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    Wednesday, December 30, 2009

    Obamacare is a bad healthcare bill !!!

    Olbermann to Axelrod: You're a Useless Sell-Out and Shill

    Axelrod to Olbermann: You're a Lunatic

    Everyone Else: Hey, No Fighting! You're Both Right!

    Olbermann: I will go to jail before I participate in a mandated-insurance scheme that enriches the corporate fat-cats in the insurance companies.

    Axelrod: Anyone on the left wanting to kill this bill is insane.

    Incidentally, after Gibbs called Howard Dean pretty much crazy yesterday, a White House hack (forget who-- Rahm?) walked that back and offered a more respectful objection; but I see the respectful objection thing was abandoned again by Captain Wonderful, and we're back to the "lunatic" argument.

    (Argument being used in the loosest possible sense.)

    Hmm... those who started saying, early, "the left just might kill this bill," well, you may be about to collect on your pool wager, depending on what day you selected.

    I gotta tell ya, I did not see this coming. I thought the left was so hopelessly in love with Captain Wonderful they just wanted him to get a "Win," and didn't care what it looked like.

    I see now that that was pretty much just Chris Matthews. And David Brooks, I'd imagine.

    Posted by: Ace at 04:07 PM

    Sunday, December 27, 2009

    Another one of "war president" Obama's wars !!!!

    Published on Monday, December 21, 2009 by Salon.com

    Cruise Missile Attacks in Yemen

    by Glenn Greenwald

    Given what a prominent role "Terrorism" plays in our political discourse, it's striking how little attention is paid to American actions which have the most significant impact on that problem. In addition to our occupation of Iraq, war escalation in Afghanistan, and secret bombings in Pakistan, President Obama late last week ordered cruise missile attacks on two locations in Yemen, which "U.S. officials" say were "suspected Al Qaeda hideouts." The main target of the attacks, Al Qaeda member Qasim al Rim, was not among those killed, but: "a local Yemeni official said on Sunday that 49 civilians, among them 23 children and 17 women, were killed in air strikes against Al-Qaeda, which he said were carried out 'indiscriminately'." Media reports across the Muslim world -- though, not of course, within the U.S. -- are highlighting the dead civilians from the U.S. strike (one account from an official Iranian outlet began: "U.S. Nobel Peace Prize laureate President Barack Obama has signed the order for a recent military strike on Yemen in which scores of civilians, including children, have been killed, a report says").

    Protesters shout slogans as they march on a street in the southern Yemeni town of Radfan December 19, 2009 to denounce Thursday's government military operation which the authorities said killed about 30 al Qaeda militants. Yemen's opposition accused the raids killed dozens of civilians, including whole families. (REUTERS/Stringer)For many people, the mere assertion by anonymous U.S. Government officials that these attacks targeted "suspected al-Qaeda sites" will be sufficient to deem them justified. All credible reports confirm that there is indeed a not insignificant Al Qaeda presence in Southern Yemen, so that claim, at least, seems at least grounded in reality. Yet arguments about justification to the side for the moment, here we have yet another violent attack by the U.S. which -- even under the best-case scenario -- has killed more Muslim civilians than it did "Al Qaeda fighters," and failed to kill the main target of the attack. When it comes to undermining Al Qaeda -- both in Yemen and generally -- isn't it painfully obvious that the images of dead Muslim women and children which we constantly create -- and which we again just created in Yemen -- will fuel that movement better than anything else we can do?

    Consider what else is happening around the Muslim world that is quite consistent with all of that yet receiving virtually no attention in the West (though receiving plenty of attention there). Pakistani lawyers -- many of the same ones who protested the tyrannical practices of General Musharraf -- held a large protest in Islamabad this weekend objecting to the presence of "notorious" Blackwater agents in their country. Palestinians are consumed with a recent incident in which West Bank settlers torched one of their mosques, burning holy books and leaving threatening messages; that was preceded by the Israeli Justice Minister proclaiming that "step by step, Torah law will become the binding law in the State of Israel." And perhaps most significantly of all, while reports have focused on alleged tension between the Obama administration and Israel over the latter's uncooperative conduct, this is what is actually happening:

    Behind the scenes, strategic security relations between the two countries are flourishing. Israeli officials have been singing the praises of President Obama for his willingness to address their defense concerns and for actions taken by his administration to bolster Israel's qualitative military edge -- an edge eroded, according to Israel, during the final year of the George W. Bush presidency.

    Among the new initiatives taken by the administration, the Forward has learned, are adjustments in a massive arms deal the Bush administration made with Arab Gulf states in response to Israeli concerns. There have also been upgrades in U.S.-Israeli military cooperation on missile defense. And a deal is expected next year that will see one of the United States' most advanced fighter jets go to Israel with some of America's most sensitive new technology.

    Amid the cacophony of U.S.-Israel clashes on the diplomatic front, public attention given to this intensified strategic cooperation has been scant. But in a rare public comment in October, Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren praised the Obama administration's response to complaints about lost ground during the close of the Bush years as "warm and immediate."

    "We came to the Obama administration and said, ‘Listen, we have a problem here,'" Oren, told a gathering of the National Jewish Democratic Council. "The administration's reaction was immediate: we are going to address this issue, we are going to make sure that we maintain your QME [qualitative military edge]."

    All of this is being done pursuant to this:

    America's commitment to maintaining Israel's qualitative military edge was codified directly into U.S. law via 2008 legislation backed by AIPAC. This legislation requires the president to report to Congress periodically on actions taken by the administration to ensure Israel's advantage.

    I have to confess that I didn't realize that a law was enacted last year making it a legal requirement for America to maintain "Israel's qualitative military edge," and -- even more amazingly -- that the President of the U.S. is required to report regularly to the U.S. Congress on the steps he's taking to ensure Israel's superiority. That's a rather extraordinary law, and the administration seems to be fulfilling its requirements faithfully.

    Whatever else is true, and even if one believes it's justified to lob cruise missiles into more countries where we claim "suspected Al Qaeda sites" are located, one thing seems clear: all of the causes widely recognized as having led to 9/11 -- excessive American interference in the Muslim world, our alliance with their most oppressive leaders, our responsibility for Israel's military conflicts with its Muslim neighbors, and our own military attacks on Muslims -- seem stronger than ever. As we take more actions of this sort, we will create more Terrorists, which will in turn cause us to take more actions of this sort in a never-ending, self-perpetuating cycle. The U.S. military, and the intelligence community, and its partners in the private contractor world will certainly remain busy, empowered, and well-funded in the extreme.

    Saturday, December 26, 2009

    A Patient's View of the Senate Christmas Healthcare Gift

    December 24th, 2009 9:10 AM
    A Patient’s View of the Senate Christmas Healthcare Gift
    By Donna Smith
    So, all the great fanfare and all the king’s horses. The great and almighty U.S. Senate has spoken. I will have to buy private health insurance – forever, amen. The defective product that has left me wanting for real healthcare for all of my adult life is now a step closer to being the law of the land.
    A lump of Christmas coal all polished up with sparkling rhetoric.
    Here’s what the Chicago Tribune said this week, and I agree:
    On Sunday, the Chicago Tribune published an exhaustive front-page analysis by Northwestern University's Medill News Service and the Center for Responsive Politics of how it was done. The main culprit: "a revolving door between Capitol Hill staffers and lobbying jobs for companies with a stake in health care legislation."

    The study found that 13 former congressmen and 166 congressional staffers were actively engaged in lobbying their former colleagues on the bill. The companies they were working for -- some 338 of them -- spent $635 million on lobbying. It was money extremely well spent -- delivering a bill that, by forcing people to buy a shoddy product in a market with no real competition, enshrines into law the public subsidy of private profit.

    As we approach the end of Obama's first year in office, this public subsidizing of private profit is becoming something of a habit. It is, after all, exactly what the White House did with the banks. Just as he did with insurance companies, Obama talked tough to the bankers in public, but, when push came to shove, he ended up shoving public money onto their privately held balance sheets.
    This is not just bad policy, it's bad politics.
    Now, back to my own thoughts as a patient:
    I went broke while carrying health insurance, a disability insurance policy and a small healthcare savings account. And if I get sick under this mess of a plan, it will happen to me again. Little has changed except that millions more of my fellow citizens will join my ranks.
    How does it happen to insured people under this plan? Easy. Step-by-torturous-step. Slowly. Like water-torture.
    1. Buy health insurance at work or on the new exchange;
    2. Avoid using insurance due to co-pays, deductibles and out-of-pocket maximum exposures – not to mention lost work time and the worry about losing one’s job in a tough economy;
    3. If symptoms are noticed, treat by internet medical site suggestions and over-the-counter drugs until no other option but going to a doctor are available;
    4. Attempt to make appointment with doctor but first find one who accepts both new patients and your insurance;
    5. Go to doctor and pay co-pay up front before ever speaking to anyone about medical problem;
    6. Sit in outer waiting room for as long as required, missing work and worrying;
    7. Sit in exam room waiting for doctor for as long as required;
    8. See doctor for five or six minutes, if lucky, during which time you will either be prescribed some expensive drug to fix a problem the doctor isn’t sure you have, referred to another doctor who may have a month or two wait for appointments, be directed to get some tests done you aren’t sure your insurance will allow or pay for, and do it all sitting in your underwear or less;
    9. Leave medical office owing more than what you thought your insurance and co-pay advertised (and never get an explanation for how that is possible) and never sure if this experience was much different than being to a used car lot where the sales folks have assessed your financing mechanism before showing you anything at all and then only show you what fits the financing not what you need or want;
    10. In the alternative, if you collapse or wait until symptoms get so severe that going for an office appointment is impossible, go to an emergency room – repeat steps five through eight – and either be admitted to the hospital if your insurance is adequate and you have any available sick-time from work (if not, beg for drugs and to be released) or go to number nine.
    11. Need a dentist? Too bad. Have dental insurance? Still too bad. You might get a cleaning and some x-rays, but getting the care you may or may not need will be again totally related to your ability to pay whatever portion of the dental work is not covered (and amazingly, every penny of what dental insurance will cover will be eaten up by whatever problem you may or may not have) – in the alternative, avoid dentists or just pull teeth as they go bad;
    12. When the bills roll in, try to pay some after trying to find out how you can possible owe hundreds if not thousands more than the insurance policy you have indicates is possible;
    13. When the collectors call to collect all of the balances due, try to negotiate payments but endure threats of lawsuit, garnishment and worse as the collectors report back to the doctors you saw for a few moments in number eight;
    14. Try to get your meds – if too costly, go without;
    15. Try to get well – if you cannot, go back to work;
    16. Try to act like this is all wonderful and you are grateful to have any insurance at all;
    17. Get sued by a collection agency for a doctor bill or hospital bill you cannot cover;
    18. Sell your house and use whatever proceeds you have to try to pay some of the debts;
    19. Collectors for the doctors and hospitals are not happy if you don’t pay it all in full and up-front most of the time;
    20. Feel stress, fear, anguish – but don’t gripe and don’t show it at work – buck it up, chump;
    21. Sell keepsakes and anything valuable to try to stay afloat;
    22. Stress, more stress. Fear to answer the phone. Friends and family fall away as they don’t want you to ask to borrow money;
    23. Keep working – sick or not, keep working or you’ll lose that damn insurance if you cannot pay the premium – or you’ll be back out on the exchange trying to buy another policy that is cheaper and even worse;
    24. Watch your elected officials claim victory and history as they work to make sure your kids and grandkids must suffer the same fate if they need healthcare in America;
    25. Have a Merry Christmas, so says your U.S. Senate.
    Don’t think this can happen to you because it hasn’t yet? Count your blessings this Christmas.
    I'd really like the gift of healthcare. Medicare for all, single-payer healthcare would remove so much of this awful process. That would be a gift.
    Tags:
    Health Care Reform,Medicare,Single Payer,Universal Health Care

    Wednesday, December 23, 2009

    healthcare bill is giveaway to insurance industry

    Michael Moore says Democrats’ healthcare bill is giveaway to insurance industry

    By Raw Story
    Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 -- 9:17 am
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    In a speech broadcast on Canadian television Tuesday, Michael Moore savaged the Democrats' healthcare bill, calling it a gift to the health insurance industry, which he argues will make $70 billion more as a result of mandated health insurance.

    "The health insurance companies are going to make an extra $70 billion dollars as a result of Americans being forced to buy their health insurance," Moore quipped. "What company wouldn't love this bill?"

    Moore argues that the health insurance industry isn't really upset about healthcare reform. His assertions -- which mirror those of some on the left -- highlight the challenge that Democrats in Congress face on healthcare reform. On the left, critics say that the bill doesn't go far enough in ensuring universal care; on the right, critics say the proposal will lead to a government takeover of healthcare.

    "So all of the wailing that they're doing about this bill -- believe me, the health insurance companies are not that upset about it," Moore said. "In fact, they helped write this bill."

    "It's not universal health care," he continued. "Thirteen million people will still not have health insurance in the United States.

    Story continues below...


    "And the drug companies signed a deal with Obama to keep them out of it, because they agreed to reduce their prices by $8 billion in the first year of the healthcare bill," he asserted.

    But he noted that because these companies allegedly raised prices in the last year by $10 billion, they still come out $2 billion ahead.

    "When you create a society that essentially is in that state, it's very easy to run an ad on the nightly news about what a third world country Canada is, and about how people are dying on the sidewalk here because they can't get in to see the doctor," he added. "You actually believe that stuff. Because of the education you've been given, because education is such a low priority. Our schools are in such disarray. And our media doesn't do anything to help educate people in the way they need to be educated."

    "It's not that you need to become more like America," Moore said. "America needs to become more like you. We need to become more Canadian-like."

    "A hospital will hire a foreclosure company to go after someone's home and have them thrown out on the curb because they haven't paid the hospital bill," he added. "Something is seriously wrong with this."

    This video is from The Canadian Press, broadcast Nov. 17, 2009.

    Merry Christmas! Ed Hanway, Cigna CEO, is getting a $73,200,000 golden parachute

    December 23rd, 2009 2:30 PM

    Merry Christmas! Ed Hanway, Cigna CEO, is getting a $73,200,000 golden parachute

    By Jason Rosenbaum / Firedoglake

    Ed Hanway, CEO of Cigna, one of the nation’s largest health insurance companies, will step down at the end of this year, in just over a week. When he does, he’ll get $73,200,000 as compensation for a job well done.

    What makes Hanway worth $73.2 million? Well, for one example, he’s presided as Cigna denied a liver transplant to 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan, causing her death and widespread outrage. Wendell Potter, Cigna’s former spokesperson turned whistle-blower, was at the company during the Sarkisyan scandal, and he explains its effect on him personally, as well as how the company thinks about denying care:

    In our system today, there is literally no repercussions for insurance companies when they deny care, jack up rates, or do all the other things they do to screw over their customers. Ed Hanway did all those things as much as he could, and for that, he’s being rewarded.

    Out there in America, people are losing their jobs. They’re losing their homes. They’re skimping on holiday gifts to put food on the table. And they’re still going bankrupt due to skyrocketing medical costs.
    Meanwhile, insurance company stocks are "on fire" in reaction to the Senate bill, which, though it has some regulations, leaves people at the mercy of private insurance because it lacks a public health insurance option.
    People out there are suffering, insurance companies are winning, and Ed Hanway is walking away with $73.2 million.
    We’ve managed to track down Hanway’s personal email address. This isn’t a spam box or an unattended address, this is

    Hanway’s actual corporate email. It’s H.Edward.Hanway@CIGNA.com.

    Send him an email. Tell him what you think of his golden parachute. While you’re at it, why don’t you tell Hanway what you’d like for Christmas, and what you’d buy with his money. You can leave a message on Cigna’s Facebook page as well, if you want.

    Tuesday, December 22, 2009

    Obama:Another Fucking War President

    December 21st, 2009 2:46 AM
    Obama Ordered U.S. Military Strike on Yemen Terrorists
    Cruise Missiles Launched Thursday Hit Two Suspected al Qaeda Sites; Major Escalation of US Efforts Against Terrorists


    Protesters shout slogans as they march on a street in the southern Yemeni town of Radfan December 19, 2009 to denounce Thursday's military operation.
    By Brian Ross, Richard Esposito, Matthew Cole, Luis Martinez and Kirit Radia / ABC News
    On orders from President Barack Obama, the U.S. military launched cruise missiles early Thursday against two suspected al-Qaeda sites in Yemen, administration officials told ABC News in a report broadcast on ABC World News with Charles Gibson.
    One of the targeted sites was a suspected al Qaeda training camp north of the capitol, Sanaa, and the second target was a location where officials said "an imminent attack against a U.S. asset was being planned."
    The Yemen attacks by the U.S. military represent a major escalation of the Obama administration's campaign against al Qaeda.
    In his speech about added troops for Afghanistan earlier this month, President Obama made a brief reference to Yemen, saying, "Where al Qaeda and its allies attempt to establish a foothold -- whether in Somalia or Yemen or elsewhere -- they must be confronted by growing pressure and strong partnerships."
    Until tonight, American officials had hedged about any U.S. role in the strikes against Yemen and news reports from Yemen attributed the attacks to the Yemen Air Force.
    President Obama placed a call after the strikes to "congratulate" the President of Yemen, Ali Abdallah Salih, on his efforts against al Qaeda, according to White House officials.
    A Yemeni official at the country's embassy in Washington insisted to ABC News Friday that the Thursday attacks were "planned and executed" by the Yemen government and police.
    Along with the two U.S. cruise missile attacks, Yemen security forces carried out raids in three separate locations. As many as 120 people were killed in the three raids, according to reports from Yemen, and opposition leaders said many of the dead were innocent civilians.
    American officials said the missile strikes were intended to disrupt a growing threat from the al Qaeda branch in Yemen, which claims to coordinate terror attacks against neighboring Saudi Arabia.
    The al Qaeda presence in Yemen has been steadily growing in the last two years. "Al Qaeda generally has been pushed into these ungoverned areas, whether it is the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area [or Yemen]," said Richard Barrett, coordinator of the U.N.'s Taliban al-Qaeda Sancitions Monitoring Committee. "I think many of the key people have moved to Yemen."
    The U.S. embassy was attacked by suspected al Qaeda gunmen last year.
    And the presumed leader of al Qaeda in Yemen, Qaaim al-Raymi, has frequently appeared on internet videos, offering an alternative to the training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
    "If they can go to Yemen just as easily or easier and get training there and come out again," said Barrett, "all your efforts in Pakistan and Afghanistan are a waste of time."
    Qaaim al-Raymi was considered a prime target of the attack Thursday but was reported to have escaped the attack. However, U.S. officials believe one of his top deputies may have been killed.
    Tags:
    Afghanistan,Al Qaeda,Ali Abdallah Salih,Barack Obama,Pakistan,Qaaim al-Raymi,Somalia,Taliban,White House,Yemen
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    Comments11 0 comments pending Moderation FAQ Leave a comment
    bio4Posted December 22nd, 2009 4:31 AM
    I wonder how long we will have to wait before Venezuela is added to the list to give number 5. The new bases to be built in Columbia are purportedly for continuing "the war against drugs" but an Air force document stated that the US military presence was necessary to combat the "constant threat from anti-US governments in the region". These governments include those in Venezuela and Bolivia and possibly Ecuador.

    And then there is Iran (no 6?). Reply
    bsodPosted December 22nd, 2009 1:00 AM
    the word terrorist is kinna vague and abused to push agenda's in some cases, I wish even headlines we're more specific like, "military strike on al-Qaeda " so we know that they arent talking about a teenager who saw the wrong webpage on accident Reply
    powertothepeoplePosted December 22nd, 2009 12:12 AM
    I just hope that danno75 takes the rest of the evening to kill off that pint of ice cream. The Warmongers and Fearmongers are still going strong. Book em danno. Reply
    rokonPosted December 21st, 2009 7:03 PM
    The people of America should wake up now. Obama, Bush, Dick Cheny, they are all ELECTED by you REMEMBER? and by now you might have understood that they all serve the same godfathers.

    REFORM the present political system . DEMOCRACY is not about choosing between the chosen. Reply
    enkoARTPosted December 22nd, 2009 1:28 AM
    Agree, well said . Reply
    AsilPosted December 21st, 2009 5:35 PM
    As many as 120 people in Yemen were killed and many of the dead were innocent civilians… and Obama placed a call to “Congratulate” the efforts to Predent of Yemen?

    What a Noble Peace Prize winner! Is this his way of earning it? Reply
    danno75Posted December 21st, 2009 4:35 PM
    What is it going to take to make us realize that the U.S. has become exactly what we are supposed to be fighting against in this "War on Terror". We are headed for the first all out war fought on American soil since the Civil War, and I hate to say it, but we will get our collective butts kicked if it happens. It isn't the 1700's anymore. 2/3 of Americans (myself included) are so out of shape we couldn't kill a pint of icecream much less a trained soldier. Our current president seems to be going out of his way to piss off as many countries (that already hated us to begin with) as humanly possible. I realize all of this was started by GWB but BSO needs to end it or else we are in for a rude awakening. Reply
    danno75Posted December 22nd, 2009 11:23 AM
    That should have been BHO not BSO. I suppose the BS is appropriate though. Reply
    MakaainanaPosted December 21st, 2009 1:32 PM
    Is this preemptive war by another name or in a smaller fashion?

    Preemptive war is aggression by a rogue nation on another nation, no matter what you say the reasons are.

    It makes those that engage in it international terrorists and war criminals........... Reply
    MakaainanaPosted December 21st, 2009 1:27 PM
    This is just the beginning. Terrorists are not tied to a state or nation. Somali will come up. The Philippines, South America are both prone to terrorist activities.

    That is the flaw in Obama's trying to stop terror in AfPak. Anywhere the globalization of industry has bypassed there are poor with the understandable frustrations that arise in a media shrunk world.

    You will never stop terror with guns and robot bombs. All you will do is create collateral damage which creates more terrorists.

    Food, medicine, humanitarian aid without political strings attached are what is needed. Spend the trillions of dollars like that and we will see some positive results. Expecting to conquer a stateless group of international criminals (terrorists) by forcing a government on citizens is as silly as trying to change the hearts and minds of mothers and fathers by killing their neighbors. Reply
    Ron44Posted December 21st, 2009 1:17 PM
    Well folks, is this a wake up call as to what Obama thinks about your feelings on this useless war?? We are going down the same old road of escalation and BS that Bush took us down!! A military strike to prove that he is the big man on campus and the death of over a hundred innocent people!! Nobel Peace Prize my ass!!!!!! Reply

    Blame Bernanke for 'Great Recession'

    Hugo Chavez: "Blame Capitalism for Climate Crisis"
    Copenhagen: Imperialism Imposes Its Interests
    Blame Bernanke for 'Great Recession'

    Fed's 'Lite' Regulation Left Banks Exposed to Crisis
    Bernanke, who was in charge of regulating the nation's largest banks, told the audience of bankers that their companies were not at risk. He said most were not even involved in subprime lending. And the broader economy, he concluded, would be fine.
    Foreclosures already pocked Chicago's poorer neighborhoods but the downtown still was booming as the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago convened its annual conference in May 2007.
    The keynote speaker, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, assured the bankers and businessmen gathered at the Westin Hotel on Michigan Avenue that their prosperity was not threatened by the plight of borrowers struggling to repay high-cost subprime loans.
    Bernanke, who was in charge of regulating the nation's largest banks, told the audience that these firms were not at risk. He said most were not even involved in subprime lending. And the broader economy, he concluded, would be fine.
    "Importantly, we see no serious broad spillover to banks or thrift institutions from the problems in the subprime market," Bernanke said. "The troubled lenders, for the most part, have not been institutions with federally insured deposits."
    He was wrong. Five of the 10 largest subprime lenders during the previous year were banks regulated by the Fed. Even as Bernanke spoke, the spillover from subprime lending was driving the banking industry into a historic crisis that some firms would not survive. And the upheaval would shove the economy into recession.
    Just as the Fed had failed to protect borrowers from the consequences of subprime lending, so too had it failed to protect banks.
    The central bank's performance has sparked a great debate about its future as a regulator, pitting those who want to expand its role against those who want to strip its powers.
    It also has come under pressure from politicians seeking greater oversight of its primary job, adjusting interest rates to moderate economic growth.
    The battles have complicated Bernanke's bid for a second term as chairman. The Senate Banking Committee voted to approve Bernanke 16 to 7 on Thursday, setting the stage for a January battle on the Senate floor.
    The Fed's failure to foresee the crisis or to require adequate safeguards happened in part because it did not understand the risks that banks were taking, according to documents and interviews with more than three dozen current and former government officials, bank executives and regulatory experts.
    Regulatory agencies exist to lean against the wind. But rather than looking for warning signs, the Fed had joined -- and at times defined -- the mainstream consensus among policymakers that financial innovations had made banking safer.
    Bernanke said the economy had entered an era of smaller and less frequent downturns, which he and others called "the great moderation."
    The consequences of this miscalculation can be seen in the stories of three large banks the government ultimately rescued from collapse.
    The Fed let Citigroup make vast investments without setting aside enough money to cover its eventual losses. The company would need more than $45 billion in federal aid.
    The Fed watched as National City made billions of dollars in subprime loans that were never repaid. Regulators would arrange its sale to a rival, PNC.
    And the Fed approved Wachovia's purchase of a California mortgage lender shortly before California mortgage lenders led the nation into recession. Wachovia, on the verge of collapse, was bought by Wells Fargo with government help.
    "I don't think any regulatory agency can deny that it didn't have adequately targeted supervision in place," said Fed governor Daniel Tarullo, appointed by President Obama to overhaul the Fed's approach to regulation.
    "Worldwide, there wasn't enough done on capital, liquidity and risk-management requirements. . . . There wasn't a structure in the supervisory process in which to ask the questions that needed to be asked about emerging risks throughout the financial system."
    Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who has called the Fed's performance an "abysmal failure," wants to give its job to a new agency. Tarullo said the appropriate response is to improve the Fed, not to replace it.
    "Supervision of the largest institutions is something that's going to be very hard to do and to do well," Tarullo said, "and the Fed is the one part of government that has the resources and the capacity and the expertise to fill this role."
    Citigroup's bad bets
    Citigroup grew fat during the great moderation, thanks to rules crafted by the Fed that allowed banks to gamble beyond their means.
    For a time, the nation's largest bank profited massively. But as the crisis rolled in, Citigroup quickly ran low on money to cover its losing bets.
    The crux of the problem was capital, the reserve that banks are required to hold against unexpected losses.
    While bank regulation is divided among four federal agencies, the Fed has long played the leading role in dictating how much capital banks should hold. By the late 1990s, those rules were outdated.
    Rather than wait for borrowers to repay loans, banks were adopting a technique called securitization.
    The banks created pools of loans and sold investors the right to collect portions of the inflowing payments. The bank got its money upfront.
    Equally important, under accounting rules it was allowed to report that the loans had been sold, and therefore it did not need to hold any additional capital. But in many cases, the bank still pledged to cover losses if borrowers defaulted.
    "It was like selling your car but agreeing to keep paying for any maintenance, repairs, oil changes," said Joseph Mason, a finance professor at Louisiana State University. "You've sold the benefit of the automobile, but you haven't sold the risk."
    The Fed embraced securitization nonetheless. Increased lending boosted the economy. The Fed also wanted banks to remain competitive with lenders including General Electric and GMAC that were not subject to capital requirements.
    Furthermore, the central bank trusted in the wisdom of financial markets, and investors were cheering companies that used securitization to boost profit.
    In November 2001, the Fed and its fellow regulators ruled that securitization made banks safer.
    In general, banks must hold $10 in capital for every $100 in loans and other assets, but banks can hold less on safer assets such as U.S. government bonds.
    The safe list was now expanded. The Fed and its fellow federal regulators ruled that banks could hold as little as $5 on every $100 investment in loan pools.
    The dangers of securitization were underscored the very next month by the collapse of energy giant Enron, which had abused the same accounting rules to conceal losses from investors.
    But in 2003, the board that writes accounting rules backed away from planned reforms after banks protested that Enron was an exception.
    The Fed sided with the industry, telling the board that securitization was safe and important to the economy, according to people familiar with the deliberations.
    Citigroup took grand advantage. By the end of 2006, the company had created pools holding more than $2 trillion in mortgage loans and other assets. The pools let Citigroup increase the assets it owned and controlled by 68 percent while increasing the size of its capital reserves by only 36 percent.
    Citigroup kept creating loan pools for a year after the housing market started to sour. One of the last, launched July 27, 2007, was named Bonifacius, after a general immortalized by the historian Edward Gibbon as "the last of the Romans" because he died as the empire was collapsing.
    By the early fall the new Bonifacius, along with the rest of the mortgage industry, was collapsing, too.
    Citigroup found itself unable to sell a huge supply of high-risk loans it had made and bought as stock for loan pools. It also held a vast portfolio of shares in loan pools. As borrowers defaulted, the value of these loans and investments plummeted.
    By the fall of 2008, Citigroup's spiraling losses had pushed it to the brink of collapse. The company held enough capital to meet the Fed's requirements; it just didn't hold enough to survive.
    The federal government raced to provide the company with a pair of taxpayer bailouts, effectively increasing its capital by $65 billion -- or 48 percent more than it held at the end of 2007.
    'No substantial issues'
    In fall 2006, the Fed conducted a broad review of the nation's largest banks. The result was a picture of an industry in good health.
    The report, called "Large Financial Institutions' Perspectives on Risk," found "no substantial issues of supervisory concern for these large financial institutions" and that "asset quality . . . remains strong," according to a summary by the Government Accountability Office. The Fed declined to release the internal report.
    One bank given a clean bill of health was National City, a Cleveland company that had slowly built a regional presence in the Midwest and then quickly expanded into one of the nation's largest subprime mortgage lenders.
    The Fed had another look in August 2007 when National City applied for permission to buy a small bank in Chicago. Fed regulators looked at National City's books and its management and again found nothing amiss.
    In reality, the bank was ailing. Its subprime borrowers were starting to default on their loans. Less than two months after the Fed approved the merger, National City reported a third-quarter net loss of $19 million. The company never returned to profitability.
    The Fed's failure to see the rot inside National City resulted from the central bank's reliance on others to identify problems.
    In part this was a matter of policy. The Fed regulated National City, but the company's major subsidiary, a bank also called National City, was regulated by another federal agency, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
    In 1999, Congress passed a law instructing the Fed to rely on the OCC "to the fullest extent possible."
    The law clearly authorized the Fed to conduct its own reviews where necessary, but the Fed lacked an effective system for determining when it should look more closely, said Orice Williams, director of financial markets and community investment at the GAO.
    "If you aren't looking, how would you know there is a problem?" Williams said.
    The hands-off approach also was a matter of philosophy. Rather than scrutinize banks directly, the Fed decided to push them to appoint internal risk managers who imposed their own checks and balances. Regulators focused on watching the watchmen.
    Bernanke's predecessor, Alan Greenspan, said that banking was becoming too complicated for regulators to keep up. As he put it bluntly in 1994, self-regulation was increasingly necessary "largely because government regulators cannot do that job."
    Greenspan revisited the theme in a 2000 speech, saying, "The speed of transactions and the growing complexities of these instruments have required federal and state examiners to focus supervision more on risk-management procedures than on actual portfolios."
    Some experts say the reliance on others clouded the central bank's ability to see the trouble brewing on the balance sheets of large banks. Others argue that the Fed had a clear view of the problems; it simply underestimated the risk. Either way, the approach had dire consequences.
    By 2006, National City had become primarily a subprime mortgage lender, federal data show. Even as the Fed continued to regard National City as healthy, the company's executives were increasingly divided, with some warning that National City needed to pull back.
    The following year, the bank sold its subprime lending operation to Merrill Lynch, but by then it was too late to get rid of the loans. As defaults rose, so did losses, and the bank could no longer persuade investors to lend it the money it needed to survive.
    In fall 2008, regulators arranged for the company to be sold for a pittance to its Pittsburgh rival PNC.
    A warning ignored
    In January 2005, National City's chief economist had delivered a prescient warning to the Fed's board of governors: An increasingly overvalued housing market posed a threat to the broader economy, not to mention his own bank and others deeply involved in writing mortgages.
    The message wasn't well received. One board member expressed particular skepticism -- Ben Bernanke.
    "Where do you think it will be the worst?" Bernanke asked, according to people who attended the meeting, one in a series of sessions the Fed holds with economists.
    "I would have to say California," said the economist, Richard Dekaser.
    "They have been saying that about California since I bought my first house in 1979," Bernanke replied.
    This time the warnings were correct, and the collapse of the California real estate market would bring down the nation's fourth-largest bank, the largest casualty of the financial crisis.
    Dekaser and Bernanke declined to comment on the exchange.
    The Obama administration wants the Fed to police financial risks to the broader economy, a job that entails sorting real threats from the constant false alarms.
    But in the dying days of the great moderation, the Fed repeatedly failed to discern which warnings were worth heeding.
    In May 2006, the nation's fourth-largest bank, Wachovia, signed a deal to buy Golden West, one of the largest mortgage lenders in California. The Fed again was bombarded with warnings about California's housing bubble. A few even warned that the deal could endanger Wachovia.
    "Should Wachovia's acquisition be approved, no commercial bank in the country will be in a more potentially unsafe financial position," Robert Gnaizda, policy director for the Greenlining Institute, a fair lending group in California, wrote in an August 2006 letter to the Fed.
    The next month the board unanimously approved the deal. The Fed wrote in its approval that it had "carefully considered" the warnings about Golden West and concluded that Wachovia had sufficient capital to absorb losses and effective systems for assessing and managing risks.
    The Fed's power to reject the merger application was a potentially important check on the wave of mergers that created banks so large that their distress would threaten the economy.
    But from 1999 through last month, the Fed approved 5,670 applications to create or buy a bank and in that time denied only one. Fed officials note that 549 banks withdrew applications, in some cases under pressure from regulators.
    The Fed's confidence in Wachovia was misplaced. The company's executives would later concede basic errors in risk management.
    Wachovia concentrated lending in California's inland counties, where housing prices would fall more sharply than along the coast.
    The bank also continued to offer Golden West's signature product, a mortgage built like a credit card that allowed borrowers to pay less than they owed each month for the first several years of the loan.
    When the time came to start making full payments, many borrowers lacked the money. Consumer advocates described the loans as "time bombs."
    By fall 2008, the bombs were exploding and Wachovia's losses were rising rapidly. Two years after Wachovia closed its deal for Golden West, regulators told the company it could no longer survive on its own.
    A hasty sale to Wells Fargo was arranged with the help of billions of dollars in federal tax breaks.
    Trusting the banks
    Even on the verge of the financial crisis, the Fed continued to push for new international rules that would let many large banks hold less capital.
    Under the proposed rules, called Basel II after the Swiss city where they were drafted, regulators further increased their reliance on banks' risk assessments, which now for the first time would form the basis for determining how much capital they should hold.
    Not surprisingly, a test run conducted as part of the negotiations in 2005 found that the new rules would allow the 26 largest American banks to reduce their capital reserves by an average of 15 percent.
    A key reason: The rules let banks hold much less capital on mortgage loans, still regarded as safe by regulators blind to the impending crisis.
    The Fed presided over the international negotiations, but the skepticism of other U.S. regulators delayed the process and forced the Fed to limit how much capital banks could shed.
    As late as summer 2007, Sheila C. Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., warned that the new rules "come uncomfortably close to letting banks set their own capital requirements."
    Others warned that banks had no proven track record of measuring their own risks.
    Finally, in December 2007, after almost a decade of work, the Fed persuaded the other agencies to approve the rules, although implementation was again delayed by several years.
    One month later, Citigroup announced that it had lost $18 billion on mortgage-related investments. The former chief executive, Charles Prince, later told Congress that the company's internal systems for measuring risk "were wrong." The company immediately raised $12.5 billion in new capital from private investors.
    It would eventually need much more.
    tags: bernanke banks recession fed

    Obama:Another Fucking War President

    Obama: Another Fucking War President
    « H E » email
    posted Wednesday, 30 September 2009

    Obama: Another Fucking War President
    The Neocons Are Back: "Attack Iran!"
    Forty Million Americans Are Living in Poverty

    "I Love My Troops"
    America's 'Defense' Industry Needs
    Its Products to Be Consumed
    Thus, Endless War
    Obama vowed to continue Bush's war policies in Afghanistan. He has more than doubled the number of US troops and aircraft. Obama's eagerness to expand the war demonstrates his political inexperience and a faulty grasp of events in Afghanistan.
    A change of administration in Washington, and departure of the reviled Bush, offered an ideal opportunity for Washington to declare a pause in the Afghan War and reassess its policies.
    It also presented an ideal opportunity to offer negotiations to Taliban and its growing number of supporters.
    The Afghan War will have to be ended by a political settlement that includes the Taliban-led nationalist alliance that represents over half of Afghanistan's population, the Pashtun people.
    There is simply no purely military solution to this grinding conflict - as even the Secretary General of NATO admits.
    But instead of diplomacy, the new administration elected to stick its head ever deeper into the Afghan hornet's nest. The bill for an intensified war has now reached $4 billion monthly.
    This at a time when the United States is bankrupt and running on borrowed money from China and Japan.
    The 20,000 to 30,000 more US troops slated to go to Afghanistan will also be standing on a smoking volcano: Pakistan.
    The Afghan War is relentlessly seeping into Pakistan, enflaming its people against the NATO powers and, as Lord West rightly says, generating new jihadist forces.
    Polls show most Pakistanis strongly oppose the US-led war in Afghanistan and the grudging involvement of their armed forces in it. Intensifying US air attacks on Pakistan have aroused fierce anti-American sentiment across this nation of 165 million.
    Why is President Obama, who came to power on an anti-war platform, committed to expanding a war where there are no vital US interests?
    Oil is certainly one reason. The proposed route for pipelines taking oil and gas from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea coast runs right through Taliban-Pashtun territory.
    Another reason: Americans still want revenge for 9/11. In the absence of a clear perpetrator, the Taliban has been selected as the most convenient and identifiable target though it had nothing to do with the attacks and knew nothing about them.
    The 9/11 attacks were mounted from Germany and Spain, not Afghanistan, and planned by a group of Pakistanis. Washington has yet to offer a White Paper promised in 2001 'proving' the guilt of Osama bin Laden in the attacks.
    There is also the less obvious question of NATO. Washington arm-twisted the reluctant NATO alliance badly for the US-led forces as their vulnerable supply lines come increasingly under Taliban attack.
    Here in Europe, the majority of public opinion opposes the Afghanistan War as a neo-colonial adventure for oil and imperial influence.
    The US could survive a defeat in Afghanistan, as it did in Vietnam. But the NATO alliance might not.
    The end of the Cold War and collapse of the USSR removed the raison d'être from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization which was created to resist Soviet invasion of Western Europe.
    According to Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of America's leading strategists, NATO serves as the primary tool for America's strategic domination of Europe. Japan fulfills the same role for the US in Asia. The Soviet Union used the Warsaw Pact to dominate Eastern Europe.
    The US also uses NATO to help deter the creation of a truly united - and rival - Europe with its own unified armed forces. The EU will not become a truly integrated national state until it has its own independent armed forces.
    NATO's defeat in Afghanistan would raise questions about its continuing purpose and obedience to US strategic demands.
    Calls would inevitably come for empowerment of the European Defense Union, an independent European armed force that answers to the EU in Brussels, not to Washington.
    This, I believe, is one of the primary reasons why vested interests in Washington - notably the Pentagon - have prevailed on the new president to expand the war in Afghanistan by claiming that America's influence in Europe depends on victory in Afghanistan.
    The US and its allies cannot be seen to be defeated by a bunch of Afghan tribesmen.
    Coming after the epic defeat in Vietnam and the trillion dollar fiasco in Iraq, defeat in Afghanistan is simply unthinkable to the military-industrial-petroleum-financial complex.
    The last empire that suffered defeat at the hands of the Afghans, the once mighty Soviet Union, quickly fell apart. Washington has clearly taken this dire lesson to heart.
    tags: afghanistan war president obama

    Monday, December 21, 2009

    Obama's healthcare reform is a piece of shit

    Idiocy
    by kos


    Wed Dec 09, 2009 at 08:20:08 AM PST

    I get spam:

    We will not back down

    From: President Barack Obama to Markos

    Markos --

    As we head into the final stretch on health reform, big insurance company lobbyists and their partisan allies hope that their relentless attacks and millions of dollars can intimidate us into accepting the status quo.

    So I have a message for them, from all of us: Not this time. We have come too far. We will not turn back. We will not back down.

    But do not doubt -- the opponents of reform will not rest. So I need you to fight alongside me.

    We must continue to build out our campaign -- to spread the facts on the air and on the ground, and to bring in more volunteers and train them to join the fight. I urgently need your help to keep this 50-state movement for reform going strong.

    Please donate $5 or whatever you can afford today:

    http://my.democrats.org/...

    Let's win this together,

    President Barack Obama

    Really? All we have to do is send the DNC $5 and we get ponies? The same DNC that is enabling corporatist Democrats to water down and destroy any hope for health care reform? That DNC?

    This is so freakin' obnoxious I can hardly stand it. We are about to get a turd of a "reform" package, potentially worse than the status quo. We have the insurance industry declaring victory, Republicans cackling with glee, and the administration is using that piece of shit to raise money?

    Obama spent all year enabling Max Baucus and Olympia Snowe, and he thinks we're supposed to get excited about whatever end result we're about to get, so much so that we're going to fork over money? Well, it might work with some of you guys, but I'm certainly not biting. In fact, this is insulting, betraying a lack of understanding of just how pissed the base is at this so-called reform. The administration may be happy to declare victory with a mandate that enriches insurance companies, yet creates little incentive to control costs or change the very business practices that have screwed so many people. But I'll pass.

    Democrats are demoralized, and have little incentive to turn out next year. The teabaggers will turn out. If this is how the Obama camp thinks we can energize the base -- by promising them a health care pony for $5 to the same Democratic Party that is home to the likes of Baucus, Nelson, Lincoln, Lieberman, and the rest of the obstructionist gang -- then we're in for a world of hurt in 2010.

    Sunday, November 8, 2009

    Joe Lieberman is a fucking ass-hole jew

    Joe Libermann should be thrown out from the democratic party. The ass-hole said that he was in favor of a healthcare reform with a strong goverment option before last election, but the son-of a bitch now is saying that he is against the public option. When is time to give money to the jews Joe Libermann is licking everybody's balls, but now the mother fucking is against public option.

    Wednesday, November 4, 2009

    Republicans are obstructing Extension of Unemployment Benefits

    Durbin: GOP's Obstruction Of Unemployment Benefits Extension "Fundamentally Unfair"

    Now that the Senate has overcome a procedural hump and voted by a wide margin in favor of cloture on H.R. 3548, an extension of federal unemployment insurance, Democratic Senators are laying into their Republican counterparts for the multiple delays they caused over the past few weeks. On the Senate floor today, Sen. Dick Durbin listed off the unemployment rate in the states represented by the 13 lawmakers who voted against the measure last night. "This Republican obstruction," he said, "when it comes to something this basic, is fundamentally unfair." Watch it:

    The Washington Independent's Mike Lillis has a succinct primer on where the bill goes from here:

    So what does that mean for those whose benefits have expired? Well, Senate rules dictate that, without an agreement, Democratic leaders must wait at least 30 hours after the cloture vote to proceed to stage the roll call vote to proceed — meaning the earliest they can do it is 12:26 a.m. Thursday. Such roll call votes are often scrapped with the consent of both parties — a move that might still happen, but hasn’t happened yet. Indeed, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) took to the chamber floor this morning and threatened to hold that roll call vote, if necessary, at that early hour.

    “I hope we can work something out with the Republicans,” Reid said. “But we’re going to have that vote as soon as we can. I’m sorry that we might have to do it in the morning.”

    Afterward, if there’s still no agreement, Reid would have to file a cloture motion on the actual bill — meaning, by Senate rules, that the cloture vote couldn’t come earlier than 25 hours after the motion is filed (again, unless an agreement is reached first). Now we’re looking at roughly 1 a.m. Friday morning, at the earliest.

    After the cloture vote on the actual bill, then the 30-hour clock starts again, after which time lawmakers could hold their roll call vote on final passage of the bill. Now we’re approaching 8 a.m. Saturday morning.

    Once those steps are taken, the House and Senate versions need to be merged. It's unknown at this point whether a compromise measure will be written or the House will just vote on the final Senate bill. So, while progress is gradually being made, it will likely be a matter of weeks -- not days -- before the checks go out in the mail.

    To learn more about the issue, you can click the "unemployment" tag below for our full coverage.

    Why extended benefits are not being approved yet?

    From the EDD web site:

    At this time, there are no additional extended unemployment benefits available to individuals who have collected all available extended unemployment benefits. Congress is currently working on various legislative proposals that will likely include an additional federal extension of unemployment benefits. This information will be updated if an additional federal extension does become available. Individuals who may be eligible for an additional federal extension will automatically receive appropriate claim forms or notification regarding these benefits.

    My guess is the the damn republicans in congress are doing everything they can against this benefits extension!!!

    Let's call this republicans up and make they approve this bill !!!

    Friday, October 30, 2009

    Joe Lieberman Must Go !!!

    Joe Lieberman must go.

    Sen. Lieberman has indicated he plans to join with Republicans to filibuster any health care bill that contains a public option. Alone, the Republicans don't have the votes for a filibuster. So by joining with them, Lieberman would be tipping the balance of power in order to sink health care reform.


    We need to push the leaders of the Democratic caucus to take a tough stand against Lieberman. Last year, the New York Times quoted an anonymous "member of the Senate Democratic leadership" who said about Lieberman:

    "We need every vote. He's with us on everything but the war."

    But now Joe Lieberman has announced that he will not vote to stop the filibuster of any for a health care bill that contains the public option. He justifies this position by saying that a government-run health insurance option will cost taxpayers and increase the National Debt even though the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecasts $100 billion in savings thanks to the public option. He further claims that his position is what is best for his constituents, even though polling in Connecticut shows that among likely voters 68 percent favor a public option, while only 21 percent oppose it.


    Now is the time for Senate Democratic leadership -- Senators Reid, Schumer, and Durbin -- to stop making excuses for Joe Lieberman. Harry Reid has shown great leadership in writing a health care bill that includes the public option. But Joe Lieberman is not "with us" on everything but the war. Joe Lieberman's position is against Senate Democrats, against his constituents in Connecticut and against the will of the American public.


    Actions must have consequences. Any senator who filibusters the public option does not deserve a chairmanship and should be removed from his or her post.

    Sign the petition

    The petition reads:

    "Any senator who filibusters the public option does not deserve a chairmanship and should be removed from his or her post."

    Complete the following to sign the petition. You'll receive periodic updates on offers and activism opportunities.

    OPTIONAL:

    Send me urgent issues and election information as text message alerts** on my mobile phone:

    Additional message for Senators Reid, Schumer and Durbin :

    ** Standard text messaging charges will apply. Text back "stop" to 27336 at any time to unsubscribe. You may receive an email, text message or call from CREDO Action or one of our partners.

    Obama Should Look at Bush Co. Crimes!!!

    Obama should ask his Justice Department Erik Holder to look at crimes from the Bush Co.

    Obama has been too nice with the Bush Co. and republicans. Obama needs to get some spine and prosecute the Bush crime family.

    These gang of criminals : Bush, Cheney and others should be put in jail or be shipped to fight in Afghanistan to see what war is all about.

    I know that Obama is limited to govern due to the military-industrial complex who really is the boss in this country.

    Why spend this enormous amount of money with the military. In my opinion US should pull out of all the bases overseas. It should do away with nuclear weapons. It should abandon F-22 aircraft and etc.

    The saved money from this military reduction would finance healthcare reform and free education (free all the way from elementary to college) for all.

    Wednesday, October 21, 2009

    Fox News' Criminals Pundits

    Fox News’ Criminal Pundits

    By James Thindwa

    Conservatives have created a two-tier system of accountability: one for progressives, the other for themselves and their claimed moral rectitude.
    Share Facebook Digg del.icio.us Newsvine StumbleUpon Reddit TwitThis Furl Propeller

    The sensationalist media inquest into Sen. Barack Obama’s associations has cheapened the national debate. It has also exposed the hypocrisy and double standard of the conservative media.

    Fox News, which has championed this “guilt by association,” questions Obama’s fitness for office because of his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, a distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

    But if Fox News truly believed in guilt-by-association, the network would have severed ties with some of its pundits and consultants.

    Mark Fuhrman — of O.J. Simpson infamy — is now one of its talking heads. Fuhrman, if you remember, was convicted of lying under oath during Simpson’s murder trial when he denied having used the word “nigger.” For right-wingers unburdened with racial sensitivity, Fuhrman’s easy use of the “n” word was probably not a big deal. And for Fox News, flouting the law is OK as long as the cause is right. O.J. Simpson was guilty, legalities be damned.

    G. Gordon Liddy, sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in the 1972 Watergate break-in (he served almost five), enjoys a post-prison celebrity status among conservatives. Liddy turns up on Fox News as a respected commentator, and has cultivated a fan base as a right-wing talk-radio jock. While Fox’s pundits froth at the mouth condemning Ayers for his membership in the Weather Underground 40 years ago, Liddy, whose crimes created a constitutional crisis, is embraced and celebrated as a conservative hero.

    How about Oliver North? His claim to fame was the Iran-Contra affair in the ’80s, when he illegally sold weapons to Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini and transferred the money to Nicaraguan Contras, in violation of U.S. law. He was charged with 16 felonies and convicted of three, which were later overturned because the prosecution had used testimony given under a grant of immunity. For his mockery of the Constitution, North became a right-wing folk hero, eventually landing a job at Fox News as an Iraq War correspondent. He was subsequently given his own television show, “War Stories.”

    Former Bush adviser Karl Rove is now a paid commentator on Fox News. Though Rove has not been convicted of any crimes, he has had an uneasy relationship with ethics and the law: reportedly the mastermind of the political firing of nine U.S. attorneys; allegedly outing CIA operative Valerie Plame; spreading rumors in 2000 about Sen. John McCain having fathered a daughter with a black woman; and selling the Iraq War for political advantage. But to Fox News and its conservative base, Rove is a hero.

    William Kristol is not a former convict, but as salesman-in-chief for the Iraq War he has committed crimes of conscience. Kristol has a permanent seat on Fox News Sunday. Despite his discredited claims about Saddam Hussein’s nuclear programs and his many attempts to link Hussein with al Qaeda, Kristol continues to be featured as an expert on the war.

    Bill O’Reilly, the big daddy of Fox News, reached a settlement in November 2004 with a colleague who had reportedly recorded him attempting to have phone sex with her as he masturbated with a vibrator. This history contradicts the self-righteous protestations in his book Cultural Warriors and his screeds against “liberal” wrongdoers.

    Newt Gingrich, Fox News’ most erudite and self-righteous pundit, has a checkered past that includes reportedly serving divorce papers to his cancer-stricken wife while she lay in her hospital bed. The former House Speaker also admitted to an affair with an aide while he was still married, even as he championed President Clinton’s impeachment. Most liberals believe these private matters should not disqualify people from public office. However, the pedantic moralists at Fox News cannot exempt themselves from the standards they apply to others. Their hypocrisy needs exposing.

    Conservatives have created a two-tier system of accountability: one for progressives, the other for themselves. But their claimed moral rectitude belies an indulgent attitude toward questionable legal and ethical conduct. Mark Fuhrman, G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North betrayed the rule of law that conservatives like to crow about.

    Fox News and its right-wing functionaries threaten the fabric of our electoral system. The push back should start with denying them legitimacy. That means exposing their hypocritical invocation of the “rule of law,” challenging their simplistic “anything goes” standard of patriotism and denouncing their use of guilt-by-association.

    • Help In These Times publish more articles like this. Donate today!
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    James Thindwa is a member of In These Times' Board of Directors and a labor and community activist.

    Australian Rupert Murdoch(fox News President) go home!!

    Rupert Murdoch (Fox News) Go home !!!

    It should be prohibited one person own a empire of media (newspaper and TV stations). His empire includes Fox News, unfortunately.

    Fox News flourished due to George Bush and White House paying them millions to lie to the American public.

    Fox News continues to represent the Republican party with their cast of criminals, indicted people, drug users, madmen, liars, republicans : O'Reilly, Beck, Hannity, Cristal, and others.

    These criminals day in, day out are dissipating hatred comments against the liberals, democrats and the current democratic president Obama.

    I urge everybody to boicott Fox News. I asked my cable to cut Fox News out of my cable stations.

    Friday, October 2, 2009

    How the GOP, Reagan, Bush, Bush Sr, Bush Jr Betrayed, Pillaged, then Sold The U.S.

    How the GOP, Reagan, Bush Sr, Bush Jr Betrayed, Pillaged, then Sold the U.S. »

    Posted By Radiofreeeuropa 7 months, 1 week ago in Political News

    Like Rome, the US has despoiled the land, waged war upon both the small farmer and the laborer, outsourced it's industry, devalued it's currency and

    subverted the products of labor --the sole source of 'value' in any economy.

    Let's take a look at the history before it gets re-written:

    * Any Democratic President has presided over greater economic growth and job creation than any Republican President since World War II.

    * When Bush Jr took office, job creation was worst under a Republican, Bush Sr, at 0.6% per year and best under a Democrat, Johnson, at 3.8% per year.

    * Economic growth under President Carter was far greater than under Reagan or Bush Sr. In fact, economic growth in general was greater under Johnson, Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton than under Reagan or Bush. Democrats always outperform a failed party: the GOP!

    * The job creation rate under Clinton was 2.4% significantly higher than Ronald Reagan's 2.1% per year.

    * The "top performing Presidents" by this standard, in order from best down, were Johnson, Carter, Clinton, and Kennedy. The "worst" (in descending order) were Nixon, Reagan, Bush.

    * Half of jobs created under Reagan were in the public sector--some 2 million jobs added to the Federal Bureaucracy. Hadn't he promised to reduce that bureaucracy?

    * Reagan, though promising to reduce government and spending, tripled the national debt and left huge deficits to his successor. Bush Jr's record will be even worse.

    * By contrast, most of the jobs created on Clinton's watch were in the private sector.

    * Put another way: any Democratic President beats any Republican President since World War II.

    Everything posted above is based upon official, government stats from the Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, CBO, and BEA among others. They are

    'official' and irrefutable unless someone wants to make the outlandish case that the Federal Bureaucracy, the numerous agencies which keep these stats, is

    somehow biased. That argument is absurd in light of the fact that of those 20 years from the election of Ronald Reagan to the stolen election of 2000,

    Democrats had the Presidency in only eight of them.

    The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government. -- Patrick Henry


    Sunday, July 26, 2009

    This is the IRS for you !!!

    Cheese is Good Food . com: FUCK THE I.R.S.!
    FUCK THE IRS!
    9:08 PM
    Anonymous Anonymous said...

    THE IRS IS NOT BETTER THAN NAZI'S.
    HOW ABOUT STARTING A POST THAT NAMES ALL THOSE MOTHER FUCKERS. THE ONE I GOT JUST BECAME A CITIZEN, GOT A JOB AT THE IRS AND IS NOW FUCKING AMERICANS. DO YOU KNOW WHEN THEY GARNISH A PAY CHECK THEY ONLY ALLOW FOR FOOD NO SHELTER. DO YOU KNOW THOSE MOTHER FUCKERS A SADISTS. THEY ENJOY THE SUFFERING. AND NO, I'M NOT A TAX EVADER, I JUST DIDN'T AGREE WITH THE TAX COULDN'T AFFORD TAX ATTORNEY TO FIGHT IT AND THEY FUCKIN TOOK 85% OF MY CHECK. THE CABLE JUST WENT OFF MY CAR INSURANCE CHECK BOUNCED AND THE MOTHER FUCKING RAT BASTARD GETS TO SLEEP, WHAT THE FUCK. I SAY NAME THE NAMES. GOOGLE THEIR FAMILYS AND PUT THOSE BASTARDS ON NOTICE IF THEY ARE NOT REASONABLE THEIR NEIGHBORS AND FAMILY WILL KNOW>>>>
    3:26 AM


    Friday, July 10, 2009

    Fox News Nazi-Fascist Right Wing Hate


    Fox News Nazi-Fascist Ass Holes Criminals



    Wrong. Terribly Wrong.

    Green 960- Your progressive community
    Wrong. Terribly Wrong.
    Tuesday 07-07-2009 8:06pm PT


    Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara is dead. He died in his sleep at 5:30 a.m. Monday. He was 93.


    There is a monument dedicated to his military and geopolitical expertise in Washington, D.C. It is the Vietnam War Memorial. It lists the names of 58 thousand dead Americans who were sent to their deaths because McNamara - a former president of Ford Motor Company - was given the power to intervene (in whatever manner he chose) in a civil war in Southeast Asia that became yet another chapter in the insanity that was the Cold War.


    In addition to the 58 thousand Americans, at least 2.5 million Indochinese - most of whom were Vietnamese - also were killed. All of these people - thousands of soldiers, hundreds of thousands of civilians - had their lives ripped from them as a direct result of the actions McNamara took in his dedication to the belief in the absolute primacy of American Corporatism and the need to force that belief on as much of the world as we could, no matter the consequences; no matter the destruction or the number of dead and crippled or the mentally destroyed.


    By his own definition he was a War Criminal. Any action that is necessary to define that term - war criminal - was an action taken by Robert McNamara. From the fire bombing of Vietnamese cities and the subsequent murder of tens of thousands of innocent civilians to the establishment of murderous “free fire” zones in the countryside, McNamara’s killing spree was without limits, without restriction, completely outside the rules of war so carefully crafted by the world’s “civilized” societies.


    The curious can read McNamara’s biography here. However, his true legacy is to be found in American men now in their 60s who still carry the with them the memories of the war crimes perpetrated against yet another innocent country the United States decided to invade and destroy. His legacy also can be found in the monuments scattered throughout Vietnam - memorials to the death and destruction caused for no sane reason by the United States. Or in the hideous genetic deformities still occurring in newborns - nearly 40 years after the war ended in the worst defeat for the U.S. in its history - that are a direct result of the United States saturating Vietnam in a poisonous flood of the deadly herbicide Agent Orange.


    The list of crimes against humanity committed by the United States in Vietnam is a long one. It is a list too horrifying for us to acknowledge. To do so would bring an end to whatever belief still remains here in our sad, broken country that the United States operated honorably during the bloody and war-eaten 20th Century. And we Americans are not ready for that - especially not now, not at a time when the record shows we have become a nation whose highest elected officials ordered the torture of men charged with no crime and given no rights in order to extract phony “confessions.” A nation whose leaders see nothing wrong in saturating yet another country with yet another toxic substance - this time explosives made with depleted uranium - that is already producing thousands of horrific birth defects and hideous cancers. So . . . there will be no acknowledgement, no discussion, no truth, no reconciliation. Not now. Maybe never.


    Our century-long history of lies employed in the expansion of empire, crimes against humanity, wars of opportunity, and the wanton killing of millions of innocent civilians is a history in which Robert McNamara fits easily and comfortably.


    Tuesday, July 7, 2009

    OPERATION IRAQ FREEDOM, BLOOD FOR OIL !!!

    Bushit

    Bushit


    OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM

    I Want You To Invade Iraq

    "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED"

    GW Bush : statesman or war criminal?
    Operation Iraqi Freedom?
    Mission Accomplished?
    The Rule of Law?'
    George Bush and Saddam Hussein: spot the difference
    victims of US Torture Central
    Saddam Hussein and George Bush: spot the difference
    can Western democracy and human rights be spread to Arab countries?
    victims of US war crimes
    the US civilizing Muslims
    promoting American values
    Iraq's torture chambers under new US management
    US soldiers setting  dogs on a naked Iraqi prisoner
    liberated - or murdered? picture of Iraqi prisoner tortured to death by US soldiers
    gloating over prisoner tortured to death by CIA interrogators
    Why do they hate us?
    pictures of Iraqis tortured and abused by their Amercan jailers in
    Saddam Hussein's Abu Ghraib Prison, 'US Torture Central'

    Operation Iraqi Freedom?
    (aka Mission Murder, Rape and Torture)

    "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses."

    Time magazine Torturer of the Year 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006

    The International Criminal Court


    HOME
    War Hero
    The Torture Jet
    "No rules apply"
    War-Criminal.com
    The Torture Gang
    A Criminal Regime?
    Immortal Quotations
    Outsourcing Torture
    "Why Do They Hate Us?"
    Torturing Arab Prisoners
    "The Murderous Maniacs"
    New: Spot The Difference
    A Gangster in the White House?
    President GW Bush on Modern War
    President Bush and The Rule of Law
    Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction
    By Their Friends Shall Ye Know Them
    State of the Union Address (unofficial)
    War Crimes Prosecution for Torturers?
    The Pentagon: a Criminal Organization?
    War Crimes: The Wedding Party Massacre
    U.S. Exports of Biological Materials to Iraq
    Back To The Middle Ages: CIA Torture Techniques
    America's Shame: US Vice President Cheney Endorses Torture

    America's Shame

    America's Worst President

    e-mail
    info@president-bush.com


    Reason for Iraq's Invasion

    OilWars.com is loading ......
    The Cost of The Iraq War -
    "Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases." * Thomas Jefferson
    "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." Abraham Lincoln
    click on the small "blood for oil" bar for the stories - open in new window for url
    Click HereFor the Latest Headlines

    "The great masses of the people ... will more easily fall victims
    to a big lie than to a small one." - Adolph Hitler 1939
    (Bush and Hitler - Contrast and Compare)
    "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." -
    George Bush 2003
    Chronological Links -The Conquest of Iraq
    Impeach George W Bush
    By Prof Francis Boyle
    Iraq on The Record
    The Bush Administrations Public Statements on Iraq
    March 2004 - Rep. Waxman
    The Resolution
    Bumper Sticker
    The Lies for War Unravel
    Lt Colonel at Pentagon How Phony WMD Plan Cooked Up
    Bush Lies Page

    More Lies about Iraq Weapons Program
    Why Corporate Oil Couldn't Wait to Take Iraq's Oil Fields
    Open in a new window here
    Ever Heard the Term Peak Oil?
    Life Without Oil - Hey the Oil Will Never Run Out!
    Search "Google News" for "peak oil"
    How About "DieOff" A World Without Oil
    Title 18- US Government Code
    Good information to use for future prosecution of US Government Officials involved in Racketeering and Corrupt Organizations.
    Unknown Soldiers? Bush Lies
    Who Dies?
    Back from the Oil War?
    Do You
    Glow in the Dark???
    Iraq keeps Russia, France
    in running for oil deals
    Reuters, 12.30.03, 12:38 PM ET
    Pentagon launches Halliburton inquiry
    Friday December 12, 2003
    Possible Fleecing of America $120 million -
    Weapons of Mass Destruction Found!!
    OilWars exclusive.....Nov 2003 -
    Present US Regime Spending Largest in 50 Years!
    November 2003

    US National Debt Clock

    Sugar Coating
    US Motives in Iraq

    Nov 2003

    Bush Lied to the World*
    Blix says Iraq probably destroyed weapons of mass destruction ten years ago
    Wednesday,September17,2003,1:55 PM
    Saddam and 9/11: On the record
    Critics say administration has allowed misconception to persist
    Sept 18 2003
    Rescuing my country from disaster in Iraq
    Why Congress should vote no on the $87 billion check for occupation
    Other things you might do with $87 billion
    (This is outdated Feb 2006 $228 billion NOW!)

    Tenet Takes Blame on Iraqi Uranium Claim
    Postwar Planning Flawed
    Michael Moore - Fahrenheit 911
    A Quagmire for Bush?
    Americans are increasingly skeptical about the war in Iraq and the intelligence leading up to it
    Bush Exec Order takes control of Iraq oill

    Who cares about who governs Iraq as long as the NWO has Iraqs oil.
    U.S. oil contractors eager to benefit from Iraq's resurgence
    BY JAMES JANEGA
    Chicago Tribune 29 April 2003
    Smoking Tank???? 1 May 2003
    U.S., U.K. Waged War on Iraq Because of Oil, Blair Adviser Says
    "A Republic, if you can keep it," Maureen Farrell - Bush Watch
    So What Can The Iraqi's Expect After Their County is Blasted by the Oil Barons?
    Afghanistan documentary exposes Bush's promises
    7 Mar 2000click here
    "Its Oil, Stupid"by Jason Leopold 13 Feb 2003
    US delays planned meeting on exploiting Iraq's
    oil and gas reserves
    Proof Bush Administration Lies When Questioned About Iraq War Oil Motive 06 Feb. 2003
    Helen Thomas and Others on White house Media Blacklist?
    Fleisher excludes Thomas from press conference on take over of Iraq. Bush absolutely can't take any questions negative to his quest for world domination.....
    Under Construction to streamline site




















    Simple Arithmetic = Blood for Oil
    +
    =

    "Crispy Critter" Desert Scam
    Put a Tiger in Your Tank ?
    You Want the Truth - You Can't Handle the Truth.....

    Did we all forget the movie, Wag the Dog???or is it Wag the Puppy??? Click on puppy for answer



    Part 2 -
    Ask this author-reporter what happens when you press GW for answers....

    OIL, PETRODOLLARS, AND US REASONS FOR WAGING WAR ON IRAQ
    As the United States appears on the brink of war with Iraq, there are still commentators assuring the American public that the motives for attack have nothing to do with oil. The record makes clear the opposite.

    Click on the "Blood for Oil" Bar for story Feb. 07 2003

    Oil and Empire:
    Say No to the Oil War
    by David M. Boje October 2, 2002; Revised 13 Feb 03
    Be Sure to Check out
    Ten Oily Dates to Remember about the Iraq War
    - compiled by Boje:


    Other Nations Not Buying US Reason to Take Over Iraq
    Aspects of India's Economy Dec 2002
    Behind the Invasion of Iraq (special report)


    Forbes.com - 6 Feb. 2003
    U.S. companies have in recent weeks quietly turned to Iraqi crude to bail them out as a two-month strike in Venezuela slashed that country's supply to the international market.


    Carve-up of oil riches begins
    US plans to ditch industry rivals and force end of Opec, write Peter Beaumont and Faisal Islam
    Sunday November 3, 2002
    The Observer


    THE PEAK OF WORLD OIL PRODUCTION
    AND THE ROAD TO THE OLDUVAI GORGE
    The Olduvai theory is a data-based schema that states that the life expectancy of Industrial Civilization is less than or equal 100 years. We shall develop the theory from its early roots in Greek philosophy down to respected scientists in the 20th century. This approach is useful because, although the theory is easy to understand, it is difficult (i.e. distressing) for most people to accept — just as it was for me.

    Want more proof - Chicago Sun Times October 12, 2002
    Plan for U.S. troops in postwar Iraq
    "In Washington, the daily White House briefing was dominated by questions about Bush's plans for a post-Saddam Iraq after the New York Times reported plans to install an American-led military government that would control Iraq and its valuable oil wells."

    There's no such thing as a moral oil war
    January 13 2003
    The death toll in Iraq could be 50,000 to nearly four million. The oil sum doesn't add up, writes Peter Holding.

    Post-Saddam Iraq: Linchpin of a New Oil Order
    (click on for story)
    Only in the most direct sense is the Bush administration’s Iraq policy directed against Saddam Hussein. In contrast to all the loud talk about terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and human rights violations, very little is being said about oil. The administration has been tight-lipped about its plans for a post-Saddam Iraq and has repeatedly disavowed any interest in the country’s oil resources. But press reports indicate that U.S. officials are considering a prolonged occupation of Iraq after their war to topple Saddam Hussein. It is likely that a U.S.-controlled Iraq will be the linchpin of a new order in the world oil industry. Indeed, a war against Iraq may well herald a major realignment of the Middle East power balance.
    Post-Saddam energy visions
    by Michael Renner IHT Click new for story

    The Real But Unspoken
    Reasons For The Iraq War
    From Independent Media Center
    www.indymedia.org:8081
    2-3-3
    Although completely suppressed in the U.S. media, the answer to the Iraq enigma is simple yet shocking - it an an oil CURRENCY war.

    "Hidden Wars" emerges as an uncommonly sober, well researched film of its type." - The New York Times "Hidden Wars of Desert Storm" looks at the origins of the Gulf War crisis and challenges the official Western "party-line" view of a spontaneous crusade for "Freedom & Democracy".
    Instead, the documentary exposes the White House and US State Department's hidden agenda in the Gulf as well as the Pentagon's use of radioactive ammunitions made of uranium 238.
    (This 1 hour long documentary is being aired on DishNetWork Channel 9410 and is available for the modest price of $20.00 - Was entirely privately funded)


    The cost to Taxpayers of occupying Iraq is estimated at $16 billion a year (not counting the cost in lives and dollars to conquer the nation) and then the corporate oil barons can slurp the oil and reap the profits - American and British Taxpayers are indeed the suckers in this deal! - Oilwars comment

    Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea....
    "This May Be The First War Fought for Control of Oil"

    Iraq-Afghanistan..What Does The New World Imperial Order Corporate Oil Barons Want From The "Axis of Evil" Nations???
    "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority it is time to pause and reflect."
    -- Mark Twain
    "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."
    - George W. Bush, December 18, 2000
    "A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it."
    - George W. Bush, July 26, 2001
    "Who cares what you think?"
    - George W. Bush, July 4, 2001
    Simple - Oil and Territory
    Saddam - sitting on 115 billion barrels of proven crude - 110 Trillion cubic feet of gas (some of his own making) and another 100 billion, or so, of unproved reserves
    Oil for Obvious Reasons and Territory to Expand Imperialism.

    Click on the Blood for Oil Bar(s) to open Links - Best to "open links in new windows"

    What the White House Really Wants

    Oil has always been top of Bush's foreign policy agenda

    Is Bush and US Ready to Kick Some Russky Butt TOO! (Will Russia stand idly by while US Corporate Oil raids it's cache of black gold?

    What Really Happened

    Pravda Info (Yes I know it's a Russian Agency)

    U.S. Conspiracy to Initiate the War Against Iraq

    US Congressman Ron Paul - Billions to Central Asia

    The Background is Oil by Dale Allen Pfeiffer

    Emperors Clothes

    Iraq - the Struggle for Oil

    The West's battle for oil "Five months before September 11, the US advocated using force against Iraq ... to secure control of its oil. Neil Mackay on the document which casts doubt on the hawks"

    Axis of Oil - Prophetic Feb. 2002 Essay - War on Terror Excuse to snatch oil rich nations.

    From the Wilderness - Mike Rupert

    Overthrow the Taliban... the primary stumbling block to the Caspian-Pakistan pipeline will also be removed. The Pipeline is back on track...end
    of story!

    Show us some money: Russia sets out its conditions for backing war with Iraq (American Taxpayers, keep your hand on your wallet - wadayathink it will cost American Taxpayers to secure oil reserves for the corporate oil barons?)

    Russian firm fights for Iraqi oil rights - 4 Oct. 2002 - BBC

    From Forbes.com - ANALYSIS-Does Bush covet Saddam's oil?

    An Oil War Coming? Letter to the New York Times 9/27/2001

    Scramble to carve up Iraqi oil reserves lies behind US diplomacy

    Government Mob Family? - "The Unauthorized Biography of George H.W. Bush"

    And the Hits Keep Coming .....BushWatch - Be sure and visit

    Cheney and Halliburton profited big-time from deals with the Iraqi dictatorship.

    Nazi War Propaganda - "I always wondered what the likes of Dr J Goebbels wrote to stir the German people to take on the World. Words are a powerful tool....today we have "video" to do the same. Right or wrong, there is an art to propaganda. Check it out.

    "ChickenHawks - They demand blood for oil, but did they serve??

    Email Oil Wars

    "Blood for Oil Headlines"
    Search Words are "Iraq, Oil and Bush"

    San Francisco Man Fired And Makes $9000 A Month...
    Sponsored Link Tue Jul 07 2009 22:00:00 GMT-0700 (PDT)

    Lucas Oil ASCS National Series at I-90 Speedway July 11...
    Who Won Tue Jul 07 2009 22:00:00 GMT-0700 (PDT)

    CRA Super Series EMF Corp 125 Cash Bonuses and Contingency Awards Announced...
    Who Won Tue Jul 07 2009 22:00:00 GMT-0700 (PDT)

    World leaders gather in Italy for key G8...
    Frontier Post Tue Jul 07 2009 22:00:00 GMT-0700 (PDT)

    War on Islamic Terrorism: Justice Department's Scorecard...
    Hawaiian Reporter Tue Jul 07 2009 22:00:00 GMT-0700 (PDT)

    Tracking Faraway Action From an Iraqi Base...
    New York Times Tue Jul 07 2009 22:00:00 GMT-0700 (PDT)

    US ambassador to London Louis Susman 'won't be a lame duck'...
    Telegraph Tue Jul 07 2009 22:00:00 GMT-0700 (PDT)

    European stocks edge up despite Nikkei?s 5th fall...
    Frontier Post Tue Jul 07 2009 22:00:00 GMT-0700 (PDT)

    Worst of the recession ?is over?...
    Frontier Post Tue Jul 07 2009 22:00:00 GMT-0700 (PDT)

    Key marine species seen under threat...
    Reuters UK Tue Jul 07 2009 22:00:00 GMT-0700 (PDT)

    G8 gathers for economy damage assessment...
    Bangkok Post Tue Jul 07 2009 22:00:00 GMT-0700 (PDT)

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    "Nothing would be what it is, Because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary-wise -what it is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?" - Alice in Wonderland.

    "He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned
    my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for
    him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to
    civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command,
    senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently
    I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be
    torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my
    conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act
    of murder."
    -Albert Einstein



    "IF"
    If you can keep your head when all about you
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
    If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too;
    If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
    Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
    And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

    If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
    If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
    If you can meet with triumph and disaster
    And treat those two imposters just the same;
    If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
    Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
    And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

    If you can make one heap of all your winnings
    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
    And lose, and start again at your beginnings
    And never breath a word about your loss;
    If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    To serve your turn long after they are gone,
    And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

    If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
    Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
    If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
    If all men count with you, but none too much;
    If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
    Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
    And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

    by Rudyard Kipling


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