Romney cites Massachusetts health care law as sign of his empathy, proceeds to cry bleeding heart liberal crocodile tears

"Mitt Romney on Wednesday cited his record in shepherding through the Massachusetts health care law as a sign of his empathy for all people, talking far more openly than usual about a controversial plan that has caused him so much strife with conservative Republicans. 

"'Don’t forget -- I got everybody in my state insured,' Romney told NBC late Wednesday afternoon. 'One hundred percent of the kids in our state had health insurance. I don’t think there's anything that shows more empathy and care about the people of this country than that kind of record.' 

"Romney made the comments just before going on stage in Toledo, for a rally in which Romney used President Obama’s health care law as a chief example of what’s wrong with the current administration. The dichotomy of his statements further illustrated the tightrope Romney has had to walk in pledging to repeal President Obama’s federal law, while simultaneously trying to take credit for the state-level plan he signed into law in Massachusetts."

So...is Mitt for universal health care or against it? Did he convert to a liberal this week? Talk about a campaign with an identify crisis...

Link (Boston Globe)

Slavery Still Exists

"Around the world human traffickers trick many people into slavery by false promises of good jobs or good education, only to find themselves forced to work without pay, under the threat of violence. Trapped by phony debt, these slaves are hunted by local police and private security guards if they try to escape. Sometimes slaves don't even understand that they're enslaved, despite people working 16 or 17 hours a day with no pay. They're simply used to it as something they've been doing their whole lives. Their bodies grow weak and vulnerable to disease, but they have nothing to compare their experience to."

Slavery Still Exists: Photographs of human trafficking and enslavement around the world (The Atlantic)

Obama: "I accept that people are going to call me awful things every day, and I will always defend their right to do so."

Worth repeating, worth memorializing: Obama's comments on the video being blamed for being the catalyst for the recent violence in Libya:

"I know there are some who ask why we don’t just ban such a video. The answer is enshrined in our laws: our Constitution protects the right to practice free speech. Here in the United States, countless publications provoke offense. Like me, the majority of Americans are Christian, and yet we do not ban blasphemy against our most sacred beliefs. Moreover, as President of our country, and Commander-in-Chief of our military, I accept that people are going to call me awful things every day, and I will always defend their right to do so. Americans have fought and died around the globe to protect the right of all people to express their views – even views that we disagree with. 

"We do so not because we support hateful speech, but because our Founders understood that without such protections, the capacity of each individual to express their own views, and practice their own faith, may be threatened. We do so because in a diverse society, efforts to restrict speech can become a tool to silence critics, or oppress minorities. We do so because given the power of faith in our lives, and the passion that religious differences can inflame, the strongest weapon against hateful speech is not repression, it is more speech – the voices of tolerance that rally against bigotry and blasphemy, and lift up the values of understanding and mutual respect."

Full Text of Obama’s Remarks to United Nations (Wall Street Journal)

"America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves."

"America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, 'It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.' It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: “if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?” There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register. 

"Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves."

From Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. 

Some Rough Thoughts on Globalization, and the Most Likely Types of Businesses to Thrive in a Local Economy

In general, globalization presents a massive challenge to the health of local economies everywhere. If we could balance a global economy for high-value products with a local economy for basic needs/wants, that would be ideal. Unfortunately, global companies dominate both high-value products (think Apple and Honda) AND basic needs/wants (think Wal-Mart and Home Depot). This strips the teeth out of local economy--local businesses that are actually manageable by 'normal folks' like grocery and hardware stores cannot compete with the behemoths. Not everyone has the expertise and education to create a global company, but in every town there are at least a few people who can run a grocery or hardware store.

Yay, global Apple and Honda. Boo, global Wal-Mart and Home Depot.

"The problem with any ideology is that it gives the answer before you look at the evidence."

From President Bill Clinton's appearance on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart:

"If I come to you and I say we have this terrible national debt and here's my opening gambit. First thing I want to do is increase it by $5 trillion over a decade by doing another round of tax cuts that mostly benefit the people we benefited in the last decade, even thought it didn't produce jobs. Now we're in a really deep hole, much bigger than this clock I just showed you. Now let me tell you how we're going to get out of it. Well, what about the details? See me about that after the election.

"So I wanted to try to explain that in very simple terms. No one else would do that; no one . Unless you were being driven by ideology instead of by evidence. This is a practical country. We have ideals. We have philosophies. But the problem with any ideology is that it gives the answer before you look at the evidence. So you have to mold the evidence to get the answer that you've already decided you've got to have. It doesn't work that way. Building an economy; rebuilding an economy is hard, practical nuts and bolts work."

Daily Kos

The Stock Market Likes Obama Very Much

Are we better off than four years ago? I was thinking about this, and so I asked my good friend, the S&P 500 index. And, lo, he said unto me, "Yes, Jason, you idiot, we’re at 172% of where we were when Obama took over!" So it looks as if Mr. S&P 500 is voting for Obama. (Mr. Dow Jones Industrial Average and Ms. NASDAQ Composite are also voting for him.)

On a side note, if Obama is a Socialist, he's the worst Socialist the world has ever seen.

The Perverse Incentive to Keep Our Prisons Full

As a society, we should be working to reduce the number of inmates in our prisons. The current trend toward prison privatization, however, seems to be creating an 'inverted incentive' to keep prisons full.

"At a time when states are struggling to reduce bloated prison populations and tight budgets, a private prison management company is offering to buy prisons in exchange for various considerations, including a controversial guarantee that the governments maintain a 90% occupancy rate for at least 20 years. 

"The $250 million proposal, circulated by the Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America to prison officials in 48 states, has been blasted by some state officials who suggest such a program could pressure criminal justice officials to seek harsher sentences to maintain the contractually required occupancy rates. 

"'You don't want a prison system operating with the goal of maximizing profits,' says Texas state Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat and advocate for reducing prison populations through less costly diversion programs. 'The only thing worse is that this seeks to take advantage of some states' troubled financial position.'"

 Private purchasing of prisons locks in occupancy rates (USA Today)

The bottom 90 percent of U.S. households hold just 23.4 percent of all wealth (and other stories)

The State of Working America is an ongoing analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, and includes a wide variety of data on income, unemployment, wealth, and poverty. Here are a few key recent statistics:

• In 2000, median family income was $66,259. In 2010, it was 6 percent lower ($62,301), constituting a “lost decade” for income growth. African American and Hispanic families had substantially lower incomes.
• Incomes for middle-class households and families are not likely to reach their 2000 levels until 2018.
• In 1962, the wealthiest 1 percent had 125 times the wealth of a median household. In 2010, the ratio was 288-to-1.
• In 2010, the top 1 percent of households received 17.2 percent of all income in the economy, in addition to holding 35.4 percent of all wealth.
• In 2010, the bottom 90 percent received only 55.5 percent of all income and held just 23.3 percent of all wealth.

At the State of Working America website, you can find more statistics on income, wealth, poverty and upward mobility, along with a host of additional information.

98% of August 2012 donations to the Obama campaign were for $250 or less

"The Obama campaign said on Twitter that 98 percent of donations in August were for $250 or less. The Republican effort raised about $34.6 million in donations of less than $250, the campaign said, about a third of the total..."

I wonder which candidate's message resonates more with the middle class?

Obama Campaign Says It Beat Romney in Fund-Raising for August (New York Times)

Tom Morello: 'Paul Ryan Is the Embodiment of the Machine Our Music Rages Against'

In case you missed Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello's fantastic op-ed in Rolling Stone a few weeks ago:

"Paul Ryan's love of Rage Against the Machine is amusing, because he is the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades. Charles Manson loved the Beatles but didn't understand them. Governor Chris Christie loves Bruce Springsteen but doesn't understand him. And Paul Ryan is clueless about his favorite band, Rage Against the Machine." ... 

"I wonder what Ryan's favorite Rage song is? Is it the one where we condemn the genocide of Native Americans? The one lambasting American imperialism? Our cover of "Fuck the Police"? Or is it the one where we call on the people to seize the means of production? So many excellent choices to jam out to at Young Republican meetings! 

"Don't mistake me, I clearly see that Ryan has a whole lotta 'rage' in him: A rage against women, a rage against immigrants, a rage against workers, a rage against gays, a rage against the poor, a rage against the environment. Basically the only thing he's not raging against is the privileged elite he's groveling in front of for campaign contributions."

Paul Ryan Is the Embodiment of the Machine Our Music Rages Against (Rolling Stone). Thanks to rixi for the reminder.

Costco Founder Says Obama Better For Business Than Romney

"Companies need 'a president who takes the long view and makes the tough decisions,' said Sinegal, who remained on the board of the largest U.S. warehouse-club chain after retiring as its chief executive officer in January. 'That’s why I am here tonight supporting President Obama, a president making an economy built to last.'"

Link (Bloomberg)

Isaac Asimov on Anti-Intellectualism

"Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'"

You Can Vote, As Long As the GOP Approves of Your Race, Class and Social Status

Republicans have been working very hard to make it more difficult and costly for the young, the elderly, minorities, union members and single and elderly women to cast a vote for Barack Obama. Bill Blum writes:

"According to the Brennan Center for Justice, since the start of 2011, 16 states—accounting for 214 electoral votes—have passed restrictive voting laws. Each law is different, with states such as Florida seeking to curb voter registration drives and others such as South Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania imposing new requirements on voters to produce government-issued photo IDs at the polls." ... 

"...the scope of the suppression movement and its potential impact are staggering. The Brennan Center reports that as many as 11 percent of eligible voters—roughly 21 million Americans—lack current, unexpired government-issued photo IDs. The percentages are even higher among seniors, African-Americans and other minorities, the working poor, the disabled and students—constituencies that traditionally skew Democratic and whose disenfranchisement could prove decisive in any election." ... 

"With the anticipated triumph of voter suppression, the American right will finally achieve the new political order it has long craved—a trifecta of institutionalized class domination in which (1) the poor, the elderly and minorities in large numbers are denied the right to vote; (2) labor unions are crippled; and (3) massive corporations—considered “people” under the law and set free to spend unlimited sums to rig the outcome of elections—have become the only 'people' who matter."

Voter Suppression and John Roberts’ New World Order (TruthDig)

World's Richest Woman (Who Inherited Her Wealth) Says Poor Should Work Harder and Socialize Less

"'If you're jealous of those with more money, don't just sit there and complain,' she said in a magazine piece. 'Do something to make more money yourself -- spend less time drinking or smoking and socialising, and more time working.' ... 

"Rinehart made her money the old-fashioned way: She inherited it. Her family iron ore prospecting fortune of $30.1 billion makes her Australia's wealthiest person and the richest woman on the planet."

Not so sure this is good advice on her part. If the poor stop having fun, they'll have nothing to distract them from revolting against the rich.

World's richest woman says poor should have less fun, work harder (LA Times)

Paul Ryan's Anti-Randian Moment: Use Government Money to Bail Out the GM Plant in His Hometown

Matthew DeLuca writes:

"Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, was a leading member of a task force convened by the state’s Democratic governor in 2008, Jim Doyle, to save a once-flourishing automobile plant in Ryan’s hometown of Janesville, according to state officials. 

"After General Motors announced on June 3, 2008 that it intended to close the nearly 100-year-old plant by 2010, Ryan joined a core group of about a dozen other Wisconsin officials from both parties in the GM Retention Task Force. Their efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, and the company suspended all operations at the facility by Dec. 23, 2008, eliminating 2,400 jobs. It has been in “standby” mode since. 

"In his role on the task force, Ryan—the House Budget Committee chair whose plans to reduce the size of government and with it the extent of what he’s called “crony capitalism” made him a national figure—negotiated directly with GM executives about a taxpayer-funded “incentive package” to try to convince the company to keep the plant in his district running."

So...let's keep the government small and out of our lives...except when we need the government to bail us out. Very consistent.

Paul Ryan Used Government Funds and Power to Try and Save GM Plant in His District (The Daily Beast)

Ron Paul Supporters Silenced at Republican National Convention

John Nichols writes:

"Paul was the Romney challenger who stayed in the race longest, and who won almost 200 delegate votes. (The actual delegate vote for Paul was hard to measure, as RNC officials only announced votes for Romney during Tuesday night’s roll call, but the Seatte Times counted 193 for Paul.) 

"Not that many years ago, coming second in the convention vote might have guaranteed Paul a convention speaking slot. 

"At this convention, it guaranteed him—and his supporters—treatmet so rough that his supporters, the largest dissident block on the floor, openly accused party chair Reince Priebus and his team of 'corruption.' 

"Paul backers had enough delegates and support in the states to have their candidate’s name put in nomination. But that didn’t count in the Priebus party. As the New York Times noted: "'Delegates from Nevada tried to nominate Mr. Paul from the floor, submitting petitions from their own state as well as Minnesota, Maine, Iowa, Oregon, Alaska and the Virgin Islands. That should have done the trick: Rules require signatures from just five states. But the party changed the rules on the spot. Henceforth, delegates must gather petitions from eight states.'"

 Looks like the GOP is no friend of Ron Paul.

His Supporters Treated 'Atrociously,' Ron Paul Refuses to Back Romney (The Nation)

Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants

Our children are 'digital natives'--young citizens born into a world immersed in technology:

"While many of us can bemoan this change in childhood and look back longingly on the time when baseball and outdoor activities were more prevalent than video games, the reality is that technology is here to stay and children are its consumers as much as adults, for better or for worse."

One would think that today's young people, being digital natives, would have an almost innate ability to use technology more effectively than their parents (who are 'digital immigrants'). This is not necessarily so:

"We, as 'digital immigrants,' remember writing research papers by reading through piles of journals, books, and archives of periodicals. When we approach online research, we realize how revolutionary the Internet is because we know what it was like before. We then apply those research techniques to online search engines, and find our tasks much easier to complete. Our students have no frame of reference of a 'pre-Internet' world. They are accustomed to working with intuitive electronics that provide instant gratification, and when they are not able to be 'done' quickly, they tend to become discouraged."

The challenge:

"This leaves us with the question of how to inspire students to look through Internet search results with tenacity, to approach new technologies that may require more problem-solving skills, and to address tasks that are not as instantaneously gratifying as playing video games. It is our role as teachers to help students develop the skills to problem solve independently and collaboratively use 21st-century skills while not relying on technology to do all of the thinking for them."

Being a Digital Native Isn’t Enough (Scientific American)

'Liberal Professor' Sends Video of Himself Being Liberal to Right-Wing Campus Group, Hopes to Claim Reward

Campus Reform, a right-wing college student organization, asked students to submit videos of 'liberal professors,' for which they would be awarded $100 if their submission led to a news story. Kieran Healy, a sociology professor at Duke, submitted a video of himself (in all his liberal glory) in hopes of claiming the cash. Now that this has gone viral, I think he's due his $100, don't you?

Bottom Feeders (KieranHealy.org)

Does Mitt Romney's Flip-Flop on Gay Rights Make Him Malleable, or Simply a Liar?

So, do we believe the Mitt Romney of 2012, or the Mitt Romney of 1994?

"Mitt Romney earned huge cheers at a conservative conference in February when he bragged, "On my watch, we fought hard and prevented Massachusetts from becoming the Las Vegas of gay marriage." But in 1994, running for Senate against Ted Kennedy, he told a local gay and lesbian paper he was even more pro-gay rights than Kennedy."

This Is How Proud Romney Was to Be Pro-Gay Rights in 1994 (The Atlantic Wire)

Symantec: Religious Websites Have 3X More Malware than Pornographic Sites

Symantec's 'Internet Security Threat Report', published earlier this year, makes the following observation (p. 33):

"...religious and ideological sites were found to have triple the average number of threats per infected site than adult/pornographic sites. We hypothesize that this is because pornographic website owners already make money from the internet and, as a result, have a vested interest in keeping their sites malware-free – it’s not good for repeat business."

Internet Security Threat Report (PDF, Symantec)

Maureen Dowd Eviscerates Akin and Ryan

I suppose it's low-hanging fruit, but Maureen Dowd's column on the Todd Akin debacle in yesterday's New York Times is just too good to resist highlighting. Here are a few choice excerpts:

"Paul Ryan, who teamed up with Akin in the House to sponsor harsh anti-abortion bills, may look young and hip and new generation, with his iPod full of heavy metal jams and his cute kids. But he’s just a fresh face on a Taliban creed — the evermore antediluvian, anti-women, anti-immigrant, anti-gay conservative core. Amiable in khakis and polo shirts, Ryan is the perfect modern leader to rally medieval Republicans who believe that Adam and Eve cavorted with dinosaurs."

Ouch. Quoting a Standford professor:

"'The biological facts are perhaps inconvenient, but whether the egg meets the sperm is a matter of luck or prevention,' says Dr. Paul Blumenthal, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology who directs the Stanford Program for International Reproductive Education and Services. 'If wishing that 'I won’t get pregnant right now' made it so, we wouldn’t need contraceptives.'"

And she brings in the thoughts of a Republican strategist:

"'Next we’ll be trying to take away the vote from women,' lamented Alex Castellanos, a Republican strategist who advised Romney in the 2008 race. 'How can we be the party of cool and make the generational leap forward when we have these recidivist ideas at the very core of our base?'"

Finally, I cannot help but include a concisely worded comment from New York Times reader "Ralph":

"The problem is not limited to Missouri. A number of voters are willing to consider voting for Ryan as VP; his views are every bit as retrograde as Akins'. The only difference is he is oblique, rather than honest."

Just Think No (New York Times)

Douglas Adams on Money and Unhappiness

"This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy."

From the late, great Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Todd Akin Continues the Current GOP Tradition of Celebrating Ignorance

Here's another one from the 'You Can't Make This Stuff Up' department. As we all know by now, yesterday Representative Todd Akin (R-MO) said the following on television:

"...from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare. If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

Jezebel has concocted a fitting response to these frighteningly stupid remarks: The Official Guide to Legitimate Rape.

Apparently People Still Take Ayn Rand Seriously

Ayn Rand's books were a good read in high school--perhaps even into the early days of one's college experience--but it's hard to believe that grown-up, working adults still take them seriously. Steve Almond (writing at 'The Rumpus') provides a sufficiently eviscerating take on Paul Ryan's love affair for Rand:

"Rand’s sway over the male adolescent mind is not especially subtle. Her fairytales always feature some badass rich guy battling a bunch of nebbishes who spend their hours devising new impediments to progress and pleasuring welfare queens with golden vibrators. Nobody gets how brilliant the rich guy is, and how much better he wants to make the world and it’s so unfair! Also, he gets laid. ... 

"Rand geeks were made of stiffer stuff [than Vonnegut geeks]. They marched around pronouncing grave syllogisms and dreamed of omnipotence. They clung to a grand vision of personal destiny: science fiction as governed by Ronald Reagan. They honestly believed in the free market as the path to utopia. ... 

"Rand’s vision is a cartoon of capitalism, in which there is no poverty or environmental ruin or lack of equal opportunity. In her world, generosity is a false and malignant impulse. Nobody is just born rich. They must pursue wealth, and this pursuit is by definition a heroic one. Brave inventors and industrialists hold the key to paradise, if only they can throw off the shackles of religious superstition, liberal guilt, and bureaucratic tyranny. 

"In other words, Romney and Ryan have to convince voters that capitalism is not just an economic philosophy, but a moral system, and that any attempt to curb its appetites is therefore immoral."

The Week in Greed #11: The Ayn Rand Program (The Rumpus)

We Are All Connected

This beautiful video illustrates the parallels between humanity and the rest of the natural world. 

Here is the link to the video on YouTube.

"Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."

"'You fall through the cracks and there's nothing you can do about it,' said the 52-year-old home health aide. 'It makes me feel like garbage, like the American dream, my dream in my homeland is not being accomplished.' 

"Many working parents like Pico are below the federal poverty line but don't qualify for Medicaid, a decades-old state-federal insurance program. That's especially true in states where conservative governors say they'll reject the Medicaid expansion under Obama's health law. 

"In South Carolina, a yearly income of $16,900 is too much for Medicaid for a family of three. In Florida, $11,000 a year is too much. In Mississippi, $8,200 a year is too much. In Louisiana and Texas, earning more than just $5,000 a year makes you ineligible for Medicaid."

pdxbound writes, "As Jesus said, 'Only provide help for the old and weak if enough wealth can be transferred. If the individual is without sufficient wealth, let them perish in obscurity and humiliation.' Amen."

This apparently comes from the GOP version of the Bible.

Is a $5,000 salary too much for Medicaid? (CBS News)

Internet Habits and Mental Health

Following-up two recent posts (here and here) on internet addiction, recent research by computer scientists, engineers, and psychologists suggests that the mechanics of internet usage (frequency of email, online chat, streaming media, task-switching) may predict the tendency to experience depression.

"It turns out that very specific patterns of internet use are reliably related to depressive tendencies. For example, peer-to-peer file sharing, heavy emailing and chatting online, and a tendency to quickly switch between multiple websites and other online resources all predict a greater propensity to experience symptoms of depression. Although the exact reasons that these behaviors predict depression is unknown, each behavior corresponds with previous research on depression. Quickly switching between websites may reflect anhedonia (a decreased ability to experience emotions), as people desperately seek for emotional stimulation. Similarly, excessive emailing and chatting may signify a relative lack of strong face-to-face relationships, as people strive to maintain contact either with faraway friends or new people met online."

 What Internet Habits Say About Mental Health (Scientific American)

Paul Ryan Hasn't Really Crunched the Numbers

Paul Krugman writes:

"What Ryan is good at is exploiting the willful gullibility of the Beltway media, using a soft-focus style to play into their desire to have a conservative wonk they can say nice things about."

The Ryan budget plan's long-term spending projections are 'laughable':

"His plan projects an absurd future, according to the Congressional Budget Office, in which all discretionary spending, now around 12 percent of GDP, shrinks to 3 percent of GDP by 2050. Defense spending alone was 4.7 percent of GDP in 2009. With numbers like that, Ryan is more an anarchist-libertarian than honest conservative."

In the words of one commenter on Krugman's post: Paul Ryan is "a carefully crafted gee-whiz nice guy policy nerd facade concealing a machiavellian ambition and sociopathic policies perfectly aligned with ALEC. He is a consummate con-artist."

U.S. Corn Production Down Due to Drought--Ethanol Production Criticized

Following-up Tuesday's post regarding extreme temperatures: Corn production in the United States is down significantly because of this summer's high heat and lack of precipitation.

"On Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture cut its estimate for the corn crop by nearly 17% and raised the upper end of its price forecast by 39% to almost $9 a bushel. ...

"The drought has some in the U.S. clamoring for the Environmental Protection Agency to relax its ethanol production mandates. Currently about 30% of U.S. corn is diverted to ethanol production and critics say the policy drives up corn prices." 

Amid drought, USDA cuts corn crop estimate to 17-year low (LA Times)