[From Truthdig]

By Chris Hedges, Mar 1, 2010

We owe Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney an apology. They were right about Barack Obama. They were right about the corporate state. They had the courage of their convictions and they stood fast despite wholesale defections and ridicule by liberals and progressives.

Obama lies as cravenly, if not as crudely, as George W. Bush. He promised us that the transfer of $12.8 trillion in taxpayer money to Wall Street would open up credit and lending to the average consumer. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), however, admitted last week that banks have reduced lending at the sharpest pace since 1942. As a senator, Obama promised he would filibuster amendments to the FISA Reform Act that retroactively made legal the wiretapping and monitoring of millions of American citizens without warrant; instead he supported passage of the loathsome legislation. He told us he would withdraw American troops from Iraq, close the detention facility at Guantánamo, end torture, restore civil liberties such as habeas corpus and create new jobs. None of this has happened.

Continue reading Ralph Nader Was Right About Barack Obama at Truthdig

Update: Gov. Paterson did announce Fri afternoon that he will not see election this fall.

(CNN) – Embattled New York Gov. David Paterson is expected to announce later Friday that he won’t seek a full term in office, but will remain as governor for the rest of the year, a Democratic Party source tells CNN.

Paterson is expected to go before cameras later Friday in New York City.

Full story at CNN Political Ticker.

This is important to the Green Party of NY as the only way to get and maintain ballot status in NY is for a party’s candidate for governor to get 50,000 votes or more in the quadrennial election.

The Green Party of NY is currently in its process of determining the candidate for governor and the other statewide offices. The convention will be held in May in the capital area.

WASHINGTON, DC — Green Party leaders and candidates are calling President Obama’s resurrection of nuclear power with a multi-billion-dollar taxpayer-funded subsidy for a Georgia plant his “worst idea yet” and warned about serious public health threats posed by mining, waste transportation, and waste storage. The Green Party disputes the myths that nuclear power is ‘green energy’ or a solution to the advance of climate change.

“The twin nuclear reactors in Burke County, Georgia, would be financed with $5.4 billion in loans from the Federal Financing Bank with money of the US Treasury. According to the GAO, this investment has a 50/50 percent or worse chance of failing. President Obama wants taxpayers to assume 80% of the financial risk to turn the southeast Atlantic states into a big open-pit radioactive barbeque. This investment is a terrible idea — President Obama’s worst yet,” said Lisa Green, Green candidate for California Assembly Candidate, 53rd Assembly District.

“If built, the plant will be a financial disaster because of high construction expenses and likely cost overruns, compared with other sources of electrical power. As the first of a new generation of nuclear power plants, it’ll carry huge technical risks. Even more ominous is the problem of mining, waste storage, and waste transportation through populated areas, which carry huge public health dangers,” added Ms. Green.

Greens noted that, in the US, more people have died from contamination from uranium mining, from causes such as water sources polluted by mine tailings, and from uranium transportation than from all the causes after materials reach the first processing plant. Energy Secretary Steven Chu recently told a Senate committee that, for the foreseeable future, the plants will probably store spent fuel rods on site. No long-term plan exists anywhere for storing commercial radioactive waste.

“We are already seeing tritium in the wells in Girard Georgia, and the cooling ponds at Plant Hatch are filled to overflowing,” said Patricia Crayton, co-chair of the Georgia Green Party. “The fuel cycle which feeds the power plants in Hazlehurst and Waynesboro is intricately linked to the one which feeds the bomb plant across the Savannah River near Aiken. $5 billion could better serve setting Georgia on a sustainable energy path worthy of our children.”

“In addition to a cornucopia of biochemically and radiologically hazardous waste materials, the proposed powerplants will also manufacture plutonium-239, raising the question of whether the Obama administration’s underlying intent is to provide electricity to Georgia citizens or to further escalate the nuclear weapons race,” said Douglas Campbell, Green Party activist and a former nuclear engineer in Ferndale, Michigan.

“If Republicans and Democrats really believed in the free market, they would strenuously oppose nuclear power, which is enormously expensive and carries astronomically high liabilities. But they don’t believe in the market. They believe in targeted, special interest handouts and guaranteed profits for favored corporations, despite flawed corporate agendas. That’s why they want nuclear plants built with taxpayer dollars, with utility ratepayers in states like Georgia and Florida assuming the financial risk and local residents assuming the health risk,” said Nicholas Ruiz III, Green Party candidate for Congress in Florida’s District 24.
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Tuesday was the first day for Missouri political hopefuls to register to run for office in the August primary election. While the recognized parties will hold primaries, the Progressive Party of Missouri will circulate petitions to gather 10,000 verified signatures in order to gain ballot access. Midge Potts, the Co-Chair of the Progressive Party of Missouri, as well as a delegate to the Green Party of the United States National Committee, announced in June 2009 that she would seek the US Senate seat being vacated by Kit Bond. Tuesday she released a statement proclaiming that she intends to run a non-traditional campaign by walking the state in order to discuss issues of concern to Missourians in their own communities.

Long time Green Party member Hank Bardel is running for congress in New York’s 13th Congressional District. Hank owns acreage in eastern Pennsyvania which is over the Marcellus Shale formation. Recently Hank was offered over $264,000 with 21% royalties to allow companies to drill there and he turned them down.

I’m very worried about keeping the ground water, where I own the property, very clean. We have a lot of dairy farms in the area and I would like to see them and the people who live in the area to continue to get good clean water. Until the oil and gas companies can prove to me scientifically that the fracturing process will not leave harmful chemicals behind, I cannot in good conscience allow the drilling to start.

Many New Yorkers are very concerned about the the New York City water supply, especially since a lot of its water comes from water sheds that sit over the Marcellus Shale. I think many gas and oil companies would like to drill in near those areas.

Hank Bardel previously ran in 2002 for congress in NY’s 13th Congressional District, and is seeking the Green Party line again this year. The 13th CD includes all of Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn like Bensonhurst, Bay Ridge, Fort Hamilton, Dyker Heights and Gravesend. His website.

Former Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney speaks at Munich Germany Peace Rally during her visit to receive the ‘Peace through Conscience’ award from the Munich American Peace Committee.

Video starts at the end of the peace march.