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Fox talk show host Glenn Beck has said that his “Restoring Honor” rally would “reclaim” the civil rights movement, but there is one important part of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s agenda that he doesn’t intend to restore. Beck told Fox News’ Chris Wallace Sunday that he doesn’t agree with the economic agenda of the

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Responding to President Barack Obama’s recent comment that Republicans have no new ideas, Fox host Glenn Beck said the conservative movement — or at least the tea party branch — is actually promoting a novel idea in American politics: Dismantling the federal government. Speaking at a Democratic fundraiser earlier this week, President Obama said the GOP hasn’t come up with “a single, solitary new idea” to address the economic issues facing the US. Beck countered on his Fox show Friday that the Democrats are also peddling old ideas — socialism, circa 1848. Socialism is the “oldest idea known to mankind,” Beck asserted, ignoring thousands of years of history prior to the 19th century. “What they think is we’re arguing to go back to 1990 or Ronald Reagan — we’re not,” Beck said. “We’re arguing that the states should be empowered because this giant government doesn’t work. We cant afford it. So you dismantle the government and bring the control locally there.” Story continues below… The following video was broadcast on Fox News’ Glenn Beck, Aug. 6, 2010, and uploaded to the Web by MediaMatters .

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Due to the economic crises, folks generally spend more time bargain shopping then they used to. Consumption has taken on a whole new meaning.

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Senate passes sweeping bank reform bill The US Senate voted Thursday to send President Barack Obama the most sweeping rewrite of Wall Street rules since the Great Depression of the 1930s, handing him a historic political win. The bill passed 60-39. However, a top Democratic senator who voted “no” is arguing that “Washington once again caved to Wall Street.” Lawmakers voted 60-38 to end a year of often bitter partisan debate on the 2,300-page measure and set the stage for a final passage ballot expected shortly after a last procedural test at 2:00 pm. (1800 GMT). The bill, Obama’s top domestic priority, aims to rein in risky investment practices blamed for the 2007-2009 global financial meltdown and give regulators an arsenal of new weapons against shady big-bank dealings. Story continues below… “We will fundamentally change the way our financial system is regulated, to rein in Wall Street and create a sound foundation to grow our economy and create jobs,” said Senate Banking Committee chairman Christopher Dodd, a Democrat and a key author of the legislation. It creates a new consumer financial protection agency, an early-warning system to predict and prevent the next crisis, and mechanisms aimed at liquidating rather than saving companies once deemed “too big to fail.” The legislation also closes loopholes in regulations and requires greater transparency and accountability for hedge funds, mortgage brokers and payday lenders, and arcane financial instruments called derivatives. It also includes a somewhat diluted version of the so-called “Volcker Rule” — named for former Fed chairman Paul Volcker — curbing commercial banks’ ability to make speculative investments that are not on behalf of clients. Republicans mostly opposed the bill, charging it gives too much more power to regulators who failed to stem the previous crisis and does nothing to rein in activities by government-backed mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. “What we’re going to wind up doing is we’re going to be driving jobs and business overseas with this massive piece of legislation that truly doesn’t address the problem,” Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss charged Thursday. Dodd said the bill was not “perfect” but underlined: “We must act now. Many of the same risks to our financial sector remain.” Just three of the Senate’s 41 Republicans — Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and Scott Brown of Massachusetts — lined up with 55 Democrats and two independents behind the bill, while Republican Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho did not vote. Democratic Senator Russell Feingold opposed the measure, which he charged did not go far enough to curtail the dealings that led to the international economic collapse. “I made clear that my test for this bill would be whether it prevents another economic crisis. Unfortunately, this bill falls short,” he said in a statement after the vote. Feingold’s statement added, The reckless practices of Wall Street sent our economy reeling, triggered the worst recession since the Great Depression, and left millions of Americans to foot the bill. Despite these cataclysmic events, Washington once again caved to Wall Street on key issues and produced a bill that fails to protect the American people from the pain of another economic disaster. I will not support a bill that fails to adequately protect the people of Wisconsin from the recklessness of Wall Street. Amid stubbornly high unemployment near ten percent and deep US public anger at Wall Street four months before November mid-term elections, Obama has led Democrats in painting Republicans as opposed to common-sense reforms. Republicans have repeatedly denounced key planks of the Democratic platform as “job-killing” and accused the president of not doing enough to fix the crisis he inherited from Republican predecessor George W. Bush. The US House of Representatives approved the legislation on June 30 in a largely party-line 237-192 vote. Final passage of the bill would hand Obama a second historic legislative triumph after successfully pushing the US Congress to overhaul the US health care system over fierce Republican objections. (with additional reporting by RAW STORY)

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WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s administration was “likely” later Monday to issue a reconfigured moratorium on deepwater oil and gas drilling, after a previous six-month freeze was blocked by a judge. The announcement, which officials had previously said was imminent, was expected to be made by the Department of the Interior, an official said on condition of anonymity. The US government extended the latest moratorium on deepwater drilling and new permits for six months, on May 27, as a political storm built over the massive Gulf of Mexico spill gushing from a ruptured undersea well. But last month, a federal court blocked the moratorium after 32 oil companies and local officials argued it was causing irreparable economic harm in a region hard hit by the economic shockwaves from the disaster. Then, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals last week denied the administration’s emergency request to stay that judge’s order pending appeal. Story continues below… Interior Secretary Ken Salazar had said he would soon issue a new order to block deepwater drilling regardless of how the court ruled, and oil companies have not resumed operations due to the legal uncertainties. Oil companies and Louisiana politicians railed against the moratorium, saying it would cause further economic devastation and that rigs and drilling plans should simply be inspected on a case-by-case basis.

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GENEVA — The UN warned on Monday that “massive” loss in life-sustaining natural environments was likely to deepen to the point of being irreversible after global targets to cut the decline by this year were missed. As a result of the degradation, the world is moving closer to several “tipping points” beyond which some ecosystems that play a part in natural processes such as climate or the food chain may be permanently damaged, a United Nations report said. The third “Global Biodiversity Outlook” found that deforestation, pollution or overexploitation were damaging the productive capacity of the most vulnerable environments, including the Amazon rainforest, lakes and coral reefs. “This report is saying that we are reaching the tipping point where the irreversible damage to the planet is going to be done unless we act urgently,” Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, told journalists. Djoghlaf argued that extinction rates for some animal or plant species were at a historic high, up to 1,000 times those seen before, even affecting crops and livestock. Story continues below… (Picture atop article depicts the tiny Kihansi Spray Toad, which once numbered at least 17,000 in Tanzania) The UN report was partly based on 110 national reports on steps taken to meet a 2002 pledge to “significantly reduce” or reverse the loss in biodiversity. Djoghlaf told journalists: “There is not a single country in the world that has achieved these targets, we continue to lose biodioversity at unprecedented rate.” Three potential tipping points were identified. Global climate, regional rainfall and loss of plant and animal species were harmed by continued deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, the report said. Many freshwater lakes and rivers were becoming contaminated by algae, starving them of oxygen and killing off fish, affecting local livelihoods and recreation for local populations. And coral reefs were collapsing due to the combined blow of more acid and warming oceans, as well as overfishing, the UN found. UN Environment Programme (UNEP) director general Achim Steiner underlined the economic value and returns of “natural capital” and its role in ensuring the health of soil, oceans and the atmosphere. “Humanity has fabricated the illusion that somehow we can get by without biodiversity or that it is somehow peripheral to the contemporary world,” Steiner said. “The truth is we need it more than ever on a planet of six billion heading to over nine billion people by 2050.” The report argued that biodiversity was a core concern for society that would help tackle poverty and improve health, meriting as much attention as the economic crisis for only a fraction of the cost of recent financial bailouts. It advocated a new strategy to tackle the loss alongside more traditional steps such as the expansion of protected natural areas and pollution control. They included attempts to regulate land consumption, fishing, increased trade and population growth or shifts, partly through a halt to “harmful” or “perverse” subsidies. The issues raised by the report are due to be discussed at a UN biodiversity meeting in Japan in October.

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President Barack Obama renewed his push for Wall Street reform Saturday, saying the country needed to tackle the underlying problems that caused the economic crisis and promising new regulations would “put an end, once and for all, to taxpayer bailouts.” “The economy is on a better footing. But people are still hurting,” Obama said in his weekly radio address. “No matter what the economic statistics say, I won’t be satisfied until folks who need work can find good jobs.” The president noted that the main causes of the economic downturn were problems in the US financial sector, and Wall Street firms had taken “enormous, irresponsible risks” that hurt practically every sector of the economy. Obama is promising the most sweeping regulatory reform drive since the 1930s Great Depression, and is seeking to build momentum for efforts by Democrats in Congress to overcome Republican opposition and pass a new Wall Street reform law. That effort got a boost on Wednesday, when a Senate panel approved new restrictions on derivatives, the shadowy financial instruments blamed in part for igniting the financial meltdown from which America is just emerging. Story continues below… The Senate Agriculture Committee voted 13-8 to impose new rules on trading in derivatives, with just one Republican joining Democrats. Republican leaders have so far united in opposition to the bill to impose tougher regulations on banks and finance firms and to frame a new consumer financial protection agency. They say Obama’s reforms would introduce the heavy hand of government deeper into the US free enterprise system and would lead to a culture of financial bailouts, an accusation Democrats say is false. But Obama said the reforms would put an end to taxpayer bailouts of big financial institutions and bring greater transparency to complex financial dealings. “Folks will get clearer and more concise information when they make financial decisions – instead of having to worry about deceptive fine print,” he pointed out. “And shareholders and pension holders will have a stronger voice in the boardrooms of companies in which they invest their savings.” The president noted that the proposed reform will help “to put an end to the cycle of boom and bust that we’ve seen” and not only revive the economy, but help to rebuild it stronger than ever before. This video was published by the White House on Saturday, April 24, 2010. With AFP .

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