Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Losing Afghanistan & The War On Terror & The US Supplies Terrorists with Weapons

Let's begin with the Presidential Candidates debate. Obama did well McCain not so much. McCain seemed wooden most of the time and refused to look at Obama. Why was that. Contempt or fear ? Afraid that Obama knows what he's talking about while McCain has flip-flopped so much he's not sure of anything. Ah well Saint Palin he hopes might just save him.

By the way what does McCain mean by Country First what his country club or his houses in the country. He's not in favor of a decent Healthcare plan for all Americans. He doesn't like to spend money even on healthcare for Iraq War Veterans.
For a veteran he doesn't seem to grasp how poor healthcare is for veterans. Does he care about those tens of thousands of homeless vets that are living under bridges. No he just goes on & on about his war record and that he was a POW and becuse he was tortured he now wants to torture Detainees though he like Bush & Cheney & Rice think its not really torture . When Americans hang a detainee from the ceiling or stack up their naked bodies its just a prank a bit of high spirits Cheney & Rice say . Yes America Your officials Your troops & CIA etc. are still torturing people . Maybe its because those detainees are what Palin would call WITCHES.

And some how McCain supporters claim that because McCain was a POW we are not permitted to criticize his views and policies or question his integrity when he flip-flops. He hated the Religious Right but now that he needs them he loves the Religious Right.

John McCain's Lack of Eye Contact: A Sign of Contempt
tpmtv
Added: September 26, 2008
MSNBC's Chris Matthews and Washington Post's Eugene Robinson discuss why McCain never looked at Obama during the debate.



Veterans Grade Debate - McCain D, Obama B
With such different opinions on the Iraq war, one candidate did not receive a good grade from veterans -- and the answer might surprise. Rachel Maddow is joined by Iraq war vet John Soltz.




TYT
TheYoungTurks
Added: September 23, 2008
Why Is There Always Money For Wall Street And War And Not For Healthcare?




Anyway while all eyes were on Sarah Palin and the Wall Street Bail-out Joshua Holland writes that the Pentagon and the US War Machine demands feeding & gets whatever it wants & the economic crisis be damned. But what's another trillion dollars . So some corporations are still going to continue to make out like bandits. But that's the American way.

With All Eyes on the Bailout, House Passes Trillion-Dollar Defense Bill By Joshua Holland at AlterNet Sept. 26, 2008

It's 'empire spending,' not 'defense spending.'

and as for the WAR ON TERROR:

Seven Years After the Start of the So-Called "War on Terror," Terror Attacks Are Up By M.A. Muqtedar Khan/Sept. 26,2008 at AlterNet.org

It is seven years since that terrible day of September 11, 2001 when terrorists killed 3,000 Americans, triggering a massive global response by the United States. As President Bush's term comes to an end, it is time to assess the prudence of his policies.
According to the State Department and the National Counterterrorism Center, in 2001 there were 531 total terrorist attacks resulting in 3,295 deaths. Three years later in 2004, the number jumped 651 incidents or terrorism, killing 1,907 people. Last year, in 2007, the number of terrorist attacks more than doubled to 14,499 incidents and 22,666 deaths.
President Bush's "Global War on Terrorism" neither eliminated nor reduced global terrorism. Instead it caused an exponential rise in the number of incidences and number of victims. This surge in terrorism is a direct response to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
The two strategies of the Bush administration -- pre-emptive warfare and the treatment of terrorism as an act of war rather than as a crime -- have both been discredited. A survey of a bipartisan panel of terrorism experts conducted by Foreign Policy magazine found that 70 percent believed the United States was losing the so-called "War on Terror".
and further:
...A recent Rand Corporation study of 648 former terrorist groups has concluded that over 43 percent ended any terrorist activity after they were included in the political process, only 7 percent were destroyed by use of military force and 40 percent were eliminated through policing and criminal prosecution. This report shows how the very idea of "war" in the "war on terror" is fundamentally wrong.
The dominant discourse on terrorism has sought to blame terrorism, especially suicide bombings, on Islam to detract from scrutiny of political realities. University of Chicago Professor Robert Pape, the author of Dying to Kill: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, studied over 462 cases of suicide terrorism between 1980 and 2003 and concluded that there was no connection between Islam and suicide terrorism. The overwhelming cause, he found, was occupation by foreign military forces: another fundamental fact that the Bush strategy has systematically ignored.
Take Iraq, for example. Islam has existed there for 1,400 years and in spite of Saddam Hussein's oppressive regime it spawned no suicide terrorism. It started only after U.S. occupation and the attacks are receding now as occupation is replaced by self-governance.
A majority of victims of terrorism according to the National Counterterrorism Center are Muslims (50-70 percent). This fact alone undermines a fundamental assumption of the "War on Terror," that the current crisis is a clash of civilizations between Islam and the West.


also see on Iraq:
Americans Think Iraq Is 'Improving' But in Its Best Hospitals, Not Even the Elevators Work By Arkind Hamed and Dahr Jamail, IPS News/ Sept.26/2008
What Makes Obama and McCain Think They Can "Win" Afghanistan?
By Robert Fisk, Independent UK Sept. 22/2008

To claim the U.S. can achieve now what the British couldn't in the 19th century and the Russians couldn't at the end of the 20th is pure fantasy.
...We, of course, have been peddling this crackpot nonsense for years in southwest Asia. First of all, back in 2001, we won the war in Afghanistan by overthrowing the Taliban. Then we marched off to win the war in Iraq. Now -- with at least one suicide bombing a day and the nation carved up into mutually antagonistic sectarian enclaves -- we have won the war in Iraq and are heading back to re-win the war in Afghanistan where the Taliban, so thoroughly trounced by our chaps seven years ago, have proved their moral and political bankruptcy by recapturing half the country.
It seems an age since Donald "Stuff Happens" Rumsfeld declared, "A government has been put in place (in Afghanistan), and the Islamists are no more the law in Kabul. Of course, from time to time a hand grenade, a mortar explodes -- but in New York and in San Francisco, victims also fall. As for me, I'm full of hope." Oddly, back in the Eighties, I heard exactly the same from a Soviet general at the Bagram airbase in Afghanistan -- yes, the very same Bagram airbase where the CIA lads tortured to death a few of the Afghans who escaped the earlier Russian massacres. Only "terrorist remnants" remained in the Afghan mountains, the jolly Russian general assured us. Afghan troops, along with the limited Soviet "intervention" forces, were restoring peace to democratic Afghanistan.
And now? After the "unimaginable" progress in Iraq -- I am quoting the fantasist who still occupies the White House -- the Americans are going to hip-hop 8,000 soldiers out of Mesopotamia and dump another 4,700 into the hellfire of Afghanistan. Too few, too late, too slow, as one of my French colleagues commented acidly. It would need at least another 10,000 troops to hope to put an end to these Taliban devils who are now equipped with more sophisticated weapons, better trained and increasingly -- sad to say -- tolerated by the local civilian population. For Afghanistan, read Irakistan.
9and things just get worse in Afghanistan as the West deludes itself believing it can murder with impunity and thereby win " the hearts and minds " of the Afghan people:)
...Back in the late 19th century, the Taliban -- yes, the British actually called their black-turbaned enemies "Talibs" -- would cut the throats of captured British soldiers. Now this unhappy tradition is repeated -- and we are surprised! Two of the American soldiers seized when the Taliban stormed into their mountain base on 13 July this year were executed by their captors.
And now it turns out that four of the 10 French troops killed in Afghanistan on August 18th surrendered to the Taliban, and were almost immediately executed. Their interpreter had apparently disappeared shortly before their mission began -- no prizes for what this might mean -- and the two French helicopters which might have helped to save the day were too busy guarding the hopeless and impotent Afghan President Hamid Karzai to intervene on behalf of their own troops. A French soldier described the Taliban with brutal frankness. "They are good soldiers but pitiless enemies."
and:
U.S.-Funded Gun Suppliers Have Created a "Missing" Weapons Disaster By Pratap Chatterjee, IPS News/ Sept. 23, 2008

A million illicit weapons have entered Iraq in the past five years. Now, "missing" guns are fueling conflicts in Iraq and elsewhere.
SAN FRANCISCO, Sep 22 (IPS) -- Clandestine gun suppliers, funded by the U.S. and Iraqi governments, have flooded Iraq with a million weapons since 2003, charges a new Amnesty International investigation.
Because of faulty or non-existent government tracking systems, many of those guns have gone missing, and some have turned up in the hands of insurgents.
Contracts with one of these companies, Taos Industries, account for almost half of the $217 million Baghdad and Washington have officially spent to arm the Iraqi army, police and security forces employed by various Iraqi ministries.
Amnesty's new report, "Blood at the Crossroads: Making the Case for a Global Arms Trade Treaty," shines a light on the catastrophic human rights consequences of the kind of unrestrained arms trading that forms much of Taos's business. The report draws lessons from countries to make recommendations on how to prevent human rights abuses when governments sell or transfer conventional arms to other countries. Research for the report was conducted by TransArms, a U.S.-based nonprofit that tracks global arms transfers.
...Over the last five years since the invasion of Iraq, Taos has received seven of the 47 weapons supply contracts listed by Amnesty, worth $95.1 million out of the $217 million total.
The majority of sales were for Soviet-type infantry weapons. Among the weapons listed in some 35 contract documents reviewed by CorpWatch were requests for assault rifles (AK-47s), M4 Benelli shotguns, portable machine guns (RPK, PKM), sniper rifles, shoulder-fired rocket propelled grenades (RPG-7), UBGL M1 grenade launcher and 9mm pistols (mostly Glocks), and ammunition.
Amnesty investigators have also uncovered documents that suggest that several of Taos's subcontractors were either operating illegally or had been listed by the United Nations for smuggling weapons.
...In May 2005 the Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera, revealed that Taos had supplied thousands of Italian-made Beretta 92S pistols that were among the weapons seized in Iraq from al Qaeda operatives responsible for killing civilians. The Beretta pistols had been dispatched in July 2004 from Britain to the U.S. military base in Baghdad. An Italian court investigation the next year questioned the shadowy methods used in shipping the guns from Italy to Britain.
Despite the Italian reporting and the publication of the Aerocom contracts in a 2006 Amnesty report ("Dead on Time"), the U.S. government continued to award contracts to Taos as recently as October 2007.

...An October 2006 report by the U.S. Special Inspector General to Iraq calculates that serial numbers were logged for only 2.7 percent of the 370,000 infantry weapons supplied to the Iraqi security forces under U.S. government contracts. In many cases, contractors delivering arms imports did not turn in the obligatory official inspection reports, known as DD-250s, substituting instead "Adequate for Payment" paperwork.
A July 2007 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office revealed that at least 190,000 weapons were "unaccounted for" in Iraq because of discrepancies between what was authorized for export and what the Multinational Security Transition Command-Iraq (MNSTC-I) recorded for the period between June 2004 and July 2007.
Arms experts say that this was a serious mistake. "It is likely that a large proportion of the hundreds of thousands of small arms and light weapons that have 'gone missing' in Iraq are either in the hands of anti-U.S. insurgents or in other countries, fueling conflicts there," says William Hartung, the director of the Arms and Security Initiative of the New America Foundation


and so it goes,
GORD.

Monday, September 29, 2008

McCain & the Religious Right & Palin's Record Exposed on DailySource.org

First a bit from John McCain

How close are his policies to that of the Religious Right?

John McCain wants to teach Intelligent Design in schools. Believes America is uniquely positioned as a Christian Nation founded upon the teachings of Jesus.





GOP Pastors Preach Politics in Violation of Federal Law CNN Sept. 28




Anyway here's funny bit from Jack Cafferty on Sarah Palin:

Jack Cafferty of CNN Tells How He Feels about Sarah Palin
tpmtv

Jack Cafferty on CNN, September 26, 2008



and here's an article of interest discussing how religious leaders in America endorse candidates but then deny that they do.

People For The American Way: The Religious Right's Odd Definition of "Endorsement"By Kyle | September 23, 2008


For some reason during this election cycle, we seem to be seeing at lot of Religious Right leaders taking clear stances in favor of Republican candiates yet insisting that they are not "endorsing" anyone.

It started back during the primary, when Richard Land could barely contain his excitement over Fred Thompson's campaign and was among his most vocal supporters but whenever the issue came up, Land insisted that he didn't endrose candidates.
James Dobson did the same thing when he announced that, with John McCain's decision to name Sarah Palin as his running mate, he would now "pull the lever for John McCain." Yet, simultaneously, Dobson was also insisting that he was "not endorsing John McCain ... I just don’t endorse presidential candidates and I don’t see myself doing that this time." Apparently announcing on a national radio program heard by millions of people that he will vote for McCain is somehow different than "endorsing" him.

And now we have Jerry Falwell Jr. pulling the same rhetorical trick. After refusing to allow those attending a Barack Obama rally in Lynchburg to use a parking lot owned by Liberty University citing tax restrictions, Falwell turned around a few weeks later and hosted an McCain campaing event on campus. On top of that, he recently unveiled a massive voter registration drive in an effort to help deliver the state of Virginia for McCain in November with hopes that Liberty will "go down in history as the college that elected a president."

And yet here he is pretending that he is not actively backing McCain:
The Rev. Jonathan Falwell said he will concentrate on preaching the Gospel at Thomas Road Baptist Church, where his father once left no doubt about his support for Republican candidates. Jerry Falwell gained national attention for backing politicians, starting with Ronald Reagan.

“I don’t intend to endorse anyone,” Jonathan Falwell said. “I don’t think it’s my role to be telling anyone who to vote for.”

It is even more unbelievable considering that, in the same article, The News & Advance reports this:
In a video posted in early August by France 24, an international news and current affairs television channel, Falwell indicated a preference for John McCain a month before the Republican National Convention.

“He is a person I can get behind and support and look at and see where he can really do some good things for our country,” Falwell said of McCain, “and so while he may not be the 100 percent perfect person, you know, none of us are and we just have to work with what God gave us,” Falwell said.
If there is a logical difference between right-wing leaders publicly declaring their support of McCain and "endorsing" them, we'd love to hear it.



DailySource.org has set up a special page to expose Palin's record & her church affiliatons at Special section: an in-depth look at the record and policies of McCain’s VP choice Sarah Palin


Sarah Palin's Pastor problems & questionable use of stste monies- For Instance : Palin Spoke at the church as the governor, not as a private citizen; charged the state for airfare and other expensies

and her pastor believes anyone who criticizes Bush will go to hell:


A review of recorded sermons of Ed Kalnins, the senior pastor of Wasilla Assembly of God since 1999, also offers an “eyebrow-raising sketch of Palin’s longtime spiritual home,’’ the Post reports.
Kalnins has preached that critics of Bush will be banished to Hell, questioned if people who voted for Sen. John Kerry in 2004 would be accepted to Heaven, charged that the 9/11 terrorist attacks and Iraq were part of a war “contending for your faith,” and that Jesus “operated from that position of war mode.”
During the 2004 election, Kalnins praised Bush’s performance in debate with Sen. John Kerry, then offered a not-so-subtle message about his own preference: “I’m not going tell you who to vote for, but if you vote for this particular person, I question your salvation. I’m sorry,” Kalnins said. “If every Christian will vote righteously, it would be a landslide every time.”
Kalnins later bristled at the criticism Bush was facing for the government’s handling of Hurricane Katrina: “I hate criticisms towards the president, because it’s like criticisms towards the pastor — it’s almost like, it’s not going to get you anywhere, you know, except for hell. That’s what it’ll get you.”


and : Speaking at Palin's church, founder of Jews for Jesus says Jews are being punished by terrorists

In a story titled “Nation examines Palin’s beliefs,” The Anchorage Daily News reported:
The Wasilla Bible Church has made waves as well. Two weeks ago, a guest speaker, David Brickner — a conservative Christian who condemns Jews who fail to accept Christ as the Messiah and tries to convert them through his Jews for Jesus ministry — suggested that terrorism in Israel is God’s judgement against Jews.
The McCain campaign has acknowledged that Palin was in the audience. But in a press statement, campaign spokesman Michael Goldfarb said the governor did not know Brickner would be speaking, and Palin does not share the views he expressed.
“She and her family would not have been sitting in the pews of the church if those remarks were remotely typical,” Goldfarb said.
Although her spokesman notes that those remarks aren’t typical of the church, Palin and her family did not choose to leave while Brickner was speaking.
ABC News quotes Brickner as saying:
“When Jesus was standing in that temple, He spoke that that judgment was coming, that there’s a reality to the judgment of unbelief. ... Judgment is very real and we see it played out on the pages of the newspapers and on the television. It’s very real.”
Brickner described when his son Isaac recently “was in Jerusalem, he was there to witness some of that judgment, some of that conflict, when a Palestinian from East Jerusalem took a bulldozer and went plowing through a score of cars, killing numbers of people. Judgment—you can’t miss it. “
In a CNN interview, reporter Randy Kaye spoke to Wasilla Bible Church pastor Larry Kroon and asked him about Brickner:
Kaye: Would David Brickner be invited to speak here again, after making those comments?
Kroon: Yes, yes he would be.
In his introduction of Brickner before the sermon, Kroon said an encounter with Jews For Jesus in the 1970’s first drew him to Christianity.
Jews for Jesus reported in a newsletter that Kroon, while at Wasilla Bible Church said “If it were not for Jews for Jesus, I would not be standing here.”

----------------------
and a vote for Sarah Palin is a vote for a continuation of Bush policies and governing style:

Bush campaign veterans brought in to help Palin
Several Bush veterans have been hired as campaign aides and advisors for Palin. On September 11, The Politico reported:
(A) new team of aides and advisers brings years of experience in Republican politics, and includes many who worked for President Bush in the White House and on his two campaigns … They’ll move to get off defense, a position Palin has been in since her unexpected announcement, and try to keep her on the offensive, using her to launch ever-more sharp attacks against Barack Obama and Biden—attacks that will present the challenge of responding without being labeled sexist.
Traveling with her and working with the press are Tracey Schmitt and Tucker Eskew. Each is taking a leave from private sector public relations-related jobs to work the final stretch.
Schmitt worked on both Bush campaigns and ran the Republican National Committee communications shop before leaving a year ago to work for a biopharma company. Eskew is a longtime GOP strategist who was a top aide in the first Bush campaign and later worked in the White House before co-founding his own public affairs firm.
They’ll be joined at times by Nicolle Wallace, the former White House communications director who has served as a senior adviser to the McCain campaign since spring.
Offering policy counsel will be Steve Biegun, a seasoned foreign policy specialist who did stints as a senior member of Bush’s National Security Council.
Back at the campaign’s Arlington, Va., headquarters, Maria Comella will work with reporters. She worked for Bush’s reelection campaign in 2004 and was a top spokeswoman in Rudy Giuliani’s primary effort. Another Bush veteran and press aide, Ben Porritt, is largely focused on going after Biden, but will also assist the Palin effort.
Then there is the campaign’s Last Frontier satellite: Taylor Griffin, another Bush administration veteran who had been focusing on doing press on economic issues, has been detailed to Alaska to oversee the campaign’s operation there.
and:
Palin increased spending by 63% as mayor of Wasilla
Left Wasilla with $20m in debt at end of term as mayor
Increased spending by 30% as governor

and so it goes,
GORD.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Wall Street Bail-Out & Destructive Power Of Positive Thinking & Other Delusions

Anyway the Saga of the Bailout of Wall Street continues. Laissez Faire Capitalism applies only to small businesses including farmers and fishermen etc. while the Giants of Capitalist exploitation get to contine exploiting another day.

Trying to understand the US Economic Crisis- simply put Greed + Deregulation = Economic Crisis

McCain has been involved in some shady deals.

McCain a reformed crook backsliding
Rachel Maddow: Matt Welch on the Keating Five
MCCain says " I'm not a crook " just have bad luck
Sept. 25,2008




The Deal That Blew Up by robert L. Borosage at Huffington Post Sept. 26,2008

also see:

Top Wall Street Executives Made More Than $ 3 Billion Before Financial Crisis By Tom Randall & Jamie McGee at Huffington Post Sept. 27, 2008

Wall Street's five biggest firms paid more than $3 billion in the last five years to their top executives, while they presided over the packaging and sale of loans that helped bring down the investment-banking system.
Merrill Lynch & Co. paid its chief executives the most, with Stanley O'Neal taking in $172 million from 2003 to 2007 and John Thain getting $86 million, including a signing bonus, after beginning work in December. The company agreed to be acquired by Bank of America Corp. for about $50 billion on Sept. 15. Bear Stearns Cos.'s James ``Jimmy'' Cayne made $161 million before the company collapsed and was sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co. in June.


and how incredible self-regulation doesn't work , You don't say :

S.E.C. Chairman : Oversight Failures Fueled Collapse by StephenLabaton New York Times Sept. 26, 2008

The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, a longtime proponent of deregulation, acknowledged on Friday that failures in a voluntary supervision program for Wall Street's largest investment banks had contributed to the global financial crisis, and he abruptly shut the program down.
The S.E.C.'s oversight responsibilities will largely shift to the Federal Reserve, though the commission will continue to oversee the brokerage units of investment banks.
Also Friday, the S.E.C.’s inspector general released a report strongly criticizing the agency’s performance in monitoring Bear Stearns before it collapsed in March. Christopher Cox, the commission chairman, said he agreed that the oversight program was “fundamentally flawed from the beginning.”
“The last six months have made it abundantly clear that voluntary regulation does not work,” he said in a statement. The program “was fundamentally flawed from the beginning, because investment banks could opt in or out of supervision voluntarily. The fact that investment bank holding companies could withdraw from this voluntary supervision at their discretion diminished the perceived mandate” of the program, and “weakened its effectiveness,” he added


Keating Five Ring A Bell? 25 September 2008 by: Rosa Brooks, The Los Angeles Times

McCain's past collides with the present Wall Street debacle.
Once upon a time, a politician took campaign contributions and favors from a friendly constituent who happened to run a savings and loan association. The contributions were generous: They came to about $200,000 in today's dollars, and on top of that there were several free vacations for the politician and his family, along with private jet trips and other perks. The politician voted repeatedly against congressional efforts to tighten regulation of S&Ls, and in 1987, when he learned that his constituent's S&L was the target of a federal investigation, he met with regulators in an effort to get them to back off.

That politician was John McCain, and his generous friend was Charles Keating, head of Lincoln Savings & Loan. While he was courting McCain and other senators and urging them to oppose tougher regulation of S&Ls, Keating was also investing his depositors' federally insured savings in risky ventures. When those lost money, Keating tried to hide the losses from regulators by inducing his customers to switch from insured accounts to uninsured (and worthless) bonds issued by Lincoln's near-bankrupt parent company. In 1989, it went belly up - and more than 20,000 Lincoln customers saw their savings vanish.

Keating went to prison, and McCain's Senate career almost ended. Together with the rest of the so-called Keating Five - Sens. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), John Glenn (D-Ohio), Don Riegle (D-Mich.) and Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.), all of whom had also accepted large donations from Keating and intervened on his behalf - McCain was investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee and ultimately reprimanded for "poor judgment."

But the savings and loan crisis mushroomed. Eventually, the government spent about $125 billion in taxpayer dollars to bail out hundreds of failed S&Ls that, like Keating's, fell victim to a combination of private-sector greed and the "poor judgment" of politicians like McCain.

The $125 billion seems like small change compared to the $700-billion price tag for the Bush administration's proposed Wall Street bailout. But the root causes of both crises are the same: a lethal mix of deregulation and greed.

Today's meltdown began when unscrupulous mortgage lenders pushed naive borrowers to sign up for loans they couldn't afford to pay back. The original lenders didn't care: They pocketed the upfront fees and quickly sold the loans to others, who sold them to others still. With the government MIA, soon mortgage-backed securities were zipping around the globe. But by the time many ordinary people began to struggle to make their mortgage payments, the numerous "good" loans (held by borrowers able to pay) had gotten hopelessly mixed up with the bad loans. Investors and banks started to panic about being left with the hot potato - securities backed mainly by worthless loans. And so began the downward spiral of a credit crunch, short-selling, stock sell-offs and bankruptcies.

Could all this have been prevented? Sure. It's not rocket science: A sensible package of regulatory reforms - like those Barack Obama has been pushing since well before the current meltdown began - could have kept this most recent crisis from escalating, just as maintaining reasonable regulatory regimes for S&Ls in the '80s could have prevented that crisis (McCain learned this the hard way).
But, despite his political near-death experience as a member of the Keating Five, McCain continued to champion deregulation, voting in 2000, for instance, against federal regulation of the kind of financial derivatives at the heart of today's crisis


also see: The Great Switch : Banks Rob People/Wednesday 24 September 2008 by: Jim Crotty, t r u t h o u t

...In response to the collapse of unregulated financial markets in the early 1930s, the American people decided to tightly regulate the financial system so that it could never again threaten the US economy. The Depression-era regulations worked effectively until the late 1970s, helping to create the best economic performance in US history. When our financial system was buffeted by high inflation in the late 1970s, it became necessary to reform the regulatory process so it would be effective in the new economic era. But instead of reform, the rise to power of anti-government, right wing forces - reflected in the election of President Reagan in 1980s - led to a radical deregulation process. By the end of the Clinton presidency, radical deregulation was completed.

Deregulation - in concert with rapid financial innovation that made complex financial products such as derivatives and mortgage-backed securities possible - created a volatile pattern of financial booms and crises. Each crash led to bailouts by affected governments, which only increased incentives to financial firms to expand further and take greater risks, since there were massive profits to be made in the upturn while the public paid to limit their losses in the downturn. The new era thus saw an explosion in the size and profits of financial firms. Financial assets were less than five times the size of the US gross domestic product (GDP) in 1980, but over ten times as large in 2007. In the US, the share of total corporate profits generated in the financial sector grew from 10 percent in the early 1980s to 40 percent in 2006. As financial markets grew larger and thus more dangerous, the pressure on governments to bail them out increased proportionately.

The Rainmakers make a killing while corporations go under

...Why did so many large financial institutions borrow so much money to invest in such risky securities? The answer lies in the way their top people are paid. Financial firm "rainmakers" get most of their compensation in the form of bonuses tied to the profits of their enterprise. When markets are booming, profits and bonuses are maximized by borrowing lots of money - investment banks borrowed $32 for every $33 of assets they owned in 2007 - and taking high risks with it. For example, in 2006, Goldman Sachs had a banner profit year and the average bonus for its 25,000 employees was $650,000. But most of this money was paid to those at the top, with key traders taking home $50 million. Everyone knew that such risk-taking would eventually lead to disaster when markets turned down, but they would not have to give back the big bonuses from the boom.

----------
I have always been skeptical of the notion of Positive Thinking which is Hallmark of Americanmentality. Claiming that thinking positively will change or better one's circumstances is not really a way to practically run one's life or a country's economy. If someone is dying of a horrible disease like cancer thinking positively will not make the cancer go away. Even if there were some exceptions of people surviving and even thriving after being diagnosed as being terminally ill this does not mean it will happen to you. Most people just die anyway no matter how positive or negative their thinking is.

It is like the way the Bush Regime approached the War in Iraq- they would greet Americans as liberators, it will be a cake-walk, there's just a few dead-wenders fighting, the surge will work miracles- well over one million Iraqis are dead ; three million have left the county as refugees, two million are desplaced persons within Iraq- the infrastructure is still in a mess including roads, highways, schools , hospitals, police stations, water treatment plants & sewage treatment plants etc. But somehow Bush & McCain see progress because fewer Americans were killed last month . The country is in ruin. Much the same can be said about Aghanistan but one should add that Drug Warlords & Taliban and other thugs control a large part of the country.

Positive Thinking is merely Wishful Thinking and Magical Thinking in other words a form of delusional thinking & behavior. The attitude has been that the profits will keep rising , housing prices will keep rising , The Economy will continue to grow- Industries, Investment Companies and individuals should be permitted to regulate themselves because then everything will work out for the best. Economic policy has been based upon a positive mental attitude with little concern for reality. The fundamentals of the economy are strong according to Chancellor Bush & soon to be Chancelors Palin & McCain.


How Positive Thinking Wrecked the Economy by By Barbara Ehrenreich.com Sept. 26, 2008 at AlterNet.org

.Greed -- and its crafty sibling, speculation -- are the designated culprits for the ongoing financial crisis, but another, much admired, habit of mind should get its share of the blame: the delusional optimism of mainstream, all-American, positive thinking. As promoted by Oprah, scores of megachurch pastors, and an endless flow of self-help bestsellers, the idea is to firmly belief that you will get what you want, not only because it will make you feel better to do so, but because thinking things, "visualizing" them -- ardently and with concentration -- actually makes them happen. You will be able to pay that adjustable rate mortgage or, at the other end of the transaction, turn thousands of bad mortgages into giga-profits, the reasoning goes, if only you truly believe that you can.

Positive thinking is endemic to American culture -- from weight loss programs to cancer support groups -- and in the last two decades it put down deep roots in the corporate world as well. Everyone knows that you won't get a job paying more than $15 an hour unless you're a "positive person" -- doubt-free, uncritical, and smiling -- and no one becomes a CEO by issuing warnings of possible disaster.

According to a rare skeptic, a Washington-based crisis management consultant I interviewed on the eve of the credit meltdown in 2007, even the magical idea that you can have whatever you truly want has been "viral" in the business culture. All the tomes in airport bookstores' business sections scream out against "negativity" and advise the reader to be at all times upbeat, optimistic and brimming with confidence -- a message companies relentlessly reinforced by treating their white collar employees to manic motivational speakers and revival-like motivational events. The top guys, meanwhile, would go off to get pumped up in exotic locales with the likes of success guru Tony Robbins. Those who still failed to get with the program could be subjected to personal "coaching" or of course, shown to the door.
The same frothy wave of mandatory optimism swept through the once-sober finance industry. On their websites, scores of motivational speakers proudly list companies like Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch among their clients. Angelo Mozilo, the former CEO of Countrywide Mortgage whose subprime ventures precipitated the entire crisis, was known for his congenital optimism and described in the Guardian earlier this year as "absurdly upbeat" even as his industry unraveled. No one was psychologically prepared for hard times, when they hit, because, according to the tenets of positive thinking, even to think of trouble is to bring it on. In May, the New York Times reported that Merrill, caught up short, was suddenly trying to "temper the Pollyannas in its ranks," and force its analysts to occasionally say the word "sell."

Americans did not start out as deluded optimists. The original ethos, at least of white Protestant settlers and their descendents, was a grim Calvinism that offered wealth only through hard work and savings, and even then made no promises at all. You might work hard and still fail; you certainly wouldn't get anywhere by adjusting your attitude or dreamily "visualizing" success. Calvinists thought "negatively" as we would say today, carrying a weight of guilt and foreboding that sometimes broke their spirits. It was in response to this harsh ethos that positive thinking arose -- among mystics, lay healers, and transcendentalists -- in the 19th century, with its crowd-pleasing message that God, or the universe, is really on your side, that you can actually have whatever you want, if the wanting is focused enough

Economic Fascism Coming to America/By Robert Scheer,Truthdig Sept. 25, 2008

Does it really matter which party is in charge when it comes to bailing out the Wall Street hustlers whose shenanigans have bankrupted so many ordinary folks? Not if the Democrats roll over and cede power to the former head of Goldman Sachs, the investment bank at the center of our economic meltdown.

What arrogance for Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson -- who the year before President Bush appointed him Treasury secretary was paid $16.4 million for heading the company that did as much as any to engineer this financial travesty -- to now insist we must blindly trust him to solve the problem. Paulson is demanding the power to act with "absolute impunity," said Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who admonished the Treasury chief: "After reading this proposal, it is not only our economy that is at risk, Mr. Secretary, but our Constitution as well."


also see A Wall Street Bailout Wouldn't Help Anyone But Rich Investors/ByTerrence McNally, AlterNet,Sept. 27, 2008

Interview of Thomas Frank in which Frank basically argues that conservative notions of deregulation and self-regulation has led to disaster. But it is not a diaster for these big corporations & investment companies since they will still make money through the bail-out.
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and so it goes,
GORD.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Bush Bails-Out Wall-Street & Sara Palin's Witch Finder General & McCain Grandstands

Anyway here's a funny bit about John McCain suspending his campaign and canceling his appearance on David Letterman . McCain Grandstanding & full it as usual. Yes he was a POW & tortured like those detainees in Gitmo and AbuGhraib and a hundred other US contolled prisons.
Anyway get over his heroic deeds and see him for the flip-flopping political animal which he has become.

David Letterman Body Slams John McCain for Late Night Cancel



John McCain uses Financial Crisis in order To Grand Stand claiming he would suspend his political campaign but it appears the campaign continued even his claim to stop campaigning was part of a campaign strategy

.and so here's a video from CNN showing The Bush Regime's Faith in the American Economy and that it is not their duty to bail out corporations. See article at Huffington Post by Danny Shea/ Sept. 25, 2008: Campbell Brown Holds Paulson, Bush Accountable For Crisis



Yes Bush will use a crisis to get what he wants and to help out the Rich and Powerful and let the American people pay for it later. "The clock is ticking" says Bush .

and from Huffington Post Steve Clemons : Bush Does a 9/11 Replay


Just after the September 11th terrorist attacks occurred, George W. Bush went before the nation and made the case that he needed unprecedented authority -- budgetary and military -- to take on the threats poised at the well-being and safety of the country.
Now with the current economic crisis in the United States, Bush is yet again asking for unprecedented powers and budget.
What happened after 9/11?
We saw no-bid contracts given to firms like Halliburton. We saw $9 billion of U.S. taxpayer money "go missing" through the Coalition Provisional Authority. We saw abuses of power, the expansion of secrecy, and the promulgation of norms that seemed to be the very antithesis of what America stands for.
A nation's values and its deep DNA are really only knowable and observable during times of crisis -- when it's tough to stand up for codes that seem a heavy burden during tough times.
We are in a crisis again -- and the Bush administration is again asking Americans to forgo fundamental values.
Tonight, George Bush succeeded I think in scaring Americans that this crisis could be a systemic threat. Bush said "our entire economy is in danger."
That's the fear button. He pushed it. And he said the clock was ticking.



What is shocking about the presentation by Bush -- and the deal that is unfolding is that we don't see any acceptance of responsibility for the failure of his team's stewardship of the economy. We didn't hear acknowledgment that the compulsive deregulation mantra of Bush's political and economic allies created a massive bubble where lots of billionaires were created and now tens of millions of less fortunate Americans are holding the bill.

--

And why is Barack Obama going along with this latest Wall Street Scam. I thought Wall Street believed in taking risks and then accepting the consequences if those risks don't pan out. No things go wrong they have their greedy hands out begging for help. Meanwhile they dare to cast aspersions on some homeless Iraq War Vet who stands on a sidewalk of some American town or city and asks for some loose change . These are the same people who can't understand why a poor family of four can't live within its means earning less than 20, 000 a year. These people that is these CEOs and high flying accountants and investment consultants couldn't survive making less than three or four hundred thousand a year . Like McCain they would think themselves poor if they only owned one home worth a million dollars or having their own private plane or at least one owned by one of their Corporations which they could use whenever it suited them.
also seeArianna Huffington: Bailout Bill: Obama Needs to Lead, Not be one of the Bailout Bipartisan Muskeeteers,Sept. 25, 2008


"If Barack Obama goes along with the latest bailout bill it in the name of post-partisan comity, he's making a big mistake. Washington is not lacking political leaders willing to go along with the flow. It's lacking political leaders willing to lead. "This is our moment," Obama keeps saying in his speeches. And this is his moment to lead, rather than to appear as one of the Bailout Bipartisan Musketeers ("One for all, and all for Goldman Sachs"). Instead of siding with Bush and Paulson on far too many deal points, Obama should draw a line in the sand and refuse to cross it. Or has he surrounded himself with so many advisors who are looking at the bailout from a Wall Street perspective, he now sees it that way too?"


also check out articles at TruthOut showing how Bush & Corporate America care about not so wealthy Americans: Fishermen and dead coal miners don't count for much in Corporate America.


Dan Bacher Bush Withholds Salmon Disaster Money as He Pushes for Corporate Bailouts
http://www.truthout.org/092508EA
Dan Bacher, Truthout: "While George W. Bush wants taxpayers to give Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson a $700 billion blank check to bail out Wall Street for its reckless speculation and greed, the administration announced last week that it would release only $100 million of the $170 million appropriated to salmon fishermen and businesses impacted by this year's salmon fishing closure off the California and Oregon coasts and in Central Valley rivers."



Mining Company in Cave-in Fights Worker Comp Claim
http://www.truthout.org/092508LA
The Associated Press: "The mining company faulted by federal officials for a cave-in that killed six miners last year is fighting a workers' compensation claim filed by the family of one of the victims. With his paycheck, coal miner Juan Carlos Payan was supporting his disabled father, his mother and two young sisters in Mexico, according to his family."


Shocking Footage of Palin Praying With 'Witch Hunter'
Posted by Max Blumenthal Sept. 24, 2008/Wasilla, Alaska



On September 20 and 21, I attended services at the church Sarah Palin belonged to since she was an adolescent, the Wasilla Assembly of God.

...I went specifically to see a pastor visiting from Kiambu, Kenya named Thomas Muthee. Muthee gained fame within Pentecostal circles by claiming that he defeated a local witch, Mama Jane, in a great spiritual battle, thus liberating his town from sin and opening its people to the spirit of Jesus.

Muthee's mounting stardom took him to Wasilla Assembly of God in May, 2005, where he prayed over Palin and called upon Jesus to propel her into the governor's mansion -- and beyond. Muthee also implored Jesus to protect Palin from "the spirit of witchcraft." The video archive of that startling sermon was scrubbed from Wasilla Assembly of God's website, but now it has reappeared.
The Youtube version is below (Palin appears after about 7:30):





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The pastor Thomas Muthee attacks liberal politicians, the liberal multicultural schools where tolerance of other religions is taught. Tolerance is the great evil since only Christian Values as defined by Pentecostal Assemblies of God. He attacks witchcraft as if there were witches everywhere. Is he another one who would seek out witches and heretics just like in the Good Old Days of the Inquisitons and the Witch Hunts. So accordingly the killing done in Salem a couple of centuries ago were in fact " Good Works " because those people must have been witches if the pure Christians said that those people were witches. So will Palin and her God Fearing Holy Rollers & Bible Thumpers ban Harry Potter and all such books or films or television programs. There is a smell of fire and brimstone around these Godly People as they are about to cleanse America and then the world.

Note: the preacher also speaks about corruption . It sounds ironic since Born-Again Bush and Co. are shameless in their support of the rich & powerful no matter how corrupt & inept the Investment Bankers & Wall Street Rip-off artists & Robber Barons are. If an American runs a small business and it goes under there is no help offered by the US Government. But if your company is big enough there are tax breaks galore and incentives and subsidies and if you run your business badly enough there's always the Bail Out courtesy of the American people.

If Palin comes to power the United Nations to protect the world that is the civilized world which believes in science and freedom of thought and freedom of religion should toss the United States at least out of the Security Council if not the UN itself. The world should welcome a security fence around all of America so that the American's can no longer infect the rest of the world with its Medieval World View. The problem is that they have a big military and a few thousand nuclear weapons which they can threaten the world with. But of course this is part of the anxiety and anger which fills the Neocons, Ultra-Conservatives and the Religious Right in America which is that America should have been using those weapons in Korea or Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan to bring all those Heathens to their knees to bow before the All Mighty America the Chosen Nation of God.

Again if Canada were not also under the spell of these Neocon Ultra-Conservatives and the Religious Right we could at least be a safe haven for all those who are being persecuted and all those who will be persecuted in America. Myself if I had the wherewithal if Palin and Harper win I would go to the Netherlands in the hope that things might be better there at least for a few more years. But even there the anti-Immigration forces are growing as they talk about saving Europe from the teeming masses of Heathens . As if Europe had some sort of long history of tolerance. It has not . Hitler rose out of European culture which despised the Jewish people, and Gypsies and Gays and Slavs and any who were not true Christians. Look at Apartheid in South Africa this was a system set up by people of European extraction not natives of Africa. The Africans also saw themselves as fulfilling God's purpose. The Europeans on landing in the Americas felt it was their duty to convert the natives to Christianity or if they would not convert then they were to be slaughtered. The more history one knows the more it appears the world is populated by people with twisted ideas about the world . But religious beliefs of the Evangelical sort is the worse since if everything is God's Will then one need not take responsibility for one's most reprehensible actions. If you allow your government to murder a million Iraqis well its just God's Will. If a few million Americans are homeless or are starving or do without basic Health care or decent schools etc. it is just God's Will. The point of government then is to protect the True Believers and the Rich and powerful from the mob as it were.

and so it goes,
GORD.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Shock & Awe: Wall Street Bail Out, Imprisoning Critics Crushing Dissent & The Election FIX IS IN

For a bit of humor here's a little video from Comedy Jesus Show :Yes we Klan -It is a spoof remember! But first a little context as it were from your humble servant :

- Though it is not that far from the truth about the Republicans and the Palin/McCain ticket. Ticket to a society on the brink of fascism, racism, sexism, homophobia and everyone who is not born again or Pentecostal or really rich is not welcome.And this they tell us is all to be done to protect our precious AngloSaxon Christian Civilization - a culture of religious fanatics and Know-Nothings since they hate the Arts and museums and librarys and liberal schools & universities as much as did any blue-blooded Fascist. Only museums will be allowed that reflect the superiority of American culture , Christianity and reflect the veracity of the Holy Bible and the fact that the Bible is true in every word or phrase and that only Intelligent Design is to be sanctioned by the state. And of course Palin and her friends from the Assemblies of God and the Pentecostals will then determine what books are to be allowed in public librarys ,or in the schools or to be taught at schools or the universities so that America can return to the One True Church and to Pristine Preachings of the Church Fathers and the Apostles.
GORD.

From: ComedyJesus

Added: August 31, 2008



Maddow and Mitchell talk about Palin's press dodge & how journalists are being cut out of the loop. Palin/McCain 's disdain for what they consider to be the biased leftist liberal unAmerican and anti-God Media.



Huffington Post " Naomi Wolf: The Battle Plan II: Sarah " Evita " Palin, The Muse of the Coming Police State , Sept. 22, 2008

"Scharansky divided nations into "fear societies" and "free societies." Make no mistake: Sarah "Evita" Palin is Rove and Cheney's cosmetic rebranding of their fascist push: she will help to establish a true and irreversible "fear society" in this once free once proud nation. For God's sake, do not let her; do not let them."


I realized early on with horror what I was seeing in Governor Palin: the continuation of the Rove-Cheney cabal, but this time without restraints. I heard her echo Bush 2000 soundbites ("the heart of America is on display") and realized Bush's speechwriters were writing her -- not McCain's -- speeches. I heard her tell George Bush's lies -- not McCain's -- to the American people, linking 9/11 to Iraq. I heard her make fun of Barack Obama for wanting to prevent the torture of prisoners -- this is Rove-Cheney's enthusiastic S and M, not McCain's, who, though he shamefully colluded in the 2006 Military Tribunals Act, is also a former prisoner of war and wrote an eloquent Newsweek piece in 2005 opposing torture. I saw that she was even styled by the same skillful stylist (neutral lipstick, matte makeup, dark colors) who turned Katharine Harris from a mall rat into a stateswoman and who styles all the women in the Bush orbit --but who does not bother to style Cindy McCain.
Then I saw and heard more. Palin is embracing lawlessness in defying Alaskan Legislature subpoenas --this is what Rove-Cheney, and not McCain, believe in doing. She uses mafia tactics against critics, like the police commissioner who was railroaded for opposing handguns in Alaskan battered women's shelters -- Rove's style, not McCain's. I realized what I was seeing.

Reports confirmed my suspicions: Palin, not McCain, is the FrankenBarbie of the Rove-Cheney cabal. The strategy became clear. Time magazine reported that Rove is "dialed in" to the McCain campaign. Rove's protégé Steve Schmidt is now campaign manager. And Politico reported that Rove was heavily involved in McCain's vice presidential selection. Finally a new report shows that there are dozens of Bush and Rove operatives surrounding Sarah Palin and orchestrating her every move.

What's the plan? It is this. McCain doesn't matter. Reputable dermatologists are discussing the fact that in simply actuarial terms, John McCain has a virulent and life-threatening form of skin cancer. It is the elephant in the room, but we must discuss the health of the candidates: doctors put survival rates for someone his age at two to four years. I believe the Rove-Cheney cabal is using Sarah Palin as a stalking horse, an Evita figure, to put a popular, populist face on the coming police state and be the talk show hostess for the end of elections as we know them. If McCain-Palin get in, this will be the last true American election. She will be working for Halliburton, KBR, Rove and Cheney into the foreseeable future -- for a decade perhaps -- a puppet "president" for the same people who have plundered our treasure, are now holding the US economy hostage and who murdered four thousand brave young men and women in a way of choice and lies.

...Look at the RNC. This is supposed to be McCain's America. But you see the unmistakable theatre of Rove's S and M imagery -- and you see stages eight, nine and ten of the steps to a dictatorship as I outlined them in The End of America. Preemptive arrest? Abusive arrest? "Newly released footage, which was buried to avoid confiscation, shows riot cops arresting and abusing a giant group of people for nothing."

Journalists were arrested -- for reporting. Amy Goodman and ABC producers were arrested. Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake and others were forced to lie face down as armed agents tied their hands behind their backs. The riot police wore the black S&M gear of the Rovian fantasy life and carried the four foot batons cops carry in North Korea. All this is not John McCain's imagery or strategy: it is Karl Rove's.
In McCain-Palin's America, citizens who are protesting are being charged as terrorists. This means that a violent war had been declared on American citizens. A well known reporter leaked to me on background that St Paul police had dressed as protesters and, dressed in Black -- shades of the Blackshirts of 1920 -- infiltrated protest groups. There were also phalanxes of men in black wearing balaclavas, linking arms and behaving menacingly -- alleged "anarchists." Let me tell you, I have been on the left for thirty years and you can't get three lefties to wear the same t-shirt to a rally, let alone link arms and wear identical face masks: these are not our guys. Agent Provocateurs framing protesters and calling protest "terrorism" constitutes step ten of a police state:

"In what appears to be the first use of criminal charges under the 2002 Minnesota version of the Federal Patriot Act, Ramsey County Prosecutors have formally charged 8 alleged leaders of the RNC Welcoming Committee with Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism... [they] 7 1/2 years in prison under the terrorism enhancement charge which allows for a 50% increase in the maximum penalty."

"Paid, confidential informants... infiltrated the RNCWC on behalf of law enforcement. They allege that members of the group sought to kidnap delegates to the RNC, assault police officers with firebombs and explosives, and sabotage airports in St. Paul. Evidence released to date does not corroborate these allegations with physical evidence or provide any other evidence for these allegations than the claims of the informants. Based on past abuses of such informants by law enforcement, the National Lawyers Guild is concerned that such police informants have incentives to lie and exaggerate threats of violence and to also act as provocateurs in raising and urging support for acts of violence."

Under the Palin-Rove police state, you will see escalating infringements on your access to a free internet:

"Sarah Palin was baptized at Wasilla Assembly of God...Last Sunday our research team released a video, a ten-minute mini-documentary, focusing on the Wasilla Assemblies of God and the video seemed on the verge of a massive "viral" breakthrough when YouTube pulled it down, citing 'inappropriate content'. At the point the video was censored by YouTube it had been viewed by almost 160,000 people. The short of it is that YouTube has censored a video documentary that appeared to be close to having an effect on a hard fought and contentious American presidential election..."


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So Naomi Wolf argues that one of the ways that will be used to create the police state is by using various scams and ruses to deny a large percentage of voters their right to vote or at least enough voters to make a difference . One should remember that JFK won by only 100,000 votes not a million. And Bush won by about minus one hundred thousand in 2000 so it doesn't take much to swing an election or to get the fix in.Below are several items on how this is already being done. According to some the 2008 election has already been decided in favor of McCain /Palin unless people take action to ensure that they are registered to vote and will not be turned away on election day because of some minor inaccuracy in their registration. The problem is that for the most part it is already a done deal. For instance during the last American election few people were able to get help or to complain about voter fraud because the Hot-Line as such was set up in such a complicated fashion to ensure that few people would bother to make a formal complaint. The help line was really just set up to appease those who complained about voter registration but it was not set up to actually help voters with legitimate complaints.

RFK Jr., Mike Papantonio:" Is Your Vote Safe?" Monday 22 September 2008 by: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Ring of Fire

Steal Back Your Vote


Transcript from Ring of Fire on Air America Radio

Bobby: "There are about 30 scams the Republicans are deliberately using, particularly in the swing states to get Democratic voters off the rolls. These scams originate in the so-called Help America Vote Act which was passed after the Florida debacle in the year 2000. It was originally suggested by Democrats and Republicans but it was passed by a Republican congress with a Republican senate and a Republican president. And instead of reforming what happened in Florida it basically institutionalized all the problems that happened in Florida. And institutionalized a series of impediments that make it very difficult for Democrats to register, for Democrats to vote and then for Democrats to have their vote counted.

"One of these requirements under HAVA is called "the perfect match" and what that does is little known but it is devastating. A quarter of the voters in Colorado have just been removed from the rolls because of this - just this one scam. And what it does is they use a computer system to compare your registration application to all other government records of you in the state. So they'll look at your social security records, your motor vehicle records and any time you've had any interaction with the government and if there is any information on your voter registration that is different than the information on another government record that they find they remove you from the voting rolls.

For example, if I registered as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and yet my motor vehicle license said Robert Frances Kennedy Jr. I'd be removed from the rolls. If your initial is different, if you leave an initial out, if you leave a "Jr." out, if you leave a hyphen out in your name. And what they've done is a study in New York that said 80% of the errors are errors that were done by state clerks who are taking down this information. And particularly immigrant communities that people tend to vote Democratic, people have names … spell Muhammad with an "o" instead of a "u" (crosstalk)
Pap: "Are the Democrats Suing to Stop This?"

Bobby: "No, the Democrats are doing nothing to stop it. In New Jersey, which is a swing state, 300,000 voters in New Jersey were just sent letters saying that they are now ineligible to vote. New jersey is nice enough to actually notify them - most states will not even notify them. And New Jersey intends to send out 870,000 letters so that is three quarters of a million people off the voting rolls in a state that could decide this vote by 50,000 votes. And these are Democrats that are being pushed off the rolls.

Bobby: "Let me tell you about one other of these scams people should know about. If you're a newly registered voter - and of course the Democrats have done these gigantic registration drives - 12 million people on registration - if you're a new voter you MUST include your license or some other state I.D. when you come to vote. What that means is that if you're a college kid (and college kids now - they're sending in absentee ballots - they're not going to the voting place, they do everything online or they do everything remotely - they don't dream of going to the precinct house voting on election day and waiting in a long line) so if they send in the absentee ballot and they don't include a color copy of their license their vote is going to be thrown into a trash can. And none of these people know this because you have had to read the law in order to know it. So there is no notification for when you fill out your registration form, so all of those 12 million people that the Democrats have registered: those ballots are going to be just thrown out.
Pap: "And if Democrats won't talk about this how the hell's anybody gonna know about it? I'm involved with this kind of thing every day - I didn't know that until you just told me. The media is not talking about it. How in the hell is somebody gonna find this out? It's just incredible.

Bobby: "Hopefully - Obama is getting 66 million dollars a month - hopefully somebody in the Democratic organization is going to pay some attention to this before election day.



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Wall street Mugging or Socialism Comes to Wall Street/ A Mighty Tithe for the Robber Barons- Where's Teddy Roosevelt when you need him - oh yeah turning over in his grave- Socialism for the rich & nothing for the Middle Class let a lone the homeless, the poor , the disabled or Iraqi Refugees or Iraq War Veterans.

Here is where America is at:
The Mugging of America
By Jim Quinn, Sept. 23, 2008



... Wall Street, Alan Greenspan, George Bush’s administration, and Congress attempted to put off the pain of recession by encouraging more risk taking by companies and citizens. We are now reaping what they have sown.

This has been a remarkable year. The United States has taken actions that will change our country forever. They have taken these actions without citizens voting or Congress passing any laws debated upon in public view. These actions have taken place behind closed doors and in conjunction with the bank CEOs who caused the problems. A multi-millionaire former investment banker, former professor of economics, and our 1st Harvard MBA President have committed at least ONE TRILLION of our future tax dollars to bailing out greedy incompetent criminal millionaire investment bankers. They have done this to avert an Armageddon type financial meltdown. I’m reminded of the rhetoric about weapons of mass destruction before our attack of Iraq. We needed to attack to avert a future nuclear holocaust. Why should we believe them now? Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke’s commitment of your grandchildren’s future so far is as follows:

Bear Stearns Rescue $29 billion
Tax rebates to Americans $168 billion
Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac nationalization $300 billion
AIG nationalization $85 billion
Government taking bad debt off the books $700 billion
U.S. banks
FUTURE GENERATION’S BILL $1,255,000,000,000

Remember, when the government gives you an estimated cost, it is always prudent to multiply it by 10 to get closer to the truth.

Let us be perfectly clear. The U.S. government has no money. We entered this week with a National Debt of $9.65 trillion. The deficit for next year will surpass $600 billion. Every dime of these bailouts will be borrowed. They will be borrowed from China, Japan, and the Middle East. In an effort to keep our corrupt financial system afloat, we have sold another piece of our country. The prestige and status of the U.S. in the eyes of the world community have suffered a catastrophic non-reversible decline in the last nine months. "We The People" had absolutely no say in this decision.

----------
Naomi Klein
Now Is the Time to Resist Wall Street's Shock Doctrine,By Naomi Klein

23/09/08 "Huffington Post" -- - I wrote The Shock Doctrine in the hopes that it would make us all better prepared for the next big shock. Well, that shock has certainly arrived, along with gloves-off attempts to use it to push through radical pro-corporate policies (which of course will further enrich the very players who created the market crisis in the first place...).

The best summary of how the right plans to use the economic crisis to push through their policy wish list comes from Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich. On Sunday, Gingrich laid out 18 policy prescriptions for Congress to take in order to "return to a Reagan-Thatcher policy of economic growth through fundamental reforms." In the midst of this economic crisis, he is actually demanding the repeal of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which would lead to further deregulation of the financial industry. Gingrich is also calling for reforming the education system to allow "competition" (a.k.a. vouchers), strengthening border enforcement, cutting corporate taxes and his signature move: allowing offshore drilling.

It would be a grave mistake to underestimate the right's ability to use this crisis -- created by deregulation and privatization -- to demand more of the same. Don't forget that Newt Gingrich's 527 organization, American Solutions for Winning the Future, is still riding the wave of success from its offshore drilling campaign, "Drill Here, Drill Now!" Just four months ago, offshore drilling was not even on the political radar and now the U.S. House of Representatives has passed supportive legislation. Gingrich is holding an event this Saturday, September 27 that will be broadcast on satellite television to shore up public support for these controversial policies.

What Gingrich's wish list tells us is that the dumping of private debt into the public coffers is only stage one of the current shock. The second comes when the debt crisis currently being created by this bailout becomes the excuse to privatize social security, lower corporate taxes and cut spending on the poor. A President McCain would embrace these policies willingly. A President Obama would come under huge pressure from the think tanks and the corporate media to abandon his campaign promises and embrace austerity and "free-market stimulus."

We have seen this many times before, in this country and around the world. But here's the thing: these opportunistic tactics can only work if we let them. They work when we respond to crisis by regressing, wanting to believe in "strong leaders" -- even if they are the same strong leaders who used the September 11 attacks to push through the Patriot Act and launch the illegal war in Iraq.

So let's be absolutely clear: there are no saviors who are going to look out for us in this crisis. Certainly not Henry Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, one of the companies that will benefit most from his proposed bailout (which is actually a stick up). The only hope of preventing another dose of shock politics is loud, organized grassroots pressure on all political parties: they have to know right now that after seven years of Bush, Americans are becoming shock resistant.


So can YOU SAY CORPORATE STATE
can you say P-O-L-I-C-E S-T-A-T-E
and so it goes,
GORD.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Bush & Harper and The Diastrous truth about " Laissez Faire " Market Place

Anywa if Canadians want to see what Stephen Harper might do to the economy just look across the border. Bush has done a jim-dandy job in just eight years. Oh yea besides being mired in Iraq for another eight years. Or they'll pour troops into Afghanistan and we can expect they will somehow not just go on another killing spree.The insane person does the same thing over and over again each time expecting a different result.

Has Hannity not watched in a couple of weeks or what. Youknow Hannity the news about Wall Street in crisis. Concerns about a global economic collapse.
Well it appears the Ultra -conservative Bushite economic policies have failed. No regulation equals no accountibility equals disaster equals 800 billion dollar bail out-

FoX News Hannity can't stand that Wall Street & the Economy is crashing & Bush & McCain haven't a clue-
Bailing out corporations is okay helping average middle class families in Hannity's view is not okay.

Hannity caught in the act of being a propagandist for the Bush Republican Regime. He just can't stand anyone criticizing the Bush administration . In Hannity's view Bush is the best president ever.

Hannity Has A Bullyboy Meltdown Arguing Economy Is Great
Multimillionaire Sean Hannity proved he's not just a loudmouthed blowhard but seriously out of touch with everyday Americans. Kudos to guest Robert Kuttner for refusing to be intimidated. From the 9/10/08 Hannity & Colmes.




Fox News has been defending the Bush Regime's Economic policies for years.
Here's a blast from the past as FOX NEWS argues how the US economy is far healthier than the European economy.
Note Cavuto can't even begin to understand the idea that Europeans might decide to spend more time with family & friends rather than working long hours in order to be richer but not any happier. Americans are the Hamsters on the spinning wheel.
Even when they claim they are socializing & supposedly relaxing they are actually " netwoking " always looking for another angle to play or back stabbing others to get ahead.

Going 'Head to head' with Fox News's Neil Cavuto over 'who's zooming who' economically â€" Europe or the US.




So how bad are things in America that even Bill O' Reilley thinks the Bush administration screwed up ??? Am I dreaming ! WTF !
Yes Bill o Reilley there were people who knew the crisis was coming or they were just praying that it would all be okay because God looks after the Rich and Powerful.



Here's Sarah Palin and her church which believes Alaska will play an important part in the Biblical End-Times .

CNN finally exposes Sarah Palin's Iraq war 'a task from God', Armageddon-hungry church http://tinyurl.com/6ae2q7 part 1




and so it goes,
GORD.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Hate Radio- Is Preaching Hatred Okay

Hate Radio : Rage on the Radio - Little Hitlers
Their speech has an impact
They use the radio as well as Hitler & Goebbels.
It undermines civil discourse and encourages hate against groups are stereotypes which are then dehumanized.
Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck , Bill O'Reilley , Michael Savage
comparing liberals and others to a virus, to slime, to cockroaches
encourage hate speech & intimidation


Bill Moyers Journal- Rage on the Radio-PBS
What happens when Americas airwaves fill with hate? Bill Moyers Journal takes a tough look at the hostile industry of Shock Jock media with a hard-hitting examination of its effects on our nations political discourse. The Journal traveled to Knoxville, where a recent shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church has left the pastor asking what role hateful speech from popular right-wing media personalities may have played in the tragedy. A lot of people are hurling insults from the safety of television studios, the safety of radio studio, the safety of cyberspace says Rev. Chris Buice, So that's a void in our community - the chance to be in the same room and to have these exchanges and remember the humanity of the person on the other side. Aired Friday, September 12, at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). For more: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/091...






HATE RADIO & its Paranoid Racist followers are once again revving up the Bush/McCain/Palin/Cheney Propaganda Machine.
The broadcasters of Hate Radio from Eddie Burke in Alaska to Bill O'Reilley to Laura Ingraham to Rush Limbaugh & Michael Savage etc. argue that only their beliefs and opinions are those of True Patriotic Americans. All dissenting views are charachterized as UnAmerican, Communists,& " socialist Maggots " and evil treacherous Liberals out to destroy America. This is what passes throughout much of America as Civilized Discourse- Willim F. Buckley & Jesse Helms & Joseph McCarthy & Strom Thurmond & The KKK would be proud . As I have said in Denver & St. Paul we saw how even peaceful protesters & jounalists are treated in America . The police & others treated those protesters & journalists as if they were the Enemy and so could threaten & beat them with impunity. If those in power now had had their way they would have treated the Non-violent Civil Rights movement in the 1950s & 1960s in the same way. This is part of what these ultra-Conservatives are still pissed off at that is that government did not crack down on the Civil Rights movement as hard as they should have. If those leaders of the Civil Rights Movement & the Anti-War movement had been beaten up more and kept in jail for life sentences then America in their view would be a better place today.
Alaska Women Rally Against Palin And Are Threatened


conciousgood
Added: September 12, 2008
http://www.ktuu.com/Global/... Anti-Palin rally org...


Anti-Palin rally organizers receive threats

by Lori Tipton Thursday, Sept. 11, 2008

ANCHORAGE, Alaska-- Opponents of Gov. Sarah Palin's policies are being threatened.

Alaska Women Reject Palin, a local group that opposes the Republican vice presidential candidate, on Wednesday announced plans to host an anti-Palin rally this weekend.

Since that announcement organizers say they've received intimidating messages.

A press release for the Reject Palin rally went out to practically every media outlet in town Wednesday. And one talk radio host decided to share the names and phones numbers of the two contacts on-air.

That decision has left organizers feeling somewhat fearful of practicing their First Amendment rights.

KBYR talk radio host Eddie Burke admits he is a conservative and a "Palinista."

But on Wednesday Burke resorted to name calling when he found out Alaska Women Reject Palin planned to host a Saturday rally.

"They're a bunch of socialist maggots, that's what I'm going to call them -- socialist maggots, that's what they are, a bunch of socialist baby-killing maggots," said Burke.




Laura Ingraham believes that black protesters did not represent a large number of black Americans.She appears to suggest the whole Civil Rights Movement was led by some sort of elitist unAmerican group. Once again Americans are told that Black Americans had nothing really to complain about so what if schools, lunch counters, hotels, hospitals were segregated or that Lynching was a common practice in the Southern United States- racism & discrimination are unimportant to her. She's just another angry white ultra conservative who believes America has always been a land of equality & justice for all but that is not historically accurate. A form of Apartheid existed in the United States from the end of the Civil War right through to the mid 1960s .

Even after segregation was no longer legal in America it was strictly enforced in a large part of America. That segregation was less to do with lunch counters and water fountains & restrooms but was more to do with issues such as the right to register to vote or the actual physical act of voting. Black people lost their jobs, their property, their businesses or were beaten or killed just for trying to register to vote or for showing up on election day to vote. This is not ancient history . Even today there are those especially Republicans who do whatever they can to disenfranchise as many black people as they possibly can.

Laura of course argues that the War in Iraq was justified and that America is now winning the war which are both contentious issues. She then argues that Americans & the media should focus on the positives in Iraq & talk about the heroism of American soldiers. But she is against talking about anything negative about Iraq. So she does not want Americans hearing about any atrocities committed by American soldiers ie. murdering civilians , torturing detainees - or the corruption & fraud committed by Private Contractors in Iraq such as Halliburton etc. or the killings committed by Blackwater- all of these things do not actually exist in her view or at least she believes these things are either just liberal propaganda or that they do not matter & are of no concern to American citizens.


Laura Ingraham versus Whoopi and Joy on the View




and here's a bit about Laura Ingraham as a Bush Propagandists who will say anything to undermine any criticism of Bush's War in Iraq. The whole problem in Iraq for the American troops is the " liberal Media " at home in America who will say anything to undermine Bush and the Iraq War. She & other Hate Radio announcers are merely Schills for Bush & Cheney. They believe in re-writing history to show that it was the Liberal Media in the sixties who caused America to lose the war in Vietnam. They repeat this nonsense over & over til like some insidious TV or radio commercial Jingle or pop song that finally many people are unable to dislodge what amounts to a brain fart or mental constipation which reminds me of Bill O'Reilley for instance. Bill O'Reilley has an opinion which has no connection with the world of facts and real history. As with other Hate Radio talk show hosts he believes America is always right except when Americans decide to raise Bill O'Reilley's taxes or tell him not to say the " N " word or call all Gays " Faggots " or paedophiles. _Since he can see no difference between two adults of the same sex having sex with each other and some man abusing an eight year old girl or boy.



Some believe that no one should take Hate Talk shows seriously but the numbers suggest that such shows do have an impact on average Americans. For instance these commentators have manage to make " liberal" or even " Democrat " into code words for unAmerican, leftist extremist, Marxist, socialist , communist, pro-terrorist, anti-National Security etc.

Laura Ingraham puts forth the argument that if one agrees with so called liberals on an issue then that individual is merely towing the party line and not thinking for themselves. But what about those who merely accept the party line of ultra-conservatives & the Republicans. For instance many conservatives tout the belief that Saddam had something to do with 9/11 that he a massive stock-pile of WMDs and was planing to attack Israel or America or was backing Osama Bin Laden - all things which were not true.It matters little to the True Believers that much of the Intel on Saddam had been manipulated or cooked-up by the Bush Regime.

Laura Ingraham: Right-Wing Radio's High Priestess of Hate By Rory O'Connor, AlterNet.org June 7, 2008

Shock radio host Ingraham is a master of sounding funny and appealing while dishing out the same hate speech as Sean Hannity.
In the two-for-one combination that all too often serves conservative radio well, Ingraham once claimed that the immigration bill was an attempt by the mainstream media to make more people liberals. Anyone who still wonders whether talk radio had an influence on the bill's defeat should look at Ingraham's numbers; with more than 5 million weekly listeners, she is tied with Glenn Beck as the fourth most listened to radio talk show host in America. Alterman wrote that Ingraham's popularity is due to her having "something more important than knowledge or experience. ... She has star quality." She is also fearless: She once confronted CNN host John Roberts for calling her "outspoken," saying, "Do you guys introduce liberal commentators that way?"
She's more aggressive than Limbaugh, more blatant than Hannity, and more rational than Beck or Savage, and although she often supports many of them (erroneously stating, for example, that Limbaugh never claimed the Clintons murdered Vince Foster), she is equally willing to call them out. She walked out of a "Hannity & Colmes" installment after the Don Imus "nappy-headed ho's" controversy was twisted into a discussion of Democratic vices, and once asked on her radio program after an appearance on "The O'Reilly Factor," "Why is Bill O'Reilly afraid of George Soros?" (In the same broadcast, Ingraham accused columnist Helen Thomas of working for Hezbollah, which has been identified by the U.S. government as a terrorist group.)
and while at Dartmouth University she: " secretly sent a reporter with a tape recorder to a campus gay students association meeting; she then outed the students in print and sent tapes of the meetings to the students' parents. In the magazine she called association members "cheerleaders for latent campus sodomites." (In 1997, more than a decade later, she wrote an article in the Washington Post detailing how she had changed her views in light of her brother Curtis' coming out as gay.)"
and: Ingraham argues politics the way lawyers argue cases, as if there can be no possible interpretation other than her own. She is a class-A schmoozer who understands and exploits her verbal gifts to the fullest. Her skill for networking, along with her willingness to go for the jugular, has allowed her to break into the boys' club of conservative radio.
and as for who is to blame for all of America's ills::
Ingraham also argues that a vocal minority -- the "elites" -- is threatening American values, and they should pipe down for the majority's sake. Elites include anti-war demonstrators and university professors ("It's well known that in the 1960s, leftists conquered the academies"). There is also no love lost between Ingraham and Europeans, who she believes fail to understand and appreciate America's love for "God, guns and the death penalty."


Michael Savage Hate Radio The Shock Jocks
This is virulent hate-speech supported by his listeners & advertisers & the agencies which are supposed to regulate radio in America ( teh FCC )
But in America this is what passes for intelligent dialogue. Savage doesn't discuss or argue he just bullies and screams




The Young Turks & Michael Savage claimed People with Autism are faking it





The Young Turks - & America's Economic Meltdown

sept. 19, 2008

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and so it goes,
GORD.