20081224
Karl
Rove - 
Federal
- 
Christmas
- 
Trade
- 
Texas
"Top
Bush Aides to Linger on High-Profile Boards." ...
"The Christmas Eve appointments will allow them to serve far beyond [2009,
January] Jan. 20, the end of [Republican President] Mr. Bush’s term in
office." ... "Ms. [Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice got a spot on the
John
F. Kennedy Center’s board of trustees until September 2014." ... "Mr.
Bush’s gift to Mr. [Commerce Secretary Carlos M.] Gutierrez: membership
on the board
of trustees of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,
a research institute in Washington. Joining Mr. Gutierrez as a trustee
is Barry Jackson, a former deputy to Karl Rove, who serves as assistant
to the president for strategic initiatives and external affairs." ... "Maria
Cino, a longtime ally of the president who was deputy secretary of the
Department of Transportation and helped run the 2008 Republican National
Convention, received a four-year term on the Advisory Committee for Trade
Policy and Negotiations. President Bush also extended the same courtesy
to Israel Hernandez, who was once
a personal aide to Mr. Bush in Texas and now serves as an assistant
secretary of commerce and director general of the United States Commercial
Service." ... "And the first lady, Laura Bush, appears to be taking care
of her own, too. The president appointed her chief of staff, Anita B. McBride,
to a three-year term on the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board."
-By Michael
Falcone with contributions by Sheryl Stolberg
-NYTimes
Barack
Obama - Federal
- 
Stem
Cell - 
Health
- Money
- 
Legislation
- 
Politics
- 
Colo
"Scientists
eager for stem cell policy change." ... "Although
[Democratic] President-elect Obama’s pledge to change federal policy on
stem cell research is not likely to lead to new cures by the end of his
first year — or even first term — the scientific community is eager to
get moving." ... "Embryonic stem cell research is one area in which the
change that Obama has promised on the campaign trail will provoke an immediate
effect." ... "Once he has acted to ease the restriction on federal funding,
researchers across the United States will be free to request funding from
the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and to collaborate with colleagues
conducting experiments with private or state-government money and those
working abroad." ... "“Just with the stroke of a pen, the new president
could open up new avenues of research,” said [Colorado Democratic Representative]
Rep. Diana DeGette (Colo.), the lead Democratic sponsor of legislation
that would broaden funding for embryonic stem cell research." ... "Researchers
believe embryonic stem cells can be made to replicate practically any human
cell or tissue, thus leading to treatments for countless ailments." -By
Jeffrey Young -TheHill.com
Christopher
Cox - Corporate
- Government
- 
Accounting
- Law
- 
Investigation
- Politics
"SEC
Chair Asked If He Deserves Blame For Wall Street Crisis: ‘Absolutely Not,’
It ‘Wasn’t The SEC’s Job’." ... "In a new interview
with the Washington Post, embattled [Republican President Bush's] Securities
and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox stridently “defend[ed]
his restrained approach to the financial crisis.” He refused to accept
any blame for the Wall Street crisis or the Madoff Ponzi scheme, saying
that regulating Wall Street and protecting investors “wasn’t
the SEC’s job“:"
"Cox
argued that the agency has carefully defined responsibilities and that
it was unfair to blame it for every problem on Wall Street." ... "“The
public might not understand that that wasn’t the SEC’s job,” he said,
adding that the agency was not responsible for preventing investment banks
from collapsing but rather for sheltering their securities trading units
from problems in the broader corporation. “The SEC is not a safety and
soundness regulator,” he said. [..]"
"In
fact, the SEC’s mission statement clearly suggests that “safety”
is — or should be — a primary concern of the commission:"
"The
mission of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is to protect investors,
maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation."
"A
review by the SEC inspector general “determined the
agency’s monitoring of the five biggest Wall Street firms, which included
Bear Stearns, was lacking.” (Just a few days before Bear Stearns collapsed,
Cox said he had “a good deal of comfort” in the bank’s capital levels.)
Another analysis showed that the SEC dramatically cut its oversight of
financial trades. “In one of its core areas — regulation of Wall Street
firms — its
case load was down significantly,” said Ben A. Indek, a securities
lawyer at the law firm that performed the analysis." ... "Cox also denied
any culpability in the Madoff scandal: “When Cox was asked whether he should
be blamed for a culture of lax enforcement that allowed multiple warnings
about the fraud to go undetected, he
said: ‘Absolutely not.’” However, a former SEC official slammed Cox
for failing to prevent the Ponzi scheme: “I
can’t comprehend how a well-run investigation would have missed a fraud
of this magnitude,” said Lynn Turner, a former SEC chief accountant." -By
Ali
Frick -ThinkProgress.org
20081223
Health
- 
Military
- Lawsuit
- KBR
- Corporate
- Politics
- 
Unsafe
- 
Ice
- 
IN
- 
US
- 
Iraq
"Soldiers
Accuse KBR Of Knowingly Exposing Troops To Deadly Toxin In Iraq."
... "Controversial military contractor KBR has racked up quite a record
of endangering the lives of U.S. [United States] soldiers serving in Iraq.
Over the years, the former Halliburton subsidiary has been accused of everything
from giving troops ice tainted with “traces
of body fluids and putrefied remains” to ignoring warnings of unsafe
wiring that led
to troop deaths." ... "Earlier this month, attorneys for 16 members
of the Indiana National Guard filed a lawsuit against the company, alleging
that they “knowingly
exposed the soldiers to a cancer-causing toxic chemical.” In a special
report last night, CBS News revealed that KBR knew of the toxic exposure
to hexavalent chromium long
before it informed the guardsmen:"
"Now
CBS News has obtained information that indicates KBR knew about the danger
months before the soldiers were ever informed." ... "Depositions from
KBR employees detailed concerns about the toxin in one part of the plant
as early as May of 2003. And KBR minutes, from a later meeting state “that
60 percent of the people … exhibit symptoms of exposure,” including bloody
noses and rashes." ... "Gentry says it wasn’t until the last day of
August in 2003 - after four long months at the facility - that he was told
the plant was contaminated."
WATCH:
"KBR Accused In Toxic Scandal" via -CBSNews
"After
receiving a briefing on the case on Monday, [Indiana Democratic Senator]
Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN [Democratic-Indiana]) told CBS that “KBR
has a lot to answer for“:"
"“Look,
I think the burden of proof at this point is on the company,” Bayh said.
“To come forward and very forthrightly explain what happened, why we should
trust them, and why the health and well-being of our soldiers should continue
to be in their hands.”"
"In
a statement to CBS, the company denied all charges, saying, “We deny the
assertion that KBR harmed troops and was responsible for an unsafe condition.”
According to CNN, “an
estimated 275 American soldiers may have been exposed to the chemical”
at the KBR water plant, “over a period of months through mid- to late-2003.”"
-By Matt
Corley -ThinkProgress.org
20081222
Military
- KBR
- Corporate
- Politics
- Indiana
- US
- Iraq
"Did
Contractor Expose Troops To Toxin? CBS Evening News
Exclusive: American Soldiers Are Dying Of Lung Cancer - And May Have Been
Knowingly Exposed." ... "The military contractor Kellogg Brown and Root,
known as KBR, has won more than $28 billion in U.S. military contracts
since the beginning of the Iraq war. KBR may be facing a new scandal. First,
accusations its then-parent company Halliburton was given the lucrative
contract. And later, allegations of shoddy construction oversight that
resulted in Americans getting electrocuted. Now, some other American soldiers
say the company knowingly put their lives at risk, CBS News chief investigative
correspondent Armen Keteyian and investigative producer Laura Strickler
exclusively report." ... "In April of 2003, James Gentry of the Indiana
National Guard arrived in Southern Iraq to take command of more than 600
other guardsmen. Their job: protect KBR contractors working at a local
water plant." ... ""We didn't question what we were doing, we just knew
we had to provide a security service for the KBR," said Battalion Cmdr.
[Commander] Gentry." ... "Today James Gentry is dying from rare form of
lung cancer. The result, he believes, of months of inhaling hexavalent
chromium - an orange dust that's part of a toxic chemical found
all over the plant." ... "At least one other Indiana guardsman has already
died from lung cancer, and others are said to be suffering from tumors
and rashes consistent with exposure to the deadly toxin." ... "Now CBS
News has obtained information that indicates KBR knew about the danger
months before the soldiers were ever informed." -By
Armen Keteyian -CBSNews
WATCH:
"KBR Accused In Toxic Scandal" -CBSNews
20081221
Corporate
-Government
- Accounting
- Politics
- 
New
York
"AP
study finds $1.6B went to bailed-out bank execs."
... "Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives
nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits last year,
an Associated Press analysis reveals." ... "The rewards came even at banks
where poor results last year foretold the economic crisis that sent them
to Washington for a government rescue. Some trimmed their executive compensation
due to lagging bank performance, but still forked over multimillion-dollar
executive pay packages." ... "Benefits included cash bonuses, stock options,
personal use of company jets and chauffeurs, home security, country club
memberships and professional money management, the AP review of federal
securities documents found." ... "_The average paid to each of the banks'
top executives was $2.6 million in salary, bonuses and benefits." ... "_Lloyd
Blankfein, president and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs, took
home nearly $54 million in compensation last year. The company's top five
executives received a total of $242 million." ... "The New York-based company
on Dec. 16 reported its first quarterly loss since it went public in 1999.
It received $10 billion in taxpayer money on Oct. 28." ... "_John A. Thain,
chief executive officer of Merrill Lynch, topped all corporate bank bosses
with $83 million in earnings last year." ... "Like Goldman, Merrill got
$10 billion from taxpayers on Oct. 28." -By Frank
Bass and Rita Beamish -AP
via -Yahoo
Working
- 
People
- Economics
- 
Education
- Safety
- Enforcement
- Politics
- 
Maryland
"Squeezed
on All Sides, Parents Forgo Day Care: Education,
Safety Sacrificed in Fiscal Crunch." ... "In the [Maryland's] Prince George's
County community of Riverdale Park, town officials have noted a distressing
sign of the national economic downturn: more children left home alone to
fend for themselves by working parents too strapped to afford child care."
... "The problem was discovered by code enforcement officers who inspect
apartments in the town of 7,000. They used to come across such cases once
every couple of years. Then, six months ago, they found one child left
alone, followed by another and another." ... "In one instance, a kindergarten-age
girl was found hiding in a closet, apparently because she was scared, code
enforcement officers said. In another, children aged 10 or 12 were missing
school to watch their younger siblings." ... "Riverdale's experience comes
amid an increasing economic strain in child care across the Washington
[Washington DC, United States capital] region. In an area known for day-care
waiting lists, many operators report a rise in vacancies as parents withdraw
their children or cut back on hours because they can no longer afford the
cost." ... "The phenomenon is not universal, but it has struck in many
middle- and working-class areas as lost jobs, reduced work schedules and
foreclosed homes affect families with few reserves." (1, 2,
3)
-By Donna St. George -WashingtonPost
20081220
Fashion
- Politics
- 
Journalist
- Investigators
- US
- Iraq
- 
Turkey
"‘Bush
Shoe’ Gives Firm a Footing in the Market." ... "When
a pair of black leather oxfords hurled at [Republican] President Bush in
Baghdad [Iraq's capital] produced a gasp heard around the world, a Turkish
cobbler had a different reaction: They were his shoes." ... "“We have been
producing that specific style, which I personally designed, for 10 years,
so I couldn’t have missed it, no way,” said Ramazan Baydan, a shoemaker
in Istanbul [Turkey]. “As a shoemaker, you understand.”" ... "Although
his assertion has been impossible to verify — cobblers from Lebanon, China
and Iraq have also staked claims to what is quickly becoming some of the
most famous footwear in the world — orders for Mr. Baydan’s shoes, formerly
known as Ducati Model 271 and since renamed “The Bush Shoe,” have poured
in from around the world." ... "For now, Mr. Baydan’s customers will have
to take his word for it. The journalist who launched the shoes at a news
conference a week ago, Muntader al-Zaidi, 29, was wrestled to the ground
by guards and has not been seen in public since. Explosives tests by investigators
destroyed the offending footwear." -By Sebnem Arsu
-NYTimes
20081219
Christopher
Cox - Corporate
- Government
- Accounting
- Law
- Enforcement
- Politics
"Who's
Mess Is the S.E.C.? News Analysis:
In his extraordinary mea culpa over the Madoff scandal, [Republican President
Bush's Securities and Exchange Commission] S.E.C. chairman Christopher
Cox accepted full blame...on behalf of his staff. But isn't he in charge?"
... "When Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox made
an extraordinary apology for the agency having failed to follow up on clear
evidence of wrongdoing by suspected financial fraudster Bernard Madoff,
he excluded one key player from blame: himself." ... "In the public
statement on Tuesday, Cox laid out a blistering attack on his staff,
while appearing to exonerate himself from any responsibility." ... "He
said the agency's most senior officials learned only a week ago that "credible
and specific allegations regarding Mr. Madoff's financial wrongdoing, going
back to at least 1999, were repeatedly brought to the attention of S.E.C.
staff, but were never recommended to the Commission for action."" ... ""I
am gravely concerned," Cox added, "by the apparent multiple failures over
at least a decade to thoroughly investigate these allegations or at any
point to seek formal authority [from the commission] to pursue them.""
... "Cox's decision to distance himself from the staffs' performance has
rankled former senior S.E.C. officials who had nothing to do with the Madoff
inquiries." ... "The S.E.C. is structured so that the chairman personally
is in charge of the staff, these former agency officials said; he is in
effect the agency's C.E.O. [Chief Executive Officer], with division heads
reporting directly to him, and he makes decisions about staff appointments
and allocation of resources." ... "As Condé Nast Portfolio
magazine reported
in its October issue, Cox took steps to weaken and hamstring the enforcement
division." ... "He slowed down and delayed approval when staff members
did ask for formal authority to investigate, and pressed the agency to
focus more on penny-stock scams, boiler-room operations, and other relatively
petty crimes. S.E.C. veterans said this detracted from efforts to pursue
major Wall Street frauds." -By Scot Paltrow
-Portfolio.com
Chris
Cox - Corporate
- Government
- Accounting
- Law
- Enforcement
- Politics
- 
California
- New
York
"Cox
"Worked to Dismantle The SEC," Says Commission Vet."
... "In recent years, particularly under [Republican President Bush's Securities
and Exchange Commission Chairman Chris] Cox, a former California GOP [GOP=Grand
Old Party=Republican] congressman, the SEC has pursued a policy of de-emphasizing
enforcement, part of the broader anti-regulatory philosophy of the Bush
years -- helping to make Madoff, and perhaps others like him, possible."
... ""[Cox] in many ways worked to dismantle the SEC," Ed Nordlinger, a
former longtime enforcement director in the commission's New York office,
told TPMmuckraker. "He slowed everything down. I don't think he believed
in heavy regulation."" ... "That view has been echoed by several others
in a position to know. Ross Albert told TPMmuckraker for a post
published yesterday: "Under Cox, SEC had de-emphasized the enforcement
program. Cox worshipped at the same altar of de-regulation that the rest
of the Bush administration worshipped at."" ... "And a former enforcement
division supervisor told Portfolio for a lengthy
October story about the SEC under Cox: "It was like someone poured
molasses on the enforcement division."" ... "The commission also appears
to have passed over for promotion staff members who were too aggressive
in their approach to enforcement. Veteran S.E.C. lawyer James Coffman told
Portfolio
that he was told he didn't get a promotion because he was "too tough."
He left the SEC soon after." -By Zachary Roth
-TPMMuckracker
.TalkingPointsMemo
US
- Iraq
- Torture
- Investigation
- Reporter
- Fashion
- Politics
"Iraqi
shoe-thrower 'was beaten': The investigating judge
in the case of the Iraqi reporter who threw his shoes at US [Republican]
President George W Bush says the man shows signs of having been beaten."
... "The judge, who saw Muntader al-Zaidi this week, said the journalist
had bruises on his face and about his eyes." ... "He said Mr Zaidi was
beaten while still at the news conference, in the immediate aftermath of
the incident." ... "The court is investigating the beating and officials
will watch recordings of the incident, he added." ... "It is still not
clear, though, whether Muntader al-Zaidi's injuries were sustained only
when security forces wrestled him to the ground, or in custody as well."
... "One of his brothers said the journalist had broken ribs and injuries
to his arm too." ... "Muntader al-Zaidi has been in detention since throwing
his shoes at President Bush on Sunday during a news conference with the
Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri Maliki. " -By Caroline
Wyatt -BBC/News
Chris
Cox - Money
- Accounting
- Politics
- New
York
"Paul
Krugman: The Madoff economy." ... "The pay system
on Wall Street lavishly rewards the appearance of profit, even if that
appearance later turns out to have been an illusion." ... "Consider the
hypothetical example of a money manager who leverages up his clients' money
with lots of debt, then invests the bulked-up total in high-yielding but
risky assets, such as dubious mortgage-backed securities. For a while -
say, as long as a housing bubble continues to inflate - he (it's almost
always a he) will make big profits and receive big bonuses. Then, when
the bubble bursts and his investments turn into toxic waste, his investors
will lose big - but he'll keep those bonuses." ... "We're talking about
a lot of money. In recent years the finance sector accounted for 8 percent
of America's GDP [Gross Domestic Product], up from less than 5 percent
a generation earlier. If that extra 3 percent was money for nothing - and
it probably was - we're talking about $400 billion a year in waste, fraud
and abuse. But the costs of America's Ponzi era surely went beyond the
direct waste of dollars and cents." ... "At the crudest level, Wall Street's
ill-gotten gains corrupted and continue to corrupt politics, in a nicely
bipartisan way. From [Republican President] Bush administration officials
like Christopher Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission,
who looked the other way as evidence of financial fraud mounted, to Democrats
who still haven't closed the outrageous tax loophole that benefits executives
at hedge funds and private equity firms (hello, [New York Democratic] Senator
Schumer), politicians have walked when money talked." -By
Paul
Krugman -IHT.com
20081218
Corporate
- Government- Investigators
- Politics
- Accounting
- Consumer
"Madoff
misled SEC in '06, got off." ... "Securities and
Exchange Commission investigators discovered in 2006 that Bernard Madoff
had misled the agency about how he managed customer money, according to
documents, yet the SEC missed an opportunity to uncover an alleged Ponzi
scheme." ... "The documents indicate the agency had Madoff in its sights
amid multiple violations that, if pursued, could have blown open his alleged
multibillion-dollar scam. Instead, his firm registered as an investment
adviser, at the agency's request, and the public got no word of the violations."
... "Harry Markopolos - who once worked for a Madoff rival - sparked the
probe with his nearly decadelong campaign to persuade the SEC that Madoff's
returns were too good to be true. In recent days, The Wall Street Journal
reviewed emails, letters and other documents that Markopolos shared with
the SEC over the years." ... "When he first began studying Madoff's investment
performance a decade ago, Markopolos told a colleague at the time, "It
doesn't make any damn sense," he and the colleague recall. "This has to
be a Ponzi scheme."" -By Gregory Zuckerman
-WSJ.com via -GreenwichTime.com
Dick
Cheney - Criminal
- Torture
- War
Crimes - Prisons
-Law
- Military
- 
Intelligence
- Politics
- Corporate
- Media
- US
- Iraq
"If
Bush and Cheney Commit War Crimes and Everyone Knows It, But Does Nothing,
Are They Still Crimes?" ... "As Jon Ponder noted
here on Tuesday, a bi-partisan U.S. [United States] Senate panel has
found
[PDF] that [Republican President] George W. Bush was responsible for
approving War Crimes (torture and abuse) at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq,
[Republican Vice President] Dick Cheney admitted
in a recent interview to helping to approve War Crimes (torture and abuse)
in interrogations, and the corporate media --- with the lone exception
of MSNBC --- have been virtually as silent on what may be the most offensive
crimes ever committed by an Executive Branch in the U.S. as they were during
the lead-up to and follow-through on the War on Iraq, when those same officials
sent our nation into war on the basis of demonstrable lies." ... "George
Washington University's highly-respected constitutional law professor Jonathon
Turley, noting the War Crimes now known and admitted to by Bush and Cheney,
asked Keith Olbermann Tuesday night, "If someone commits a crime and everyone's
around to see it and does nothing, is it still a crime?"" ... "During the
discussion, Turley mentioned --- no less than three different times ---
that it'll be up to the citizens whether or not any action is actually
taken to prosecute those who committed these crimes." ... ""It will ultimately
depend on citizens, and whether they will remain silent in the face of
a crime that's been committed in plain view," Turley suggested. "It is
equally immoral to stand silent in the face of a war crime and do nothing,
and that is what the citizens are doing."" ... "He went on to argue: "There's
this gigantic yawn as we hear about a war crime on national television
being discussed matter-of-factly by the Vice President."" -By
Brad
Friedman -BradBlog.com
WATCH
"Countdown: Jonathan Turley and Bush Admin War Crimes."
-Keith Olbermann via -FireDogLake'sYouTube
Barack
Obama - Gay
- Politics
- Religion
- 
Book
- People
- 
Children
- 
Girls
- Schools
- US
- 
Pakistan
- Palestine
- 
British
- 
Soviet
- Military
- 
History
"Three
Cups of Tea for Rick Warren." ... "Rick Warren is
providing the invocation for the [Democratic President Elect Barack Obama's]
presidential inauguration. As a pastor whose books have been read by tens
of millions of Americans and whose voice is respected by an equal or larger
number, he has tremendous influence and power. And as an open homophobe
who aggressively works to wound gay people in this country (as well as
pretty much anybody else who doesn’t believe with his own particular and
peculiar recently-invented version of Christian theology) he should be
the guy with the bull’s-eye on his back for the progressive movement."
... "But consider that metaphor for a moment. In Pakistan there are entire
regions filled with people who not only hate gays but hate Americans as
well, regardless of religion. We've tried bombing them (as the Soviets
did, and the British before them). Three consecutive Western empires have
tried threatening them, starving them, poisoning them, infiltrating them,
and overpowering them - all without success." ... "And then Greg Mortenson
came to one of their villages, had three cups of tea with them (a metaphor
for hospitality - they nursed him back to health after a mountain climbing
injury - and the title of his best-selling book), and now in dozens of
these formerly Taliban-controlled villages the people are rejecting the
Taliban, embracing modernity, and openly proclaiming themselves as our
friends." ... "His "weapon" for this conversion? He built schools for their
children, particularly their previously-banned-from-school girls." ...
"We pushed the Palestinians on the West Bank to have open and democratic
elections, assuming that because they were using the tool of our culture
(the secret ballot) they’d vote in people reflecting the values of our
culture. Instead, they voted in Hamas, a group that is openly hostile to
us and our allies. Hamas’ “weapon” for winning the hearts and minds of
the Palestinians? They supported schools, hospitals, and fed and clothed
people." ... "You’d think that we’d have learned from these experiences
- particularly those of us who call ourselves “progressives” - that you
get your desired results faster when you embrace, engage, and nurture your
“enemies” than when you physically or rhetorically bomb them." ... "Barack
Obama has learned that lesson, and is applying it in inviting Rick Warren
to perform the invocation for his inauguration. In doing so, he is reaching
out a hand to those who today are - out of fear and ignorance - pushing
away gays the same way their intellectual ancestors pushed away African
Americans when anti-miscegenation laws were supported by most of these
same “fundamentalist” Christian churches in the 1950s and 1960s." -By Thom
Hartmann -ThomHartmann.com
20081217
Russia
- Human
- Rights
- Politics
- History
"Rights
activists denounce Russian treason bill: They say
legislation backed by Putin is 'in the spirit of Stalin and Hitler'." ...
"Rights activists Wednesday denounced new legislation backed by Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin that would allow Russian authorities to label any government
critic a traitor, calling it a chilling throwback to times of Soviet dictator
Josef Stalin." ... "The bill, which is expected to become law, would expand
the definition of treason to include damaging Russia's constitutional order,
sovereignty or territorial integrity. That, activists said, would essentially
let authorities interpret any act against the state as treason — a crime
punishable by up to 20 years in prison." ... ""It returns the Russian justice
to the times of 1920-1950s," the activists, which included Moscow Helsinki
Group head Lyudmila Alexeyeva and Civic Assistance director Svetlana Gannushkina,
said in a joint statement." ... "Alexeyeva said a person who reports government
abuses to an NGO — for example Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch
— could be deemed to have harmed Russia's interests." ... "During Putin's
eight-year presidency, the government has systematically rolled back Russia's
post-Soviet political freedoms and that has shown no signs of stopping
under Putin's successor and protege, Dmitry Medvedev."
-AP via -MSNBC
Corporate
- Government
- Law
- Politics
"U.S.
Congress to probe SEC role in Madoff affair." ...
"A U.S. [United States] House of Representatives panel plans to convene
an inquiry in January into the failure of securities regulators to unearth
an alleged $50 billion securities fraud by Wall Street veteran Bernard
Madoff, a key lawmaker said on Wednesday." ... "The Securities and Exchange
Commission has come under fire for not uncovering the scandal until senior
employees of Madoff went to authorities." ... "The agency, chaired by [Republican
President Bush's Securities and Exchange Commission chairman] Christopher
Cox, has been accused of missing a number of red flags about the way Madoff
operated his investment business." ... "Cox, a Republican, said he was
gravely concerned about the SEC's failure to examine Madoff's activities,
which were flagged going back to at least 1999 and repeatedly brought to
the attention of SEC staff but never recommended for commission action."
... "Madoff's niece, Shana Madoff, a compliance lawyer at Madoff's firm,
is married to a former SEC lawyer, Eric Swanson, who was the agency's assistant
director in the office of compliance inspections and examinations." ...
"SEC compliance chief Lori Richards said Swanson was a member of an examination
team that looked into Madoff's broker-dealer business in 1999 and 2004."
-By John Poirier and Rachelle Younglai with contributions
by Kevin Drawbaugh, Karey Wutkowski, Andre Grenon and John Wallace -Reuters
via -Guardian.co.uk
Government
- Market
- Politics
- US_Debt
- 
Technology
- 
Housing
"Fed
unleashes greatest bubble of all." ... "Like the
sorcerer’s apprentice, [Republican President Bush's] Federal Reserve Chairman
Ben Bernanke and his predecessor Alan Greenspan have unleashed a series
of ever-larger asset bubbles they cannot control." ... "Now the Fed’s decision
to cut interest rates to between zero and 0.25 percent, coupled with a
promise to keep them there for an extended period, and the threat to conduct
even more unconventional operations in the longer-dated Treasury market
risks the biggest bubble of all, this time in U.S. government debt." ...
"THE ASYMMETRIC EXPERIMENT" ... "Bubble mania is no accident. It
is the direct consequence of the Fed’s asymmetric response to shifts in
asset prices. Pressed to “lean against the wind” and adopt counter-cyclical
interest rate and credit policies in the asset market, senior Fed policymakers
have repeatedly demurred." ... "Led by Bernanke and Greenspan, officials
have argued it is too hard and subjective to identify bubbles until afterwards,
and not the Fed’s job to second-guess asset allocation decisions of professional
investors." ... "Even if bubbles could be identified, they argue, pricking
them would require swingeing rate rises that would inflict widespread damage
on the rest of the economy." ... "Far less damaging to allow asset markets
to follow their natural cycle and stand by to cut interest rates sharply,
supply liquidity and contain the fallout when the bubble bursts." ... "But
the Fed’s asymmetric policy response to rising and falling asset prices
(colloquially known as the “Greenspan/Bernanke put”) directly led to much
of the excessive risk-taking which has humbled the financial system over
the last eighteen months." ... "More importantly, the Fed’s decision to
respond to the collapse of the technology and stock market bubble by lowering
rates to 1 percent and holding them there for an extended period is now
widely accepted as a mistake that contributed to the bond bubble and subsequent
housing market boom in the middle of the decade." ... "If the low-rate
strategy was a mistake, it was a conscious one." -By
John
Kemp-Reuters
20081216
Dick
Cheney - Torture
- War
Crimes - Criminal
- 
Terrorism
- Intelligence
- Politics
- Military
- Prison
- Law
- US
- Guantanamo_Bay
- 
Cuba
"Cheney
was key in clearing CIA interrogation tactics: The
vice president [Republican Dick Cheney] says that the use of waterboarding
was appropriate and that the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should stay
open until 'the end of the war on terror.'" ... "[Republican] Vice President
Dick Cheney said Monday that he was directly involved in approving severe
interrogation methods used by the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency], and
that the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should remain open indefinitely."
... "Cheney's comments also mark the first time that he has acknowledged
playing a central role in clearing the CIA's use of an array of controversial
interrogation tactics, including a simulated drowning method known as waterboarding."
... ""I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get
the process cleared," Cheney said in an interview with ABC News." ... "Asked
whether he still believes it was appropriate to use the waterboarding method
on terrorism suspects, Cheney said: "I do."" ... "His comments come on
the heels of disclosures by a Senate committee showing that high-level
officials in the [Republican President] Bush administration were intimately
involved in reviewing and approving interrogation methods that have since
been explicitly outlawed and that have been condemned internationally as
torture." -By Greg Miller
-LAtimes
Jim
DeMint - 
Bob
Corker - 
Richard
Shelby - 
Mitch
McConnell - 
Foreign
- Money
- Politics
- 
Construction
- 
Auto
- 
Makers
- Government
- Emergency
- Legislation
- Labor
- 
Michigan
- California
- 
South
Carolina - 
Alabama
- 
Tennessee
- 
Kentucky
- 
German
- 
Japanese
- 
South
Korean
"Foreign
Auto Makers Won Billions in Government Subsidies:
Southern States Gave [Foreign] Auto Companies Tax-breaks and Cash for Training."
... "To hear Southern Republicans tell the story, the financial burdens
facing Detroit’s automakers are self-made troubles to be settled by the
laws of Adam-Smith capitalism." ... "“We don’t think it is the role of
government to intervene,” [South Carolina Republican Senator] Sen. Jim
DeMint (R-S.C. [Republican-South Carolina]) told the Fox Business Network
last week. “We need to let the market and the laws work the way they are
already in place.”" ... "Yet this argument — that the government has no
business interfering in free markets — ignores an increasingly frequent
tradition among Southern states, which have fronted billions in local taxpayer
dollars in the past two decades to attract foreign auto plants. Those incentives,
arriving in the form of tax breaks, training for new employees and even
land, have enticed [German automaker Bayerische Motoren Werke] BMW to South
Carolina, [German automaker] Mercedes to Alabama and [Japanese automaker]
Nissan to Tennessee. The result of the government subsidies has been the
steady emergence of the South as an auto-manufacturing powerhouse. Some
are dubbing it the “New Detroit” – a region where real estate is
cheap and the labor’s not unionized." ... "Not coincidentally, these Southern
states are represented by the same coalition of GOP [GOP=Grand Old Party=Republican]
senators who led the fight against the recent Detroit [Michigan] bailout
proposal. That legislation would have provided $14 billion in emergency
bridge loans to General Motors and Chrysler, both of which say they lack
the finances to survive the month. Rallying behind the animated opposition
of GOP [Republican Senators] Sens. Bob Corker (Tenn.[Tennessee]), Richard
Shelby (Ala.[Alabama]), Mitch McConnell (Ky.[Kentucky) and South Carolina’s
DeMint, Senate Republicans killed the legislation." ... "On Friday, the
day following the Senate vote, Shelby told CNBC that if the Big Three had
only managed their business operations as well as the foreign companies,
known as transplants, they wouldn’t be scrambling now for a taxpayer-funded
bailout." ... "“You look at the South,” Shelby said. “You take — not just
Mercedes in my hometown — but BMW, Honda and all of them. These companies
are flourishing with American workers made in America.”" ... "But the flourishing
of the transplants didn’t come without significant taxpayer help. Shelby’s
Alabama, for example, secured construction of a [German automaker] Mercedes-Benz
plant in 1993 by
offering $253 million in state and local tax breaks, worker training
and land improvement. For [Japanese automaker] Honda, the state’s sweetener
surrounding a 1999 deal to build a mini-van plant was $158 million in similar
perks, adding
$90 million in enticements when the company expanded the plant
three years later. A 2001 deal with [Japanese automaker] Toyota left the
company with $29 million in taxpayer gifts." ... "Alabama is hardly alone.
Corker’s Tennessee recently lured [German automaker] Volkswagen to build
a manufacturing plant in Chattanooga [Tennessee], offering the German automaker
tax breaks, training and land preparation that could total
$577 million. In 2005, the state inspired Nissan to relocate its
headquarters from southern California by offering $197
million in incentives, including $20 million in utility savings."
... "In 1992, South Carolina snagged a BMW plant for $150
million in giveaways. In Mississippi in 2003, Nissan was lured
with $363
million. In Georgia, a still-under-construction [South Korean automaker]
Kia plant received breaks estimated to be $415
million. The list goes on." -By Mike
Lillis -WashingtonIndependent.com
Mitch
McConnell - Bob
Corker - Richard
Shelby - Foreign
- Money
- Government
- Politics
- Auto
- Makers
- Working
- People
- Kentucky
- Tennessee
- Alabama
- Michigan
- US
"Do
Southern Senators Really Want to Start a New War Between the States?"
... "When my Southern pals used to say "The South is gonna rise again,"
I doubt this is what they had in mind: A cadre
of Southern [Republican] Senators, heavily financed by foreign automakers
and special interests, declaring war on the American Dream of good wages
and decent benefits. When did they decide that hard-working people trying
to make a better life for themselves are the enemy?" ... "These Senators
may want to think twice. Southern states have been benefiting from Northern
taxes for years. If they start another War Between the States, the Federal
gravy train might suddenly stop at the Mason-Dixon line." ... "Studies
by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation have consistently shown that these Senators'
states receive far more from the Federal government than they pay back
in taxes. That's an irony that could lead to some Blue State bitterness:
They love to preach about fiscal responsibility and lower taxes, but they
keep dipping their beak into the Federal trough." ... "I believe the applicable
Southern phrase is "a handful of gimme and a mouthful of much obliged.""
... "The numbers in [PDF]
the Foundation's most recent study (warning: pdf) speak for themselves:
[Kentucky Republican Senator] Mitch McConnell's Kentucky took in $1.45
from the Feds for every dollar it paid in taxes. That's a 45 cent free
ride. [Tennessee Republican Senator] Bob Corker's Tennessee received at
30-cent Federal giveaway. And [Alabama Republican Senator] Richard Shelby's
Alabama extracted a whopping 71-cent subsidy from Northern taxpayers."
... "What about Michigan? They lost 31 cents for every dollar they paid.
In other words, McConnell, Shelby, and Corker have been skimming a percentage
off these autoworkers' taxes for years on behalf of their constituents.
Now, when the same Michigan taxpayers need help, these Senators are telling
them to get lost." -By RJ
Eskow -HuffingtonPost.com
Corporate
- Government
- Christmas
- Debt
- History
- Accounting
- Politics
- Homeowners
- Auto
- Military
- 
Space
"Bailout
payout tops $8 trillion." ... "As the holiday season
commences, it’s worth taking stock of the last gift that [Republican] President
George W. Bush and the 110th Congress have left for U.S. [United States]
taxpayers." ... "It’s a package of about $8.7 trillion dollars’ worth of
potential taxpayer commitments for loans, guarantees and other bailout
goodies for businesses and distressed homeowners." ... "Amid the tissue
paper:" ... "• More than $1.5 trillion in Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
[Corporation] loan guarantees, including a $139 billion assist to the lending
arm of General Electric Corp." ... "• $1.8 trillion in cash, tax breaks
and loan guarantees doled out from the Treasury Department to taxpayers,
financial institutions and credit companies." ... "• $300 billion for homeowners
from the Federal Housing Authority." ... "• $25 billion in assistance for
auto companies from a program overseen by the Energy Department, which
is separate from the bailout proposal that tanked last week in the Senate."
... "• And $5 trillion worth of new money, loan guarantees and loosened
lending requirements from the Federal Reserve Bank." ... "According to
Bianco Research President James Bianco, who crunched these numbers, that
amounts to more government aid and assistance than nine other historic
bailouts and big government outlays combined." ... "The New Deal, for instance,
cost an estimated $32 billion in its day, which would be about $500 billion
in today’s dollars. The Marshall Plan cost about $12.7 billion, which is
the equivalent of a paltry $115.3 billion. The Louisiana Purchase? The
French got $15 million, which would be worth about $217 billion today."
... "If you take those three items, add in the adjusted costs of the Race
to the Moon, the savings and loan crisis, the Korean War, the Iraq war,
the Vietnam War and assistance for NASA [National Aeronautics and Space
Administration ], you still get to just $3.92 trillion — not even half
of the taxpayers’ exposure today, according to Bianco." -By
Jeanne Cummings -Politico.com
via -AP
20081215
US
- Iraq
- Religious
- Fashion
"Bush
shoe-ing worst Arab insult: Around the Arab world,
if you want to escalate a situation, by saying for example "I'm going to
thump you", add the words "with a shoe" and you're adding serious insult
to the threat of possible injury." ... "It's that cultural significance
that has added real sting to the assault by an Iraqi journalist against
US [United States Republican] President George W Bush at a Baghdad [Iraq's
capital] news conference." ... "In Arab culture it's considered rude even
to display the sole of one's shoe to a fellow human being." ... "Certainly,
crossing one's legs ankle-on-knee style should never be done in a public
place for fear of offending the person next to you." ... "The sensitivity
is related to the fact shoes are considered ritually unclean in the Muslim
faith." ... "In addition to ritual ablutions before prayer, Muslims must
take off their shoes to pray, and wearing shoes inside a mosque is forbidden."
... "Shoes should either be left at the door of the mosque, or carried
(preferably in the left hand with the soles pressed together)." ... "But
beyond the Islamic significance, the dirty and degrading implication of
the sole of a shoe crosses all religious boundaries in the Middle East.
" -By Martin Asser -BBC/News
20081213
Business
- Politics
- Election
- Auto
- Manufacturing
- Law
- California
- Mich
- 
Ohio
"Auto
bailout's death seen as a Republican blow at unions:
For some Senate Republicans, a vote against the [American auto manufacturing]
bailout was a vote against the United Auto Workers, and against organized
labor in general." ... ""Handing a defeat to labor and its Democratic allies
in Congress was also seen as a preemptive strike in what is expected to
be a major battle for the new Congress in January: the unions' bid for
a so-called card check law that would make it easier for them to organize
workers, potentially reversing decades of declining power. The measure
is strongly opposed by business groups." ... ""This is the Democrats' first
opportunity to pay off organized labor after the election," read an e-mail
circulated Wednesday among Senate Republicans. "This is a precursor to
card check and other items. Republicans should stand firm and take their
first shot against organized labor, instead of taking their first blow
from it." ... "One major car dealer said conservatives let political ideology
get in the way of protecting the country's interests." ... ""Being a Republican
myself, I feel very betrayed by the Republican Party right now," said Beau
Boeckmann, vice president of Galpin Motors Inc. in North Hills [California].
Galpin has the nation's largest Ford dealership as well as lots where it
sells eight other foreign and domestic brands." ... "[Michigan Democratic
Representative] Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.[ Democratic-Michigan]), a
labor ally, said Friday that Republican senators who opposed the bailout
might have "wanted to crush a longtime political rival, the United Auto
Workers," without concern for the economic consequences." ... "[Ohio Democratic
Senator] Sen. Sherrod Brown (D[Democratic]-Ohio) characterized the GOP
[GOP=Grand Old Party=Republican] opposition as "class-warfare assault by
the Republicans."" ... ""They never ask about banker salaries. . . . They
never asked they give money back," he said." (1, 2)
-By Jim Puzzanghera with contributions by Ken Bensinger
-LAtimes
US
- Iraq
- Reconstruction
- Money
- Politics
- Foreign
-Production
- Accounting
- Investigations
- Federal
- History
- Military
- Law
"Official
History Spotlights Iraq Rebuilding Blunders." ...
"An unpublished, 513-page federal history of the American-led reconstruction
of Iraq depicts an effort crippled before the invasion by Pentagon planners
who were hostile to the idea of rebuilding a foreign country, and then
molded into a $100 billion failure by bureaucratic turf wars, spiraling
violence and ignorance of the basic elements of Iraqi society and infrastructure."
... "The history, the first official account of its kind, is circulating
in draft form here and in Washington among a tight circle of technical
reviewers, policy experts and senior officials. It also concludes that
when the reconstruction began to lag — particularly in the critical area
of rebuilding the Iraqi police and army — the Pentagon simply put out inflated
measures of progress to cover up the failures." ... "In one passage, for
example, [Republican President Bush's] former Secretary of State Colin
L. Powell is quoted as saying that in the months after the 2003 invasion,
the Defense Department "kept inventing numbers of Iraqi security forces
— the number would jump 20,000 a week! 'We now have 80,000, we now have
100,000, we now have 120,000.'"" ... "Mr. Powell's assertion that the Pentagon
inflated the number of competent Iraqi security forces is backed up by
[Lieutenant General] Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the former commander
of ground troops in Iraq, and L. Paul Bremer III, the top civilian administrator
until an Iraqi government took over in June 2004." ... "Among the overarching
conclusions of the history is that five years after embarking on its largest
foreign reconstruction project since the Marshall Plan in Europe after
World War II, the United States government has in place neither the policies
and technical capacity nor the organizational structure that would be needed
to undertake such a program on anything approaching this scale." ... "The
bitterest message of all for the reconstruction program may be the way
the history ends. The hard figures on basic services and industrial production
compiled for the report reveal that for all the money spent and promises
made, the rebuilding effort never did much more than restore what was destroyed
during the invasion and the convulsive looting that followed." ... "By
mid-2008, the history says, $117 billion had been spent on the reconstruction
of Iraq, including some $50 billion in United States taxpayer money." ...
"Five years after the invasion of Iraq, the history concludes, "the government
as a whole has never developed a legislatively sanctioned doctrine or framework
for planning, preparing and executing contingency operations in which diplomacy,
development and military action all figure."" ... "Titled "Hard Lessons:
The Iraq Reconstruction Experience," the new history was compiled by the
Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, led by
Stuart W. Bowen Jr., a Republican lawyer who regularly travels to Iraq
and has a staff of engineers and auditors based here." ... "The manuscript
is based on approximately 500 new interviews, as well as more than 600
audits, inspections and investigations on which Mr. Bowen's office has
reported individually over the years. Laid out for the first time in a
connected history, the material forms the basis for broad judgments on
the entire rebuilding program." ... "In the preface, Mr. Bowen gives a
searing critique of what he calls the "blinkered and disjointed prewar
planning for Iraq's reconstruction" and the botched expansion of the program
from a modest initiative to improve Iraqi services to a multibillion-dollar
enterprise." -By T.
Christian Miller and James
Glanz -ProPublica.org
-NYTimes
""Hard
Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience."" ... "The draft of
a federal report by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq
Reconstruction. Annotations are based on the review's findings." [(PDF)
Original Document] via -NYTimes
Bob
Corker - Richard
Shelby - Jim
DeMint - Mitch
McConnell - Foreign
- Money
- Politicians
- Auto
- Makers
- Michigan
- US
- Workers
- Emergency
- Law
- Tennessee
- Alabama
- Kentucky
- South
Carolina - 
Georgia
- Japanese
- German
- South
Korean
"Meet
the GOP's [Republican's] wrecking crew: Why did a
small group of Southern Republicans turn the auto bailout into a demolition
derby? Introducing the senators who hate unions and love foreign cars."
... "On July 15, [Tennessee Republican Senator] Bob Corker was a happy
man." ... ""I cannot think of a more exciting day, even more so than Election
Night, for me," the Republican senator from Tennessee said in a conference
call that day. The reason for his elation was the announcement that
[German automaker] Volkswagen, lured by up to $500 million worth of incentives
from the state government, had agreed to build a $1 billion plant near
Chattanooga, Tenn. [Tennessee.] That is, not just in his home state, but
in the suburbs of the city he once served as mayor." ... "Add VW [Volkwagen]
to [Japan automaker] Nissan, which already has two plants and its North
American headquarters in Tennessee, and you begin to see why Corker was
so aggressive this month about trying to block -- or at least dramatically
rewrite -- a proposal to float billions of dollars in
emergency
loans to domestic automakers. Most of the focus during this debate
has been on lawmakers who represent Michigan, the home of the Big Three
-- Ford, General Motors and Chrysler. But Corker represents the other side
of the coin: Tennessee and other Southern states have recently come to
depend on foreign automakers and their non-union factories. If you're from
those parts, what's good for American car companies may no longer be what's
good for the country -- because your economy now depends on their foreign
competitors instead." ... "Expect to hear more not just from the very vocal
Bob Corker, but from the rest of a core group of Southern senators whose
bread is buttered by the Japanese, Germans and Koreans. Here's a guide
to the major players."
"[Alabama
Republican Senator] Richard Shelby, R-Ala. [Republican-Alabama]"
"Foreign
auto plants: [German automaker] Mercedes-Benz, [South Korean automaker]
Hyundai, [Japanese automaker] Honda"
"[South
Carolina Republican Senator] Jim DeMint, R-S.C. [Republican-South Carolina]"
"Foreign
auto plants: [German automaker] BMW [Bayerische Motoren Werke]"
"[Kentucky
Republican Senator] Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. [Republican-Kentucky]"
"Foreign
auto plants: [Japanese automaker] Toyota"
"[Tennessee
Republican Senator] Bob Corker, R-Tenn. [Republican-Tennessee]"
"Foreign
auto plants: Two [Japanese automaker] Nissan plants, as well as the
company's U.S. [United States] headquarters; [German automaker] Volkswagen
will open near Chattanooga [Tennessee] in 2011"
"As
mayor of Chattanooga, he [Corker] reportedly conceived the idea for the
site that will soon become home to the [German automaker] Volkswagen plant,
and was instrumental in its development. He organized efforts to lure [Japanese
automaker] Toyota to the area, and when that failed, he had VW execs [executives]
and other top state politicians over to his house for dinner." ... "Georgia's
two Republican senators, Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isaakson, both voted
against the plan as well. Their state has a big [South Korean automaker]
Kia factory coming in soon." (1, 2)
-By Alex Koppelman and Mike Madden with contributions
by Vincent Rossmeier and Gabriel Winant -Salon
Bob
Corker - Richard
Shelby - Foreign
- Money
- Auto
- Makers
- Michigan
- Workers
- US
- Japan
- Germany
- Alabama
- Tennessee
"Anger
Grips Auto Workers: Critic of a Rescue, [Tennessee
Republican Senator] Sen. Corker Faces Backlash at Home." ... "As the workers
and residents of this small town [Spring Hill, Tennessee] that launched
the Saturn automobile see it, there are several villains in the collapse
of the automakers' rescue plan." ... "But what stuns many in this place
defined by the General Motors auto plant and its 4,200 workers is that
no person played a larger role in the demise of autoworker hopes than their
own Sen. Bob Corker (R[Republican]), who is now regarded by some here with
the kind of disdain reserved for traitors." ... "Corker emerged as one
of the leading critics of the rescue plan passed by the House. He lashed
into the carmaker chief executives when they came to Washington looking
for help. And it was Corker's alternative proposal, which was a plan that
would have been tougher on union workers, that ultimately failed." ...
"In a dozen interviews with workers here, many suspected that he only feigned
interest in rescuing Detroit's Big Three. Instead, they say, he wants to
crush GM [General Motors] and its union to benefit foreign automakers,
such [Japan's] Nissan and [Germany's] Volkswagen, who have opened or are
opening nonunionized plants in the state." ... ""We're deeply disappointed
in Senator Corker -- that's the official statement," said Mike Herron,
union chief at the GM plant here. "But actually my members want to choke
him."" ... "The anger of the workers and the harshness of their words reflect
the larger tension between the old [Michigan] Detroit-based domestic auto
industry, with its unionized workforce, and the new [foreign] transplant
industry in the nonunion South. Emotions were stoked by the fact that GM,
citing the economic downturn, had just announced that it will halt production
at the plant for January and the first week of February." ... "Corker "has
somehow ignored the fact that there's a major GM plant in his own state,"
said Ben McFarlane, who retired from the plant this summer and opened a
local bar where many workers go. "And if this plant goes, then my business
goes, this whole town goes, and the effects cascade across the country.""
... "At a news conference and in interviews yesterday, Corker, a millionaire
real estate developer, took pains to depict himself as sympathetic to workers
and responsive to his state's interests." ... "But Herron, like many here,
pressed the idea that the foreign automakers had been involved in stalling
the plan." ... ""It's in their best interest to see us not succeed," Herron
said. "Who were the two biggest critics of the rescue? [Republican] Senator
Shelby from Alabama and Corker -- and both preside over states that have
given hundreds of millions to have foreign automakers to open shop here.""
(1, 2)
-By Peter Whoriskey with contributions by Julie Tate
and Lucy Shackelford -WashingtonPost
Barack
Obama - Housing
- Crisis
- Investors
- Politics
- New
York
"HUD
pick foresaw subprime crisis in '04." ... ""[Democratic
President Elect] Barack Obama's pick for HUD [Housing and Urban Development]
-- former New York City [New York] Housing Commissioner Shaun Donovan --
was one of the earliest public officials to foresee the magnitude and destructive
capacity of the subprime crisis." ... "In the middle of 2004, I sat down
with Donovan (I was at Newsday at the time) for a chat about [Democratic
New York City, New York] Mayor Michael Bloomberg's initiative to tackle
the shortage of low- and middle-income housing in the city." ... "To my
surprise, Donovan brushed aside my questions about the city's initiatives
and began talking at length about the coming "flood" of foreclosures he
anticipated among highly leveraged apartment buildings purchased by recent
immigrants -- and a looming subprime crisis for one- and two-family homeowners
in up-and-coming neighborhoods in southeast [New York City burroughs] Queens
and central Brooklyn." ... "I left the meeting a little shaken: At the
time housing prices in previously depressed parts of the city were booming
and the city had been able to sell off almost of all its once-massive stock
of foreclosed properties to private owners and investors. The future looked
bright to almost everyone -- but not to Donovan, who was planning for the
looming disaster." -By Glenn Thrush
-Politico.com
20081212
Ted
Stevens - Criminal
- Politics
- 
Alaska
"Judge
temporarily lifts Stevens' law license: Decision
to suspend convicted senator's license could become permanent." ... "Convicted
[Alaska Republican Senator] Sen. Ted Stevens has temporarily lost his license
to practice law in the District of Columbia, a decision that could become
permanent after further proceedings." -AP
via -MSNBC
Secret
- Corporate
- Government
- Politics
- US_Debt
- Emergency
"Fed
Refuses to Disclose Recipients of $2 Trillion (Update2)."
... "The Federal Reserve refused a request by Bloomberg News to disclose
the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from U.S. taxpayers
and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral." ... "Bloomberg
filed suit [2008 November] Nov. 7 under the U.S. Freedom of Information
Act requesting details about the terms of 11 Fed lending programs, most
created during the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression."
... "The Fed responded [2008 December] Dec. 8, saying it’s allowed to withhold
internal memos as well as information about trade secrets and commercial
information. The institution confirmed that a records search found 231
pages of documents pertaining to some of the requests." ... "“If they told
us what they held, we would know the potential losses that the government
may take and that’s what they don’t want us to know,” said Carlos Mendez,
a senior managing director at New York-based ICP Capital LLC, which oversees
$22 billion in assets." ... "The Fed stepped into a rescue role that was
the original purpose of the Treasury’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief
Program. The central bank loans don’t have the oversight safeguards that
Congress imposed upon the TARP [Troubled Asset Relief Program]." ... "Total
Fed lending exceeded $2 trillion for the first time Nov. 6. It rose by
138 percent, or $1.23 trillion, in the 12 weeks since Sept. 14, when central
bank governors relaxed collateral standards to accept securities that weren’t
rated AAA." ... "The Bloomberg lawsuit is Bloomberg LP v. Board of Governors
of the Federal Reserve System, 08-CV-9595, U.S. District Court, Southern
District of New York (Manhattan)." -By Mark Pittman
-Bloomberg
Auto
- Makers
- Legislation
- Workers
- Emergency
- Government
- Politics
- Economy
- History
- Cheney
- Michigan
"Senate
Republicans kill auto bailout bill." ... "Republican
opposition killed a $14-billion auto industry bailout plan in the Senate
on Thursday night, putting the future of [United States] U.S. automakers
in doubt and threatening to deliver another blow to the economy." ... "The
measure died after a last-ditch effort by Senate Democratic leaders to
strike a compromise that would have lured enough support to save the legislation,
which was crafted in consultation with the [Republican President Bush]
White House." ... "The bill's failure raises the possibility of bankruptcy
by one or more of [Michigan state's] Detroit's Big Three and puts new pressure
on [Republican] President Bush to authorize emergency loans for the automakers
from the $700-billion Wall Street rescue fund, a step he has adamantly
refused to take." ... "The collapse of General Motors, Chrysler or Ford
-- along with many of their suppliers and dealers -- could throw hundreds
of thousands more workers onto the growing unemployment rolls and further
cloud the closing days of the [Republican President] Bush administration."
... ""If we don't do this, we will be known as the party of [Republican
President] Herbert Hoover forever," [Republican Vice President] Cheney
told them, according to a Senate Republican aide, evoking the president
whose inaction is widely blamed for helping trigger the Great Depression
in the early 1930s." (1, 2)
-By Jim Puzzanghera with contributions by Ken Bensinger
-LAtimes
Auto
- Industry
- Legislation
- 
Sports
- History
- Michigan
- Ky
"Ky.
Sen. Bunning, ex-Tiger, snubbed for autos vote: Ky.
Sen. [Kentucky Republican Senator Jim] Bunning, ex-Tigers [baseball] pitching
great, gets booted from Detroit[ Michigan]-area fair for autos vote." ...
"Bunning was kicked off the schedule after he helped derail an auto-industry
loan package in the Senate Thursday night." ... "Bunning is a Hall of Famer
who pitched in Detroit from 1955 to 1963."
-AP via -CNN
Bob
Corker - 
David
Vitter - Richard
Shelby - Foreign
- Money
- Auto
- Makers
-Michigan
- Working
- People
- US
- Military
- Japan
- Tenn
- 
La
- Germany
- Korea
- Ala
"Anger
grows in Michigan over Southern opposition to auto loans."
... "Mark Dobias, a small-town lawyer from Michigan's Upper Peninsula,
hasn't always been the domestic auto industry's biggest fan. But when it
became clear that a few senators from places like Alabama and Louisiana
were determined to do anything to block any aid to General Motors, Chrysler,
and Ford, it got to him." ... ""This is regional economic warfare. Pure
and simple. The wounded Rustbelt being bayoneted in the throat by economic
interests in the East and Sunbelt with aid from their political toadies,"
he wrote me. He's normally a laid-back guy with a puckish sense of humor,
but the hypocrisy was, he said, a bit much." ... ""Michigan is a great
state. It has good people - hard-working people who make things. The nation
has gained from its natural resources and industrial capacity. And now
… we will remember this in the same way that Georgia remembers William
Tecumseh Sherman," the union general whose armies laid the Southern state
waste." ... "What was highly unusual, in Michigan's quarrelling political
culture, was the unanimity with which the state's various factions united
in support of trying to help the automakers - and disdain for the senators
who would prevent that effort." ... "The thoroughly Republican Detroit
News normally denounces any government aid program. But not this time.
In a highly rare front-page editorial, it pleaded "we urge the Senate,
please give Detroit a chance to make things right … we appeal to Senate
Republicans to act not in support of the domestic auto makers, but in the
interest of the national economy and national security - we still need
an arsenal of democracy."" ... "True, the News did publish a piece by freshman
[Tennessee Republican Senator] Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn. [Republican-Tennessee])
that called on Congress to impose much harsher conditions on the companies
and their workers as a precondition for any aid. He also called for more
involvement by Congress in actually running these companies. But the newspaper
shot back, that "like most of Washington, Corker is ill-informed of the
forces roiling the domestic auto industry."" ... "There was bitterness,
too, in Detroit [Michigan] at the men blocking the bailout. Some cattily
noted that when [Louisiana Republican Senator] Sen. David Vitter (R., La.
[Republican-Louisiana]) vowed a filibuster, it was the first time he had
gotten national press attention since being linked to a Washington prostitution
scandal." ... "Sens. [Alabama Republican Senator] Richard Shelby (R., Ala.
[Republican-Alabama]) and Corker both represent states where foreign, nonunion
automakers have significant operations. Mr. Corker, a freshman who won
a narrow victory in 2006, is insisting that the United Auto Workers accept
wage cuts so that workers make no more than nonunion workers in the South,
such as the [Japan's] Nissan employees in his state." ... "Alabama, a right-to-work
state, has granted vast concessions to win [auot manufacturing] plants
operated by [Japan's] Toyota, [Germany's] Mercedes-Benz, [Japan's] Honda,
and [South Korea's] Hyundai." -By Jack
Lessenberry -ToledoBlade.com
Mitch
McConnell - Bob
Corker - Richard
Shelby - Auto
- Makers
- Workers
- Lawmakers
- Politics
- Kentucky
- Alabama
- Tennessee
"Machinists
Union Blames McConnell, Shelby and Corker for Killing Auto Rescue Plan."
... "The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers
(IAM) today rejected attempts by a trio of Senate Republicans to deny responsibility
for their campaign to force General Motors, Chrysler and Ford into bankruptcy
and possible liquidation." ... ""In a move worthy of Benedict Arnold, a
handful of Senate Republicans this week successfully conspired to deny
federal aid to [United States] U.S. automakers," said IAM International
President Tom Buffenbarger. "It ranks second only to their attempt to blame
autoworkers themselves for failing to provide sufficient concessions to
satisfy GOP [Republican] demands."" ... "The campaign to blame autoworkers
began immediately after the effort by [Kentucky Republican Senator] Senate
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Alabama Republican [Senator] Sen. Richard
Shelby and Tennessee Republican [Senator] Bob Corker to block the $14 billion
aid package for automakers." ... ""With the U.S economy on the brink of
a deep and prolonged recession, it is unthinkable that these lawmakers
would deliberately kill an effort that could save as many as three million
American jobs," said Buffenbarger."
GoIAM.org
Barack
Obama - Media
- Politics
- Investigation
- History
- 
Illinois
"Media
Matters: Media pick up where they left off 8 years ago."
... "To anyone who lived through the media feeding frenzy of the 1990s,
during which the nation's leading news organizations spent the better part
of a decade destroying their own credibility by relentlessly hyping a series
of non-scandals, the past few days, in which the media have tried to shoehorn
[Democratic President Elect] Barack Obama into the [Illinois Democratic
Governor] Rod Blagojevich scandal, have been sickeningly familiar." ...
"Whenever reporters think -- or want you to think -- they've uncovered
a presidential scandal, they waste little time in comparing it to previous
controversies." ... "Perhaps the most striking aspect of the media's attempts
to link Obama to the Blagojevich scandal has been the volume of news reports
that are purely speculative -- and not only speculative, but vaguely
speculative. That is, they don't even consist of conjecture about specific
potential wrong doing. They simply consist of completely baseless speculation
that Obama might in some way become caught up in the investigation at some
point in the future, for some reason. It's little more than, "Maybe Obama
will be involved." Well, sure. And maybe he'll play shortstop for
the Washington Nationals [baseball team] next year." ... "If you want to
make a "scandal" stick to someone despite the inconvenient truth that they
aren't actually guilty of the purported wrongdoing in question, one thing
you do -- if you're the media covering a Democratic president, or an overzealous
conservative -- is continually expand the scandal's definition. So the
"scandal" grows and evolves into an amorphous mass of innuendo as political
opponents and journalists begin throwing everything against the wall, hoping
something will stick." ... "If the news media regains a bit of the skepticism
so many of them set aside for the past eight years, that would be an unequivocally
good thing, and it should be applauded." ... "But this week brought signs
that much of the media is set to resume the absurd and shameful behavior
that defined the 1990s -- guilt by association, circular analysis whereby
they ask baseless questions about non-scandals, then claim they have to
report on the "scandal" because the White House is "besieged by questions,"
grotesque leaps of logic, downplaying exculpatory information, and too
many other failings to list." ... "If that happens -- if the media continue
to behave as they did in covering Whitewater -- they will damage the country.
It's really that simple. We cannot afford to be distracted from serious
problems by overheated conjecture and baseless insinuation masquerading
as journalism." ... "That's how the media behaved the last time we had
a Democratic president. They devoted wall-to-wall coverage to invented
"scandals," ignored exculpatory evidence, saw evidence of guilt everywhere,
took people out of context in order to accuse them of lying, and generally
behaved like a pack of wild animals who couldn't tell right from wrong
or truth from fiction -- or who simply didn't care. As a group, they behaved
without ethical standards and without regard for the truth." ... "It's
our responsibility -- all of us -- to make sure it doesn't happen again."
-By Jamison
Foser -MediaMatters.org
20081211
Torture
- Prisons
-War
Crimes - Secret
- Military
- Government- Intelligence
- Law
- Investigation
- Human
Rights - Politics
- History
- 
McCain
- 
Ariz
- Mich
- US
- Guantanamo
- Cuba
- Iraq
-
Afghanistan
- 
China
- 
Korea
"Bipartisan
Report: Rumsfeld Responsible for Detainee Abuse:
Senate Committee Finds Officials Made Decisions That Led to Offenses Against
Prisoners." ... "A bipartisan panel of senators has concluded that [Republican
President Bush's] former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other
top Bush administration officials bear direct responsibility for the harsh
treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay [Cuba], and that their decisions
led to more serious abuses in Iraq and elsewhere." ... "In the most comprehensive
critique by Congress of the military's interrogation practices, the Senate
Armed Services Committee issued a report yesterday that accuses Rumsfeld
and his deputies of being the authors and chief promoters of harsh interrogation
policies that disgraced the nation and undermined U.S. security. The report,
released by Sens. [ Senators] Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.[ Democratic-Michigan])
and John McCain (R-Ariz.[ Republican Arizona]), contends that Pentagon
officials later tried to create a false impression that the policies were
unrelated to acts of detainee abuse committed by members of the military."
... ""The abuse of detainees in U.S. [United States] custody cannot simply
be attributed to the actions of 'a few bad apples' acting on their own,"
the report states. "The fact is that senior officials in the United States
government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined
the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their
use against detainees."" ... "The report is the most direct refutation
to date of the administration's rationale for using aggressive interrogation
tactics -- that inflicting humiliation and pain on detainees was legal
and effective, and helped protect the country. The 25-member panel, without
one dissent among the 12 Republican members, declared the opposite to be
true." ... "The [Republican President Bush's] administration's policies
and the resulting controversies, the panel concluded, "damaged our ability
to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the
hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority."" ... "A Defense
Department spokesman noted that the Pentagon cooperated extensively with
the Senate investigation and has taken numerous steps in recent years to
ensure the humane treatment of detainees." ... "The panel's investigation
focused on the Defense Department's employment of controversial interrogation
practices, including forced nudity, painful stress positions, sleep deprivation,
extreme temperatures and the use of dogs. The practices, some of which
had already been adopted by the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] at its
secret prisons, were adapted for interrogations at the detention center
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and later migrated to U.S. detention camps in
Afghanistan and Iraq, including the infamous Abu Ghraib prison." ... "The
true genesis of the decision to use coercive techniques, the report said,
was a memo signed by [Republican] President Bush on [February] Feb. 7,
2002, declaring that the Geneva Convention's standards for humane treatment
did not apply to captured al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. As early as that
spring, the panel said, top administration officials, including National
Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, participated in meetings in which the
use of coercive measures was discussed. The panel drew on a written statement
by Rice, released earlier this year, to support that conclusion." ... "In
July 2002, Rumseld's senior staff began compiling information about techniques
used in military survival schools to simulate conditions that U.S. airmen
might face if captured by an enemy that did not follow the Geneva conditions.
Those techniques -- borrowed from a training program known as Survival,
Evasion, Resistance and Escape, or SERE -- included waterboarding, or simulated
drowning, and were loosely based on methods adopted by Chinese communists
to coerce propaganda confessions from captured U.S. soldiers during the
Korean war." ... "The SERE program became the template for interrogation
methods that were ultimately approved by Rumsfeld himself, the report says."
-By Joby Warrick and Karen DeYoung -WashingtonPost
[PDF]
"Senate
Armed Services Committee Inquiry Into The Treatment of Detainees In U.S.
Custody." ... “What sets us apart from our enemies
in this fight… is how we behave. In everything we do, we must observe the
standards and values that dictate that we treat noncombatants and detainees
with dignity and respect. While we are warriors, we are also all human
beings” -- General David Petraeus via -WashingtonPost
Auto
- Makers
- Emergency
- Money
-Politics
- Workers
- 
Environmental
- Laws
- 
Fuel
- Technology
- 
Emissions
- Government
- Michigan
- California
"Murky
future for auto rescue amid GOP opposition." ...
"A House-passed bill to speed $14 billion in loans to Detroit's [Michigan]
automakers stands on shaky ground in a bailout-weary Congress, undermined
by Republican opposition that could derail the emergency aid in the Senate."
... "Republicans are challenging lame-duck [Republican] President George
W. Bush on the proposal, arguing that any support for the domestic auto
industry should carry significant concessions from autoworkers and creditors
and reject tougher environmental rules imposed by House Democrats." ...
"The automakers initially asked Congress for $25 billion, then returned
two weeks later to plead for as much as $34 billion. But with the {Republican
President Bush] White House refusing to dole out new spending for the Big
Three [Automakers], congressional Democrats agreed to use an existing program
that was to help carmakers retool their factories to make more fuel-efficient
cars." ... "That fund yielded only $15 billion in emergency loans, and
when negotiators agreed to leave some money in the environmental program,
the amount fell to $14 billion." ... "Democrats agreed to scrap language
— which the White House had declared a deal-breaker — that would have forced
the carmakers to drop lawsuits challenging tough emissions limits in California
and other states. But they kept a provision to force the automakers to
abide by those states' limits — a kind of consolation prize for environmentalists,
who already were livid at the raid of the fuel-efficiency program." -By
Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Ken Thomas -AP
via -Yahoo
Animals
-Federal
- Law
- Enforcement
- Science
- Politics
- History
- Global
- 
Climate
- Ice
- Oil
- Emissions
- Construction
- Money
"Environmentalists:
New rule guts Endangered Species Act." ... "In a
move environmental groups says strikes at the heart of the Endangered Species
Act, the [Republican President] Bush administration on Thursday announced
a new rule that would let federal agencies decide on their own whether
their projects harm endangered species, instead of requiring them in many
cases to get a second opinion from federal wildlife experts." ... "Opponents
said the move destroys the checks and balances that have helped the gove
rnment save hundreds of species from extinction under the 1973 law." ...
"[Republican President Bush's] Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said
the reason for the rule change was linked to global warming." ... "Kempthorne
listed the polar bear as a threatened species in May but said that the
Endangered Species Act could not be used to try to halt global warming.
The new regulation specifies that there is no need for consultations when
the harm to endangered or threatened species is a result from a global
process that's too broad to measure." ... "Kempthorne said it's impossible
to pinpoint the death of any single animal from emissions from any single
polluter. In fact, emissions of heat-trapping gases disperse evenly in
the atmosphere around the globe and remain there for centuries. The resulting
warming and melting of polar ice have put the polar bear at risk of extinction
by mid-century, scientists have said." ... "The rule changes also go further
and specify that federal agencies are not required to consult with the
biologists of the two agencies that enforce the act — the Fish and Wildlife
Service and the National Marine Fisheries Services — if they think a project
such as a timber sale or construction of a power plant won't harm or kill
a threatened or endangered species. The changes do not rule out voluntary
consultations." ... "The Interior Department on Thursday also finalized
a rule implementing another section of the Endangered Species Act to clarify
that it will not protect polar bears from oil and gas development or greenhouse
gas emissions." -By
Renee
Schoof -McClatchyDC.com
Auto
- Manufacturing
- Politics
- Jobs
-Economic
-History
- Christmas
- Consumer
- US
- China
"Senate
Republicans Determined to Cause a Depression by Destroying Big 3."
... "Looks like the Senate Republicans are serious about killing the auto
deal. Here's the bottom line, if GM [General Motors] goes down, it
will take Ford and Chrysler with it, because the three of them share suppliers.
Losing GM's business will put most of them into the red. 80%
of American consumers will not buy a car from a company in bankruptcy,
so the idea that going bankrupt is the solution to the auto companies woes
is nonsense." ... "What comes out of any bankruptcy, even if they have
the names GM, Ford and Chrysler, will be a shadow of what went into bankruptcy—assuming
anything comes out at all. More likely would be that big chunks would
be gobbled up by foreign car companies, especially by the Chinese, who
want expertise, but not to make cars in the US [United States]." ... "We
can expect, then, to lose most o f the three million jobs related to the
auto industry if the Big 2 1/2 go under. To put this in perspective,
in the last year the US has lost 2.7 million jobs. This would be
more than the job losses for an entire (lousy) year. The
US lost half a million jobs last month, and almost every economic forecaster
expects the US to lose even more jobs in January, when retailers go fish-belly
up due to an abysmal Christmas retail season." ... "Economic contractions
of this sort are self-reinforcing. The more people who lose their
jobs, the less consumer spending there is. The less consumer spending
there is, the less money businesses make. The less money businesses
make, the more they have to lay off people. The more people who lose
their jobs, the less consumer spending there is. The less... but
why go on, you get the point." ... "The cascading financial and economic
effect will make the oncoming economic storm far, far worse. If 700
billion was ok to use to save Wall Street, whose business model was probably
even worse than Detroit's (add up their losses and most of Wall Street
didn't actually make any money for the last ten years), then 15 or 25 billion
to save Detroit is peanuts." ... "Or we can make sure this turns into a
Depression. Guess the Republicans playing Scrooge this Christmas
prefer that." -By Ian
Welsh -FireDogLake.com
David
Vitter - Mitch
McConnell - Bob
Corker - Foreign
- Money
- Politicians
- Auto
- Manufacturing
- Work
- Louisiana
- Kentucky
- Tennessee
- 
Pennsylvania
- US
- Japan
- Germany
"My
Foreign Investor, Right Or Wrong." ... "A bunch of
Southern-state Republicans (including, amazingly, ... [Louisiana Republican
Senator] David
Vitter), from right-to-work states, want to push GM [General Motors]
and Chrysler into bankruptcy to bolster the foreign auto presence in their
home states. Kentucky has a Ford factory but they also have a [Japanese]
Toyota plant in Georgetown [Kentucky], so [Kentucky Republican Senator
Mitch] McConnell's on board." ... "Last week, Jane Hamsher explained
the conflict of interest for [Tennessee Republican Senator] Bob Corker
in Tennessee:"
"He
hasn't mentioned the subsidies his own state of Tennessee has given to
,
making it harder for the Big 2 1/2 to compete:"
"Tennessee
offered its richest incentive package — and perhaps the most government
assistance and tax breaks ever for an American automobile plant — to lure
[German auto manufacturer] Volkswagen to Chattanooga [Tennessee]."
"But
the state’s chief business recruiter said Wednesday that the benefits from
VW’s $1 billion assembly plant far will exceed what could top $500 million
in government assistance and tax breaks for the project."
"“The
Volkswagen investment in this community is going to have a tremendous economic
gain for the entire region,” said Matt Kisber, Tennessee’s commissioner
for economic and community development. “I’m confident we’re going to have
a very reasonable incentive package when you look at the initial costs
of what is being offered compared with a much bigger long-term return.”"
"Yes,
that's the logic -- these incentives will bring more money to the region
than they cost. But it doesn't always work out that way. As David Cay Johnston
noted
in Free Lunch, these kinds of subsidies frequently wind up costing
communities much more than they ever make back:"
"Johnson
writes: "The tribute Cabela's demanded from Hamburg [Pennsylvania] amounted
to roughly $8,000 for each man, woman, and child in town." Johnson points
out that between 2004 and 2006, Cabela's earned $223.4 million. During
those years, it collected at least $293.7 million in subsidies, more than
its reported profits. Meanwhile a family business selling fishing and hunting
gear was driven out of business in Hamburg."
"Funny
nobody is mentioning this."
The
GOP [GOP=Grand Old Party=Republican] does a lot of chest-thumping about
"Country First" and patriotism. It's fun to watch them destroy American
manufacturing so they can keep Japanese and German corporate executives
happy. OK, maybe not so fun." -By D-Day
via Hullabaloo
John
Boehner
- 
Don
Young - 
Doc
Hastings - 
Jack
Abramoff -
Tom
DeLay - 
Jerry
Lewis - 
Ken
Calvert - 
John
Doolittle - Ohio
- AK
- 
WA
-Texas
- CA
- 
Florida
- Money
- Politics
- US
Attorney - Law
- Federal
- Investigation
"House
GOP [Republicans] Gives Scandal-Ridden Don Young’s Committee Seat To Scandal-Ridden
Doc Hastings." ... " ... [Ohio Republican Representative
and House Minority Leader John Boehner told Alaska Republican Representative]
Rep. Don Young (R-AK [Republican-Alaska]) that he could no longer support
him as ranking Republican on the Natural Resources Committee, leading to
Young’s resignation from the post." ... "The AP reports
that a panel of top House leaders picked [Washington state Republican Representative]
Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA [Republican-Washington]) today to lead the committee.
“The recommendation by the GOP [GOP=Grand Old Party=Republican] Steering
Committee is final under a rule change adopted Wednesday.”" ... "Recall,
Jack Abramoff once boasted of having an “excellent
relationship” with Hastings, who received $14,000
[*]
from Abramoff’s firm, Preston Gates — including $1,000 from Abramoff himself.
After taking control of the Ethics Committee, Hastings reportedly fired
two staff lawyers involved in unanimous decisions to admonish
[Texas Republican] Tom DeLay for improper fundraising. Hastings also
contacted fired [United States] U.S. Attorney John McKay and attempted
to pressure
him in an ongoing investigation." ... "As ThinkProgress has documented,
Boehner has a history of playing musical chairs with committee assignments
for corrupt members:"
"[California
Republican Representative] Rep. Jerry Lewis: Boehner ruled that
Rep. Jerry Lewis of California could continue as the ranking member on
the Appropriations Committee while under federal
investigation on ethics charges."
"[California
Republican Representative] Rep. Ken Calvert: The GOP Steering Committee
appointed Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA[ Republican-California]) to [California
Republican Representative] Rep. Jon Doolittle’s (R-CA[ Republican-California])
Appropriations seat, after Doolittle was the subject of an FBI [Federal
Bureau of Investigation] investigation for his ties to Abramoff. Calvert
has profited
from legislation he supported and was caught
in the act with a prostitute."
"[Florida
Republican Representative] Rep. Tom Feeney: Feeney, who was questioned
by the FBI over his relationship with Abramoff took over as GOP [Republican]
leader on the space subcommittee for Calvert."
"Despite
Boehner’s ethics pledge
after ethics pledge,
the culture of corruption still rules at the end of the day." -By
Satyam
Khanna -ThinkProgress.org
20081210
Homeless
- Families
- Poverty
- Crisis
- Politics
- Law
- Police
- Florida
"Homeless
turn foreclosures into shelters." ... "For Max Rameau,
a vacant, boarded-up home is more than just a symbol of the national housing
crisis. It's an opportunity to house the homeless." ... "Rameau, a homeless
advocate, runs a controversial program in Miami [Florida] that helps families
squat in homes vacated because of bank foreclosures. Using Internet listings
and a team of volunteers, Rameau and his Take Back the Land foundation
matches homeless families with empty homes." ... "Rameau, 39, says his
efforts are creative solutions for two of America's biggest problems: rising
numbers of vacant homes and a growing homeless population. He has moved
in six families since January. The authorities so far haven't stopped him."
... ""It's morally indefensible to have vacant homes sitting there, potentially
for years, while you have human beings on the street," Rameau says." ...
"Kelly Penton, a city of Miami spokeswoman, says police don't have the
manpower to scour neighborhoods looking for squatters. Police only act
on a complaint by a property owner, which so far hasn't happened, she says."
... ""People need to obey the law, obviously," Penton says. "But it has
to be something that's reported to the city."" ... "With 44% of the nation's
744,000 homeless unsheltered, it's not surprising that people want to take
over homes, says Michael Stoops, executive director of the National Coalition
for the Homeless." -By Rick Jervis
-USATODAY
Barack
Obama - 
Michael
Mukasey - Secret
- Intelligence
- Politics
- 
Spying
- Torture
- Prisons
"Obama
Transition Team Pushing for Secret Legal Memos."
... "A senior Justice Department official said Tuesday that "99.8 percent"
of the department's work with [Democratic] President-elect Barack Obama's
transition team has gone smoothly. The 0.2 percent snag: The department
has reservations about granting the team's request to review classified
legal opinions related to secret CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] and
National Security Agency programs." ... "In a roundtable discussion with
reporters last week, [Republican President Bush's] Attorney General Michael
Mukasey declined to discuss specific requests made by transition staff
regarding opinions issued by the Office of Legal Counsel, the arm of the
Justice Department that provides legal advice to the president and all
other executive branch agencies." ... "The Justice official said the dispute
over access to the NSA [National Security Agency] and CIA opinions has
made its way up to Williams & Connolly's Gregory Craig, who earlier
this month was named to be Obama's White House counsel. Craig was expected
to meet with current [Republican President Bush's] White House counsel
Fred Fielding to discuss the issue, the official said." ... "The opinions,
some of which have been released to Congress in redacted form, contain
the legal rationale of the NSA's warrantless spying program and the CIA's
detention and interrogation policies, among other intelligence initiatives."
-By Joe Palazzolo -LegalTimes.com
via -Law.com
Illinois
- Law
- Enforcement
- 
Nevada
"All
50 Dem Senators Call On Blagojevich To Step Down."
... "Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean issued a statement
calling for Blagojevich's resignation:"
"The
arrest of and complaint against [Illinois Democratic Governor] Gov. Blagojevich
raises serious concerns about his ability to effectively represent the
people of Illinois. The conduct alleged represents a disgraceful abuse
of the public trust. In the interest of the people of Illinois and all
Americans, he should resign immediately. If he does not, I hope the Illinois
legislature will take action."
"All
fifty members of the Democratic Senate caucus have signed [Nevada Democratic
Senator and] Majority Leader Harry Reid's letter calling on Gov. Rod Blagojevich
to step down from his post and refrain from appointing anyone to the vacated
Illinois Senate seat, a source confirms." ... "It is also the first public
indication that the Senate will take constitutional provisions to untangle
any political appointment made by the embattled governor -- a legal maneuver
that various scholars have said is well within the body's rights." ...
"Here is the complete letter."
"Dear
Governor Blagojevich:"
"We
write to insist that you step down as Governor of Illinois and under no
circumstance make an appointment to fill the vacant Illinois Senate seat.
In light of your arrest yesterday on alleged federal corruption charges
related to that Senate seat, any appointment by you would raise serious
questions."
"It
is within the authority of the Illinois legislature to remove your power
to make this appointment by providing for a special election. But a decision
by you to resign or to step aside under Article V of the Illinois Constitution
would be the most expeditious way for a new Senator to be chosen and seated
in a manner that would earn the confidence of the people of Illinois and
all Americans. We consider it imperative that a new senator be seated as
soon as possible so that Illinois is fully represented in the Senate as
the important work of the 111th Congress moves forward."
"Please
understand that should you decide to ignore the request of the Senate Democratic
Caucus and make an appointment we would be forced to exercise our Constitutional
authority under Article I, Section 5, to determine whether such a person
should be seated."
"We
do not prejudge the outcome of the criminal charges against you or question
your constitutional right to contest those charges. But for the good of
the Senate and our nation, we implore you refrain from making an appointment
to the Senate."
"
-By
Sam
Stein -HuffingtonPost.com
US
- Government
- Debt
- Money
- Safety
- Politics
- History
- Global
"Investors
buy U.S. debt at zero yield." ... "In the market
equivalent of shoveling cash under the mattress, hordes of buyers were
so eager on Tuesday to park money in the world's safest investment, United
States government debt, that they agreed to accept a zero percent rate
of return." ... "The news sent a sobering signal: in these troubled economic
times, when people have lost vast amounts on stocks, bonds and real estate,
making an investment that offers security but no gain is tantamount to
coming out ahead. This extremely cautious approach reflects concerns that
a global recession could deepen next year, and continue to jeopardize all
types of investments." ... "While this will lower the cost of borrowing
for the United States government, economists worry that a widespread hunkering-down
could have broader implications that could slow an economic recovery. If
investors remain reluctant to put money into stocks and corporate bonds,
that could choke off funds that businesses need to keep financing their
day-to-day operations." ... "Investors accepted the zero percent rate in
the government's auction Tuesday of $30 billion worth of short-term securities
that mature in four weeks. Demand was so great even for no return that
the government could have sold four times as much." ... "In addition, for
a brief moment, investors were willing to take a small loss for holding
another ultra-safe security, the already-issued three-month Treasury bill."
... "In these times, it seems, the abnormal has now become acceptable.
As America's debt and deficit spiral from a parade of billion dollar bailouts
and stimulus packages, fund managers, foreign governments and big retail
investors reckon they will get more peace of mind by stashing their cash,
rather than putting it toward any of the higher-yielding risk that is entailed
in stocks, corporate bonds and consumer debt." ... "The rapid decline in
Treasury yields — which since summer have headed toward lows not seen since
the end of the World War II — also renders the Federal Reserve less effective,
as investors and banks stuff the money that the central bank is pumping
into the financial system into Treasuries, rather than fanning it out across
the broader economy." ... ""The last time this happened was the Great Depression,
when people are willing to accept no return on their money, or possibly
even a negative return," said Edward Yardeni, an independent analyst. "If
people are so busy during the day just protecting the cash they have, it's
not a good sign."" (1,
2)
-By Vikas
Bajaj and Michael M. Grynbaum -IHT.com
US_Debt
- Politics
- Corporation
- Law
- History
"Fed
Weighs Debt Sales of Its Own: Move Presents Challenges:
'Very Close Cousins to Existing Treasury Bills'." ... "The Federal Reserve
is considering issuing its own debt for the first time, a move that would
give the central bank additional flexibility as it tries to stabilize rocky
financial markets." ... "Government debt issuance is largely the province
of the Treasury Department, and the Fed already can print as much money
as it wants. But as the credit crisis drags on and the economy suffers
from recession, Fed officials are looking broadly for new financial tools."
... "Fed officials have approached Congress about the concept, which could
include issuing bills or some other form of debt, according to people familiar
with the matter." ... "It isn't known whether these preliminary discussions
will result in a formal proposal or Fed action. One hurdle: The Federal
Reserve Act doesn't explicitly permit the Fed to issue notes beyond currency."
... "At the core of the deliberations is the Fed's balance sheet, which
has grown from less than $900 billion to more than $2 trillion since August
as it backstops new markets like commercial paper, money-market funds,
mortgage-backed securities and ailing companies such as American International
Group Inc." ... "... [T]he Fed has funded programs by flooding the financial
system with money it created itself -- known in central-banking circles
as bank reserves -- and has used the money to make loans and purchase assets."
-By Jon Hilsenrath and Damian Paletta
-WSJ.com
China
- Free
Speech - Human
Rights - Law
- Politics
- 
United
Nations - History
"China
arrests a signer of a freedom charter: Literary critic
Liu Xiaobo had joined more than 300 in endorsing the 'Charter 08' document."
... "China has arrested at least one prominent dissident and has questioned
and possibly detained others who were among more than 300 signatories to
a declaration demanding more freedoms." ... "Liu Xiaobo, a prolific literary
critic who spent 20 months in prison for joining students in the 1989 Tiananmen
Square protests, was arrested Monday night at his home in Beijing [China's
capital]. Human rights organizations said the 53-year-old Liu was being
detained on suspicion of "inciting subversion of state power," a charge
often used against government critics." ... "The arrest came in the run-up
to today's 60th anniversary of the United Nations' adoption of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, a landmark document credited with inspiring
the modern human rights movement." ... "The Chinese activists are using
the anniversary as a peg to release what they are calling "Charter 08,"
a petition with recommendations for constitutional reforms that would make
the ruling Communist Party more accountable." -By
Barbara Demick -LAtimes
Barack
Obama - Illinois
- Money
- Legislation
- Media
- Politics
"Obama's
support of ethics reform is good news for the GOP [GOP=Republican Party]...."
... "Seriously, I'm trying to get my arms around this
new story on the Blagojevich scandal that the New York Times [by Mike McIntire
and Jeff Zeleny] has put out there. The lede of the article is tantalizing:"
"In
a sequence of events that neatly captures the contradictions of [Democratic
President Elect] Barack Obama’s rise through Illinois politics, a phone
call he made three months ago to urge passage of a state ethics bill indirectly
contributed to the downfall of a fellow Democrat he twice supported, [Illinois
Democratic Governor] Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich."
"Mr.
Obama placed the call to his political mentor, Emil Jones Jr., president
of the Illinois Senate. Mr. Jones was a critic of the legislation, which
sought to curb the influence of money in politics, as was Mr. Blagojevich,
who had vetoed it. But after the call from Mr. Obama, the Senate overrode
the veto, prompting the governor to press state contractors for campaign
contributions before the law’s restrictions could take effect on Jan. 1,
prosecutors say."
"OK,
so what I'm getting from that is that Barack Obama supports ethics in government,
that he doesn't think state contractors should be making large campaign
contributions. Hey, that's a good thing, right?" ... "Right?" ... "Uh,
according to the New York Times, not necessarily:"
"Beyond
the irony of its outcome, Mr. Obama’s unusual decision to inject himself
into a statewide issue during the height of his presidential campaign was
a reminder that despite his historic ascendancy to the White House, he
has never quite escaped the murky and insular world of Illinois politics.
It is a world he has long navigated, to the consternation of his critics,
by engaging in a kind of realpolitik, Chicago-style, which allowed him
to draw strength from his relationships with important players without
becoming compromised by their many weaknesses."
""Beyond
the irony of its outcome..."? Huh? How about...beyond the irony of the
fact that an Obama phone call for an ethics reform bill -- strongly opposed
by none other than Rod Blagojevich -- is an excuse to somehow tie him to
the "murky" world of Chicago politics. Look (as Obama himself might say),
there's some interesting new information in this Times article, but their
basic perspective is all upside-down wrong." ... "Did it occur to them
that maybe Obama was elected 44th president of the United States exactly
because he HAS escaped "the murky and insular world of Illinois politics"?
When people ask why would someone like Obama involve himself in Chicago
politics, the bottom line is Chicago is where he lived -- he moved there
to organize laid-off steelworkers, got a job there and then even married
a Windy City native." -Philly.com
-By
Will Bunch
Terrorism
- Criminal
- Political
- History
- Corporate
- Religion
- Prison
- 
Pat
Robertson - Abortion
- Gay
- Rights
- Law
- California
- Texas
- US
- Iraq
- Military
"Bush
Awards Presidential Citizen Medal To Watergate Crook Chuck Colson."
... "Established in 1969, the Presidential Citizens Medal is the second
highest honor for a civilian, recognizing Americans “who have performed
exemplary
deeds of service for the nation.”" ... "Today, [Republican] President
Bush honored 24 recipients of this year’s award, including actor Gary Sinise
and Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp. Also included in that mix was
Chuck Colson, “the first member of the [Republican President] Nixon administration
to serve
prison time for Watergate-related offenses.” Colson was President Nixon’s
counsel from 1969-1973 and pleaded guilty in 1974 to obstruction of justice.
Colson received a one to three year sentence, but served just seven months.
David Plotz at Slate described Colson’s role in the Nixon administration:"
"As
special counsel to the president, he [Chuck Colson] was [Republican President]
Richard Nixon’s hard man, the “evil genius” of an evil administration.
According to Watergate historian Stanley Kutler, Colson sought to hire
Teamsters thugs to beat up anti-war demonstrators, and he plotted to raid
or firebomb the Brookings Institution. He eventually pleaded guilty to
scheming to defame Daniel Ellsberg and interfering with his trial."
"Since
that time, Colson has become an evangelical prison reformer, running the
nonprofit Prison Fellowship, which advocates for “privately run prisons
and the delivery of all social services by faith-based groups.” However,
according to author Allan Lichtman in “White Protestant Nation,” Colson
has also remained involved in conservative politics:"
"Colson
brought together politically conservative Catholics and Protestands for
a statement of common beliefs, advised conservative politicians including
Texas [Republican] governor George W. Bush, and worked with Christian right
leaders Pat Robertson and James Dobson on the development of political
strategy. He disseminated conservative messages on sex roles, abortion,
homosexuality, pornography, gay rights, and separation of church and state
in his radio broadcasts and columns, reaching millions of Americans."
"On
October 3, 2002, Colson was also one of the co-signers of a letter
from prominent evangelical leaders supporting an invasion of Iraq. More
recently he has spoken out in favor of California’s Prop. 8, accusing the
LGBT community of “anti-religious bigotry.”" -By Amanda
Terkel -ThinkProgress.org
20081209
Military
- Inpector
- Safer
- Vehicles
- Technology
- Politics
- MRAPS
- US
-Iraq
"Pentagon
ignored danger of roadside bombs, report finds."
... "The military ignored steps before the invasion of Iraq that could
have prevented the staggering number of casualties from roadside bombs,
the Pentagon's acting inspector general charged Tuesday." ... "The IG's
[Inspector General's] report says that the military knew years before the
war that mines and homemade bombs, which the military calls "improvised
explosive devices," would be a "threat . . . in low-intensity conflicts"
and that "mine-resistant vehicles" were available." ... ""Yet the military
did not develop requirements for, fund or acquire" safer vehicles, the
report says. The military invaded Iraq in 2003 "without having taken available
steps to acquire technology to mitigate the known mine and IED [Improvised
Explosive Device] risk to soldiers and Marines."" ... "Even after the war
was under way, as the devices began taking a deadly toll and field commanders
pressed for vehicles that were better protected from roadside bombs, the
Pentagon was slow to act, the report says." ... "The IG's office is headed
by Acting Inspector General Gordon Heddell." ... "Explosive devices, including
roadside bombs and mines, have caused nearly 25,000 deaths and injuries,
according to the Pentagon, the top cause of death for U.S. [United States]
service members in Iraq." ... "The IG report says that the military "stopped
processing" a 2005 request for 1,169 MRAPS [Mine Resistant Ambush Protected
vehicles] from commanders in the field. " -By David
Goldstein -McClatchyDC.com
Global
- Climate
- Floods
- Oil
- Companies
- Human
- Environmental
- Emissions
- Litigation
- Politics
- UK
- US
"Science
paves way for climate lawsuits." ... "People affected
by worsening storms, heatwaves and floods could soon be able to sue the
oil and power companies they blame for global warming, a leading climate
expert has said." ... "Myles Allen, a physicist at Oxford University, said
a breakthrough that allows scientists to judge the role man-made climate
change played in extreme weather events could see a rush to the courts
over the next decade." ... "He said: "We are starting to get to the point
that when an adverse weather event occurs we can quantify how much more
likely it was made by human activity. And people adversely affected by
climate change today are in a position to document and quantify their losses.
This is going to be hugely important."" ... "Allen's team has used the
new technique to work out whether global warming worsened the UK [United
Kingdom] floods in autumn 2000, which inundated 10,000 properties, disrupted
power supplies and led to train services being cancelled, motorways closed
and 11,000 people evacuated from their homes - at a total cost of £1bn."
... "There may also be grounds for a case on the basis that firms have
tried to misinform the public - as in US [United States] cases against
tobacco firms - about the effects of their business." ... "Owen Lomas,
head of environmental law at City firm Allen & Overy, said: "If you
look at the extent to which certain major companies in the US are accused
of having funded disinformation to cast doubt on the link between man-made
emissions and global warming, that could open the way to litigation.""
-By
David
Adam and
Afua
Hirsch -Guardian.co.uk
Kevin
Martin - Corporate
- Government
- Politics
- 
Telecommunications
- Accounting
- Investigation
- Consumers
- 
Video
-Media
"Congressional
report: FCC chair abused power." ... "[Republican
President Bush's] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin
ignored his responsibilities as head of the regulatory body and abused
his power, according to a congressional report released Tuesday." ... "Over
the course of his tenure, Martin manipulated and withheld information from
the other FCC [Federal Communications Commission] commissioners and from
Congress, neglected his statutory responsibilities to produce certain information
to Congress, and ignored evidence that certain national communications
programs were being grossly mismanaged, according to the report issued
by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, titled "Deception
and Distrust: The Federal Communications Commission Under Chairman Kevin
J. Martin." (PDF)" ... "The committee launched a bipartisan investigation
in January after hearing allegations of mismanagement from current and
former FCC employees, telecommunications industry representatives, and
other FCC commissioners." ... "Typically, a congressional committee would
hold hearings to investigate such matters, but the report was issued in
lieu of hearings because, the report says, "due to the climate of fear
that pervades the FCC...we found that key witnesses were unwilling to testify
or even to have their names become known."" ... "The chairman's office,
the report says, ignored evidence consumers were overcharged and providers
were overcompensated by as much as $100 million a year. The neglect of
that information led to a windfall of millions of dollars for the largest
TRS [Telecommunications Relay Service] provider, Sorenson, which covers
about 80 percent of the video relay services market." ... "The report also
recommends the Government Accountability Office audit the entire TRS program,
including the FCC's efforts to protect the integrity of the fund." ...
"The report also says Martin manipulated information given to his fellow
commissioners and Congress. For instance, upon becoming chair in 2005,
the report says, Martin ordered FCC staff to reverse the findings of a
study, which initially said that "a la carte" cable programming would not
benefit consumers. He also demoted the Media Bureau chief, who had been
in charge of the study." ... "The reversal led to suspicion inside and
out of the FCC that the study sent to Congress was not based on objective
analysis, the committee report says." -By Stephanie
Condon -CNET
/News
Washington
-Political
- Financing
- Accounting
- Investigation
- Realtors
"Realtor
group's account of expenses disputed: [Washington
state's Public Disclosure Commission] PDC's complaints include over-the-limit
contributions to [Washington state's Republican Governor Candidate Dino]
Rossi." ... "State regulators have filed their second campaign-finance
complaint of the year against the Washington Association of Realtors, this
time alleging that the association improperly reported its spending on
Republicans in races for governor and attorney general." ... "The executive
director of the Public Disclosure Commission, Vicki Rippie, filed her complaint
last week, and the agency is launching a full investigation, spokesmen
said this week." ... "The complaint also named the GOP [GOP=Grand Old Party=Republican]
campaigns of Attorney General Rob McKenna and gubernatorial hopeful Dino
Rossi." ... "The Realtors PAC and [Realtors'] Quality of Life PAC
both, in effect, made over-limit contributions to Rossi of $497,806. Rossi
allegedly gave fundraising help to R-PAC before it sponsored its ads."
... "The PDC allegations do go so far as to suggest that the Realtors,
Rossi or McKenna conspired to get around rules that forbid coordination
between campaigns and independent groups. But they do say that actions
the Realtors and Mc Kenna campaign took made the PACs ineligible for independent
expenditures on behalf of Mc Kenna." ... "Realtors paid $80,000 in fines
earlier in the year to settle an earlier complaint over failing to fully
report $953,000 in transactions during 2004-07 — including $310,000 in
independent expenditures during 2004. Another $50,000 of fines were suspended
on condition the group did not have further wrongdoing." (1, 2)
-By Brad Shannon -TheOlympian.com
Barack
Obama - 
Poll
- History
"Poll:
79% approve of way Obama is handling transition."
... "Seventy-nine percent approve of [Democratic President-Elect Barack]
Obama's performance so far during transition, with 18 percent disapproving."
... "Obama's approval rating is 14 points higher than the approval rating
for [Republican] President-elect George Bush in 2001 and 17 points higher
than [Democratic] President-elect Clinton's rating in 1992, CNN Polling
Director Keating Holland said." ... "Obama's current approval rating is
also more than 50 points higher than President Bush's current approval
rating, which now stands at 28 percent --- with 71 percent disapproving
of the way Bush is handling his job as president." ... ""An Obama job approval
rating of 79 percent -- that's the sort of rating you see when the public
rallies around a leader after a national disaster," said Bill Schneider,
CNN's senior political analyst. "To many Americans, the Bush administration
was a national disaster."" -By Paul Steinhauser
-CNN
AIG
- Employees
- Politics
- Federal
- Lawmakers
- Maryland
- New
York
"AIG
Says More Managers Get Retention Payouts Topping $4 Million."
... "American
International Group Inc. [Incorporated], the insurer whose bonuses
and perks are under fire from U.S. [United States] lawmakers, offered cash
awards to another 38 executives in a retention program with payments of
as much as $4 million." ... "The incentives range from $92,500 to $4 million
for employees earning salaries between $160,000 and $1 million, Chief Executive
Officer Edward Liddy said in a letter dated [2008 December] Dec. 5 to [Maryland
Democratic] Representative Elijah Cummings. The New York-based insurer
had previously disclosed that 130 managers would get the awards and that
one executive would get $3 million." ... "“I remain concerned, as do many
American taxpayers, that these retention payments are simply bonuses by
another name,” Cummings said in letter responding to Liddy." ... "AIG [American
International Group], which received a U.S. rescue package of more than
$152 billion, has been criticized for saying it will eliminate bonuses
for senior executives while still planning to hand out “cash awards” that
double or triple the salaries of some managers." ... "AIG’s managers have
overseen a record $37.6 billion in net losses so far this year." -By
Hugh Son -Bloomberg
Illinois
- Factory
- Company
- Politics
- Federal
- Law
"Workers
win a big round in Chicago factory sit-in." ... "The
creditor of a Chicago [Illinois] plant where laid-off employees are conducting
a sit-in to demand severance pay said Tuesday it would extend limited loans
to the factory so it could resolve the dispute, but the workers declared
their protest unfinished." ... "The Republic Windows and Doors factory
closed last week after Bank of America canceled its financing." ... "Bank
of America has been criticized for cutting off the plant's credit after
taking federal bailout money itself." ... "Workers, who received just three
days' notice before the plant shut down on Friday, argue that the company
violated federal law because employees were not given 60 days' notice that
they were losing their jobs." -By Michael Tarm
-AP via -Yahoo
Larry
Craig - 
Idaho
- Politician
- Saint
Paul - 
Minnesota
- Police
"Court
denies Sen. Craig's effort to withdraw sex-sting plea."
... "The Minnesota Court of Appeals on Tuesday rejected U.S. [United States,
Idaho Republican Senator] Sen. Larry Craig's effort to withdraw his guilty
plea to a misdemeanor offense of disorderly conduct in connection with
a sex-sting operation." ... "The Idaho Republican was arrested in the Minneapolis-St.
Paul [Saint Paul, Minnesota's capital] airport in June 2007 after an undercover
police officer accused him of soliciting sex by using hand signals and
tapping his foot in a bathroom stall. Two months after his arrest, and
without consulting a lawyer, Craig pleaded guilty to the charge without
appearing in court." ... "After the incident became public, he attempted
to withdraw his plea, contending that his "wide stance" had been misinterpreted
by the arresting officer and that he had pleaded guilty simply to get the
matter over with." -CNN
Barack
Obama - Illinois
- Politics
- Federal
- Investigation
"Fitzgerald:
No evidence Obama knew of Blagojevich's scheme."
... "Illinois [Democratic Governor] Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested Tuesday
on charges of trying to trade [Democratic] President-elect Barack Obama’s
vacant Senate seat for a lucrative job in the future Obama administration."
... "Chicago [Illinois, United States] U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald,
the prosecutor who brought the charges, described the allegations against
Blagojevich as a "political corruption crime spree," but emphasized that
he had no evidence Obama was aware of the scheme." ... "Blagojevich was
aware he was already under federal investigation for other pay-to-play
allegations even as he speculated how he could sell the senate seat, the
affidavit said." ... "The 76-page affidavit, which quotes lengthy taped
phone and office conversations, appears to indicate that Obama’s advisers
were not receptive to the scheme. In one passage, Blagojevich allegedly
says he knew Obama wanted an unnamed "Senate Candidate 1" for the seat
but that "they’re not willing to give me anything except appreciation.
F--- them."" -By
Marisa
Taylor -McClatchyDC.com
[PDF]
78-page FBI affidavit via ChicagoTribune
Blackwater
- Investigation
- Corporate
- Military
- California
- 
North
Carolina - US
- Iraq
- International
- Politics
"Plea
by Blackwater guard helps indict 5 others." ... "In
the first public airing of an investigation that remains a source of international
outrage, the Justice Department unsealed its case against five private
security guards, built largely around the chilling testimony of a sixth
guard about the 2007 shootings that left 17 unsuspecting Iraqi civilians
dead at a busy Baghdad [Iraq's capital] traffic circle." ... "In pleading
guilty to manslaughter, the sixth security guard, Jeremy Ridgeway of California,
described how he and the other guards used automatic rifles and grenade
launchers to fire on cars, houses, a traffic officer and a girls' school.
In addition to those killed, at least 20 people were wounded." ... "The
six guards were employed by Blackwater Worldwide, the largest security
contractor in Iraq; the company, based in North Carolina, has not been
charged in the case." ... "Ridgeway said in the court documents unsealed
Monday that the episode in Nisour Square on Sept. 16, 2007, started when
the guards opened fire on a white Kia sedan "that posed no threat to the
convoy."" ... "The case remained a sore point during the [Republican President]
Bush administration's negotiations with Iraq for an agreement setting new
rules for the continuing presence of U.S. [United States] troops. Ultimately,
a major provision of the agreement ended immunity for private contractors
working in Iraq." (1, 2)
-By Ginger
Thompson -IHT.com
20081208
Mitt
Romney - Money
- Politics
- 2008
Election - 2012
Election - 
Massachusetts
"Romney
paves way for possible '12 run: Bulk of PAC fund
goes for political ambitions." ... "Republican Mitt Romney is laying the
groundwork for a possible White House campaign in 2012, hiring a team of
staff members and consultants with money from a fund-raising committee
he established with the ostensible purpose of supporting other GOP candidates."
... "The former Massachusetts governor has raised $2.1 million for his
Free and Strong America political action committee. But only 12 percent
of the money has been spent distributing checks to Romney's fellow Republicans
around the country." ... "Instead, the largest chunk of the money has gone
to support Romney's political ambitions, paying for salaries and consulting
fees to over a half-dozen of Romney's longtime political aides, according
to a Globe review of expenditures." ... "Romney founded the Free and Strong
America Committee shortly after dropping out of the 2008 presidential primary.
He filled its coffers by telling conservative contributors around the country
that their money would be used to support Republican candidates and causes."
... "According to the Globe analysis, he spent $244,000 on contributions
to congressional and other candidates between April and the November elections.
He has spent more than twice as much on staff salaries and contracts to
hire professional fund-raisers, who are compiling contributor lists that
will serve Romney well in a future presidential campaign." ... "In essence,
Romney is financing a political enterprise that he can use to remain a
national GOP leader and use as a springboard should he decide to launch
another presidential bid for 2012." - By Frank Phillips
-Boston/Globe
John
McCain - Corporate
- Politics
- Arizona
"Merrill
Chief Wants $10-Million Bonus For Presiding Over $11-Billion Loss."
... "Merrill has lost almost $12 billion this year, and is about to be
taken over by Bank of America. Its shares have fallen fom $50 when Thain
took over late last year to $13.04 at close of trading Friday." ... "It
looks like Thain -- who was a major fundraiser for [2008 Election Republican
Presidential Candidate and Arizona Senator] John McCain's campaign
and was described
by USA Today as a member of McCain's "team" -- is a practitioner
of the bargaining strategy in which you begin with a maximalist offer as
a starting point for negotiation:"
"A
few months ago, when the board began seriously considering 2008 bonuses,
a proposal was presented to the compensation committee by Merrill that
Mr. Thain should be paid in excess of $30 million, according to people
familiar with the matter. That number has since come down in recent talks
with various board members and Mr. Thain has recently indicated to committee
members that $5 million to $10 million is more reasonable." [-WSJ]
"
-By Zachary Roth -TPMMuckracker
.TalkingPointsMemo
Stephen
Johnson - Religion
- Science
- Corporate
- Environmental
- Politician
- 
RI
"EPA
Administrator Stephen Johnson: There’s ‘not a clean-cut division’ between
religion and science." ... "A Philadelphia Inquirer
profile
of [Republican President Bush's Environmetnal Protection Agency] EPA Administrator
Stephen
Johnson this weekend reveals that the chief steward of our environmental
protection is unwilling — or unable — to separate religion from science.
The Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson notes that, when questioned by reporters,
Stephen Johnson admitted he does not see a “clean-cut
division” between the two:"
"It’s
not a clean-cut division. If you have studied at all creationism vs.
evolution, there’s theistic or God-controlled evolution and there’s variations
on all those themes."
"Johnson’s
approach at EPA has been marked by putting his faith in corporate polluters.
This past summer, [Rhode Island Democratic Senator] Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse
(D-RI [Democratic-Rhode Island]) called on him to
resign. Read more at the Wonk
Room [Stephen Johnson]." -By Faiz
Shakir -ThinkProgress.org/Wonk
Room
20081207
Barack
Obama - Medical
- Politics
- History
- 
Hawaii
- US
- Japan
- 
Vietnam
- Iraq
"Obama
Selects Shinseki for Veterans Affairs Secretary."
... "On the 67th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, [Democratic] President-elect
Barack Obama Sunday nominated [Retired Army General] Gen. Eric Shinseki
(Ret.), a Japanese-American born in Obama's home state of Hawaii, to become
Secretary of Veterans Affairs." ... "“We owe it to all our veterans to
honor them as we honored our greatest generation, not just with words,
but with deeds,” said Obama, tasking him with a modernization of the Department
so troops get the medical care “far too few” are receiving right now."
... "Obama said Shinseki, the first Asian-American named to his cabinet,
was the right person to cut red tape, boost funding, and bring benefits
to veterans." ... "“There is no one more distinguished, more determined,
or more qualified to build this V.A. [Veterans Affairs] than the leader
I’m announcing as our next Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Gen. Eric Shinseki,”
Obama said." ... "“No one will ever doubt that this former Army chief of
staff has the courage to stand up for our troops and our veterans. No one
will ever question whether he will fight hard enough to make sure they
have the support that they need.”" ... "The former Army Chief of Staff,
criticized years ago by his Pentagon bosses for saying that “several hundred
thousand soldiers” would be needed to wage the Iraq war successfully, today
pledged to reform the Department to give troops a “smooth, error-free,
no-fail, benefits-assured transition into our ranks as veterans.”" ...
"“A word to my fellow veterans: if confirmed, I will work each and every
day to ensure that we are serving you as well as you have served us. We
will pursue a 21st-century V.A. that serves your needs,” promised Shinseki,
who lost part of his foot in Vietnam." ... "“We will open doors, new doors
of opportunity so you can find a good job, support your families when you
return to civilian life. And we will always, we will always honor the sacrifices
of those who have worn the uniform and their loved ones.”" -By
Matt Jaffe -ABCNEWS.com
20081206
Auto
- Industry
- Government
- Legislation
-Manufacturing
- Jobs
- Michigan
"Dems,
White House Agree To Auto Bailout." ... "After weeks
of tense discussions with the heads of the U.S. [United States] auto industry,
Democratic Congressional leaders have reached an agreement that may just
clear the way for the Big Three to get the money they need to survive ...
for now." ... "CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier reports that
significant progress came Friday night, when Democrats from both the House
and Senate agreed to bail out the struggling General Motors, Chrysler and
Ford with federal funds." ... "Several officials say the [Republican President
Bush] White House and congressional Democrats have agreed on $15 billion
in loans, which is less than half of what the car chiefs were seeking."
... "As executives from Detroit [Michigan] pleaded with lawmakers for loans
to help them survive, the government reported the
worst single month's job loss in 34 years - 533,000 jobs gone in
November - and an unemployment rate of 6.7%." ... "Officials in both parties
said the legislation would include creation of a trustee or group of industry
overseers to make sure the bailout funds were used to transform General
Motors, Ford and Chrysler into competitive enterprises." ... "Democratic
leaders insist this money is a loan, not a gift. "
-CBSNews
20081205
Unemployment
- Economics
- Accounting
- Politics
"Broader
Unemployment Rate Hits 12.5%." ... "The headline
unemployment rate of 6.7% in November isn’t the only one the Labor Department
reports. [PDF]
They also break the rate down by age, gender, ethnicity, and education.
And in table A-12, on page 19 of the report, they also share their broadest
estimate of the unemployment rate, which includes the total unemployed
(the standard rate) plus “all marginally attached workers, plus total employed
part time for economic reasons… plus all marginally attached workers.”"
... "That rate (called “U-6”) in November? A whopping 12.5%." -By
Kelly Evans -WSJ.com
Employment
- Market
- Housing
- Rebuilding
- 
Roads
- Schools
- Energy
- Obama
- Politics
"Employers
cut 533K jobs in Nov., most in 34 years." ... "Skittish
employers slashed 533,000 jobs in November, the most in 34 years, catapulting
the unemployment rate to 6.7 percent, dramatic proof the country is careening
deeper into recession." ... "The new figures, released by the Labor Department
Friday, showed the crucial employment market deteriorating at an alarmingly
rapid clip, and handed Americans some more grim news right before the holidays.
The net loss of more than a half-million jobs was far worse than analysts
expected." ... "The U.S. [United States] tipped into recession last December
[2007], a panel of experts declared earlier this week, confirming what
many Americans already thought." ... "[Republican] President George W.
Bush, who used the word "recession" for the first time to describe the
economy's state, pledged Friday to explore more efforts to ease housing,
credit and financial stresses." ... "[Democratic] President-elect Barack
Obama said the dismal job news underscored the need for forceful action,
even as he warned that the pain could not be quickly relieved." ... ""There
are no quick or easy fixes to this crisis ... and it's likely to get worse
before it gets better," Obama said. "At the same time, this ... provides
us with an opportunity to transform our economy to improve the lives of
ordinary people by rebuilding roads and modernizing schools for our children,
investing in clean energy solutions to break our dependence on imported
oil, and making an early down payment on the long-term reforms that will
grow and strengthen our economy for all Americans for years to come.""
-By Jeannine Aversa -AP
via -Yahoo
John
McCain - 
Sarah
Palin - Fashion
- Politics
- 2008
Election - New
York
"RNC
spends $180K on Palin and family." ... "Salons and
spas, including $350 at Escape Skin Care and Day Spa in New York, were
the latest unusual expenses to appear in the Republican National Committee’s
coordinated expenses account with the [2008 Election Republican Presidential
Candidates John McCain and Sarah Palin] McCain-Palin campaign, according
to November reports released late Thursday." ... "Overall, the RNC has
reported spending a total of about $180,000 for clothes and various accessories
for the family of vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, Federal Election
Commission records show." ... "Dick’s Sporting Goods, The Limited, Foot
Locker, Wal-Mart, Toys R Us and Victoria’s Secret are all listed in between
the expected payments for media buys, direct mail and polling." ... "Thousands
of dollars in payments to Macy’s, Nieman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue —
all major recipients of RNC cash in early September as Palin upgraded her
wardrobe for the campaign — were made in October, too." ... "In addition,
hundreds of dollars were also spent at Brooks Brothers, the Gap, Express
and J.C. Penney on clothes and accessories, apparently for other members
of the vice presidential nominee’s family." -By Jeanne
Cummings -Politico.com
John
McCain - Sarah
Palin - Fashion
- Politics- 2008
Election - Alaska
- Florida
"G.O.P.
Paid Almost $55,000 for Palin Fashion Stylist." ...
"A woman who appears from campaign finance records to have been [2008 Election
Republican Vice Presidential Candidate and Governor of] Alaska Gov. Sarah
Palin’s fashion stylist was paid $54,900 by the Republican National Committee,
according to a new report filed with the Federal Election Commission."
... "The newest report appears to show about $23,000 in additional charges
labeled as “campaign accessories” from a variety of stores, including Saks,
Neiman’s, Nordstrom, Bloomingdales, Macy’s, Victoria’s Secret, Brooks Brothers,
Ann Taylor and Target." ... "Interestingly, in the newest charges on campaign
finance records, many of the people who initially footed the charges were
campaign staffers, including Andrew Smith, Ms. Palin’s chief of staff,
Christopher Edwards, who was in charge of advance for Ms. Palin, and Kristi
Pulsfort, a member of the traveling press staff." ... "Mr. Smith apparently
footed the bill for more than $3,000 in charges at Aldo (a shoe store chain),
Bloomingdales and Macy’s, all in Orlando [Florida], as well as Home Optics,
a glasses and contacts store in Chugiak, Alaska, about a half hour from
Ms. Palin’s home in Wasilla [Alaska]." ... "A woman named Jeannie Etchart,
who appears on the McCain campaign’s payroll, picked up the most in charges,
totaling more than $14,000 from places like Banana Republic, Neiman Marcus,
Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom." -By Michael
Luo -NYTimes
John
McCain - Sarah
Palin - Fashion
- Money
- Politics
- 2008
Election
"It's
not cheap to look like a real American." ... "In
just a little over two months, [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate]
John McCain's campaign and the Republican National Committee together spent
a total of almost $340,000 on [2008 Election Republican Vice Presidential
Candidate] Sarah Palin's appearance, including clothes for her and her
family." ... "The final total comes in the wake of disclosure reports filed
with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday. First, there was the
$150,000 on clothes for the Palin family that sparked the initial interest
and controversy in this spending. On top of that, the disclosures show
that, overall, Palin's makeup artist was paid $68,400, while her hair stylist
got more than $42,000. Her fashion stylist recieved
$54,900. In addition to that, as previously
reported, there are new charges for clothing for the vice-presidential
candidate and her family, which come out to about $23,000." -By
Alex
Koppelman -Salon
20081204
John
McCain - Sarah
Palin - Fashion
- Politics
- 2008
Election -Alaska
"McCain
Campaign Spent $110,000 on Palin’s Stylists." ...
"[2008 Election Republican Vice Presidential Candidate and Alaska Republican
Governor] Gov. Sarah Palin’s traveling makeup artist was paid $68,400 and
her hair stylist received more than $42,000 for roughly two months of work,
according to a new campaign finance report filed with the Federal Election
Commission." ... "Much attention has been paid to the $150,000 the Republican
National Committee spent on outfitting Ms. Palin in September at high-end
department stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus, as well as
on makeup
services." ... "Republican officials said this week that additional
clothing charges would appear on the Republican National Committee’s
campaign finance report totaling less than $30,000." -By
Michael
Luo -NYTimes
20081203
Michael
Mukasey - Karl
Rove - 
Harriet
Miers - US
Attorney - Politics
-Federal
- Investigation
"Federal
Prosecutor Is Making Inquiries in the Investigation of the Dismissal of
U.S. Attorneys." ... "A prosecutor who is investigating
the dismissals of nine [United States] U.S. attorneys has been meeting
with defense lawyers, dispatching subpoenas and seeking information about
the events, according to legal sources familiar with the case." ... "Attorney
General Michael B. Mukasey appointed prosecutor Nora R. Dannehy two months
ago, after the department's Office of Inspector General and Office of Professional
Responsibility reported that they had hit a roadblock in their lengthy
probe into whether political interference prompted the dismissals. Internal
investigators said they had been stymied by the refusal of key witnesses,
including former [Republican President Bush] presidential adviser Karl
Rove and former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers, to cooperate." ...
"By naming a federal prosecutor to determine whether crimes have been committed,
the attorney general ensured that authorities would have the power to compel
testimony and documents. Dannehy, a longtime assistant U.S. attorney in
Connecticut, in recent weeks has met with lawyers and government officials
involved in the case. A grand jury in the District has issued subpoenas,
the sources said." ... "The requests for documents could provoke another
legal skirmish in a fight over the scope of executive power wielded by
the Bush administration." -By Carrie Johnson -WashingtonPost
Health
Care - Politics
- Economics
- 
Seniors
- Labor
Unions - Lawyers
- Government
"Health-Care
Reform Could Kill the GOP." ... "Can policy be both
wise and aggressively partisan? Ask any Republican worth his salt and the
answer will be an unequivocal yes. Ask a Democrat of the respectable Beltway
variety and he will twist himself into a pretzel denying it." ... "For
decades Republicans have made policy with a higher purpose in mind: to
solidify the GOP [GOP=Grand Old Party= Republican] base or to damage the
institutions and movements aligned with the other side. One of their fondest
slogans is "Defund the Left," and under that banner they have attacked
labor unions and trial lawyers and tried to sever the links between the
lobbying industry and the Democratic Party. Consider as well their long-cherished
dreams of privatizing Social Security, which would make Wall Street, instead
of Washington, the protector of our beloved seniors. Or their larger effort
to demonstrate, by means of egregious misrule, that government is incapable
of delivering the most basic services." ... "That these were all disastrous
policies made no difference: The goal was to use state power to achieve
lasting victory for the ideas of the right." ... "On the other side of
the political fence, strategic moves of this kind are fairly rare. Instead,
for most of my lifetime, prominent Democratic leaders have been chucking
liberalism itself for the sake of immediate tactical gain." ... "Former
[Democratic] President Bill Clinton, who is widely regarded as a political
mastermind, may have sounded like a traditional liberal at the beginning
of his term in office. But what ultimately defined his presidency was his
amazing pliability on matters of principle. His most memorable innovation
was "triangulating" between his own party and the right, his most famous
speech declared and end to "the era of big government," his most consequential
policy move was to cement the consensus on deregulation and free trade,
and many of his boldest stands were taken against his own party." ... "The
results were not pretty, either for the Democrats or for the nation." ...
"Still, conservatives have always dreaded the day that Democrats discover
(or rediscover) that there is a happy political synergy between delivering
liberal economic reforms and building the liberal movement. The classic
statement of this fear is a famous memo that [Republican] Bill Kristol
wrote in 1993, when he had just started out as a political strategist and
the Clinton administration was preparing to propose some version of national
health care." ... ""The plan should not be amended; it should be erased,"
Mr. Kristol advised the GOP. And not merely because Mr. Clinton's scheme
was (in Mr. Kristol's view) bad policy, but because "it will revive the
reputation of the party that spends and regulates, the Democrats, as the
generous protector of middle-class interests."" -By
Thomas
Frank -HuffingtonPost.com
20081202
Barack
Obama - Stephen
Johnson - Water
- 
Earth
- Coal
- Companies
- Government
- Law
- Enforcement
- Politics
- Kentucky
- Tennessee
"EPA
to gut mountaintop mining rule that protects streams."
... "The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday approved a last-minute
rule change by the [Republican President] Bush administration that will
allow coal companies to bury streams under the rocks leftover from mining."
... "The 1983 rule prohibited dumping the fill from mountaintop removal
mining within 100 feet of streams. In practice, the government hadn't been
enforcing the rule. Government figures show that 535 miles of streams were
buried or diverted from 2001 to 2005, more than half of them in the mountains
of Appalachia. Along with the loss of the streams has been an increase
of erosion and flooding." ... "The 11th hour change before President George
W. Bush leaves office would eliminate a tool that citizens groups have
used in lawsuits to keep mining waste out of streams. Mining companies
had been pushing for the change for years." ... "It also means that [Democratic]
President-elect Barack Obama's administration will have to decide whether
to try to restore and enforce the rule, a process that could take many
months of new rulemaking. Obama's transition team declined to comment on
its plans on Tuesday." ... "Another option would be for opponents to go
through the courts. Opponents have argued that the rule change is illegal."
... "For now, however, the EPA's approval means there are no further obstacles
to the Office of Surface Mining's plans to change the rule. The White House's
Office of Management and Budget approved it on Monday. The Department of
Interior, which includes the mining office, plans to make the rule final
in December after briefing members of Congress, and it will go into effect
30 days after that, said spokesman Peter Mali." ... "The timing means the
rule is expected to be in effect when Obama takes office in January." ...
"In approving the change in writing as required by law, [Republican President
Bush's Environmental Protection Agency] EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson
rejected the appeals of environmentalists and some coal-country officials,
including Kentucky [Democratic Governor] Gov. Steve Beshear and Tennessee
[Democratic Governor] Gov. Phil Bredesen, both Democrats." ... "In a letter
in November to Johnson, Beshear said his state had to protect its water
and that while coal was important to the economy, it should be mined in
environmentally responsible ways." -By Renee Schoof
and Bill Estep -Herald-Leader
-McClatchyDC.com
20081126
Infant
- 
Food- Health
- Science
- Politics
- Industrial
- Maker
- US
- China
"FDA
finds melamine traces in U.S. infant formulas." ...
"The Food and Drug Administration has found trace amounts of the industrial
chemical melamine in some U.S. [United States] infant formulas, but at
levels 10,000 times lower than those found in Chinese-made formula." ...
"In China, where faked formula killed at least four children and sickened
more than 53,000, large amounts of melamine were added to watered-down
milk to make it appear to have an appropriate protein content." ... "The
trace amounts of melamine and cyanuric acid, a melamine by-product, were
found in formula from Abbott Laboratories, Nestle and Mead Johnson, which
together make more than 90% of all infant formula produced in the United
States." -AP
via -USATODAY
20081124
China
- Media
- Politics
- 
Entertainment
- 
Music
- Free
Speech - Law
- US
"China
state media blast new Guns N' Roses album." ... "A
newspaper published by China's ruling Communist Party is blasting the latest
Guns N' Roses album as an attack on the Chinese nation." ... "Delayed since
recording began in 1994, "Chinese Democracy" hit stores in the U.S. on
Sunday, although it is unlikely to be sold legally in China, where censors
maintain tight control over films, music and publications." ... "In an
article Monday headlined "American band releases album venomously attacking
China," the Global Times said unidentified Chinese Internet users had described
the album as part of a plot by some in the West to "grasp and control the
world using democracy as a pawn."" ... "The album "turns its spear point
on China," the article said." -By Christopher Bodeen
-AP via -Yahoo
20081121
Jeff
Sessions - Bob
Corker - 
George
Voinovich - Corporate- Government
- Law
- Auto
- Workers
- 
Thanksgiving
- Manufacturer
- Michigan
- Tenn
- Ala
- Ohio
- 
2010
Election - US
- Japan
- South
Korea
"'Card
check' best hope for auto workers union? Congress
to vote on Employee Free Choice Act to make unionization easier." ... "Congress
returns after Thanksgiving to decide whether to approve a $25 billion loan
to General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford. The future of United Auto Workers
members in Michigan and other states is at stake." ... "“It appears to
me we possibly have one too many auto makers,” said [Tennessee Republican
Senator] Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn.[ Republican-Tennessee], who opposes the
loan [and recommends Chapter 11 bankruptcy]." ... "But it will be an industry
in which fewer workers are represented by the United Auto Workers. And
that doesn’t cause Republicans like [Alabama Republican Senator] Sen. Jeff
Sessions, R-Ala.[ Republican-Alabama], any regret." ... "One advantage
the [Japanese and South Korean auto manufacturers] Honda and Hyundai plants
in Alabama have over the General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford plants in Michigan
is lower labor costs. That's because, in part, auto workers in Michigan
are represented by the UAW and workers in Alabama aren’t." ... "But what
if the UAW [United Auto Workers] could more easily organize workers at
Honda and Hyundai? UAW-represented workers at Honda and Hyundai could then
bargain for higher wages." ... "The Employee Free Choice Act, passed by
the House of Representatives last year, but stymied in the Senate, aims
to make unionization easier by allowing workers to join a union by signing
a card rather than by going through a secret-ballot election. The bill
is called “card check” for short." ... "A UAW ally, [Ohio Democratic Representative]
Rep. Tim Ryan, D[Democratic]- Ohio, said enactment of the Employee Free
Choice Act “would level the playing field. Each facility would be competing
on the same playing field.”" ... "In the vote next year, Republicans up
for re-election in 2010, such as [Ohio Republican Senator] Sen. George
Voinovich of Ohio will be under pressure to vote for it." (1, 2)
-By Tom Curry -MSNBC
20081119
Economics
- History
-Politics
"Amity
Shlaes strikes again." ... "When you hear claims
that the New Deal made the depression worse, they often come directly or
indirectly from the work of Amity Shlaes, whose misleading statistics have
been widely disseminated on the right." ... "Now, Ms. Shlaes has found
a new target: John Maynard Keynes. There’s a lot to critique in this
piece, but this one takes the cake:"
"But
the most telling fact about the new rush to spend is that its advocates
have insisted on invoking the New Deal. They tend to gloss over the period
when the phrase, “We are all Keynesians now,” was actually first uttered:
the mid-1960s. (Uttered by Friedman, in fact, though he meant only that
we all work in the terms of the Keynesian lexicon.)"
"The
Great Society of that period was the ultimate Keynesian experiment, and
it didn’t work very well."
"Grr.
Keynesianism says that deficit spending can help create jobs when the economy
is depressed. The Great Society wasn’t deficit spending, it wasn’t intended
to create jobs, and the economy of the 1960s wasn’t depressed. It was social
engineering; we can talk about how well or badly it worked, but it had
nothing whatsoever to do with Keynesian economics. "
-By
Paul
Krugman/Blog
-NYTimes
Jeff
Sessions - Auto
- Makers
- Workers
- Health
Care - Pension
- Politics
- Federal
- Economy
- 2010
Election - Michigan
- Ohio
- US
- Foreign
- Alabama
- Georgia
- Kentucky
- Japan
- South
Korea
"It's
North vs. South in Big Three bailout fight." ...
"Should taxpayers in Alabama be required to bail out [American] automakers
whose plants are concentrated in Northern states like Michigan and Ohio?"
... "Alabama is home to three Honda [Japan automaker] and Hyundai [South
Korea automaker] plants. And just across the state line in Georgia, a new
Kia [Hyundai] plant is set to open and will likely employ many Alabamans."
... "[Alabama Republican Senator] Sen. Jeff Sessions, R- Ala. [Republican-Alabama],
told reporters Wednesday, “I can not imagine a real justification for a
worker in Alabama who does not have any health insurance at his company
to be taxed to maintain a Cadillac health care plan for somebody in Detroit
[Michigan].”" ... "The struggle over whether Congress should make the loan
is a classic regional battle: North vs. South, unionized states like Michigan
vs. mostly non-union ones like Alabama." ... "“There are some states that
might think there’s a competitive advantage for them if the Big Three don’t
make it,” [Michigan Democratic Senator] Sen. Carl Levin, D- Mich. [Democratic-Michigan],
a Big Three ally, told reporters Tuesday." ... "[Kentucky Republican Senator]
Sen. Jim Bunning, R- Ky. [Republican-Kentucky], who is up for re-election
in 2010, said Wednesday, “It’s not a balancing act. It’s whether the federal
government should intervene in the private-sector economy. And I believe
it should not. I am very concerned that people as hard-headed as the three
people who spoke to us yesterday would not have a plan in place and not
have any concession to make, but they would just want the money so they
can burn through it. That’s unacceptable.”" ... "And if Chrysler and General
Motors go into bankruptcy or liquidation?" ... "“I think that’s probably
the best thing that can happen,” [Kentucky Republican Senator] Bunning
replied. “Then there will be a reorganization and they’ll be able to jettison
things they couldn’t ordinarily jettison, like health care benefits, like
pension benefits and there will be someone to pick those up like the Pension
Benefit Guaranty Corp. And then they will be able to restructure their
salaries to get more in line with foreign producers and they may come out
of bankruptcy a heck of a lot better off than they go into it.”" (1, 2)
-By Tom Curry -MSNBC
Georgia
- Nevada
- 2008
Election - Politics
"RNC
gives NRSC $2 million for GA runoff." ... "[Nevada
Republican Senator] Sen. John Ensign said Wednesday that the Republican
National Committee (RNC) has transferred $2 million earmarked for the Senate
runoff in Georgia to the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC),
which was $4 million in debt after [2008] Election Day." ... "The committee
has already launched a $700,000 ad buy in the Georgia race, which pits
[Georgia Republican Senator] Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga. [Republican-Georgia])
against former state [Georgia State Democratic Representative] Rep. Jim
Martin (D [Democratic])." -By Aaron Blake
-TheHill.com
John
McCain - Barack
Obama - 2008
Election - 
Missouri
- Arizona
- Politics
"McCain
wins Missouri; State's streak over!" ... "Fifteen
days after [2008] Election Day, Republican [Arizona Senator] Sen. John
McCain has narrowly edged out [Democratic] President-elect Barack Obama
in the state, according to CNN's review of the latest unofficial vote totals
from the Missouri Secretary of State. This resolves the final outstanding
contest of the 2008 presidential race." ... "With Missouri's 11 electoral
votes in Senator McCain's column, the final count is 365 for Obama and
173 for McCain." ... "McCain's edging out of Obama in Missouri breaks the
state's bellwether streak in which Missourians correctly picked the presidential
candiate in every election dating back to the 1960 contest. Missouri got
it wrong in 1956, voting for the Democratic challenger Adlai Stevenson,
who lost the election to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Before that election,
Missouri correctly picked the winner in every race for the White House
dating back to 1904." -By Paul Steinhauser with contributions
by Robert Yoon -CNN
Lawmakers
- Politics
- Auto
- Makers
- Industry
- Union
"Union
busting is the real motivation." ... "The same lawmakers
who were okay with handing over tens of billions of dollars to white collar
execs at AIG and in the mortgage industry are now balking at saving hundreds
of thousands of American blue collar jobs via a similar handout to the
auto industry. Instead, the chorus is growing - particularly among conservatives
- calling for automakers to declare bankruptcy and throw themselves on
the mercy of the court." ... "This possibility has anti-labor activists
and pundits practically beside themselves with glee, as they see forced
bankruptcy as a backdoor route to union busting. That's because in a bankruptcy
filing, all union contracts could be terminated at the discretion of the
trustee overseeing the proceeding." ... "Of course, unions have already
made significant concessions in recent years, in an attempt to
save members' jobs and America's legacy industry. And the same people who
want to see a union autoworker earning 50K a year make less in salary,
and pay more for his health insurance don't seem that concerned about the
fact that the
white-collar management at these companies continues to earn obscene salaries,
even as the companies they lead are dying. (When management earns ever-increasing
salaries even as the performance of their companies tanks, that's not capitalism,
and it's got nothing to do with unions.)" ... "Bailout may not be the right
answer for our auto industry. But fair discussion of the issue is impossible
when the real motivation for some legislators is not what's best for the
American economy, but their not-so-secret desire to kill off the American
labor movement." -By Katie
Allison Granju -KnoxNews.com
20081118
Ted
Stevens - Criminal
- Oil
- Money
- Federal
- Law
- Alaska
- History
- 2008
Election
"Alaska
Sen. Ted Stevens loses re-election bid." ... "[Alaska
Republican Senator] Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican in
Senate history, narrowly lost his [2008 Election] re-election bid Tuesday,
marking the downfall of a Washington political power and Alaska icon who
couldn't survive a conviction on federal corruption charges. His defeat
by Anchorage [Alaska] Mayor Mark Begich moves Senate Democrats within two
seats of a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority." ... "Stevens' ouster on
his 85th birthday marks an abrupt realignment in Alaska politics and will
alter the power structure in the Senate, where he has served since the
days of the [Democratic President] Johnson administration while holding
seats on some of the most influential committees in Congress." ... "Last
month just days before the election, Stevens was convicted by a federal
jury in Washington of lying on Senate disclosure forms to conceal more
than $250,000 in gifts and home renovations from an oil field services
company. -By Michael R. Blood with contributions by
Jesse J. Holland, Andrew Taylor and Rachel D'Oro
-AP via -Yahoo
20081117
Children
- Food
- Poverty
- Health
- Safety
- Government
- Language
- Politics
- Economics
- Accounting
"50
percent more US children went hungry in 2007." ...
"Some 691,000 children went hungry in America sometime in 2007, while close
to one in eight Americans struggled to feed themselves adequately even
before this year's sharp economic downtown, the Agriculture Department
reported Monday." ... "The department's annual report on food security
showed that during 2007 the number of children who suffered a substantial
disruption in the amount of food they typically eat was more than 50 percent
above the 430,000 in 2006 and the largest figure since 716,000 in 1998."
... "Overall, the 36.2 million adults and children who struggled with hunger
during the year was up slightly from 35.5 million in 2006. That was 12.2
percent of Americans who didn't have the money or assistance to get enough
food to maintain active, healthy lives." ... "Almost a third of those,
11.9 million adults and children, went hungry at some point. That figure
has grown by more than 40 percent since 2000. The government says these
people suffered a substantial disruption in their food supply at some point
and classifies them as having "very low food security." Until the government
rewrote its definitions two years ago, this group was described as having
"food insecurity with hunger."" -By Michael J. Sniffen
-AP via -Yahoo
PDF:
USDA.gov Report: "Household Food Security in the United States, 2007."
20081115
Corporate
- Television
- Media
- Politics
"If
it’s Sunday, it’s still conservative." ... "In 2006,
Media Matters conducted a study on Sunday political talk shows, finding
that “Republicans and conservatives
have been offered more opportunities to appear on the Sunday shows
— in some cases, dramatically so.” From 2001 to 2005, conservative guests
outnumbered progressives “by 58 percent to 42 percent.” Atrios notes that
tomorrow’s shows will also be dominated by conservative
guests:"
"7
Appearances by Republican current elected officeholders"
"3
Appearances by Democratic current elected officeholders."
"2
Appearances by Republican former elected officeholders."
"1
Appearance by a [Republican President] Bush Cabinet Secretary."
"T.
Boone Pickens [former Republican swift boat contributor]"
"Ted
Turner. "
"
-ThinkProgress.org
Gay
- Religion
- Politics- People
- San
Francisco - California
- Salt
Lake City - 
Utah
"Mormons
Tipped Scale in Ban on Gay Marriage." ... "Less than
two weeks before [2008] Election Day, [Frank Schubert] the chief strategist
behind a ballot measure outlawing same-sex marriage in California called
an emergency meeting here." ... "The campaign issued an urgent appeal,
and in a matter of days, it raised more than $5 million, including a $1
million donation from Alan C. Ashton, the grandson of a former president
[David McKay] of the Mormon Church." ... "The California measure, Proposition
8, was to many Mormons a kind of firewall to be held at all costs." ...
"First approached by the Roman Catholic archbishop of San Francisco [California]
a few weeks after the California Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage
in May, the Mormons were the last major religious group to join the campaign,
and the final spice in an unusual stew that included Catholics, evangelical
Christians, conservative black and Latino pastors, and myriad smaller ethnic
groups with strong religious ties." ... "Shortly after receiving the invitation
from the San Francisco Archdiocese, the Mormon leadership in Salt Lake
City [Utah's capital] issued a four-paragraph decree to be read to congregations,
saying “the formation of families is central to the Creator’s plan,” and
urging members to become involved with the cause." ... "“And they sure
did,” Mr. Schubert said." ... "Jeff Flint, another strategist with Protect
Marriage, estimated that Mormons made up 80 percent to 90 percent of the
early volunteers who walked door-to-door in election precincts." ... "In
the end, Protect Marriage estimates, as much as half of the nearly $40
million raised on behalf of the measure was contributed by Mormons." (1,
2)
-By Jesse
McKinley and Kirk
Johnson -NYTimes
20081114
Political
- Corporate
- Television
- Media
- Michigan
- Massachusetts
- New
York - Arizona
- Georgia
- Louisiana
-Alabama
"More
Muscle." ... "TPM Reader RS ..."
"Here
is something progressives really need to address. On Sunday morning political
shows, three Democrats are confirmed as guests: [Michigan Democratic Senator]
Carl Levin, [Massachusetts Democratic Representative] Barney Frank, and
[New York Democratic Representative] Charlie Rangel. It's as if Democrats
didn't just win huge electoral advances in the Presidential, House, and
Senate elections. So we get the same thing we've had the past 8 years--republican
hegemony on Sunday. [Arizona Republican Senator Jon] Kyl? Check. [former
Georgia Republican Representative Newt] Gingrich? Check. [Republican Michael]
Steele? Check. [Louisiana Republican Governor Bobby] Jindal and [Alabama
Republican Senator Richard] Shelby? Check and check? Just look at The Page
for the whole list. When is the "liberal media" going to give some of the
oxygen to Democrats?"
"This
is unquestionably true. The bookers and producers of the Sunday shows are
committed to the continuing dominance of conservative/Republican marquee
guests. No question about it. And this is going to be one part of the rewiring
of Washington that will take longer and face more resistance than possibly
any other. The big interests and institutions that go to Washington to
buy influence are quickly reacting to the changing political complexion
of the city. The TV bookers and opinion act like nothing's happened." -By
Josh Marshall .TalkingPointsMemo
Don
E Siegelman - Karl
Rove - Michael
Mukasey - 
Leura
G Canary -
Bob
Riley - Criminal
- US
Attorney - Politics
- Federal
- Law
- Alabama
- Georgia
- Michigan
"More
Allegations of Misconduct in Alabama Governor Case."
... "Next month in Atlanta [Georgia's capital], a federal court will hear
the high-profile appeal of former [Democratic] Alabama governor Don E.
Siegelman, whose conviction on corruption charges in 2006 became one of
the most publicly debated cases to emerge from eight years of controversy
at the [Republican President] Bush Justice Department. Now new documents
highlight alleged misconduct by the Bush-appointed [United States] U.S.
Attorney and other prosecutors in the case, including what appears to be
extensive and unusual contact between the prosecution and the jury." ...
"The documents, obtained by TIME, include internal
prosecution e-mails [PDF] given to the Justice Department and Congress
by a whistle-blower during the past 18 months. [Michigan Democratic Representative]
John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which investigated
the
Siegelman case as part of a broader inquiry into alleged political
interference in the hiring and firing of U.S. Attorneys by the Bush Justice
Department, last week sent an
eight-page letter [PDF] to Attorney General Michael Mukasey citing
the new material." ... "Conyers says the evidence raises "serious questions"
about the U.S. Attorney in the Siegelman case, who, documents show, continued
to involve herself in the politically charged prosecution long after she
had publicly withdrawn to avoid an alleged conflict of interest relating
to her husband, a top GOP operative and close associate of Bush adviser
Karl Rove. Conyers' letter also cites evidence of numerous contacts between
jurors and members of the Siegelman prosecution team that were never disclosed
to the trial judge or defense counsel." ... "Critics, including a bipartisan
group of 52 state attorneys general, have raised numerous questions, including
the allegation that Siegelman was prosecuted at the insistence of Bush-appointed
officials at the Justice Department and Leura G. Canary, a U.S. Attorney
in Montgomery [Alabama] whose husband [William "Bill" Canary] was Alabama's
top Republican operative and who had worked
closely with Rove for years." ... "The documents — whose authenticity
is not in dispute — include e-mails written by Canary, long after her recusal,
offering legal advice to subordinates handling the case. At the time Canary
wrote the e-mails, her husband — Alabama GOP [GOP=Grand Old Party=Republican
operative William J. Canary — was a vocal booster of the state's Republican
governor, Bob Riley, who had defeated Siegelman for the office and against
whom Siegelman was preparing to run again. Canary also received tens of
thousands of dollars in fees from other political opponents of Siegelman."
... "A key prosecution e-mail describes how jurors repeatedly contacted
the government's legal team during the trial to express, among other things,
one juror's romantic interest in a member of the prosecution team." ...
"What's more, when prosecutors conducted their own investigation of suspected
improper conduct by jurors after the trial, two of them were interviewed,
despite instructions from the judge that no contact with jurors should
occur without his permission. Those interviews were not publicly disclosed
until nearly two years later, when the head of the [Department Of Justice]
DOJ's criminal division belatedly wrote all parties, including the appeals
court in Atlanta, to inform them." ... "Further undisclosed evidence of
prosecution team members speaking with jurors following the verdict emerges
in [Justice Department staffer Tamarah] Grimes' written statement to the
DOJ." -By Adam Zagorin
-TIME.com
Auto
- Makers
- Federal
- Politics
- Unemployment- Michigan
- Ohio
- Indiana
"GM
Collapse at $200 Billion May Exceed Bailout Plan (Update1)."
... "General
Motors Corp., seeking a federal bailout as its cash dwindles, would
cost the government as much as $200 billion should the biggest U.S. [United
States] automaker be forced to liquidate, a forecasting firm estimated."
... "A GM [General Motors] collapse would mean ``more aid to specific states
like Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana, and more money into unemployment and
extended benefits,'' Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight
Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts, said today in an interview. He prepared
the estimate for Bloomberg News." ... "The projected expense of $100 billion
to $200 billion covers funds for existing programs, such as unemployment
insurance, and new measures that would be needed to revive economic growth
after millions of auto-related job losses." ... "Such a sum would be an
eightfold increase over the $25 billion bailout package that will be debated
in Congress next week to help prop up Detroit-based GM, Ford
Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC amid the industry's worst sales year
since 1991." ... "A GM shutdown would cost jobs among suppliers as well
as at the automaker itself, pushing the U.S. unemployment rate next year
to 9.5 percent, compared with current projections of as high as 8.5 percent
due to the weakened economy, Behravesh said." -By
Alex Ortolani and Mike Ramsey -Bloomberg
AIG- Workers
- Federal
- Politics
"AIG
to Pay Millions To Top Workers: Move Comes on Heels
Of Revised Bailout." ... "American International Group plans to pay out
$503 million in deferred compensation to some of its top employees, saying
it must tap the funds to keep valuable workers from exiting the troubled
insurance giant." ... "News of the payments to top AIG [American International
Group] talent comes as the federal government has just put more money into
saving the company from bankruptcy, beefing up the total public commitment
to $152 billion. Meanwhile, members of Congress are questioning the company's
expenditures -- including lavish business trips to resorts -- during a
time when taxpayers are on the hook for the bailout." ... "AIG's troubles
stem from bad bets it made guaranteeing and buying risky mortgage investments.
On Monday, the U.S. [United States] government announced that it would
have to expand its rescue of the company to nearly double the $85 billion
loan it first provided in September when AIG was unable to pay billions
of dollars in claims." ... "The company reported losses this week that
brought total losses to $37.63 billion for the first nine months of the
year." -By Carol D. Leonnig
-WashingtonPost
20081112
Henry
Paulson
- Government
- Emergency
- Politics
- AIG
"Washington's
$5 Trillion Tab: Fighting the financial crisis has
put the U.S. on the hook for some $5 trillion a report says. So far." ...
"For all the fury over [Republican President Bush's] Treasury Secretary
Henry Paulson's $700 billion emergency economic relief fund, it seems downright
puny when compared to the running total of the government's response to
the credit crisis." ... "According to CreditSights, a research firm in
New York and London, the U.S. government has put itself on the hook for
some $5 trillion, so far, in an attempt to arrest a collapse of
the financial system." ... "The Fed has taken on much of that total, including
lending a cumulative $1 trillion in overnight or short-term loans since
March to primary dealers through its emergency discount window and making
a cumulative $1.8 trillion available through its term auction facility,
a series of short-term transactions it began making available twice a month
in January. It should be noted that a portion of the funds lent in these
programs has been repaid and that the totals represent what has been made
available." ... "The Fed also took on tens of billions in debt, including
$29 billion in debt of Bear Stearns, and made $60 billion of credit available
to American International Group (nyse: AIG
- news
- people
). It is committing $22.5 billion to set up a special purpose vehicle to
manage some of AIG's residential mortgage-backed securities, and it is
financing $30 billion of a second fund to hold $70 billion of multi-sector
collaterized debt obligations on which AIG wrote credit default swaps."
... "The Treasury, in addition to the $700 billion raised in the Emergency
Economic Stabilization Act, agreed to guarantee money market funds against
losses up to $50 billion, will inject $40 billion of capital into AIG and
is backing the conservatorship of Fannie Mae (nyse: FNM
- news
- people ) and
Freddie
Mac (nyse: FRE
- news
- people ), to
the tune of $200 billion." ... "The FDIC [Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation],
meanwhile, is guaranteeing $1.5 trillion of senior unsecured bank debt."
... "Not included in the total are the Fed's long-existing discount window
lending to commercial banks, the mortgage modification plan announced by
regulators on Tuesday, support for the Federal Home Loan Banks and a myriad
of other programs." -By Elizabeth Moyer
-Forbes
Auto
- Makers
- Jobs
- Government
-History
-Military
- Politics
- Ohio
"Failure
of auto industry could set off catastrophe." ...
"Advocates for the nation's automakers are warning that the collapse of
the Big Three -- or even just General Motors -- could set off a catastrophic
chain reaction in the economy, eliminating up to 3 million jobs and depriving
governments of more than $150 billion in tax revenue." ... ""We've got
to do this because the cost of inaction is so high to communities, to workers,
to companies," said [Ohio Democratic Senator] Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat
from Ohio. He was among many lawmakers worried that an industry collapse
would be devastating for everything from school districts to small businesses."
... "Even if just GM [General Motors] collapsed, the failure could bring
down the other two companies -- and even the U.S. [United States] operations
of foreign automakers -- as parts suppliers run out of money and shut down."
... "Concern about the automakers hit new heights Friday when GM and Ford
reported they spent a combined $14.6 billion more than they took in last
quarter. GM said it could run out of money by the end of the year." ...
"Ford said it could last through 2009, but only because it arranged a hefty
credit line last year." ... "All this comes after tight credit and economic
uncertainty in October reduced U.S. auto sales to their lowest level in
25 years -- with no rebound in sight." ... "The Big Three have cut their
combined U.S. hourly work force more than 40 percent since 2005, from 244,000
to about 139,000." ... "Brown, the Ohio senator, said letting the industry
collapse would also be a national security risk, eliminating companies
that were essential in two world wars." -By Tom Krisher
and Ken Thomas -AP
via -Yahoo
Sarah
Palin - John
McCain - 2008
Election - Politics
- Alaska
- Arizona
"What
Just Happened." ... "Despite all the grief she's
gotten, I continue to think that the selection of [2008 Election Republican
Vice Presidential Candidate and Alaska Governor] Sarah Palin as [2008 Election
Republican Presidential Candidate and Arizona Senator] John McCain's running
mate represents the breaking of a consensual cultural barrier far more
fundamental than most people realize. It's not just that she was inexperienced
(Spiro Agnew and John Edwards weren't much more experienced than Palin
when they ran for VP) but that she was — obviously, transparently, completely
— uninterested in and uninformed about national policy at nearly every
level. We've simply never seen someone so completely unmoored from
the normal requirements of national office before. She was chosen purely
at the level of celebrity, and an awful lot of people seemed to be just
fine with that." ... "Via email, here's an excerpt from Wolf Blitzer's
interview today with Palin:"
"BLITZER:
Another question. What are your new ideas on how to take the Republican
Party out of this rut that it’s in right now? Give me one or two new ideas
that you’re going to propose to these governors who have gathered here
in this hotel."
"PALIN:
Well, a lot of Republican governors have really good ideas for our nation
because we’re the ones there on the front lines being held accountable
every single day in service to the people whom have hired us in our own
states and the planks in our platform are strong and they are good for
America. It’s all about free enterprise and respecting the ..."
"BLITZER:
Does that mean you want to come up with a new Sarah Palin initiative that
you want to release right now."
"PALIN:
Gah! Nothing specific right now. Sitting here in these chairs that I’m
going to be proposing but in working with these governors who again on
the front lines are forced to and it’s our privileged obligation to find
solutions to the challenges facing our own states every day being held
accountable, not being just one of many just casting votes or voting present
every once in a while, we don’t get away with that. We have to balance
budgets and we’re dealing with multibillion dollar budgets and tens of
thousands of employees in our organizations."
"Should
I laugh or should I cry?" -By Kevin
Drum -MotherJones.com
Sarah
Palin - John
McCain - 2008
Election - Media
- Politics
- Alaska
- Arizona
"Why
Palin Still Matters." ... "Let's be real in a way
the national media seems incapable of: this person [2008 Election Republican
Vice Presidential Candidate and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin] should never
have been placed on a national ticket in a mature democracy. She was incapable
of running a town in Alaska competently. The impulsive, unvetted selection
of a total unknown, with no knowledge of or interest in the wider world,
as a replacement president remains one of the most disturbing events in
modern American history. That the press felt required to maintain a facade
of normalcy for two months - and not to declare the whole thing a farce
from start to finish - is a sign of their total loss of nerve. That the
Palin absurdity should follow the two-term presidency of another individual
utterly out of his depth in national government is particularly troubling.
46 percent of Americans voted for the possibility of this blank slate as
president because she somehow echoed their own sense of religious or cultural
"identity". Until we figure out how this happened, we will not be able
to prevent it from happening again. And we have to find a way to prevent
this from recurring." ... "It happened because [2008 Election Republican
Presidential Candidate and Arizona Senator] John McCain is an incompetent
and a cynic and reckless beyond measure. To have picked someone he'd only
met once before, without any serious vetting procedure, revealed McCain
as an utterly unserious character, a man whose devotion to the shallowest
form of political gamesmanship trumped concern for his country's or his
party's interest." ... "It was a final product of the now-exhausted strategy
of fomenting fundamentalist resentment to elect politicians dedicated to
the defense of Israel and the extension of American military hegemony in
every corner of the globe. Palin was the reductio ad absurdum of this mindset:
a mannequin candidate, easily controlled ideologically, deployed to fool
and corral the resentful and the frightened, removed from serious scrutiny
and sold on propaganda networks like a food product." ... "This deluded
and delusional woman still doesn't understand what happened to her; still
has no
self-awareness; and has never been forced to accept her obvious limitations.
She cannot keep even the most trivial story straight; she repeats untruths
with a ferocity and calm that is reserved only to the clinically unhinged;
she has the educational level of a high school drop-out; and regards ignorance
as some kind of achievement. It is excruciating to watch her - but more
excruciating to watch those who feel obliged to defend her." ... "Her candidacy,
in short, was indefensible. It remains indefensible."
-By Andrew Sullivan
-TheAtlantic.com
Barack
Obama - 2008
Election - Race
- Terrorism
- Politics
- 
New
Jersey - New
York - Michigan
- Pennsylvania
- Calif
-North
Carolina - 
Maine
"Local
Newspapers Cover Rising Number of Racist Anti-Obama Actions in Small Towns."
... "Away from the spotlight, many local newspapers around the country
have covered recent incidents of racially-motivated reactions to last week’s
[2008] election, from flags hung upside down to the dangling of nooses
and cross-burnings. As we noted last week, a couple in northern New Jersey
who had an [Democratic President-Elect Barack] Obama sign on their front
lawn woke up to find the charred remains of a cross out there. Local residents
today announced a "unity march" to protest the still-unsolved incident."
... "Now come these fresh reports." ... "The Associated Press revealed
today, "Police on eastern Long Island [New York region] are investigating
reports that more than a dozen cars were spray painted with racist graffiti,
reportedly including a message targeting President-elect Barack Obama.
The graffiti included racist slurs and sexually graphic references. At
least one resident in the quiet Mastic [New York] neighborhood told Newsday
her son's car was scribbled with a message threatening to kill Obama.""
... "Employees at Hampel's Key and Lockshop in Traverse City, Michigan,
flew an American flag upside down last Wednesday protesting of the new
president-elect, the Traverse City Record-Eagle reported." ... "Also in
Michigan, in Midland, a man dressed in full Ku Klux Klan regalia walked
around toting a handgun and waving an American flag. Initially denying
it, the man eventually admitted to police that the display was a reaction
to the Obama victory." ... "In Pennsylvania, an interracial couple in Apolacon
Township discovered the remains of a burned cross in their front yard."
... "Authorities in Temecula, Calif. [California], found spray-painted
graffiti on a city sidewalk containing a swastika and anti-Obama slogan."
... "Today, the NAACP called on North Carolina State University to expel
four students who spray painted racist messages about Obama." ... "Another
post-election noose incident happened in Maine. “More than 75 people rallied
Sunday against an incident last week in which black figures were hanged
by nooses from trees on Mount Desert Island the day after Barack Obama
won the presidential election,” according to the Bangor Daily News." -By
Dexter Hill -EditorAndPublisher.com
Barack
Obama - Race
- Terrorism
- Religion
- Politics
-Idaho
"Idaho
students chant 'assassinate Obama' on school bus: Report."
... "Madison County, Idaho was once dubbed "the reddest place in America"
by Salon, but that didn't make it any less shocking when elementary school
children allegedly started chanting "assassinate Obama" on the school bus."
... "According to an article
which appeared in Salon in 2006, "You've heard of Jesusland, but Rexburg,
Idaho, is something more. It's not just a small town in rural Eastern Idaho.
It's a small town in rural Eastern Idaho completely dominated by a fast-growing
Mormon college, Brigham Young University-Idaho."" ... "The full KIDK story
can be read here."
-By David Edwards and Muriel Kane
-RawStory.com
WATCH:
Report by KIDK on Idaho elementary school children allegedly chanting "assassinate
Obama."
Corporate
- Government
- Politics
- Investigations
- Massachusetts
- New
York
"Hard
Times, But Big Wall Street Bonuses." ... "For Wall
Street workers still employed, there could be a hefty bonus in their checks
next month." ... "According to a report from financial news agency Bloomberg,
Goldman Sachs, for example, has set aside $6.8 billion for bonuses, and
Morgan Stanley, $6.4 billion." ... "And the chairman of the House Financial
Services Committee, Massachusetts [Democratic Representative] Democrat
Barney Frank, isn't happy. "These are people who lost enormous amounts
of money," Frank observes. "How do you give a bonus to someone for having
failed so badly as many of these people did?"" ... "What's got many on
Main Street and Capitol Hill angry, [CBSNews correspondent Priya] David
says, is the possibility that some of the $700 billion government bailout
package could go into the pockets of Wall Streeters to pay their bonuses."
... ""All of the money is to go into new loans," Frank points out. "None
of it is to go into compensation of any kind for the employees."" ... "[Democratic]
New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has opened an investigation
into the Wall Street bonuses. He sent a letter to nine financial institutions,
demanding "a detailed accounting regarding your expected payments to top
management in the upcoming bonus season."" ... "Cuomo told CBS News, "These
are tax dollars that are going to these institutions, and I believe the
taxpayers have a right to hold the institutions accountable for what they're
doing with their money."" -CBSNews
20081111
Barack
Obama - People
- Politics
- Illinois
- Hawaii
- US
- 
Indonesia
- 
Kenya
"Obama's
Fascinating Interview with Cathleen Falsani." ...
"The most detailed and fascinating explication of [Democratic President-Elect]
Barack Obama's faith came in a 2004 interview he gave Chicago Sun Times
columnist Cathleen Falsani when he was running for U.S. Senate in Illinois."
... "Because of how controversial that interview became, Falsani has graciously
allowed us [Beliefnet.com] to print the full conversation here." ... "FALSANI:
What
do you believe?" ... "OBAMA: I am a Christian." ... "So, I have
a deep faith. So I draw from the Christian faith." ... "On the other hand,
I was born in Hawaii where obviously there are a lot of Eastern influences."
... "I lived in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, between
the ages of six and 10." ... "My father was from Kenya, and although he
was probably most accurately labeled an agnostic, his father was Muslim."
... "And I'd say, probably, intellectually I've drawn as much from Judaism
as any other faith." ... "So, I'm rooted in the Christian tradition. I
believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief
that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people.
That there are values that transcend race or culture, that move us forward,
and there's an obligation for all of us individually as well as collectively
to take responsibility to make those values lived."
-Beliefnet.com
20081110
Henry
Paulson
- Secret
- Corporate
- Government
- Politics
- Emergency
- Law
"Fed
Defies Transparency Aim in Refusal to Disclose [$2 Trillion in taxpayer
loans to banks] (Update2)." ... "The Federal Reserve
is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency
loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is
accepting as collateral." ... "Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury
Secretary Henry
Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional
demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system.
Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue
programs that didn't require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea
where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in
return." ... "``The collateral is not being adequately disclosed, and that's
a big problem,'' said Dan Fuss, vice chairman of Boston- based Loomis Sayles
& Co., where he co-manages $17 billion in bonds. ``In a liquid market,
this wouldn't matter, but we're not. The market is very nervous and very
thin.''" ... "Bloomberg News has requested details of the Fed lending under
the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and filed a federal lawsuit Nov. 7
seeking to force disclosure." ... "The Fed made the loans under terms of
11 programs, eight of them created in the past 15 months, in the midst
of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression." ... "``It's
your money; it's not the Fed's money,'' said billionaire Ted Forstmann,
senior partner of Forstmann Little & Co. in New York. ``Of course there
should be transparency.''" -By Mark Pittman, Bob Ivry
and Alison Fitzgerald -Bloomberg
Henry
M Paulson Jr
- Illegal
- Corporate
- Government
- Politics
"A
Quiet Windfall For U.S. Banks: With Attention on
Bailout Debate, Treasury Made Change to Tax Policy." ... "The financial
world was fixated on Capitol Hill as Congress battled over the [Republican
President] Bush administration's request for a $700 billion bailout of
the banking industry. In the midst of this late-September drama, the Treasury
Department issued a five-sentence notice that attracted almost no public
attention." ... "But corporate tax lawyers quickly realized the enormous
implications of the document: Administration officials had just given American
banks a windfall of as much as $140 billion." ... "The sweeping change
to two decades of tax policy escaped the notice of lawmakers for several
days, as they remained consumed with the controversial bailout bill. When
they found out, some legislators were furious. Some congressional staff
members have privately concluded that the notice was illegal. But they
have worried that saying so publicly could unravel several recent bank
mergers made possible by the change and send the economy into an even deeper
tailspin." ... ""Did the Treasury Department have the authority to do this?
I think almost every tax expert would agree that the answer is no," said
George K. Yin, the former chief of staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation,
the nonpartisan congressional authority on taxes. "They basically repealed
a 22-year-old law that Congress passed as a backdoor way of providing aid
to banks."" ... "The story of the obscure provision underscores what critics
in Congress, academia and the legal profession warn are the dangers of
the broad authority being exercised by [Republican President Bush's] Treasury
Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. in addressing the financial crisis. Lawmakers
are now looking at whether the new notice was introduced to benefit specific
banks, as well as whether it inappropriately accelerated bank takeovers."
... "The change to Section 382 of the tax code -- a provision that limited
a kind of tax shelter arising in corporate mergers -- came after a two-decade
effort by conservative economists and Republican administration officials
to eliminate or overhaul the law, which is so little-known that even influential
tax experts sometimes draw a blank at its mention. Until the financial
meltdown, its opponents thought it would be nearly impossible to revamp
the section because this would look like a corporate giveaway, according
to lobbyists." ... "More than a dozen tax lawyers interviewed for this
story -- including several representing banks that stand to reap billions
from the change -- said the Treasury had no authority to issue the notice."
... "Section 382 of the tax code was created by Congress in 1986 to end
what it considered an abuse of the tax system: companies sheltering their
profits from taxation by acquiring shell companies whose only real value
was the losses on their books. The firms would then use the acquired company's
losses to offset their gains and avoid paying taxes." ... "Lawmakers decried
the tax shelters as a scam and created a formula to strictly limit the
use of those purchased losses for tax purposes." (1, 2,
3,
4)
-By Amit R. Paley -WashingtonPost
Al
Gore - Barack
Obama - Global
- Climate
- Technology
- Money
-Environmental
- Emissions
- Law
- Politics
- San
Francisco - California
"Gore
urges US to try for 100% renewable energy within a decade."
... "[Democratic President-Elect] Barack Obama should set drastic targets
to force the US [United States] to switch to renewable energy in an effort
to slow down climate change, according to the former [Democratic] vice
president Al Gore. Gore said that one of Obama's first acts as US president
should be to demand a move to 100% renewable energy within 10 years." ...
""We can do that," he said during the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco [California]
last Friday. "The declaration from [Democratic] President [John F] Kennedy
that we would land a man on the moon and bring him back safely was thought
by many to be impossible."" ... "During his presidential campaign, Obama
promised to invest $150bn (£96bn) in renewables over 10 years as
part of the plan to increase US energy security amid fear of oil shortages,
while also cutting carbon emissions. Many hope to see those policies enacted
with a far-reaching climate-change bill that would bring the US back into
the global environment fold." -By Bobbie Johnson
-Guardian.co.uk
Barack
Obama - 
E-Mail
- Database
- 2008
Election - People
- Communications
-Media
- Politics
- GOV
- Legislation
- 2010
Election
"Under
Obama, Web Would Be the Way: Unprecedented Online
Outreach Expected." ... "Armed with millions of e-mail addresses and a
political operation that harnessed the Internet like no campaign before
it, [Democratic President-Elect] Barack Obama will enter the White House
with the opportunity to create the first truly "wired" presidency." ...
"Obama aides and allies are preparing a major expansion of the White House
communications operation, enabling them to reach out directly to the supporters
they have collected over 21 months without having to go through the mainstream
media." ... "The nucleus of that effort is an e-mail database of more than
10 million supporters. The list is considered so valuable that the Obama
camp briefly offered it as collateral during a cash-flow crunch late in
the campaign, though it wound up never needing the loan, senior aides said.
At least 3.1 million people on the list donated money to Obama." ... "Millions
more made up the volunteer corps that organized his enormous rallies, registered
millions of voters and held countless gatherings to plug the senator to
friends and neighbors. On Election Day [2008], they served as the backbone
of Obama's get-out-the-vote operation, reaching voters by phone and at
the front door, serving coffee at polling stations and babysitting so parents
could stand in line at voting precincts." ... "After Obama declared victory,
his campaign sent a text message announcing that his supporters hadn't
heard the last from the president-elect. Obama conveyed a similar message
to his staff in a campaignwide conference call Wednesday, signaling that
his election was the beginning, and not the culmination, of a political
movement." ... "Accordingly, the president-elect's http://www.change.gov
transition Web site features a blog and a suggestion form, signaling the
kinds of direct and instantaneous interaction that the Obama administration
will encourage, perhaps with an eye toward turning its following into the
biggest special-interest group in Washington." ... "Once Obama is sworn
in, those backers may be summoned to push reluctant members of Congress
to support legislation, to offer feedback on initiatives and to enlist
in administration-supported causes in local communities. Obama would also
be positioned to ask his supporters to back his favored candidates with
fundraising and turnout support in the 2010 midterm elections." (1, 2)
-By Shailagh Murray and Matthew Mosk with contributions
by Alec MacGillis -WashingtonPost
Child
- Labor
- Safety
- Enforcement
-Employers
- Politics
- Food
- 
Agriculture
- Plants
- Construction
- People
- Federal
- Immigration
- North
Carolina - South
Carolina - 
Iowa
"Child
labor going largely unchecked." ... "Nery Castañeda
tackled a job that was never intended for kids his age." ... "One afternoon
last fall, the 17-year-old Guatemala native ran a machine to grind damaged
pallets into mulch. When a co-worker at the Greensboro [North Carolina]
plant returned from another task, he didn't see Nery – until he looked
inside the shredder." ... "“A person shouldn't die like this,” said older
brother Luis. “…He came with a dream and found death.”" ... "Decades after
the enactment of regulations designed to prevent such tragedies, thousands
of youths still get hurt on American jobs deemed unsafe for young workers.
On a typical day, more than 400 juvenile workers are injured on the job.
Once every 10 days, on average, a worker under the age of 18 is killed,
federal statistics show." ... "Enforcement has waned, despite new evidence
that many employers are ignoring child labor laws. U.S. [United States]
Department of Labor investigations have dropped by nearly half since fiscal
year 2000." ... "“There are lots of kids being asked to do work that's
been prohibited for them – and it's been prohibited because it's dangerous,”
said Carol Runyan, who heads UNC's Injury Prevention Research Center. “…Our
system is failing them.”" ... "More than 3 million youths under age 18
have jobs. Regulations prohibit them from doing a variety of hazardous
jobs, including most meat-processing work." ... "But last month, at an
immigration raid at a House of Raeford Farms poultry plant in Greenville,
S.C. [South Carolina], six juveniles were among the workers detained. Three
young workers told the Observer they were under 18 when they held jobs
at House of Raeford plants requiring them to make thousands of cuts a day
with sharp knives. The company says it requires job applicants to present
identification showing their age, but not all the documentation is accurate."
... "At Agriprocessors, a large meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, authorities
recently charged owners with thousands of child-labor violations after
finding that teenage employees were asked to use circular saws, clean floors
with powerful chemicals and perform other dangerous tasks." ... "“The raids
in Postville and Greenville show that 15- and 16-year-old kids are doing
some of the most dangerous jobs in America,” says Reid Maki of the National
Consumers League. “ … It's time for the U.S. Department of Labor to investigate
slaughterhouses and poultry plants.”" ... "A study of 16- and 17-year-old
construction workers in North Carolina, published in 2006, found that more
than 80 percent did tasks that were clearly prohibited. A national survey
of young retail and service workers, published in 2007, found that more
than half of males and more than 40 percent of females performed prohibited
tasks." ... "Runyan, who co-authored both studies, says much of the blame
lies with employers." ... "“I suspect there are employers who flagrantly
disregard the law,” she said. “And I suspect there are others who are clueless.”"
... "Total federal penalties for child labor violations dropped 29 percent
from 2000 to 2007." -By Ames Alexander and Franco
Ordonez -Observer
Barack
Obama -Economics
- History
- Federal
- Politics
-Social
Security -Health
Care
"Franklin
Delano Obama?" ... "Suddenly, everything old is New
Deal again. [Republican President] Reagan is out; F.D.R. [Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, Democratic President] is in. Still, how much guidance does the
Roosevelt era really offer for today’s world?" ... "The answer is, a lot.
But [Democratic President-Elec] Barack Obama should learn from F.D.R.’s
failures as well as from his achievements: the truth is that the New Deal
wasn’t as successful in the short run as it was in the long run. And the
reason for F.D.R.’s limited short-run success, which almost undid his whole
program, was the fact that his economic policies were too cautious." ...
"About the New Deal’s long-run achievements: the institutions F.D.R. built
have proved both durable and essential. Indeed, those institutions remain
the bedrock of our nation’s economic stability. Imagine how much worse
the financial crisis would be if the New Deal hadn’t insured most bank
deposits. Imagine how insecure older Americans would feel right now if
Republicans had managed to dismantle Social Security." ... "Can Mr. Obama
achieve something comparable? Rahm Emanuel, Mr. Obama’s new chief of staff,
has declared that “you don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste.” Progressives
hope that the Obama administration, like the New Deal, will respond to
the current economic and financial crisis by creating institutions, especially
a universal health care system, that will change the shape of American
society for generations to come." ... "But the new administration should
try not to emulate a less successful aspect of the New Deal: its inadequate
response to the Great Depression itself." ... "Now, there’s a whole intellectual
industry, mainly operating out of right-wing think tanks, devoted to propagating
the idea that F.D.R. actually made the Depression worse. So it’s important
to know that most of what you hear along those lines is based on deliberate
misrepresentation of the facts. The New Deal brought real relief to most
Americans." -By
/