EFTA01188610.pdf

From: Gregory Brown To: undisclosed-recipients:; Bce: jeevacation@gmail.com Subject: Greg Brown's Weekend Reading and Other Things.... 03/24/2013 Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2013 17:54:59 +0000 Attachments: JPMorgan's_Folliesjor_All to_See_Gretchen_Morgenson NYT March 16,_2012.pdf; GOP report_calls_for_sweeflig_refonns_to_compete_in_21)16flichael:OBrien_03_18_2 013.pdf; What_Should the Republican Party_Stand For_Molly_Ball The_Atlantic 02_26_13.pdf; Bono,_The_Cood:News_on Foverty_TED —March_2013.pdfr Bono bio.pe; Good_News_Beats_Bad_on_—Social_Netwoas John_Tierney_MarcE 18,_2013.pdf; Cyprus lawmakers_reject bank tax;_bailout_kdisarray_Michaelfambas_&_ICarolina_T agarititeuters_Mar._19,_2013.idf; Taxing_Savers_in_Cyprus NYT Editorial March_19,2013.pdf; Why_the_Cyprus_Bailout—Coulcr Set Banicing_Back_300 Years_Martin_Hutchinson_Mon day_Morning_March_19,:2013.a; ileview,_American viinter_- A_Devastating_Portrait Of The_Erosion Of_The_Micidle Class_Kevin Jagemauth The_ Playlist March_18,2011.pd7; Ten_Years After_NYT Editc7rial March_21),_2012.pdfT The_Lait_Letter Tomas_Young_ ruth_ _Mar_18,-_2013.pdfr Mistakes,_Excuses_and_Painful_Lessons_From_theiraq_War_Ezra_Klein_Bloomberg_Ma rch 19,2013.pdf; Waihington Post Editorial_Page_Misses_Iraq_War_Anniversary_Amanda_Terkel_Huff_Po st 03_20 2613.pilf; Libya,JATvo_Years_Lateriason_Pack_and_Mustafa Abushagur_Huff_Post_03-20- 2013.pdf; Cyprus_rejects bailout_plan_that would_make_savers_payjaising_anxiety_in_euro_zone Micheel Bimgaum & Howard —Scheider_TWP_March 19, 2013.pdf; One_Nation Under 11; Gun_Deaths_Since_Newtown_bB_ uff_Post_March_03,_2013.p df; L_SCOTT_bapdfr Dear Friends Being one of the few Americans who opposed the both invasions in Afghanistan and the Bush/Cheney War in Iraq from before day-one, and before then Senator Barack Obama.... And for my friends like my dear friends Rudy, Harvey , Julian and others who thought that I was crazy both times.... On the loth anniversary this week after the Bush/Cheney war started, events has shown that they were wrong and I was right. Like betting on Red, on the surface that could be seen as 50/50 bet. But from the months before the war started when the Bush/Administration was spinning the speculation that Saddam Hussein was somehow involved with 9/11 and had mobile WMDs, Yellow Cake in Niger to inflect imminent pending mushroom clouds over America.... attacks against Israel and that Americans would be treated as liberators with no downfall or real cost in lives, dollars and other resources At that time I called this BS for what is was.... And today we know that is was Total BS AND I WAS RIGHT. Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with Al Qaeda or with 9/11. There were no WMDs. The Yellow Cake story was an absolute lie. Iraq has no plans to attack Israel. And no Iraqi terrorist had ever attacked Americans, American installations or America. One of the reasons why I felt so confident that none of Bush/Cheney Administration's accretions were true is because I knew that two years before, Mossad (Israeli Intelligence) extensively interviewed Saddam Hussein's two son- in-laws, including the son-in-law who at one time ran Iraq's weapons development program) when EFTA01188610 they both flied to Jordan. Especially when everyone knows, that if Israel had felt Iraq had WMDs, it would have promptly destroyed them with our without America's support or approval. So when politicians purposely deceive its citizens, government and the international community shouldn't there be a consequence? Especially when these misdeeds lead to the loss of 4500 American military forces lives, 35,000 wounded - many of those will be scarred emotionally or physically for life, (divorces, suicides, broken families are all results of the war), more than 165,000 Iraqi civilian lives, costing American taxpayers more than $2 trillion (rising potentially to more than $6 trillion over the next decades), resulting in the destabilization of the entire Middle East and energy costs rising four-fold and benefiting the governments in Russia and Iran. We did for Iran what they have been trying to do for 40 years, overthrow Saddam. Today, relations between Iraq and Iran, our enemy and threat to the Middle East peace, are better than ever. The spoils of the war, mainly the oil, went to Turkey and Russia, two countries that didn't want us there. Turkey not only did not help but hindered the military part in the war. I have not even mentioned that the weapons of mass destruction that the Bush administration told us not only existed but knew where they were.Are the people better off? Today they are no longer under the bloody hands of Saddam and his death squads, which some say was a good enough reason in itself to topple Saddam. If that was a good enough reason, we should be invading other countries run by tyrants: Iran, Syria, Rwanda, Cambodia, Venezuela, etc. What we did accomplish was we built the most expensive, the largest and the costliest-to-run and most extravagant embassy in the world in the safe confines of the Green Zone. This week, at least 65 Iraqis died in a bombing, last week 28 died. The infrastructure still has part- time electricity and a Third World water system. And the most recent big ugly is the rising abnormally high number of cases of cancer and birth defects in Iraq. In a new op-ed for Al Jazeera, Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, (a leading toxicologist at the University of Michigan), writes that the cancer and birth defect "epidemic" constitutes an "extraordinary public health emergency in Iraq" and that large- scale testing of the environment in the affected cities is of utmost urgency. Dick Cheney said in his documentary he would do it all over again and do it the same way and has absolutely no second thoughts about the actions we took. Dick Cheney is now just a bitter old man trying to save face who has become irrelevant in his own party and his own country. We made a mistake by letting civilians and Gen. Westmoreland with no one to answer to the Vietnam War. We let Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Scooter Libby and Gen. Tommy Franks run the Iraq war with no one to answer to. I hope to God we have learned from our mistakes. The history of how the Iraqi war turns out will not be known for years, but I fear history will not be kind to us at all. This past week was the 10th anniversary of the start of the second war in Iraq. We were told that we were in imminent danger. We were told that the war would be easy. We were told that most likely it would payfor itself. We were told that life would be betterfor the average Iraqi as a result. We were told that we would be greeted as liberators. We were told that the war would lead to Iraqis living better. We were told that the new government would seek closer ties to America We were told that this war would add stability to the entire Middle East, NONE OF THIS HAPPEN First of all, there are no easy wars And as much as I hate drone strikes, why start a war to get one man, even if that man is Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Muammar Gaddafi, Anastasio Somoza, Idi Amin, Omar al-Bashir, Hitler, Caligula or Nero, when we have the technology to take this one individual or group out. If the international community of nations conclude that a single individual or organization is a serious danger to society — today it has the tools to get rid of that person or group. And as the Arab Spring has proven by the removal of Gaddafi, Mubarak, Ben Ali, Saleh and soon to be ousted Bashar Hafez al-Assad, the people themselves will get rid of their own despots, tyrants and dictators. Therefore as a society, we have to call our mistakes what they are.... MISTAKES.... Otherwise, we are destine to repeat them.... Again.... And again . And to EFTA01188611 hear Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Bush and others and especially the mainstream media.... making excuses for a war that should have never happen should not go unnoticed or allowed. Every so often you come across a film, movie, poem, song, theater piece, talk, action, event or person who touches one's sou. This past week I had the sincere pleasure of watching HBO's documentary 'American Winter,' A Devastating Portrait Of The Erosion Of The Middle Class. Filmmakers Joe and Harry Gantz make their argument by turning their cameras to Portland, Oregon and tracking the tales of eight families, who all call the state's 211 social services hotline, in dire need of help. And it's eye opening stuff that not only puts a human face on the poverty crisis gripping the country (in 53 years of recorded history, a new record has been set with 48.5 million Americans living in poverty according to the latest data) but it also fundamentally shows that if there is no infrastructure in place to help those who are struggling get back on their feet, it's actually worse for the economy. The documentary features interviews with local experts and leaders, including Oregon Center for Public Policy director Chuck Sheketoff and Portland Commissioner Nick Fish. He shared his thoughts about the documentary on his website, saying he felt both pride and shame after watching it. "Shame because so many middle classfamilies who play by the rules have to choose between paying rent andfeeding their children," he wrote. "Pride because we live in a community that believes we are all in this together." Using a mix of hard facts and personal stories, "American Winter" makes it clear that the structures in place are simply not working. Never mind the fact that it's actually cheaper in the long run to invest in social programs, all it takes is the story of single mother Shanon to illustrate how fast anyone can fall into hardship. When her 12 year-old daughter had to go to the hospital to deal with a serious stomach ailment that includes 5 ulcers (one of which was bleeding), Shanon was forced to take some time off work. Shanon had insurance, but of course, they refused to cover her for the time she was off caring for her daughter, and now she's saddled with a staggering $49,000 medical bill (with more on the way for ongoing treatment). How can anyone crawl out from under such a burden? And while some might scoff that Shanon is unlucky, that sometimes that's just the way things happen, "American Winter" suggests that the effects pass on to the next generation. Currently, the single greatest factor determining a young person's future wealth, is how well off their parents were. And if the next generation isn't given a fair shot at upward mobility, how does the country expect have a healthy class of citizens who can participate in the economy? And as venture capitalist Nick Hanauer points out, the deregulated business world and the emphasis on trickle-down economics that currently exists, has failed to live up to its promise. While corporations are raking in record profits, it has simply not translated into the high paying jobs that both politicians and corporate interests have said they would. Instead, we've seen minimum wage stagnate and full time jobs a scarcity, but as Hanauer explains the solution is simple: raise wages and create jobs, and you will enable people to buy products from your company, keep you profitable all while enabling the economy to thrive. The film shows real life examples of the devastation of the Reagan Administration supply-side trickle- down economics which has enriched the top 2% at the expense of eviscerating the safety-net for the working poor and the incomes of the Middle Class. It also shows that these proud middle-class families who have fallen into hard times for reasons beyond their control , did everything that where suppose to, including college educations, good work histories, saved for a rainy day and raising their families in a warm supportive loving environment. It is a sobering 90 minutes that reinforces those feelings. And even if you arrive skeptically to the documentary, the arguments are too compelling to ignore, for no matter where you stand, the remaining question that lingers is whether or not this EFTA01188612 current winter of personal, financial and even spiritual malaise from coast to coast will ever find a thaw. With this said, I strongly urge everyone to see HBO's American Winter. ***** If you like me feel inundated by today's television news mixture of shock and awe laced with Lindsey Lohan's latest court appearance, depressing us all, I would like to share musician Bono (U2fame) latest presentation at TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) - the non-profit organization formed in 1984 to bring together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives, passions and experiences, in 18 minutes or less with the goal of inspiring others. Bono's latest talk titled, The good news on poverty (Yes, there's good news) - Bono, the lead singer of U2, uses his celebrity to fight for social justice worldwide: to end hunger, poverty and disease, especially in Africa. His nonprofit ONE raises awareness via media, policy and calls to action. And in this most recent talk he shares inspiring data that shows the end of poverty is in sight ... if we can harness the momentum. http://www.ted.comitalksibono_the_good_news_on_poverty__yes_there_s_good_news.html FILMED FEB 2013 • POSTED MAR 2013 • TED2013 BONO: Starting out before Christ three millennia ago when civilization was just getting started on the banks of the Nile there was a march against inequality and poverty by a group of slaves and Jewish shepherds in search of justice. Cut to our century, same country, same pyramids, another people spreading the same ideaof equality with a different book. This time it's called the Facebook. Crowds are gathered in Tahrir Square. They turn a social network from virtual to actual, and kind of rebooted the 21st century. Not to undersell how messy and ugly the aftermath of the Arab Spring has been, neither to oversell the role of technology, but these things have given a sense of what's possible when the age-old model of power, the pyramid, gets turned upside down, putting the people on top and the pharaohs of today on the bottom, as it were It's also shown us that something as powerful as information and the sharing of it can challenge inequality, because facts, like people, want to be free, and when they're free, liberty is usually around the corner, even for the poorest of the poor -- facts that can challenge cynicism and the apathy that leads to inertia, facts that tell us what's working and, more importantly, what's not, so we can fix it, facts that if we hear them and heed them could help us meet the challenge that Nelson Mandela made back in 2005, when he asked us to be that great generation that overcomes that most awful offense to humanity, extreme poverty, facts that build a powerful momentum. He then cites a number of examples: • ➢ Since the year 2000, since the turn of the millennium, there are eight million more AIDS patients getting life-saving antiretroviral drugs. Malaria: There are eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa that have their death rates cut by 75 percent. For kids under five, child mortality, kids under five, it's down by 2.65 million a year. That's a rate of 7,256 children's lives saved each day. • ➢ The number of people living in back-breaking, soul-crushing extreme poverty has declined from 43 percent of the world's population in 1990 to 33 percent by 2000 and then to 21 percent by 2010. Give it up for that. (Applause) Halved. Halved. • ➢ Now, the rate is still too high -- still too many people unnecessarily losing their lives. There's still work to do. But it's heart-stopping. It's mind-blowing stuff. And if you live on less than $1.25 a day, if you live in that kind of poverty, this is not just data. This is everything. If you're a parent who wants the best for your kids -- this rapid transition is a route out of despair and into hope. And if the trajectory continues, look where the amount of people living on $1.25 a day gets to by 2030. BONO again: Can't be true, can it? That's what the data is telling us. If the trajectory continues, we get to, wow, the zero EFTA01188613  zone. For number-crunchers like us, that is the erogenous zone, and it's fair to say that I am, by now, sexually aroused by the collating of data. So virtual elimination of extreme poverty, as defined by people living on less than $1.25 a day, adjusted, of course, for inflation from a 1990 baseline. We do love a good baseline. That's amazing. • ➢ Now I know that some of you think this progress is all in Asia or Latin America or model countries like Brazil -- and who doesn't love a Brazilian model? -- but look at sub-Saharan Africa. There's a collection of 10 countries, some call them the lions, who in the last decade have had a combination of 100 percent debt cancellation, a tripling of aid, a tenfold increase in FDI -- that's foreign direct investment -- which has unlocked a quadrupling of domestic resources -- that's local money -- which, when spent wisely -- that's good governance -- cut childhood mortality by a third, doubled education completion rates, and they, too, halved extreme poverty, and at this rate, these 10 get to zero too. So the pride of lions is the proof of concept. BONO points out that although this trajectory is extremely encouraging, allot can happen to slow down this momentum toward zero. especially inertia. Bono says that we can't get this done if inertia overwhelms momentum. And the is jeopardy is the closer you get, the harder it gets. He says that we know the obstacles that are in our way. And that right now, in difficult times when money is tight, we have to fight for the life-saving programs that alleviate poverty around the world. We have to make politicians understand that cutting programs cost lives. BONO again says that the biggest disease of all is not a disease. It's corruption. And the best vaccine against corruption is transparency, open data and access to information ant that technology is really turbo-charging this as it is getting harder to hide if you're doing bad stuff. Citing another example: where across Uganda there is 150,000 young people armed with 2G phones, creating a SMS social network exposing government corruption and demanding to know what's in the budget and how their money is being spent. BONO: "Look, once you have these tools, you can't not use them. Once you have this knowledge, you can't un- know it. You can't delete this data from your brain, but you can delete the cliched image ofsupplicant, impoverished peoples not taking control of their own lives. You can erase that, you really can, because it's not true anymore." He points to Wael Ghonim, who set up the Facebook networks that focused on the grievances of the protesters in Tahir Square in Cairo who said, "We are going to win because we don't understand politics. We am going to win because we don't play their dirty games. We are going to win because we don't have a party political agenda. We are going to win because the tears that comefrom our eyes actually comefrom our hearts. We am going to win because we have dreams, and we're willing to stand upfor those dreams." Wael proved that working together as one (power of the people) is much stronger than the people in power and as a result people living in poverty today are doing better than ever. Last week was the 40th annual Conservative Political Action Conference. The three-day gathering held in National Harbor, Maryland, near Washington, D.C., brought a number of GOP all-stars including Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Allen West, Ann Coulter, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, Jeb Bush and Donald Trump. As such almost all of the speeches slammed the President, his policies and congressional Democrats with the occasional jab and insult against Republicans, such as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie who many felt was too cozy with President Obama during the Hurricane Sandy response. Ann Coulter fired off an insult about Gov. Christie, "Even CPAC had to cut back on its speakers this year about 300 pounds." And Christie wasn't the only target of Coulter's insults. She also criticized President Barack Obama and made eyebrow-raising remarks about Sandra Fluke's haircut while addressing birth control and the war on women. "That haircut is birth control enough," Coulter said of Fluke. Perhaps her most extreme criticism was directed at President Bill Clinton. "The keynote speaker at the Democrat National Convention this year was forcible rapist, Bill Clinton," EFTA01188614 Sen. Rand Paul won the 2013 Washington Times-CPAC presidential preference straw poll Saturday, and Sen. Marco Rubio was a close second, easily outdistancing the rest of the field and signaling the rise of a new generation of conservative leaders who will take the Republican Party into the 2016 election. Mr. Paul won 25 percent of the vote, and Mr. Rubio collected 23 percent. Former Sen. Rick Santorum was third with just 8 percent, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — who was not invited to speak at the three-day Conservative Political Action Conference — was next with 7 percent, and Rep. Paul D. Ryan, the GOP's vice presidential nominee last year, was fifth with 6 percent. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker collected 5 percent of the vote — good for sixth place. In one surprising result, political newcomer Dr. Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon whose speech at the National Prayer Breakfast earlier this year has become a conservative rallying point, came in seventh in the poll with 4 percent — tied with Sen. Ted Cruz. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush beseeched a gathering of conservatives in remarkably frank terms on Friday night to change the course of the Republican Party and to become a more diverse, welcoming and understanding party to minorities and low-income Americans. Bush challenged the audience that the GOP should "learn from past mistakes." "All too often we're associated with being 'anti everything," Bush said. "Way too many people believe Republicans are anti-immigrant, anti-woman, anti-science, anti-gay, anti- worker, and the list goes on and on and on. Many voters are simply unwilling to choose our candidates even though they share our core beliefs, because those voters feel unloved, unwanted and unwelcome in our party." And Bush also threw cold water in the face of conservatives who espouse a strict up-by-the- bootstraps doctrine of individual responsibility, and who ascribe failure only to personal failure. Life, he said, is increasingly more difficult for those who aren't born with built-in advantages. He also faulted the GOP for not caring about large swaths of the country, and said if that attitude remains, the right will forfeit its ability to influence the nation. But my real problem with CPAC is that there was not one speech that sort to reach out to the other side of the aisle, preferring to vilify Democrats, the President, other Republicans whom they don't feel conservative enough and anyone else who doesn't meet their ideology purity standard. When everyone in the room is only allowed to see red, they miss the fact that there is a spectrum of other colors. The same is true for ideas. And "there are none so blind as those who will not see." John Heywood 1546. I understand rallying the party faithful, but ridiculing and demonizing anyone who disagrees with you is not democracy and nor is it a way to govern. I suggest that politicians forget their parties and put people first. And although most of the speakers urged Republicans not to change but rather to double down on conservative principles with a tenor of nastiness against everyone and every idea that isn't theirs, there was also a glimmer of diversity as a result of the large number of young people reflecting the multiplicity of their generation. I realize that CPAC doesn't represent all Republicans but it is their nastiness and unwillingness to meet halfway that is pushing the government more and more into dysfunctionality. ***** This week I watch and interesting documentary "The Oxycontin Express"on the Current TV Network. The film looks at the illegal side of prescription drugs in South Florida, because when allot of us think about prescription drug abuse we think of Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, Anna Nicole Smith, Keith Ledger and Michael Jackson but the story of celebrity overdose overshadows a much larger issue, in the United States more people are abusing prescription medication than heroin, cocaine and ecstasy combined. And the drug of choice for a growing number of abusers is Oxycontin which is basically heroin made in a lab, which was developed by a pharmaceutical company to treat people in severe chronic pain, like terminally ill cancer patients but it has now become a part of a booming illicit trade in prescription pills and the heart of which was in South Florida. The source of these EFTA01188615 pills isn't some guy on the corner or a Columbia drug lord, it is a growing cottage industry of store- front pain clinics. Doctors offices that legally dispense the drugs or as on police officer described, "drug dealers with degrees." Doctors in Florida prescribe Oxycontin at five times of the national average and the effect of this flood of pills is alarming and is being well felt beyond the Sunshine State's borders. The film starts with a mother describing her twenty-five year old son who died from an overdose of prescription pills and in the last two months of his life he was legally prescribed 1500 pills by a single doctor — although he had no illness. There was no examinations, MIRs or physical therapy — this doctor was just writing prescriptions for money. As the popularity of prescription drugs has surged the number of deaths caused by pills has also risen dramatically. In Florida pills are involved in 75% of all drug related deaths and on average eleven people die a day from prescription drug overdose. It is estimated that 20 percent of people in the United States have used prescription drugs for non-medical reasons. This is prescription drug abuse. It is a serious and growing problem. At the time of the making of the documentary — of the top 5o doctors dispensing Oxycontin in the United States, all 50 were in the State of Florida and 33 of them were in Broward County. Opioids (such as the pain relievers OxyContin and Vicodin), central nervous system depressants (e.g., Xanax, Valium), and stimulants (e.g., Concerta, Adderall) are the most commonly abused prescription drugs. Medications available without a prescription—known as over-the-counter drugs—can also be abused. DXM (dextromethorphan), the active cough suppressant found in many over-the-counter cough and cold medications, is one example. It is sometimes abused to get high, which requires taking large and potentially dangerous doses (more than what is on the package instructions). Opioids Chemical Name (Brand Name) Street Names • Oxycodone (OxyContin, Percodan, Percocet) Hillbilly heroin, oxy, OC, oxycotton, percs, happy pills, vikes • Propoxyphene (Darvon) • Hydrocodone (Vicodin, Lortab, Lorcet) • Hydromorphone (Dilaudid) • Meperidine (Demerol) • Diphenoxylate (Lomotil) • Morphine (ICadian, Avinza, MS Contin) • Codeine • Fentanyl (Duragesic) • Methadone Depressants Chemical Name (Brand Name) Street Names • Barbiturates Barbs, reds, red birds, phennies, tooies, yellows, yellow jackets • Mephobarbital (Mebaral) • Sodium pentobarbital (Nembutal) • Benzodiazepines Candy, downers, sleeping pills, tranks • Diazepam (Valium) • Alprazolam (Xanax) • Triazolam (Halcion) EFTA01188616  • Estazolam (ProSom) • Clonazepam (Klonopin) • Lorazepam (Ativan) • Chlordiazepoxide hydrochloride (Librium) • Sleep Medications A-minus, zombie pills • Zolpidem (Ambien) • Zaleplon (Sonata) • Eszopiclone (Lunesta) Stimulants Chemical Name (Brand Name) Street Names • Dextroamphetamine (Dexedrine, Adderall) Skippy, the smart drug, Vitamin R, bennies, black beauties, roses, hearts, speed, uppers • Methylphenidate (Ritalin, Concerta) In order to battle the prescription drug epidemic, the Drug Enforcement Agency is also cracking down nationwide on the distribution of prescribed painkillers. Heavy monitoring of prescription dispensaries, from local pharmacies in small suburban areas to major chains like Walgreens, led to supply restriction and limited what pharmacists could distribute to patients. As of October 2011, 37 states implemented a prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) to identify possible drug use and/or distribution abuse. A PDMP, which is not regulated by the DEA, collects data regarding the prescriptions dispensed in a given state. Eleven additional states have also executed legislation to implement a PDMP. Moving forward, the challenge for policy and healthcare professionals seems to lie in balancing the monitoring of prescription drugs without infringing on patient privacy and not allowing restrictions to affect those who have legitimate need for medication. Still there is a prescription drug epidemic in American and it is still growing. And like with gun deaths, this trend is not going to change until prescription drugs are better regulated and the doctors who dispense these pills like drug dealers are treated like their "drug dealer" counterparts in Columbia, Mexico and South Central. One of the big uglys in America is its prison system. We have less than 5% of the world's population and25% of the prisoners (for two main reasons, the drug war and greed) as we privatized a large part of our prison system making it a huge business with prisoners as customers. America has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, follow by Russia and Rwanda.... We are #1.... and ranking that we should not be proud. 70% of prisoners are clinically considered to be addicts and of those people on n% are treated for their addiction. There is a great study by Columbia University that Joe Califano did that said that if you treat people behind bars for their addiction, continue out patient, keep them in sober housing end employ them, you will drop their level because the major reason why they continue to engage in criminal behavior is because of their addition. Today 66% of the people who get out of jail commit another serious felony within three years. Instead of treating them, we put addicts in prisons with some of our badest criminals and expect them to somehow not be affected. And not only are the court system incarcerating poor people who are into drugs, the largest growing part of the prison system right now is immigration detention centers. Because the recognize that these are individuals who don't have a voice, they don't have representation and they're easy money. We are currently spending $74 billion on the prison complex and only $600 million of this is going to treatment. We need to move the money from incarceration into treatment to change the paradigm. Our prison system is a moral cancer on our nation, especially since many young boys and girls join gangs to survive both in the streets and in prisons. And the craziest thing out our prison system, is that EFTA01188617 nobody works.... We have to put people to work in prison so that they can develop a skill set beyond their criminal past and a new sense of dignity. THIS WEEK's READING This week in the New York Times Gretchen Morgenson wrote — JPMorgan's Follies,for All to See — the writer provides an overview on the 307-page Senate report detailing last year's $6.2 billion trading fiasco at JPMorgan Chase that was recently released, suggesting that the Dodd-Frank legislation which was supposed to make our system safe from the kinds of reckless banking activities that brought the economy to its knees if a mirage and as such the financial system, thanks to dissembling traders and bumbling regulators, is at greater risk than you know. Its pages of e-mails, testimony, telephone transcripts and analysis show that traders in the bank's chief investment officer hid money-losing derivatives positions, if only temporarily; that risk limits created by the bank to protect itself were exceeded routinely; that risk models were changed to minimize losses; that bank executives misled investors and the public; and that regulations are only as good as the regulators enforcing them. Remember that this is a report examining JPMorgan Chase, the bank that enjoys the best reputation among its peers. Morgenson: One can only wonder: if JPMorgan Chase traders think nothing of misrepresenting the value of their trades to minimize losses, what are the financial world's lesser players up to? Morgenson writes that he hearings on Friday were equally compelling, with Mr. Levin and John McCain, the Arizona Republican who is the subcommittee's ranking minority member, subjecting current and former JPMorgan executives, including Ina Drew, the former head of the chief investment officer, to penetrating and pointed questions. "Besides the traders who mismarlced the book, who should be held accountable for breaching JPMorgan's own internal risk limits and adjusting its risk models?" Mr. McCain asked of Douglas L. Braunstein, vice chairman at the bank. After Mr. Braunstein cited the significant reductions in compensation of JPMorgan executives as one measure of accountability, Mr. McCain replied: "It's hard for me to accept that serious responsibility was assumed by the top management of JPMorgan especially in light of e-mails that say that these decisions were, according to Ms. Drew, fully discussed and vetted by the top management of JPMorgan." Hoping to understand JPMorgan's practice of relaxing its valuation method on the troubled investment portfolio, Mr. Levin asked of Mr. Braunstein: "Is it common for JPMorgan to change its pricing practices when losses start to pile up in order to minimize the losses?" After a bit of back and forth, Mr. Braunstein said: "No, that is not acceptable practice." RISK limits, intended to protect the bank from losses, were also routinely breached at JPMorgan Chase, the report found. From late 2011 to the first quarter of 2012, Senate investigators saw a huge jump in the number of risk-limit breaches — to more than 170, from 6. Then, in April 2012 alone, risk limits were exceeded 160 times. "Should someone have investigated the risky trading activities that triggered all these breaches?" Mr. Levin asked. Yes, but no one did, the report concluded. The risk limits were either ignored or modified to make the portfolio look better. The Senate report also raises questions about the rigor with which JPMorgan conducted its own investigation into the trading loss. That report was published in January.Mr. Levin cited the internal report's failings in his questioning of Michael Cavanagh, a task force member and co-C.E.O. of JPMorgan's corporate and investment bank. "You just told us that shifting pricing practices to minimize losses is not acceptable," Mr. Levin said. "Did you say that in your report? Did you say that's what happened?" I don ' believe we called that out in the report," Mr. Cavanagh answered. The report recommends what regulators should do to prevent similar events at other banks. It suggests that regulators should be on the lookout for manipulation of an institution's risk models and should encourage banks to use independent pricing services to ensure the integrity of valuations. Morgenson says that the true value in this Senate investigation is its spotlight on the ability of bank executives to hide hundreds of millions of dollars in losses and yet survive internal valuation reviews. This "shows how imprecise, undisciplined, and open to manipulation the current process is for valuing credit derivatives," the report said. JPMorgan, don't forget, is the largest derivatives dealer in the world. Trillions of dollars in such instruments sit on its and other big banks' balance sheets. The ease with which the bank hid losses and fiddled EFTA01188618 with valuations should be a major concern to investors. As for taxpayers, the Senate report clearly indicates that JPMorgan Chase is too big to regulate. The report found that the bank failed to provide crucial portfolio data to its regulators at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and that those regulators did not investigate questionable trading at the bank. The overseers accepted the bank's assurances that nothing was amiss. The universal acceptance today is that banks of JPMorgan's size are also too big to be allowed to fail and too big to prosecute. Such banks are too big to regulate and apparently too big to manage. So how much more evidence do we need that banks like JPMorgan are simply too big a risk for taxpayers to bear.... Moving forward, the GOP needs to change, well, everything. That is the gist of the Grow and Opportunity Project, a 100-page report outlining the Republican National Committee's recommendations on how to revitalize the party by 2016. RNC chairman Reince Priebus said the report makes it clear that "there's no one reason we lost" the election. "Our message was weak; our ground game was insufficient; we weren't inclusive; we were behind in both data and digital; our primary and debate process needed improvement." Specifically, the party needs to make inroads with women, young voters, and minorities, especially Hispanics. The RNC's 100-page report, the "Growth and Opportunity Project," culled data from more than 52,000 contacts with voters, party consultants and elected officials, it calls for drastic changes to almost every major element of the modern Republican Party. "When Republicans lost in November, it was a wake-up call. And in response I initiated the most public and most comprehensive post-election review in the history of any national party, " Priebus said Monday morning at the National Press Club. "As it makes clear, there's no one reason we lost. Our message was weak; our ground game was insufficient; we weren't inclusive; we were behind in both data and digital; our primary and debate process needed improvement." In essence, the report argues for a more data-driven Republican Party in which the RNC assumes increased authority for party-building efforts. The report calls for increased outreach to women, young voters and minorities — especially Hispanics. The document acknowledges the GOP's policy on immigration has become a "litmus test"for what will be a key constituency necessary for the party's success in the next four years and beyond. "We are not a policy committee, but among the steps Republicans take in the Hispanic community and beyond, we must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform," the report says, nodding at other points to the bipartisan reform efforts currently before Congress. "If we do not, our Party's appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only." The report also notes a growing generational divide on the issue of gay rights, calling the issue a "gateway" for young voters deciding whether to align with the GOP. "We can't grow the party by division and subtraction," Priebus said during a question-and-answer session at the press club. "We can only build it by addition and multiplication." Its top recurring theme arguably involves building a robust Republican data infrastructure, and applying a commitment to testing and analysis of almost every operation of the RNC, in addition to the obvious social issues. Priebus is advised to hire a chief technology officer and digital officer by the end of April, and give them wide latitude to inform aspects of the party from fundraising to media strategy and messaging and beyond. "Those teams will work together to integrate their respective areas throughout the RNC and provide a data-drivenfocusfor the rest of the organization," Priebus said. "And they will be the new center of gravity within the organization." The GOP's digital revamp — as with most of the other elements of the report — was prompted by the Obama campaign's far more sophisticated operation in 2012. Many of the reforms proposed by the Growth and Opportunity Project, however, will encounter stiff resistance in corners of the Republican Party and broader conservative movement — because of a deep distrust of the official GOP among the grassroots. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin encapsulated the sentiment during her speech on Saturday before the Conservative Political Action Conference. 'Wow is the time tofurlough the consultants, and tune out the pollsters, send thefocus groups home, and toss the political scripts," she said, "because if we truly know what we believe, we EFTA01188619 don't need professionals to tell us." And some of the report's declarations are sure to ruffle feathers on the Right. The report says bluntly at one point that "third-party groups that promote purity are hurting our electoral prospects," an indirect reference to groups like the Club for Growth, which has promoted challenges to Republicans regarded as more electable who are accused of transgressing against conservative principle. ***** As former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell said to Chris Matthews on Hardball this week, "Fm just wondering, why would a politicalparty believe that a new PR strategy would cover upfor itspolicies?" Continuing, "It makes no sense at all. First ofall, their policies are bankrupt. They're the exact same — and they haven't changed theirpolicies a bit, Chris. You see Republican state legislators pushing virulent anti- abortion bills that are just clearly unconstitutional, clearly punitive to women, no exceptionsfor incest and rape, things that voters rejected the last time dramatically. They're still -- they don't get it about income inequality in this comity. They're stillpushingfor budgets that give huge tax breaks to the rich and stick it to pow•people, people who are vulnerable . They haven't changed theirpolicies a bit. No packaging, no marketing can change that. And then they've got the additionalproblem ofthe CPAC convention, where you've got the wacko factor at work, where eve?), independent voter, moderate Republican, conservative Democrat who looks at that sideshow - - and it was a sideshow.." The GOP problem of alienating more and more Americans is not due to mechanics.... as much as it is their message. Think about it, Donald Trump's solution to solve the immigration issue: "When it comes to immigration, you know that the ii million illegals, even if given the right to vote -- you know, you 're going to have to do what 's right, but thefact is, LI million people will be voting Democratic. Why aren't we letting people infrom Europe? I have manyfriends, many, many friends, and nobody wants to talk this, nobody wants to say it." Basically he is saying that, WE want to have a country that's specifically aimed at white people and we want to keep it white, and that's the goal of this place, is to be white. The reason why Republicans lost the 2012 election wasn't because people didn't understand they message. In fact, I say the opposite. Black's clearly understood that voter ID laws were being pushed by Republicans to suppress the African American vote. Latinos clearly understood that Romney's self-deportation remedy was not an invitation to citizenship. The elderly clearly understood that voucherizing Medicare will not better healthcare for them. The GOP's advocating cutting Pell Grants did not endear the GOP to the young. And gays should feel at home in the GOP as much as I would be in the Ku Klux Klan. The truth is that Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media only works when the message is the right message. Unlike with mass media where the classic rules for the evening broadcasts and the morning papers, based partly on data (ratings and circulation) and partly on the gut instincts of producers and editors. Wars, earthquakes, plagues, floods, fires, sick children, murdered spouses — the more suffering and mayhem, the more coverage — BAD NEWS SELLS. If it bleeds, it leads. No news is good news, and good news is no news — Social Media works on totally different principals. Researchers analyzing word-of-mouth communication — e-mails, Web posts and reviews, face-to-face conversations — found that it tended to be more positive than negative, but that didn't necessarily mean people preferred positive news. To test for that possibility, Dr. Berger looked at how people spread a particular set of news stories: thousands of articles on The New York Times's Web site. He and Katherine Milkman, a Penn colleague, analyzed the "most e-mailed"list for six months, controlling for factors like how much display an article received in different parts of the home page.One of his first findings to be reported — which I still consider the most important social-science discovery of the past century — was that EFTA01188620 articles and columns in the Science section were much more likely to make the list than nonscience articles. He found that science aroused feelings of awe and made Times readers want to share this positive emotion with others. Readers also tended to share articles that were exciting or funny, or that inspired negative emotions like anger or anxiety, but not articles that left them merely sad. They needed to be aroused one way or the other, and they preferred good news to bad. The more positive an article, the more likely it was to be shared, as Dr. Berger explains in his new book, "Contagious: Why Things Catch On." "Stories about newcomersfalling in love with New York City,"he writes, were more likely to be e-mailed than "pieces that detailed things like the death of a popular zookeeper." Debbie Downer is apparently no match for Polly Positive, at least among Times readers. This social consciousness comes into play when people are sharing information about their favorite subject of all: themselves. This is intrinsically pleasurable and activates the brain regions associated with rewards like food, as demonstrated in a study by Diana Tamir and Jason Mitchell of Harvard. In fact, the study showed, it's so pleasurable that people will pass up monetary rewards for the chance to talk about themselves. Past research into everyday conversation showed that a third of it is devoted to oneself, but today that topic has become an obsession thanks to social media. Rutgers researchers classify 8o percent of Twitter users as "meformers" who tweet mainly about themselves. The result is even more Polly Positivity, and not just because people are so adept at what psychologists call self-presentation: pointing out one's own wonderfulness. While people have always said nice things about themselves in traditional conversations and saved the nastier comments for others, today they're more diligent in spreading the word through written media like e-mail, Facebook and Twitter. "In most oral conversations, we don't have time to think about exactly the right thing to say," Dr. Berger explains. "We fill conversational spaces by saying what's top of mind. But when you write something, you have the time to construct and refine what you say, so it involves more self- presentation." Experiments have shown that people say more positive things when they're talking to a bigger audience, rather than just one person — a result that helps explain the relentlessly perfect vacations that keep showing up on Facebook. For more information please feel free to read John Tiemey's article in the New York Times - Good News Beats Bad on Social Networks. Although overshadowed by the financial problems in Spain Italy and Gre