Canda hopes to KILL 400,000 baby seals this season!!!

 Canadian government still allows sealers to slaughter what surviving pups they can find. In fact, they have set this year’s harp seal kill quota at an extreme 400,000 seals!!!

Republicans: the party of MISOGYNY!!!

Help save the Violence Against Women Act

The latest attack on women is over the Violence Against Women Act.
The last time this program was reauthorized, it passed nearly unanimously through the House and Senate--but incredibly, the all-male Republican block on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted down the bill.

That's right: Republicans are now standing in the way of reauthorizing an incredibly popular and successful program that has reduced domestic violence rates by 58% since it was first passed in 1994.
 
Tell Republican leadership to stop playing politics with women's lives and pass the Violence Against Women Act now!
 
Voting to defund Planned Parenthood, redefine rape, and block access to contraception has not been enough for anti-woman members of Congress--they now want to block funding for victims of domestic violence.
Every female Senator -- including 5 Republicans -- supports this important act. And yet the bill only has 58 co-sponsors, two votes shy of the 60 votes needed to defeat a promised Republican filibuster. 

Even as their party continues to lead attacks on women, Republican leadership should honor the wishes of the women in their own caucus and call off the filibuster. 
 
Tell Republican leadership to stop playing politics with women's lives and pass the Violence Against Women Act now
 
Blocking funding for victims of domestic violence is low, even for this Republican Congress. With enough pressure from the grassroots and the all of women in the Senate Republican caucus co-sponsoring the bill, we can stop the filibuster and pass reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.

Tell Republican leadership to stop playing politics with women's lives and pass the Violence Against Women Act now!

EPA Issues First Greenhouse-Gas Limit for U.S. Power Plants

The Environmental Protection Agency issued the first limits on greenhouse-gas emissions from U.S. power plants, the largest source of carbon dioxide linked to climate change.

The rules will permit emissions from new power plants at about the level established for a natural-gas plant, the EPA said today in an e-mailed statement, which would effectively preclude construction of new coal-fired plants.

“We’re taking a common-sense step to reduce pollution in our air, protect the planet for our children, and move us into a new era of American energy,” Lisa Jackson, administrator of the EPA, said in a statement.
The proposed nationwide standard is the first of its kind issued by the EPA for carbon-dioxide emissions. The rule would only apply to the construction of new plants, and the administration said it would exempt plants that are proposed to be built within the next year.

The initial impact would be minimal as utilities are closing, not building, coal plants because natural gas prices are at 10-year lows. The share of coal in electricity generation dropped below 40 percent by the end of 2011, the first time it had been that low since 1978, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency in Washington.

The average U.S. coal plant emits 2,249 pounds of carbon dioxide for each megawatt hour of power produced, compared with 1,135 pounds for a natural gas plant, according to the EPA. Newer combined-cycle natural gas plants, in which the heat exhaust of a first gas-fueled turbine drives a second generator, are more efficient.

“If old King Coal isn’t dead already, he’s certainly teetering toward life support,” Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch in Washington. 

Carbon-dioxide emissions since the Industrial Revolution have led to a warming of the earth’s temperature in the past 50 years, threatening to cause extreme weather, drought and coastal flooding, according to the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

Third eye blind .... or the tales of the stubby leg that stumbled .... or dumbo takes office .. or

Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was placed under formal investigation on Monday by authorities looking into a suspected prostitution ring in the French city of Lille, his lawyer said, following a day of questioning by judges in a closed courtroom.

The investigation on suspicion of complicity in a pimping operation is the latest judicial headache for the Socialist ex-finance minister. The move could lead to a trial but it falls short of charging him.

Strauss-Kahn, 62, who was a strong contender to be France's next president until he was hit with sex-assault charges, now-dismissed, in New York last May, was allowed to leave the court after being questioned by three judges in the case.

The Lille prosecutor's office said in a statement he was required to post 100,000 euros ($133,300) in bail. He is forbidden to contact witnesses, the press, and others involved in the prostitution case, it said.
Outside the courthouse, Strauss-Kahn's lawyer, Richard Malka, said his client was innocent.

"He states with the strongest firmness to be guilty of none of these acts and in particular to not have had the least awareness that certain women he met could have been prostitutes," Malka told the press.
"Having relations with an escort does not constitute a crime and is a matter of private behavior, perfectly legal among adults," he added.

The Lille case centers on allegations that a prostitution ring organized by Strauss-Kahn's business associates supplied clients at the city's Carlton Hotel.

Already in the case, eight people, including two Lille businessmen and a police commissioner, have been arrested, and construction firm Eiffage fired an executive suspected of using company funds to hire sex workers.

Judges had the option of putting him under investigation for having potentially benefited from misappropriated company funds if he knowingly attended prostitute sessions paid for by his executive friends using expense accounts.

Instead, the investigation will focus on the pandering angle, and whether Strauss-Kahn was aware that the women at the parties were prostitutes supplied by pimps.

In itself, using prostitutes is not illegal in France.

The highly-anticipated hearing was originally scheduled for Wednesday but was moved up by two days for unknown reasons.

Under French law, "juges d'instruction," which are a cross between investigating prosecutors and criminal magistrates, notify the accused they are under investigation and can hold the person if they believe it warranted. It is they who later decide whether to send the case to court.

Strauss-Kahn - who is now jobless and lives a life behind closed doors in Paris - previously has denied the allegations, arguing he was unaware women he met at parties organized by business associates in Lille, Paris and Washington were prostitutes.

Strauss-Kahn went from being a highly respected politician to being hounded in the world's media after a New York hotel maid accused him of trying to rape her. The charges were dropped after prosecutors decided the maid's testimony was unreliable.

But Strauss-Kahn, later was hit with a separate sexual assault accusation in France and on Wednesday his lawyers will be in a Bronx courtroom fighting a civil lawsuit brought against him by the hotel maid.

Hedge Funds buying stocks at fastest rate in two years!!!

Hedge funds trailing the Standard & Poor’s 500 (SPX) Index for the last five months are giving up on bearish bets and buying stocks at the fastest rate in two years.

A gauge of hedge-fund bullishness measuring the proportion of bets that shares will rise climbed to 48.6 last week from 42 at the end of November 2011, the biggest increase since April 2010, according to data compiled by the International Strategy & Investment Group. The Bloomberg aggregate hedge fund index gained 1.4 percent last month, lagging behind the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index by 2.65 percentage points.

Priorities USA !!!!

We believe the stakes for protecting our country’s core values have never been higher.   

Any agenda that rewards only the wealthiest few Americans at the expense of middle class Americans is UNAMERICAN...

• Jobs and the Economy: We support meaningful job legislation that will build the foundation for our future prosperity by investing in infrastructure, clean energy and American innovation.
• Taxes: We oppose the “Romney Rule” whereby millionaires pay a lower tax rate than many middle class Americans. We believe tax cuts should not favor corporations, millionaires and billionaires, placing a crushing burden on the American middle class. 
• The Judiciary: With two possible Supreme Court appointments at stake, we cannot afford a Republican president who will appoint leaders with an anti-choice, anti-gay rights and anti-middle class agenda.
• Income Inequality: We oppose the permanent extension of Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, and support economic policies rooted in fairness and opportunity.
• Education: We believe education is the most essential investment in our future. We oppose efforts to slash America’s commitment to its future by gutting education. We support policies that strengthen our public schools, support community colleges and make higher education affordable for the daughters and sons of all working Americans.
• Health Care: We support the Affordable Care Act and oppose attempts to repeal it. We support the requirement that health insurers cover people with pre-existing conditions. We support allowing parents to carry coverage of their adult children until age 26. We support shrinking the “Donut Hole” for prescription drug costs, and the other consumer protections in the Affordable Care Act, and will oppose efforts to roll back these hard-won consumer protections.
• Medicare: We believe in strengthening the existing Medicare system, and staunchly oppose the proposed Republican destruction of the system outlined in the Republican/Ryan budget.
• Right to Choose: With the Republican effort to defund assistance at the federal level, we stand for continuing the program which provides critical health services for women across the country.
• Environment: We believe that protection of our air, our water, our Earth is a national priority that requires a national commitment. We oppose the radical right-wing agenda to abolish the E.P.A. and allow corporate polluters to write their own rules of the road. We oppose giving big oil tax subsidies and oppose allowing oil companies to drill in America’s most precious and fragile ecosystems.
• Climate Change: We believe in science. We therefore accept and embrace the overwhelming international scientific consensus that the earth’s climate is warming and that human-generated pollution is a central cause. We support efforts to limit the pollution that causes global warming.
• Energy: Republican energy policies left Americans more dependent than ever on Middle East Oil, while allowing our lead in clean energy technology to erode and, in some cases, even disappear. We are committed to energy independence. We are committed to clean energy. We are committed to American leadership in the clean energy jobs of the future.
• Social Security: We oppose the Republican-proposed privatization of the system, which would make it far less sound and secure for future generations. We believe in strengthening the current system by reform in a sustainable fashion.
• LGBT Issues: We believe in freedom, in equality, in dignity for all Americans. We vigorously oppose divisive right-wing attempts to divide the American family and to besmirch the Constitution with amendments that would single out gay Americans for discrimination. We support gay and lesbian service members who risk their lives for our freedom, and we oppose any attempt to discriminate against them by reinstating “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”

Hong Kong....time for a great leap forward => Democracy

Leung Chun-ying, a former property surveyor, pledged to address Hong Kong’s wealth gap and demands for universal suffrage as the city’s next chief executive after winning a poll in which only one in 5,900 people could vote. 

A 1,193-member panel of Hong Kong billionaires, academics and professionals chose Leung over two other candidates to lead the city for the next five years. Crowds outside the election venue protested the lack of democracy in the former British colony, with one waving the colonial-era flag and others holding signs opposing China’s ruling Communist Party. 

Leung, 57, will help shape the city’s economy and relationship with China through 2017, when Beijing has pledged to allow Hong Kong to elect its own leaders. He must also address anger over rising living costs spawned by an influx of money from mainland China and surging property prices that have made Hong Kong the world’s most expensive place to buy a home. 

“Rule of law, human rights, integrity, lack of corruption and press freedom are all part of our life,” Leung told reporters after his selection. “This election has helped build a foundation for universal suffrage in 2017.”