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano reiterated the president's assurances that the new resources would primarily target "transnational criminal organizations" in an effort to reduce "the illicit trafficking of people, drugs, currency and weapons."

Experts argue that this renewed emphasis on border security may encourage Republicans to cooperate in passing comprehensive immigration reform - a suggestion that some lawmakers, including Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), have been quick to endorse.

The government's demonstrated border policing priorities don't gel with the administration's assurances that increases in border security will solely focus on organizing crime and trafficking. As the Immigration Policy Institute points out, federal prosecutions of smugglers and drug traffickers have gone down significantly as resources have shifted to the prosecution of non-criminal immigrants crossing the border illegally.

Policing the innocent instead of the criminal

As Elise Foley reports at the Washington Independent, newly released records show that a significant portion of those deported through the Secure Communities program -- which requires local law enforcement to share fingerprints with federal authorities -- had no criminal records.

That number constitutes one-fourth of deportees nationally, but the proportions are much higher county-to-county. In Maricopa county, Arizona -- the home of Sheriff Joe Arpaio -- 54 percent of deportees were non-criminals, while in Travis county, Texas, the figure was 80 percent.

Immigration advocacy groups argue that the new data defies DHS's stated commitment to prioritizing dangerous illegal immigrants over non-criminals. "ICE has blatantly misrepresented the program by saying it focuses on high-risk illegal immigrants," Sarahi Uribe, an organizer with National Day Laborer's Organizers Network, told Foley.

Given ICE's admitted lack of resources and the inhumane conditions documented in many detention centers, prioritization of non-criminal immigrants is a troubling reminder that the anti-crime rhetoric of the anti-immigrant Right is nothing more than a ruse.

U.S. border communities are safer than ever

Yet, despite the ugly picture painted by mass deportations and massively-funded border security bills, communities along the U.S.-Mexico border are actually quite safe.

As Elena Shore reports at New America Media, a new poll commissioned by the Border Network for Human Rights found that 87 percent of people living in 10 different U.S. border towns feel safe in their communities-- a finding supported by other statistics:

An FBI report obtained by the Associated Press found that the four big U.S. cities with the lowest rates of violent crime are all along the border: San Diego, Phoenix, El Paso and Austin. A U.S. Customs and Border Protection report obtained by AP also found that being a Border Patrol agent is much less dangerous than being a street cop in most cities.

No asylum for Mexicans fleeing cartel violence

The relative safety of U.S. border communities stands in stark contrast, however, to that of their Mexican neighbors. While Americans live comfortably on the north side of the border, places like Ciudad Juarez (El Paso's seedy sister city) are wracked by cartel violence.

At the Texas Observer, Susana Hayward examines the strained relationship between the two cities: one threatened by escalating drug violence, the other a gateway to largest drug market in the world. Chronicling the stories of Mexicans affected by the drug war, Hayward reminds us that while the U.S. repeatedly reaffirms its commitment to combating drug trafficking and to keeping the border safe, it offers no recourse to the scores of Mexicans who seek refuge from the violence.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse . This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

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For the last several days, I've been trying to figure out what BP is doing and what is the actual condition of BP's MC252 well after their "static kill" and cementing procedure last week apparently didn't work.  You'll recall that when Kent Wells announced this procedure, he actually used the words "killed" and "dead".  In his July 19th McBriefing, he said,

"If we can do the static kill, it might kill - might kill just in the casing, it might kill in the annulus, it might kill both but it should accelerate or at least complement improve the relief well."

Then during his July 21st McBriefing, Wells said this:

"So one thing I want to stress is the static kill in no way slows down the relief well activity. That's continuing exactly as planned. We're looking at the static kill as an option to actually accelerate the final killing of the well.  Now, depending upon - because we don't know whether the flows up the casing, the annulus or both, it's difficult for me to predict what the static kill could do. But I would put it in the range of it could go from - it could kill the well all the way to it couldn't kill the well. But in either case, what I want to stress is we will continue on with the relief well and even if the static kill had killed the well, we will confirm that with the relief well or if it hadn't killed the well, then we would kill it from the bottom. So I'd like us to think of it - it's a very good option to accelerate the killing process without getting in the way of the relief well."  (emphasis added)

So, the narrative building here is that the static kill was low risk, could kill the well from the top, and that it could actually speed up the relief well.  I knew, from the very first moment this was mentioned, that BP would do the new top kill, rebranded as the "static kill".

To add to the argument to go ahead with the kill, Adm. Allen said in his July 22nd briefing:

"We have a pressure head up there that would help us now fill the top part of the well with mud. That would actually ultimately enhance the relief well effort that would take place five to seven days later." (emphasis added)

On August 2nd and 3rd, BP ran the "static kill" pumping 2,300 barrels of mud.  Early in the morning on the 4th, BP issued a press release saying the the well had reached a "static condition" with well pressure "controlled by the hydrostatic pressure of the drilling mud."  In his McBriefing later that day, Wells actually said that when they pumped the mud, they could actually see it go into the reservoir by pressures, and that they pumped up to 15 barrels per minute. They studiously avoided the terms "dead" and "killed".  During the briefing, Wells also said:

"And what we - what we're doing now is, every six hours, we just inject a little more mud into the well, just to continue to give ourselves confidence that we can do that, keep our equipment live, and we're seeing a very, very static set of conditions as we continue to monitor the pressure, which is all very encouraging." (empasis added)

With all the encouraging signs, Steve Chu approved pumping cement, which they did on the 5th.  In a briefing on the 6th, Doug Suttles declared victory, say that the "...cement job is performing as expected".  He also said that they pumped 500 barrels of cement, leaving about 200 inside the casing.

All was right with the world.  Except, it wasn't.  Day before yesterday, Adm. Allen announced they were going to start a "pressure test", babbling about the annulus and raising the ominous spectre that they are still actually communicated to the reservoir.  Wells confirmed that fear in the afternoon, admitting that they indeed had 4,200 psi on the well when it's supposed to be dead.  At the seafloor, the well should have no more than 2,200 psi on it, and conceivable less, if the hydrostatic of the mud in the closed well had overcome reservoir pressure.  Then it got really confusing.  Wells said that it wouldn't hold 4,200 psi because of "bubbles" leaking out of the wellhead, implying that they are pumping on it to keep it there, but that they're going to "test" it by relieving pressure.  ??  Also, the more Adm. Allen explains what's going on, the more the press gets confused.  Hell, I understand this business and I'm confused.

To add to the jumble, Adm Allen said this in his briefing yesterday:

"Sure, there's a very low probability that we might have actually sealed the annulus with the cement that came down the pipe casing and came back up around it.  What we want to do is understand whether or not there's what we call free communication.  In other words whether there, the hydrocarbons in the reservoir can actually come up through the annulus outside the casing, if that's the case when we go in and we drill in we put the mud and cement we're just going to drive that down and seal the well.   OK?   If there's cement there and there's no communication that means we have what we call stagnate oil trapped around that casing up to the well head.  If you go in and you start pumping mud and cement in there the chances are you could raise the pressure and push that up into the blow out preventer.  And that's a very low possibility, low probability event but we want to, we want to test the pressure in the blow out preventer and see if we actually have pressure coming up that would indicate that we have free communication with the reservoir.  If not that would change our tactics and how we do the final kill."

Clear as drilling mud.  What's going on here is that the "static kill" looks like it did the opposite of what BP and Allen had suggested at the beginning.  It certainly hasn't accelerated the relief well.  To the contrary, it has caused interminable delays.  As a matter of fact, since July 13, the DDIII has only drilled 70 or 80 feet and set one string of casing.  With all of the shut downs for the "well integrity test", then the "well injectivity test", then the "static kill" plus cementing, they haven't been able to get much work done for a month, especially with the 2 weather delays.

The mis-information and confusion is also taking its toll.  I got asked in an interview yesterday that since the well is "dead" now, why are they bothering with the relief well?  AP reported last night that BP and the government are contemplating skipping the bottom kill.  Every time Wells, Suttles, or Allen get in front of a microphone, everyone gets even more confused, mis-informed, or both; everyone just wants this to go away, but it's not going away; not until the relief well kills from the bottom as we've been saying for over 3 months. 

In actuality, this "static kill" did nothing that BP and Allen said it would do.  Certainly the well is not dead or "static".  It hasn't accelerated the relief well, but it has obscured the well's pressures, making it more difficult to kill.  Hence, these new tests to figure out what's going on.  BP and the government don't really have a clue where the 2,300 barrels of mud and 500 barrels of cement went.  They originally claimed it all went down the casing and out to the reservoir.  I would set the probability of that actually having happened at zero.  Here's why: The positive test on the casing the night of the blowout was rock solid.  The casing was good.  It is possible that they may have collapsed the production casing during the blowout, but that would have been relatively high up in the wellbore, probably where they had displaced with seawater on the inside.  If that happened, it would be communicated with the backside.  In addition, at the bottom of the production casing is a float shoe, 134 feet of cement in the shoe track, then a float collar, then 2 cementing plugs with probably cement on top of those.  Oh, and don't forget about the 3,000 feet of drill pipe hanging inside all of that.  There is no way, unless that entire float assembly blew off, that they pumped down the casing and up the backside.  On top of all that, there are HUGE lost circulation zones both below and above the reservoir.  During drilling they lost 3,000 barrels of mud trying to drill that last section.

So, where did all the mud and cement go?  It likely went down the backside of the production casing and either out through some damage that was caused during the aborted top kill, or out the lost circulation zone right below the 9 7/8" liner at 17,100.  The fact that they're getting pressure now tells me that they are indeed communicated to the reservoir below, probably obscured by the fact that they now have mud strung through the annulus.  If they are indeed communicated, pressure will build on the wellhead, which is exactly what's happening.  Adm. Allen pledged to get BP to release the pressure data 3 days ago.  The next day, when asked about it, he said it was released, but "nobody can find it."  The data is still AWOL. 

So, now, here we sit, waiting on weather again, and then we're going to pressure test a well that's supposed to be dead instead of getting the relief well finished.  The press is confused; the public is bored.

More on The Daily Hurricane Energy page.

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The Vietnam war has often been compared to the current conflict in Afghanistan, but perhaps never quite so bizarrely as by Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal. In one op-ed he argued that "...an American withdrawal from Afghanistan, followed by a partial or complete Taliban victory, would mean a humanitarian disaster for Afghans comparable to what happened in Southeast Asia after the Communist takeover in 1975."

Let's first go backwards from that 1975 date, and look at the decade before, and talk about humanitarian disaster. During those ten years the sheer number of dead Vietnamese on both sides of the DMZ climbed to genocidal heights, well over a million and possibly as many as 3 million. Many of the dead were armed combatants, to be sure, but many were civilians, the "collateral damage" caused by the 8 million tons of U.S. bombs dropped on Vietnam (three times as much tonnage as in WWII), plus bullets, rockets, missiles, artillery, napalm and other tools of war. Then there were the 12 million gallons of the carcinogenic herbicide known as Agent Orange and millions more gallons of Agent Blue that the U.S. sprayed on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Agent Orange defoliated the forests, Agent Blue killed crops, and a lot of both chemicals landed on people, including American troops. The U.S. government at the time claimed the chemicals were harmless to humans and short-lived in the environment, but the term "short-lived" should have been applied to the humans who came in contact with the defoliants. It is estimated that nearly 5 million Vietnamese were exposed to the chemicals, that a half-million Vietnamese died from their exposure, and that hundreds of thousands more suffered - and still suffer - from birth defects and chronic illnesses. Countless (because the U.S. government for years refused to acknowledge them) American veterans of the war also suffered, and continue to suffer and die, from exposure to Agent Orange.

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by Amanda Anderson, Media Consortium blogger

Editor's Note: Zach Carter is out this week, but we've compiled a rundown of the biggest economy-related stories, including the rise of foreclosure mills and why social security isn't in jeopardy. Zach will be back next Tuesday, so stay tuned!

Who needs ethics when you've got foreclosure mills?

Want to make money quickly, but don't want ethics to get in the way? Big banks are outsourcing their foreclosure duties to fraudulent law firms, known as foreclosure mills, and getting away with it. Zach Carter explains the latest get rich quick scheme for AlterNet. Foreclosure mills are ethically questionable law firms that process legal documents for foreclosures. They tend to have an emphasis on quantity, not quality. Carter writes:

Big banks are not outsourcing their foreclosure processing to shady law firms with a history of breaking the law for a quick buck. These foreclosure scammers forge documents, backdate signatures, slap families with thousands of dollars in illegal fees and even foreclosure on borrowers who haven't missed a payment.

Andy Kroll chronicles the evolution of foreclosure mills for Mother Jones. Kroll also exposes a notorious Floridian law firm founded by David J. Stern that is using every trick in the book--including backdating documents and illegally charging clients massive fees--to profit from the foreclosure crisis:

While rushing foreclosures isn't illegal, Stern's fledgling firm was promptly accused of something that is: gouging people who are trying to get out of default. In October 1998, Tallahassee attorney Claude Walker filed a class-action lawsuit involving tens of thousands of claimants, alleging that Stern had piled excessive fees on families fighting to keep their homes. (Walker, who visited Stern's offices in 1999 to collect depositions, described the place as "a big warehouse" where hordes of attorneys holed up in tiny, crowded offices "like hamsters in a cage.")

Don't blame Social Security for the deficit

Fact: Social Security benefits will be able to be paid, in full, through 2037.

Fact: 75% of Social Security benefits will be able to be paid thought 2084.

Fact: There is a huge surplus in Social Security trust fund- $2.5 trillion. So why the big push to trim the program? In an interview with The American Prospect, Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) explains his proposed legislation that will actually expand benefits:

Ninety-five percent of the people in our country [already] pay Social Security tax on 100 percent of their income. The bill provides both contribution and benefit fairness: Even as people are going to be paying in more, they're going to receive more benefits. Doing that, by the way, will also ensure the solvency of Social Security, which is terribly important.

The Fed's failure and the AIG Bailout: A brief history

In The Nation, William Greider explains how the Federal Reserve Board gambled with American taxpayers' money by not considering alternatives to the AIG bailout. Grieder highlights a report from the Congressional Oversight Panel, which "provides alarming insights that should be fodder for the larger debate many citizens long to hear--why Washington rushed to forgive the very interests that produced this mess, while innocent others were made to suffer the consequences."

In short, the Fed acted "under the business-as-usual expectations of the private financial system, while skipping lightly over the public consequences."

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the economy by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Audit for a complete list of articles on economic issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Mulch, The Pulse and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

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In his recent blog post regarding the West Bank's widely noted economic and security improvements and the prospects for Palestinian democracy, Andrew Sullivan ended by proposing to his readers: "Imagine what the $8 billion thrown into corrupt hands in Iraq could accomplish in Palestine." It's an exercise well worth undertaking, but it doesn't require a stretch of the imagination, just a click of the mouse. The Arc project for a Palestinian state -- which coincidentally was first reported in the New York Times by Sullivan's Atlantic editor, James Bennet -- has already imagined what $8 billion could accomplish in Palestine.

What's the Arc? It's a visionary plan for a sweeping infrastructure corridor that would lay the foundation for a prospective Palestinian state. Developed by Suisman Urban Design and RAND Corporation, the Arc offers a tangible and detailed vision of a successful and prosperous Palestine, living side by side with Israel in peace and security. The Arc would create a national infrastructure corridor that follows the West Bank's curved mountain ridge, from which it derives its name. It would provide swift intercity rail service, a toll highway for trucks, electric power with an emphasis on renewables, natural gas from offshore Gaza, water supply, and national parkland. It would serve all of the main Palestinian towns and cities. The Arc corridor -- and its lateral branches providing modern public transport within each city -- would enable the new state to accommodate a very fast-growing population by renovating existing urban cores and expanding urban neighborhoods in a coherent and sustainable manner. This urban expansion would include new housing, office buildings, shops, hospitals, schools, and public parks -- all within walking distance of public transportation. The Arc is designed to guide both international aid and private investment towards an efficient, integrated national space, rather than towards a costly array of scattered and disconnected projects. Building the Arc could produce as many as 150,000 jobs per year over ten years, in areas like finance, engineering, and construction where the Palestinian workforce is already strong.

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Both Arcade Fire and The Black Keys sound as good, or better, live, so I try to catch them when they come into town. The Keys came through Summerstage last week to play an early show before taking the stage later at Terminal 5. For a solid 90 minutes, they pumped out seventies-infused hard rock riffs and beats to a sold out crowd that was more than a little high. Wedged in the center near the back, our evening was punctuated with groups of girls stumbling past (or into) us. It was a nice night, though, and Dan Auerbach sounded just as resonant in the middle of the park as in a small club. It was a little weird to see the duo bring out other musicians -- not that it sounded bad -- midway through the set. There's something about Auerbach and Patrick Carney's musical chemistry that was, if not diminished, altered.

On the other hand, Arcade Fire seems to benefit exponentially whenever they add musicians on stage. They had nine on Wednesday night when they took the stage at Madison Square Garden in front of a backdrop of images that evoked the suburbs of their new album. Win Butler and the gang spent their 100 minute set running around on stage, rotating instruments like a game of musical chairs. Regine Chassagne began the evening on one of two drumsets for "Ready to Start". She moved throughout the night to the keyboards, accordion, and even centerstage to sing lead on a couple songs. There's an amazing joy of playing that emenated from the stage and sets Arcade Fire apart from other talented indie bands. I can't wait to see what other projects they tackle as they mature as a band.

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Homosexuals were with us in Auschwitz and were persecuted along with Jews throughout Western societies for the past several thousand years, so we stand with them in the struggle for full acceptance and full legal equality, including marriage equality, in the 21st century. But even had they not shared our fate, the denial of rights and the double standards used to justify such denials are always a threat to Jews as well as to everyone else on the planet!

The rights of homosexuals are supported by an overwhelming majority of the American Jewish community. That support is not only based on a memory of shared victimhood, but also on the core values of our own Jewish tradition. The Torah's command to "love our neighbor" and "love the Other [or 'stranger,' Hebrew ger]" are intrinsic to how most American Jews understand our Jewish obligations today. The current (July/August) issue of Tikkun magazine has as its major focus "Queer Spirituality & Politics" with a powerful essay by Jay Michaelson on "Why Gay Rights Is a Religious Issue" plus other essays by Starhawk, Jay Bakker, Yvette A. Flunder, Emi Kyami, Joy Ladin, Parvez Sharma, Andrea Smith, Dean Space, Ruth Vanita and other GLBTQ writers and thinkers. In fact, Tikkun was the first place to publish an essay by a then-closeted homosexual rabbi discussing his struggle, and we have severely criticized those parts of the Jewish religious world which still do not sanctify gay marriages. As a rabbi, I've had the honor to conduct many such marriages in the San Francisco Bay Area, as have many of my colleagues around the country in the Jewish Renewal movement, in the Reform movement, and in the Reconstructionist movement.

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No offense to the Dutch, but it seems entirely reasonable to suspect that today's semifinal showdown between Spain and Germany will eclipse whatever World Cup final ultimately transpires. Germany has been playing far and away the most dynamic attacking football in the tournament, and pretty much the best football period, having so thoroughly dismantled England and Argentina. Perennial underachievers Spain, meanwhile, haven't fully lived up to expectations, but when they're at their best, their meticulous possession game can't be topped. Having reached the World Cup semifinals for the first time, the pre-tournament favorite Spaniards will no doubt feel a particular pressure to triumph in this rematch of the Euro 2008 final (which they won), whereas Germany seem comfortable playing the carefree, if supremely confident, underdogs. And that was before the ever-prescient Paul the Octopus picked Spain to win! This feels like the real final, even if it's not.

Germany will unfortunately today be without the services of 20-year-old Thomas Muller, perhaps the breakout star of the tournament, after he picked up a harsh yellow card for an incidental handball against Argentina. But they won't be lacking for creativity and firepower due to their stellar crop of dynamic young players, led by the crafty Mesut Ozil. As for the German old guard, striker Miroslav Klose is having yet another banner World Cup and is just one goal shy of tying Ronaldo for the all-time World Cup record of 15. However, he still trails the red-hot David Villa of Spain for this tournament's Golden Boot, as the Barcelona man has found the back of the net 5 times so far, picking up the slack for his out-of-form strike partner Fernando Torres.

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What do the ACLU, the former director of the NSA and a tech industry lawyer all have in common (and this is not a joke)? They believe that the government's recent request to let the FBI get Americans' internet use records in national security investigations without going to court, and without any suspicion of wrongdoing, is a huge expansion of authority that would open floodgates of sensitive information to the FBI.

National security letters (NSLs) are rather informal requests for records the FBI can use to obtain people's communication, financial and credit information. These requests are not approved by a court, and the FBI does not have to suspect you of actually being a terrorist, spy or criminal; the only thing they have to do to get your records is certify to themselves (not a court) that you are "relevant" to an investigation. To make matters worse, the FBI has the power to prohibit any internet service provider, bank or credit company from which it demands sensitive customer records from ever disclosing anything about the record demand. (The ACLU has challenged the constitutionality of this "gag" power in three cases). An audit by the Department of Justice Inspector General found that in the mid-2000s, the FBI issued upwards of 50,000 national security letters, often to get information about U.S. citizens, and sometimes to get info on people two or three times removed from an actual suspect. There is currently no information on the total numbers of NSLs issued every year.

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Brent Lang of The Wrap just doesn't get it. Plain and simple. In his provocatively-titled piece 'Zac Efron and the Incredible Shrinking Teen Idol Stars', Land submits that the newest generation of young stars (Zac Efron, Robert Pattinson, Miley Cyrus, etc) have disappointed at the box office even as the numbers he uses fail to bear that out. Once again, a pundit has fallen into the classic trap: Because a movie star's latest movie has failed to match up with his or her all-time best performances, said actor's star must be fading. But it fails to take into account two obvious factors: not every film an actor makes is identical in appeal and marketability, and a star cannot be expected to top their previous best every time out of the gate.