"On top of all that, job losses will balloon with the closing of more than 1,100 GM and 789 Chrysler dealerships, eliminating tens of thousands more jobs.

"Only three of the Auto Task Force’s members were notably pro-labor, despite protests from labor and auto-state lawmakers. “The Auto Task Force members are basically red-pencil types who looked at saving the auto industry on the cheap without much consideration to social costs, let alone generating green alternative jobs for auto,” says economist and author William K. Tabb. “They have the narrowest business criteria for auto, unlike the banks that got capital and loan guarantees worth trillions. So their focus was to save the auto companies but not the auto workers.” Essentially, Obama and the task force wanted a quick and cheap solution to the Big Three’s ailing finances rather than providing an endless flow of resources, as the government did to the “too-big-to-fail” financial sector.

"Bizarrely, the Auto Task Force’s policy direction dramatically undercuts Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus program. “The problem with GM’s new Washington-mandated restructuring plan is that it steps on the gas in the wrong direction,” UC Berkeley professor Harley Shaiken told NPR’s “Marketplace.” “The stimulus package spends $800 billion to create jobs, while billions in loans to GM are conditioned on eliminating them.”

"But the Auto Task Force seemed largely oblivious to the human costs of eliminating thousands of U.S. auto jobs. Obama and his task force withheld billions of dollars in new loans requested by GM until after the company came up with a more aggressive program of job cuts, plant closing and outsourcing. The Auto Task Force rapidly divorced the reinvigoration of GM and Chrysler from a longer-term shift to a fuel-efficient economy and production not just of high-mileage cars, but also of mass-transit equipment for buses and high-speed rail.

"Ever since The New York Times revealed in December, 2005 that the Bush administration had spent the last four years illegallyYesterday's New York Times article by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau -- reporting that "recent intercepts of the private telephone calls and e-mail messages of Americans are broader than previously acknowledged" -- is but the latest such revelation.  Congress never does anything about these revelations other than enact new laws that increase the government's spying powers still further and gut the few remaining oversight mechanisms that exist (while immunizing the lawbreakers).  All of that compels the conclusion that Congress -- regardless of which party controls it -- is either indifferent to or in favor of this unchecked illegal government spying.  What other conclusion could a rational person possibly reach? spying on Americans' communications without warrants, there have been numerous additional revelations of various types of massive illegal government spying. 

"Every time new revelations of illegal government spying arise, the same exact pattern repeats itself:  (1) euphemisms are invented to obscure its illegality ("overcollection"; "circumvented legal guidelines"; "overstepped its authority"; "improperly obtained"); (2) assurances are issued that it was all strictly unintentional and caused by innocent procedural errors that are now being fixed; (3) the very same members of Congress who abdicate their oversight responsibilities and endlessly endorse expanded surveillance powers in the face of warnings of inevitable abuses (Jay Rockefeller, Dianne Feinstein, "Kit" Bond, Jane Harman) righteously announce how "troubled" they are and vow to hold hearings and take steps to end the abuses, none of which ever materialize; (4) nobody is ever held accountable in any way and no new oversight mechanisms are implemented; (5) Congress endorses new, expanded domestic surveillance powers; and then: (6) new revelations of illegal government spying emerge and the process repeats itself, beginning with step (1).

"A similar pattern occurs each time Congress enacts new laws to increase even further the Government's surveillance powers -- the  Patriot Act of 2001, its full-scale renewal in 2006, the Protect America Act of 2007, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008.  Each time, warnings are issued that the new law will not only permit, but will ensure, massive abuses and unchecked domestic spying.  Those issuing those warnings are dismissed as fringe civil libertarian extremists and hysterics.  The Serious mainstream of both political parties and the establishment media class unite to insist on the need for greater spying powers.  Shortly after passage, new spying abuses are revealed, and proponents of the increased spying powers strut around expressing how shocked and troubled they are by these revelations.  As Kagro succinctly put it yesterday:  "We've had 2 presidential & 3 Congressional elections since the NYT found out we were being illegally spied on. And they're still finding it."

"But the plant's potential extends far beyond consumer-generated greenbacks. A low-input, low-impact crop, industrial hemp can play a significant role in our desperate shuffle to avoid catastrophic climate change.

" 'In terms of sustainability, there are numerous reasons to grow hemp,' says Patrick Goggin, a board member on the California Council for Vote Hemp, the nation's leading industrial-hemp advocacy group.

"Goggin launches into its environmental benefits: Hemp requires no pesticides; it has deep digging roots that detoxify the soil, making it an ideal rotation crop -- in fact, hemp is so good at bioremediation, or extracting heavy metals from contaminated soil, it's being grown near Chernobyl.

"Hemp is also an excellent source of biomass, or renewable, carbon-neutral energy, and its cellulose level, roughly three times that of wood, can be used for paper to avoid cutting down trees, an important line of defense against global warming.

"When it comes to hemp, environmental gains are inexorably intertwined with economic ones. The auto industry, hardly synonymous with being green but which has had the research dollars to apply new technology, can vouch for Goggin. For years European car makers have been using hemp-fiber-reinforced composite materials to replace fiberglass and in other components, such as door panels or dashboards. And now their American counterparts have joined in.

"Blending hemp with plastics is not only cheaper for producers, but natural-fiber composites are roughly 30 percent lighter, which in turn leads to greater fuel efficiency for customers. And when they finally hit the junkyard, those parts partially biodegrade. Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Honda all use this technology.

" 'If all the diesel engines today were converted to use hemp biodiesel, you could wipe out world hunger while providing a natural balance to global warming' says Paul Stanford of the Hemp and Cannabis Foundation, which has worked to end marijuana prohibition and restore industrial hemp.

"As hemp, which has a short harvesting period (roughly 120 days for seed), grows it sequesters, or captures, carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Because biofuels emit less carbon dioxide when burned, more carbon is actually absorbed by the plants used to produce it. So, as more hemp grows, more carbon dioxide would be sucked out of the atmosphere.

"Hemp can be made into almost any building material, including roofing, flooring, paint, insulation pipes and bricks. In addition, hempcrete tends to be stronger and absorb greater humidity while sequestering carbon dioxide. A joint venture with U.K.-based Lime Technology, American Limetec in Chicago is the first American company to distribute hemp-lime materials.

"Canada, which produces hemp for seeds, and Europe, which mainly produces hemp for fiber, are leading the way. At the end of May, the European Industrial Hemp Association held its sixth annual international conference in Wesseling, Germany, where experts, traders, cultivation consultants and investors met to exchange information about the latest developments concerning hemp. Of the 100 or so participants, less than a handful was American.