London Guardian
September 29, 2008
The idea that the presidential debates are “high-risk TV” in which the candidates can be questioned “on any subject matter” is laughable (90 minutes in TV spotlight that will make or break candidates, September 26). The debates are profoundly undemocratic. The “private” corporation that organises them, the Commission on Presidential Debates, was established by the Republican and Democratic national committees in 1986 and serves their interests.
Before the debates take place, the two-party organisations jointly draft debate “contracts” which define exactly what will happen during the “debate”. This includes screening which topics will be discussed, who can attend the debates, who can ask questions, how long each candidate will have to answer and that there be no candidate-to-candidate questions, no rubuttals and no follow-up questions.
Moreover, the CPD has set criteria that deliberately exclude third-party candidates from taking part. To join the debate, a third-party candidate must be able to demonstrate that they expect to receive 15% of the public vote. This is three times greater than the 5% political parties must achieve to receive major party status and receive public funds.
The polls used to determine expected support are not required to list candidates other than those from the two main parties. This stage management does not lead to a debate but a glorified press conference.
Dr. Maria Ryan
University of Nottingham
Financial crisis? Not to worry. President Bush says he’s on top of things. What could possibly go wrong there?
Herb Stark
Massapequa, New York
Monday, September 29, 2008
From Deregulation to National Guarantor: in a Blink!
[col. writ. 9/20/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
What we are seeing in the midst of America's financial crisis, is a crisis not so much of confidence as it is of ideology, for the crisis has its origins in an economic outlook that has been ascendant for generations.
I speak of the idea of deregulation, championed by former President Ronald Reagan, who became symbolic of the shrink-government movement. His reign marked the coming of age of the so-called conservative movement, built on principles (ostensibly, at least) of reductions in government, expansion of 'free' markets, lower taxes, and strengthened nationalism, usually by military means.
Although this has been primarily a Republican agenda, Democrats, like neo liberal President Bill Clinton, have hewn closely to this formula -- hence his claim to be a "new" kind of liberal.
At the heart of this philosophy has been trust in 'the blind hand of the market', with a distaste for the heavy hand of regulation. As such, both of these relatively recent incarnations of political parties have had a deregulation bent, and depended on the market to set the economic beat of the nation.
This has necessitated the rise of a kind of political deception, explained by scholar and Critical Resistance activist Ruth W. Gilmore as "anti-state actors." In the 2007 book, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex (Cambridge, MA: South End Press), Gilmore notes:
Strangely, then, we are faced with the ascendance of anti-state
state actors: people and parties who gain state power by
denouncing state power. Once they have achieved an elected
or appointed position in government they have to make what
they do seem transparently legitimate, and if budgets are any
indication, they spend a lot of money even as they claim they're
"shrinking government." Prison, policing, courts, and the
military enjoy such legitimacy, and nowadays it seems to many
observers as though there was never a time things were
different. {p.43}
Years of governance by these "anti-state state actors" has seen the growth and expansion of government by leaps and bounds. The prison-industrial-complex is now the largest on earth; while the military has been engaged in dubious occupations which closely resembles security services for the oil industries.
And the market is about as 'free' as the U.S. was during slavery. As deregulation crumbles the state emerges as the guarantor of corporate profits, where tax dollars are used to replace sour business deals choking with 'bad paper.'
While unemployment, foreclosures, homelessness, and repression evokes little more than a sneer, let the market feel failing stocks, or let banks stumble, and the deregulators come running to save their betters. Need loans? Need a bailout? Need a buyout? Nothing is too much for the well-to-do.
And your money is necessary to protect them!
This is socialism, with a wicked twist.
--(c) '08 maj
[Source: 'The Revolution Will Not Be Funded' was edited by Incite! The Women Against Violence Project
What we are seeing in the midst of America's financial crisis, is a crisis not so much of confidence as it is of ideology, for the crisis has its origins in an economic outlook that has been ascendant for generations.
I speak of the idea of deregulation, championed by former President Ronald Reagan, who became symbolic of the shrink-government movement. His reign marked the coming of age of the so-called conservative movement, built on principles (ostensibly, at least) of reductions in government, expansion of 'free' markets, lower taxes, and strengthened nationalism, usually by military means.
Although this has been primarily a Republican agenda, Democrats, like neo liberal President Bill Clinton, have hewn closely to this formula -- hence his claim to be a "new" kind of liberal.
At the heart of this philosophy has been trust in 'the blind hand of the market', with a distaste for the heavy hand of regulation. As such, both of these relatively recent incarnations of political parties have had a deregulation bent, and depended on the market to set the economic beat of the nation.
This has necessitated the rise of a kind of political deception, explained by scholar and Critical Resistance activist Ruth W. Gilmore as "anti-state actors." In the 2007 book, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex (Cambridge, MA: South End Press), Gilmore notes:
Strangely, then, we are faced with the ascendance of anti-state
state actors: people and parties who gain state power by
denouncing state power. Once they have achieved an elected
or appointed position in government they have to make what
they do seem transparently legitimate, and if budgets are any
indication, they spend a lot of money even as they claim they're
"shrinking government." Prison, policing, courts, and the
military enjoy such legitimacy, and nowadays it seems to many
observers as though there was never a time things were
different. {p.43}
Years of governance by these "anti-state state actors" has seen the growth and expansion of government by leaps and bounds. The prison-industrial-complex is now the largest on earth; while the military has been engaged in dubious occupations which closely resembles security services for the oil industries.
And the market is about as 'free' as the U.S. was during slavery. As deregulation crumbles the state emerges as the guarantor of corporate profits, where tax dollars are used to replace sour business deals choking with 'bad paper.'
While unemployment, foreclosures, homelessness, and repression evokes little more than a sneer, let the market feel failing stocks, or let banks stumble, and the deregulators come running to save their betters. Need loans? Need a bailout? Need a buyout? Nothing is too much for the well-to-do.
And your money is necessary to protect them!
This is socialism, with a wicked twist.
--(c) '08 maj
[Source: 'The Revolution Will Not Be Funded' was edited by Incite! The Women Against Violence Project
Empire On "E"
[col. writ. 9/24/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
In a matter of months, a new man will take the oath of office for the presidency.
Whether he is the oldest in history, or the first Black one, of one thing we may be certain.
He will be hobbled by a sea of red ink, and therefore bereft of most of the resources to bring his campaign promises to reality.
For as the fires continue to rage throughout the financial markets, they will turn tax returns into smoke.
Don't expect any of them to tell you this, but you can rest assured that all of them know it. And if the office of the Imperial presidency will be strapped for resources, what of average folks?
As an old saying (sorta) goes, 'stuff rolls downhill.'
As businesses tighten up, credit tightens up, and spending tightens up.
This economy (as even the Mad Prince Bush has urged) relies on consumption, or shopping, to function. Anything that weakens this process has a whiplash effect throughout the economy.
Earlier this year, American financier George Soros announced, shortly after the failure of the economic talks at Davos, Switzerland, that the U.S. economy has reached a new stage marking an end of the era. "The current crisis is not only the bust that follows the housing boom", Soros explained, adding, "It's basically the end of a 60-year period of continuing credit expansion based on the dollar as the reserve currency."
Soros made these observations in January of 2008.
Things have obviously gotten considerably worse since then. The economy is increasingly coming under state control, and social wealth is being aggregated to protect private capital.
What created this crisis was rampant crony capitalism, and unless that is addressed by deep structural transformation, these problems will only worsen.
That is virtually inevitable.
Just as the White House saddled the next administration with disasters in foreign policy, they have effectively stolen the public purse.
So, ultimately, it won't matter who gets elected, because he'll be too broke to do anything.
--(c) '08 maj
[Source: Landler, Mark, "U.S. Policies Evoke Scorn at Davos: Fed Caved In to the Markets (Or Maybe it Dawdled), Critics Say, " New York Times, Thurs., Jan. 24, 2008, p.C9]
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
Confusing Voter Registration Laws Could Affect Presidential Election
By Nikki Schwab
Thu Sep 25, 12:19 PM ET
Imagine you're a college student and you'll be voting for the first time in November. You hear from some that you're able to register to vote at your university address. You are warned by others that if you do, you could lose a scholarship, or health or car insurance, and you'll have to get a new driver's license, too. You consider voting absentee, only to be told by get-out-the-vote volunteers that your absentee ballot really counts only if the election is close.
Confused yet?
Virginia Tech students certainly were when they were delivered these conflicting messages over the past few weeks. With voter registration drives in full swing on campus, students got word from the local registrar of elections that they could face consequences if they registered to vote in Blacksburg--they could lose residency-based scholarships, or their tax status could change--even though, according to the Supreme Court, students have the right to vote where they go to college.
A schoolwide controversy ensued. The registrar's news releases were called "chilling," and he was accused of subverting democracy. He defended himself, saying he was only trying to combat the lack of information given to students from volunteers registering voters on campus. The State Board of Elections jumped in and revised the guidelines to say that a dorm or college address can be an acceptable residential address for voter registration in Virginia, a pivotal swing state, but the board left these guidelines up to interpretation by local election officials. The student newspaper, the Collegiate Times, and student groups scheduled a campus forum on October 1 to clear up whether students should register to vote at Virginia Tech or at their parents' homes before the October 6 Virginia registration deadline.
The debacle at Virginia Tech highlights a problem that college students have encountered in many states for many election cycles--where it is, exactly, they should register to vote. College students are generally not familiar with the voter registration process, technically have two addresses (school and home), and in some cases are not welcome as voters in their university communities because of historic rifts between the students and their college towns. "One of the reasons in the past that jurisdictions have tried to deny the vote to college students is that they expected that college students might vote differently from the rest of them," says Richard Hasen, the William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. "And the Supreme Court has been pretty clear that that's not a good reason."
But while federal courts have ruled that students have a right to vote from campus, state residency laws make things more complicated. It all comes down to how the state, or often a particular municipality, defines residency. Jon Greenbaum, director of the Voting Rights Project at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, says Virginia has a history of county registrars taking a very restrictive view of the law and defining residency very narrowly. "It has the potential to be a problem in a lot of places where the registrar or the state government starts taking a real restrictive view," Greenbaum says.
Of the 50 states, 11, including Virginia, make it more difficult for college students to vote on campus, according to "Democracy and College Student Voting," a 2006 study by the Institute for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement at Salisbury University in Maryland. In some places, P.O. boxes and dormitories are not considered proper addresses. In others, ID laws make it difficult for students to vote because their driver's licenses do not reflect where they are living at school. In many instances, students are left voting provisionally or voting absentee, says Matt Segal, president of the Student Association for Voter Empowerment, an organization that looks at voting access barriers for students.
"The big story we're trying to break right now is that all of these young people who intend to show up actually might not be able to, given the laws and restrictions in all these states," says Segal.
It's difficult to measure the impact these laws have on students because most voter data is broken down only by age group and not by who is and who isn't attending a university or college. Despite that, the Salisbury University study found a slight correlation between states that allow young people to choose where they vote and higher voter registration and turnout. "If we just had college student data, I would expect that the relationship would be stronger," explains Michael O'Loughlin, a professor at Salisbury who coauthored the study.
In recent years, several legal battles have highlighted the topic and have come down on the side of the students. At the same time, O'Loughlin says he has seen a national "drift" toward allowing students the option to vote at their campus addresses, though there are regions that resist the trend.
For voting groups like Rock the Vote and SAVE, the key is getting students the right information. SAVE has pushed for legislation, and a bill has been introduced in the House and Senate that would require federally funded colleges and universities to register student voters, similar to the way departments of motor vehicles across the country give citizens the option to register to vote while getting their driver's license.
Rock the Vote has recently introduced a "there's no place like home" campaign to spread the word to students that their campus is their home too. "I think that young people are savvy voters, and they will register and cast a ballot where they consider home and where they think it makes the most sense politically," says Heather Smith, executive director of Rock the Vote.
By Election Day, voting groups hope their messages will have cut through some of the misunderstandings. "You've seen the game 'Telephone'--if one person hears the right instructions, the message slowly slips as it is delivered from person to person," says Segal of SAVE. "It's very easy in such a large body of people to have confusion about the laws and procedures."
And in what could be a very close election, that confusion could cost one of the candidates.
Thu Sep 25, 12:19 PM ET
Imagine you're a college student and you'll be voting for the first time in November. You hear from some that you're able to register to vote at your university address. You are warned by others that if you do, you could lose a scholarship, or health or car insurance, and you'll have to get a new driver's license, too. You consider voting absentee, only to be told by get-out-the-vote volunteers that your absentee ballot really counts only if the election is close.
Confused yet?
Virginia Tech students certainly were when they were delivered these conflicting messages over the past few weeks. With voter registration drives in full swing on campus, students got word from the local registrar of elections that they could face consequences if they registered to vote in Blacksburg--they could lose residency-based scholarships, or their tax status could change--even though, according to the Supreme Court, students have the right to vote where they go to college.
A schoolwide controversy ensued. The registrar's news releases were called "chilling," and he was accused of subverting democracy. He defended himself, saying he was only trying to combat the lack of information given to students from volunteers registering voters on campus. The State Board of Elections jumped in and revised the guidelines to say that a dorm or college address can be an acceptable residential address for voter registration in Virginia, a pivotal swing state, but the board left these guidelines up to interpretation by local election officials. The student newspaper, the Collegiate Times, and student groups scheduled a campus forum on October 1 to clear up whether students should register to vote at Virginia Tech or at their parents' homes before the October 6 Virginia registration deadline.
The debacle at Virginia Tech highlights a problem that college students have encountered in many states for many election cycles--where it is, exactly, they should register to vote. College students are generally not familiar with the voter registration process, technically have two addresses (school and home), and in some cases are not welcome as voters in their university communities because of historic rifts between the students and their college towns. "One of the reasons in the past that jurisdictions have tried to deny the vote to college students is that they expected that college students might vote differently from the rest of them," says Richard Hasen, the William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. "And the Supreme Court has been pretty clear that that's not a good reason."
But while federal courts have ruled that students have a right to vote from campus, state residency laws make things more complicated. It all comes down to how the state, or often a particular municipality, defines residency. Jon Greenbaum, director of the Voting Rights Project at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, says Virginia has a history of county registrars taking a very restrictive view of the law and defining residency very narrowly. "It has the potential to be a problem in a lot of places where the registrar or the state government starts taking a real restrictive view," Greenbaum says.
Of the 50 states, 11, including Virginia, make it more difficult for college students to vote on campus, according to "Democracy and College Student Voting," a 2006 study by the Institute for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement at Salisbury University in Maryland. In some places, P.O. boxes and dormitories are not considered proper addresses. In others, ID laws make it difficult for students to vote because their driver's licenses do not reflect where they are living at school. In many instances, students are left voting provisionally or voting absentee, says Matt Segal, president of the Student Association for Voter Empowerment, an organization that looks at voting access barriers for students.
"The big story we're trying to break right now is that all of these young people who intend to show up actually might not be able to, given the laws and restrictions in all these states," says Segal.
It's difficult to measure the impact these laws have on students because most voter data is broken down only by age group and not by who is and who isn't attending a university or college. Despite that, the Salisbury University study found a slight correlation between states that allow young people to choose where they vote and higher voter registration and turnout. "If we just had college student data, I would expect that the relationship would be stronger," explains Michael O'Loughlin, a professor at Salisbury who coauthored the study.
In recent years, several legal battles have highlighted the topic and have come down on the side of the students. At the same time, O'Loughlin says he has seen a national "drift" toward allowing students the option to vote at their campus addresses, though there are regions that resist the trend.
For voting groups like Rock the Vote and SAVE, the key is getting students the right information. SAVE has pushed for legislation, and a bill has been introduced in the House and Senate that would require federally funded colleges and universities to register student voters, similar to the way departments of motor vehicles across the country give citizens the option to register to vote while getting their driver's license.
Rock the Vote has recently introduced a "there's no place like home" campaign to spread the word to students that their campus is their home too. "I think that young people are savvy voters, and they will register and cast a ballot where they consider home and where they think it makes the most sense politically," says Heather Smith, executive director of Rock the Vote.
By Election Day, voting groups hope their messages will have cut through some of the misunderstandings. "You've seen the game 'Telephone'--if one person hears the right instructions, the message slowly slips as it is delivered from person to person," says Segal of SAVE. "It's very easy in such a large body of people to have confusion about the laws and procedures."
And in what could be a very close election, that confusion could cost one of the candidates.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
$23 Billion “Lost” in Iraq
By Jane Corbin
BBC News
A BBC investigation estimates that around $23bn (£11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq.
The BBC's Panorama programme has used US and Iraqi government sources to research how much some private contractors have profited from the conflict and rebuilding.
A US gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations.
The order applies to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies.
War profiteering
While Presdient George W Bush remains in the White House, it is unlikely the gagging orders will be lifted.
To date, no major US contractor faces trial for fraud or mismanagement in Iraq.
The president's Democratic opponents are keeping up the pressure over war profiteering in Iraq.
Henry Waxman, who chairs the House committee on oversight and government reform, said: "The money that's gone into waste, fraud and abuse under these contracts is just so outrageous, it's egregious.
"It may well turn out to be the largest war profiteering in history."
In the run-up to the invasion, one of the most senior officials in charge of procurement in the Pentagon objected to a contract potentially worth $7bn that was given to Halliburton, a Texan company which used to be run by Dick Cheney before he became vice-president.
Unusually only Halliburton got to bid - and won.
Missing billions
The search for the missing billions also led the programme to a house in Acton in west London where Hazem Shalaan lived until he was appointed to the new Iraqi government as minister of defence in 2004.
He and his associates siphoned an estimated $1.2bn out of the ministry. They bought old military equipment from Poland but claimed for top-class weapons.
Meanwhile they diverted money into their own accounts.
Judge Radhi al-Radhi of Iraq's Commission for Public Integrity investigated.
He said: "I believe these people are criminals.
"They failed to rebuild the Ministry of Defence, and as a result the violence and the bloodshed went on and on - the murder of Iraqis and foreigners continues and they bear responsibility."
Mr Shalaan was sentenced to two jail terms but he fled the country.
He said he was innocent and that it was all a plot against him by pro-Iranian MPs in the government.
There is an Interpol arrest warrant out for him but he is on the run - using a private jet to move around the globe.
He stills owns commercial properties in the Marble Arch area of London.
Panorama: Daylight Robbery will be on BBC One at 9pm on Tuesday 10 June 2008.
Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr//2/hi/middle_east/7444083.stmPublished:
2008/06/10 17:25:48 GMT© BBC MMVIII
BBC News
A BBC investigation estimates that around $23bn (£11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq.
The BBC's Panorama programme has used US and Iraqi government sources to research how much some private contractors have profited from the conflict and rebuilding.
A US gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations.
The order applies to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies.
War profiteering
While Presdient George W Bush remains in the White House, it is unlikely the gagging orders will be lifted.
To date, no major US contractor faces trial for fraud or mismanagement in Iraq.
The president's Democratic opponents are keeping up the pressure over war profiteering in Iraq.
Henry Waxman, who chairs the House committee on oversight and government reform, said: "The money that's gone into waste, fraud and abuse under these contracts is just so outrageous, it's egregious.
"It may well turn out to be the largest war profiteering in history."
In the run-up to the invasion, one of the most senior officials in charge of procurement in the Pentagon objected to a contract potentially worth $7bn that was given to Halliburton, a Texan company which used to be run by Dick Cheney before he became vice-president.
Unusually only Halliburton got to bid - and won.
Missing billions
The search for the missing billions also led the programme to a house in Acton in west London where Hazem Shalaan lived until he was appointed to the new Iraqi government as minister of defence in 2004.
He and his associates siphoned an estimated $1.2bn out of the ministry. They bought old military equipment from Poland but claimed for top-class weapons.
Meanwhile they diverted money into their own accounts.
Judge Radhi al-Radhi of Iraq's Commission for Public Integrity investigated.
He said: "I believe these people are criminals.
"They failed to rebuild the Ministry of Defence, and as a result the violence and the bloodshed went on and on - the murder of Iraqis and foreigners continues and they bear responsibility."
Mr Shalaan was sentenced to two jail terms but he fled the country.
He said he was innocent and that it was all a plot against him by pro-Iranian MPs in the government.
There is an Interpol arrest warrant out for him but he is on the run - using a private jet to move around the globe.
He stills owns commercial properties in the Marble Arch area of London.
Panorama: Daylight Robbery will be on BBC One at 9pm on Tuesday 10 June 2008.
Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr//2/hi/middle_east/7444083.stmPublished:
2008/06/10 17:25:48 GMT© BBC MMVIII
Bernanke: Not Only Should Taxpayers Buy the Toxic Waste, They Should Pay Premium Prices for It
Cryptogon
September 24, 2008
In a sane world, these monsters would be torn limb from limb and shredded into maggot food—a role in which they could actually do some good.
Drill holes around the base of a bucket. Place some banker parts in the bucket with a bit of straw and hang it a couple of feet above your chickens. After a few days (during warm weather), the maggots will spill out onto the ground. The chickens will gather below the bucket, waiting for the protein packed morsels to fall from above.
Of course, I’m not actually suggesting that people should kill bankers and turn them into maggot food.
The stench would be overpowering. And that’s before the maggots could do their handy work.
Via: AP:
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress Tuesday the government should pay more than “fire-sale” prices for the toxic assets it would acquire under a proposed $700 billion bailout plan. That could mean both higher initial costs for taxpayers and reduced returns when the assets are later resold.
Bernanke’s comment was the first indication of how he and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson are thinking about formulating the rescue plan’s medicine in a way that doesn’t kill the patients. Requiring banks and other financial institutions to sell troubled loans and other assets anywhere close to recent sales prices of only a few cents on the dollar could wipe out the net worth of many and lead to a new wave of bank failures.
The Fed chairman said he favors buying the assets based on their “hold-to-maturity” value, which would require an estimate to be made of what each security will eventually be worth as payments come in over the years.
“If the Treasury bids for and then buys assets at a price close to the hold-to-maturity price, there will be substantial benefits,” Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee. “First, banks will have a basis for valuing those assets and will not have to use fire-sale prices. Their capital will not be unreasonably marked down.”
September 24, 2008
In a sane world, these monsters would be torn limb from limb and shredded into maggot food—a role in which they could actually do some good.
Drill holes around the base of a bucket. Place some banker parts in the bucket with a bit of straw and hang it a couple of feet above your chickens. After a few days (during warm weather), the maggots will spill out onto the ground. The chickens will gather below the bucket, waiting for the protein packed morsels to fall from above.
Of course, I’m not actually suggesting that people should kill bankers and turn them into maggot food.
The stench would be overpowering. And that’s before the maggots could do their handy work.
Via: AP:
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress Tuesday the government should pay more than “fire-sale” prices for the toxic assets it would acquire under a proposed $700 billion bailout plan. That could mean both higher initial costs for taxpayers and reduced returns when the assets are later resold.
Bernanke’s comment was the first indication of how he and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson are thinking about formulating the rescue plan’s medicine in a way that doesn’t kill the patients. Requiring banks and other financial institutions to sell troubled loans and other assets anywhere close to recent sales prices of only a few cents on the dollar could wipe out the net worth of many and lead to a new wave of bank failures.
The Fed chairman said he favors buying the assets based on their “hold-to-maturity” value, which would require an estimate to be made of what each security will eventually be worth as payments come in over the years.
“If the Treasury bids for and then buys assets at a price close to the hold-to-maturity price, there will be substantial benefits,” Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee. “First, banks will have a basis for valuing those assets and will not have to use fire-sale prices. Their capital will not be unreasonably marked down.”
Why is a U.S. Army brigade being assigned to the “Homeland”?
Glenn Greenwald
Salon
September 24, 2008
Several bloggers today have pointed to this obviously disturbing article from Army Times, which announces that "beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the [1st Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division] will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North" — "the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities." The article details:
They’ll learn new skills, use some of the ones they acquired in the war zone and more than likely will not be shot at while doing any of it.
They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack. . . .
The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use "the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded," 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.
"It’s a new modular package of nonlethal capabilities that they’re fielding. They’ve been using pieces of it in Iraq, but this is the first time that these modules were consolidated and this package fielded, and because of this mission we’re undertaking we were the first to get it."
The package includes equipment to stand up a hasty road block; spike strips for slowing, stopping or controlling traffic; shields and batons; and, beanbag bullets.
"I was the first guy in the brigade to get Tasered," said Cloutier, describing the experience as "your worst muscle cramp ever — times 10 throughout your whole body". . . .
The brigade will not change its name, but the force will be known for the next year as a CBRNE Consequence Management Response Force, or CCMRF (pronounced "sea-smurf").
For more than 100 years — since the end of the Civil War — deployment of the U.S. military inside the U.S. has been prohibited under The Posse Comitatus Act (the only exceptions being that the National Guard and Coast Guard are exempted, and use of the military on an emergency ad hoc basis is permitted, such as what happened after Hurricane Katrina). Though there have been some erosions of this prohibition over the last several decades (most perniciously to allow the use of the military to work with law enforcement agencies in the "War on Drugs"), the bright line ban on using the U.S. military as a standing law enforcement force inside the U.S. has been more or less honored — until now. And as the Army Times notes, once this particular brigade completes its one-year assignment, "expectations are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over and that the mission will be a permanent one."
After Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration began openly agitating for what would be, in essence, a complete elimination of the key prohibitions of the Posse Comitatus Act in order to allow the President to deploy U.S. military forces inside the U.S. basically at will — and, as usual, they were successful as a result of rapid bipartisan compliance with the Leader’s demand (the same kind of compliance that is about to foist a bailout package on the nation). This April, 2007 article by James Bovard in The American Conservative detailed the now-familiar mechanics that led to the destruction of this particular long-standing democratic safeguard:
The Defense Authorization Act of 2006, passed on Sept. 30, empowers President George W. Bush to impose martial law in the event of a terrorist "incident," if he or other federal officials perceive a shortfall of "public order," or even in response to antiwar protests that get unruly as a result of government provocations. . . .
It only took a few paragraphs in a $500 billion, 591-page bill to raze one of the most important limits on federal power. Congress passed the Insurrection Act in 1807 to severely restrict the president’s ability to deploy the military within the United States. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 tightened these restrictions, imposing a two-year prison sentence on anyone who used the military within the U.S. without the express permission of Congress. But there is a loophole: Posse Comitatus is waived if the president invokes the Insurrection Act.
Section 1076 of the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 changed the name of the key provision in the statute book from "Insurrection Act" to "Enforcement of the Laws to Restore Public Order Act." The Insurrection Act of 1807 stated that the president could deploy troops within the United States only "to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy." The new law expands the list to include “natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition" — and such "condition" is not defined or limited. . . .
The story of how Section 1076 became law vivifies how expanding government power is almost always the correct answer in Washington. Some people have claimed the provision was slipped into the bill in the middle of the night. In reality, the administration clearly signaled its intent and almost no one in the media or Congress tried to stop it . . . .
Section 1076 was supported by both conservatives and liberals. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the ranking Democratic member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, co-wrote the provision along with committee chairman Sen. John Warner (R-Va.). Sen. Ted Kennedy openly endorsed it, and Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), then-chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, was an avid proponent. . . .
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, warned on Sept. 19 that "we certainly do not need to make it easier for Presidents to declare martial law," but his alarm got no response. Ten days later, he commented in the Congressional Record:
"Using the military for law enforcement goes against one of the founding tenets of our democracy." Leahy further condemned the process, declaring that it "was just slipped in the defense bill as a rider with little study. Other congressional committees with jurisdiction over these matters had no chance to comment, let alone hold hearings on, these proposals."
As is typical, very few members of the media even mentioned any of this, let alone discussed it (and I failed to give this the attention it deserved at the time), but Congressional Quarterly’s Jeff Stein wrote an excellent article at the time detailing the process and noted that "despite such a radical turn, the new law garnered little dissent, or even attention, on the Hill." Stein also noted that while "the blogosphere, of course, was all over it . . . a search of The Washington Post and New York Times archives, using the terms ‘Insurrection Act,’ ‘martial law’ and ‘Congress,’ came up empty."
Bovard and Stein both noted that every Governor — including Republicans — joined in Leahy’s objections, as they perceived it as a threat from the Federal Government to what has long been the role of the National Guard. But those concerns were easily brushed aside by the bipartisan majorities in Congress, eager — as always — to grant the President this radical new power.
The decision this month to permanently deploy a U.S. Army brigade inside the U.S. for purely domestic law enforcement purposes is the fruit of the Congressional elimination of the long-standing prohibitions in Posse Comitatus (although there are credible signs that even before Congress acted, the Bush administration secretly decided it possessed the inherent power to violate the Act). It shouldn’t take any efforts to explain why the permanent deployment of the U.S. military inside American cities, acting as the President’s police force, is so disturbing.
Bovard:
"Martial law" is a euphemism for military dictatorship. When foreign democracies are overthrown and a junta establishes martial law, Americans usually recognize that a fundamental change has occurred. . . . Section 1076 is Enabling Act-type legislation—something that purports to preserve law-and-order while formally empowering the president to rule by decree.
The historic importance of the Posse Comitatus prohibition was also well-analyzed here.
As the recent militarization of St. Paul during the GOP Convention made abundantly clear, our actual police forces are already quite militarized. Still, what possible rationale is there for permanently deploying the U.S. Army inside the United States — under the command of the President — for any purpose, let alone things such as "crowd control," other traditional law enforcement functions, and a seemingly unlimited array of other uses at the President’s sole discretion? And where are all of the stalwart right-wing "small government conservatives" who spent the 1990s so vocally opposing every aspect of the growing federal police force? And would it be possible to get some explanation from the Government about what the rationale is for this unprecedented domestic military deployment (at least unprecedented since the Civil War), and why it is being undertaken now?
UPDATE: As this commenter notes, the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act somewhat limited the scope of the powers granted by the 2007 Act detailed above (mostly to address constitutional concerns by limiting the President’s powers to deploy the military to suppress disorder that threatens constitutional rights), but President Bush, when signing that 2008 Act into law, issued a signing statement which, though vague, seems to declare that he does not recognize those new limitations.
UPDATE II: There’s no need to start manufacturing all sorts of scare scenarios about Bush canceling elections or the imminent declaration of martial law or anything of that sort. None of that is going to happen with a single brigade and it’s unlikely in the extreme that they’d be announcing these deployments if they had activated any such plans. The point is that the deployment is a very dangerous precedent, quite possibly illegal, and a radical abandonment of an important democratic safeguard. As always with first steps of this sort, the danger lies in how the power can be abused in the future.
Salon
September 24, 2008
Several bloggers today have pointed to this obviously disturbing article from Army Times, which announces that "beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the [1st Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division] will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North" — "the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities." The article details:
They’ll learn new skills, use some of the ones they acquired in the war zone and more than likely will not be shot at while doing any of it.
They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack. . . .
The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use "the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded," 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.
"It’s a new modular package of nonlethal capabilities that they’re fielding. They’ve been using pieces of it in Iraq, but this is the first time that these modules were consolidated and this package fielded, and because of this mission we’re undertaking we were the first to get it."
The package includes equipment to stand up a hasty road block; spike strips for slowing, stopping or controlling traffic; shields and batons; and, beanbag bullets.
"I was the first guy in the brigade to get Tasered," said Cloutier, describing the experience as "your worst muscle cramp ever — times 10 throughout your whole body". . . .
The brigade will not change its name, but the force will be known for the next year as a CBRNE Consequence Management Response Force, or CCMRF (pronounced "sea-smurf").
For more than 100 years — since the end of the Civil War — deployment of the U.S. military inside the U.S. has been prohibited under The Posse Comitatus Act (the only exceptions being that the National Guard and Coast Guard are exempted, and use of the military on an emergency ad hoc basis is permitted, such as what happened after Hurricane Katrina). Though there have been some erosions of this prohibition over the last several decades (most perniciously to allow the use of the military to work with law enforcement agencies in the "War on Drugs"), the bright line ban on using the U.S. military as a standing law enforcement force inside the U.S. has been more or less honored — until now. And as the Army Times notes, once this particular brigade completes its one-year assignment, "expectations are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over and that the mission will be a permanent one."
After Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration began openly agitating for what would be, in essence, a complete elimination of the key prohibitions of the Posse Comitatus Act in order to allow the President to deploy U.S. military forces inside the U.S. basically at will — and, as usual, they were successful as a result of rapid bipartisan compliance with the Leader’s demand (the same kind of compliance that is about to foist a bailout package on the nation). This April, 2007 article by James Bovard in The American Conservative detailed the now-familiar mechanics that led to the destruction of this particular long-standing democratic safeguard:
The Defense Authorization Act of 2006, passed on Sept. 30, empowers President George W. Bush to impose martial law in the event of a terrorist "incident," if he or other federal officials perceive a shortfall of "public order," or even in response to antiwar protests that get unruly as a result of government provocations. . . .
It only took a few paragraphs in a $500 billion, 591-page bill to raze one of the most important limits on federal power. Congress passed the Insurrection Act in 1807 to severely restrict the president’s ability to deploy the military within the United States. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 tightened these restrictions, imposing a two-year prison sentence on anyone who used the military within the U.S. without the express permission of Congress. But there is a loophole: Posse Comitatus is waived if the president invokes the Insurrection Act.
Section 1076 of the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 changed the name of the key provision in the statute book from "Insurrection Act" to "Enforcement of the Laws to Restore Public Order Act." The Insurrection Act of 1807 stated that the president could deploy troops within the United States only "to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy." The new law expands the list to include “natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition" — and such "condition" is not defined or limited. . . .
The story of how Section 1076 became law vivifies how expanding government power is almost always the correct answer in Washington. Some people have claimed the provision was slipped into the bill in the middle of the night. In reality, the administration clearly signaled its intent and almost no one in the media or Congress tried to stop it . . . .
Section 1076 was supported by both conservatives and liberals. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the ranking Democratic member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, co-wrote the provision along with committee chairman Sen. John Warner (R-Va.). Sen. Ted Kennedy openly endorsed it, and Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), then-chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, was an avid proponent. . . .
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, warned on Sept. 19 that "we certainly do not need to make it easier for Presidents to declare martial law," but his alarm got no response. Ten days later, he commented in the Congressional Record:
"Using the military for law enforcement goes against one of the founding tenets of our democracy." Leahy further condemned the process, declaring that it "was just slipped in the defense bill as a rider with little study. Other congressional committees with jurisdiction over these matters had no chance to comment, let alone hold hearings on, these proposals."
As is typical, very few members of the media even mentioned any of this, let alone discussed it (and I failed to give this the attention it deserved at the time), but Congressional Quarterly’s Jeff Stein wrote an excellent article at the time detailing the process and noted that "despite such a radical turn, the new law garnered little dissent, or even attention, on the Hill." Stein also noted that while "the blogosphere, of course, was all over it . . . a search of The Washington Post and New York Times archives, using the terms ‘Insurrection Act,’ ‘martial law’ and ‘Congress,’ came up empty."
Bovard and Stein both noted that every Governor — including Republicans — joined in Leahy’s objections, as they perceived it as a threat from the Federal Government to what has long been the role of the National Guard. But those concerns were easily brushed aside by the bipartisan majorities in Congress, eager — as always — to grant the President this radical new power.
The decision this month to permanently deploy a U.S. Army brigade inside the U.S. for purely domestic law enforcement purposes is the fruit of the Congressional elimination of the long-standing prohibitions in Posse Comitatus (although there are credible signs that even before Congress acted, the Bush administration secretly decided it possessed the inherent power to violate the Act). It shouldn’t take any efforts to explain why the permanent deployment of the U.S. military inside American cities, acting as the President’s police force, is so disturbing.
Bovard:
"Martial law" is a euphemism for military dictatorship. When foreign democracies are overthrown and a junta establishes martial law, Americans usually recognize that a fundamental change has occurred. . . . Section 1076 is Enabling Act-type legislation—something that purports to preserve law-and-order while formally empowering the president to rule by decree.
The historic importance of the Posse Comitatus prohibition was also well-analyzed here.
As the recent militarization of St. Paul during the GOP Convention made abundantly clear, our actual police forces are already quite militarized. Still, what possible rationale is there for permanently deploying the U.S. Army inside the United States — under the command of the President — for any purpose, let alone things such as "crowd control," other traditional law enforcement functions, and a seemingly unlimited array of other uses at the President’s sole discretion? And where are all of the stalwart right-wing "small government conservatives" who spent the 1990s so vocally opposing every aspect of the growing federal police force? And would it be possible to get some explanation from the Government about what the rationale is for this unprecedented domestic military deployment (at least unprecedented since the Civil War), and why it is being undertaken now?
UPDATE: As this commenter notes, the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act somewhat limited the scope of the powers granted by the 2007 Act detailed above (mostly to address constitutional concerns by limiting the President’s powers to deploy the military to suppress disorder that threatens constitutional rights), but President Bush, when signing that 2008 Act into law, issued a signing statement which, though vague, seems to declare that he does not recognize those new limitations.
UPDATE II: There’s no need to start manufacturing all sorts of scare scenarios about Bush canceling elections or the imminent declaration of martial law or anything of that sort. None of that is going to happen with a single brigade and it’s unlikely in the extreme that they’d be announcing these deployments if they had activated any such plans. The point is that the deployment is a very dangerous precedent, quite possibly illegal, and a radical abandonment of an important democratic safeguard. As always with first steps of this sort, the danger lies in how the power can be abused in the future.
DHS Expands From Laptop to Paper Searches at Borders
Electronic Frontier Foundation
September 24, 2008
Recently obtained documents show that last year the Department of Homeland Security quietly reversed a two-decades-old policy that restricted customs agents from reading and copying the personal papers carried by travelers, including U.S. citizens. The documents were made public today by the Asian Law Caucus (ALC) and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which sued the government under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to obtain policies governing the searches and questioning of travelers at the nation’s borders.
The documents show that in 2007, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) loosened restrictions on the examination of travelers’ documents and papers that had existed since 1986. While CBP agents could previously read travelers’ documents only if they had “reasonable suspicion” that the documents would reveal violations of agency rules, in 2007 officers were given the power to “review and analyze” papers without any individualized suspicion. Furthermore, whereas CBP agents could previously copy materials only where they had “probable cause” to believe a law had been violated, in 2007 they were empowered to copy travelers’ papers without suspicion of wrongdoing and keep them for a “reasonable period of time” to conduct a border search. The new rules applied to physical documents as well as files on laptop computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices.
In July 2008, the Department of Homeland Security made public a new policy on examining travelers’ papers and electronic devices that finalized many of the changes first implemented in 2007. The agency did not disclose, however, how much the new policy deviated from rules that had been in place since 1986. The FOIA documents from ALC’s and EFF’s suit included the original policy, which had been adopted after a group of U.S. citizens challenged the practices of the 1980s as violating First Amendment rights.
“For more than 20 years, the government implicitly recognized that reading and copying the letters, diaries, and personal papers of travelers without reason would chill Americans’ rights to free speech and free expression,” said Shirin Sinnar, ALC staff attorney. “But now customs officials can probe into the thoughts and lives of ordinary travelers without any suspicion at all.”
In February 2008, ALC and EFF sued the Department of Homeland Security for failing to disclose its policies on searching and questioning travelers at U.S. borders. ALC, a San Francisco-based civil rights organization, received more than two dozen complaints since last year from U.S. travelers, mostly of Muslim, South Asian, or Middle Eastern origin, who said they were grilled about their families, religious practices, volunteer activities, political beliefs, or associations when returning to the United States from travels abroad. In addition, these individuals said that CBP agents examined their books, handwritten notes, personal photos, laptop computer files, and cell phone directories, and sometimes made copies of this information.
The documents from the FOIA request show that CBP’s wide latitude to collect this data attracted significant attention from other law enforcement agencies that sought to access it.
“Your laptop computer likely contains a massive amount of private information such as personal emails, financial data or confidential business records,” said EFF Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann.
“The Department of Homeland Security has given its agents increasingly broad authority to search, copy, and store that information. Congress needs to step in now to stop these invasive practices and protect travelers’ privacy.”
The newly released documents, which total 661 pages, also reveal that:
* In 2004, CBP adopted a directive on responding to “potential terrorists” seeking to enter the United States. The directive, which was revised in 2006, called for intensive questioning and document review of individuals who were flagged as “known or suspected” terrorists.
* CBP appears to have no policy constraining agents from questioning travelers on their religious practices or political views, in spite of the fact that many travelers have complained about being grilled on such First Amendment-protected activities.
* According to the Tucson, Arizona, field office of CBP, a database developed within that office to gather and disseminate intelligence on possible terrorists was to serve as a model for a national database.
ALC and EFF plan to challenge the government’s withholding of portions of many of these documents in federal district court this fall.
For the complete set of FOIA documents and more detailed analysis: http://www.eff.org/cases/foia-litigation-border-searches.
September 24, 2008
Recently obtained documents show that last year the Department of Homeland Security quietly reversed a two-decades-old policy that restricted customs agents from reading and copying the personal papers carried by travelers, including U.S. citizens. The documents were made public today by the Asian Law Caucus (ALC) and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which sued the government under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to obtain policies governing the searches and questioning of travelers at the nation’s borders.
The documents show that in 2007, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) loosened restrictions on the examination of travelers’ documents and papers that had existed since 1986. While CBP agents could previously read travelers’ documents only if they had “reasonable suspicion” that the documents would reveal violations of agency rules, in 2007 officers were given the power to “review and analyze” papers without any individualized suspicion. Furthermore, whereas CBP agents could previously copy materials only where they had “probable cause” to believe a law had been violated, in 2007 they were empowered to copy travelers’ papers without suspicion of wrongdoing and keep them for a “reasonable period of time” to conduct a border search. The new rules applied to physical documents as well as files on laptop computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices.
In July 2008, the Department of Homeland Security made public a new policy on examining travelers’ papers and electronic devices that finalized many of the changes first implemented in 2007. The agency did not disclose, however, how much the new policy deviated from rules that had been in place since 1986. The FOIA documents from ALC’s and EFF’s suit included the original policy, which had been adopted after a group of U.S. citizens challenged the practices of the 1980s as violating First Amendment rights.
“For more than 20 years, the government implicitly recognized that reading and copying the letters, diaries, and personal papers of travelers without reason would chill Americans’ rights to free speech and free expression,” said Shirin Sinnar, ALC staff attorney. “But now customs officials can probe into the thoughts and lives of ordinary travelers without any suspicion at all.”
In February 2008, ALC and EFF sued the Department of Homeland Security for failing to disclose its policies on searching and questioning travelers at U.S. borders. ALC, a San Francisco-based civil rights organization, received more than two dozen complaints since last year from U.S. travelers, mostly of Muslim, South Asian, or Middle Eastern origin, who said they were grilled about their families, religious practices, volunteer activities, political beliefs, or associations when returning to the United States from travels abroad. In addition, these individuals said that CBP agents examined their books, handwritten notes, personal photos, laptop computer files, and cell phone directories, and sometimes made copies of this information.
The documents from the FOIA request show that CBP’s wide latitude to collect this data attracted significant attention from other law enforcement agencies that sought to access it.
“Your laptop computer likely contains a massive amount of private information such as personal emails, financial data or confidential business records,” said EFF Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann.
“The Department of Homeland Security has given its agents increasingly broad authority to search, copy, and store that information. Congress needs to step in now to stop these invasive practices and protect travelers’ privacy.”
The newly released documents, which total 661 pages, also reveal that:
* In 2004, CBP adopted a directive on responding to “potential terrorists” seeking to enter the United States. The directive, which was revised in 2006, called for intensive questioning and document review of individuals who were flagged as “known or suspected” terrorists.
* CBP appears to have no policy constraining agents from questioning travelers on their religious practices or political views, in spite of the fact that many travelers have complained about being grilled on such First Amendment-protected activities.
* According to the Tucson, Arizona, field office of CBP, a database developed within that office to gather and disseminate intelligence on possible terrorists was to serve as a model for a national database.
ALC and EFF plan to challenge the government’s withholding of portions of many of these documents in federal district court this fall.
For the complete set of FOIA documents and more detailed analysis: http://www.eff.org/cases/foia-litigation-border-searches.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Canadian Troops To Patrol US Cities As Food Riots Feared
February 24, 2008
Canadian Troops To Patrol US Cities As Food Riots Feared
By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
Russian Military Analysts are reporting in the Kremlin today that the United States has, for the first time in its history, granted rights to a Foreign Army to have ‘full power’ over the life and death of American Citizens in their own country.
Though not being reported to the American people by their propaganda media organs, the United States Northern Command Military Leader, US Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, and his Canadian counterpart, Air Force Lt.-Gen. Marc Dumais [both pictured top left] announced this new Military Pact this past week, and as we can read:
"U.S. Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, and Canadian Air Force Lt.-Gen. Marc Dumais, commander of Canada Command, have signed a Civil Assistance Plan that allows the military from one nation to support the armed forces of the other nation during a civil emergency.
“This document is a unique, bilateral military plan to align our respective national military plans to respond quickly to the other nation's requests for military support of civil authorities,” Renuart said. “Unity of effort during bilateral support for civil support operations such as floods, forest fires, hurricanes, earthquakes and effects of a terrorist attack, in order to save lives, prevent human suffering and mitigate damage to property, is of the highest importance, and we need to be able to have forces that are flexible and adaptive to support rapid decision-making in a collaborative environment.”
It is interesting to note, too, that the Canadian peoples, like their American neighbors to the south, were not told of these plans for their Military Forces, and as we can read as reported by Canada’s Canwest News Service, and who say:
"Canada and the U.S. have signed an agreement that paves the way for the militaries from either nation to send troops across each other's borders during an emergency, but some are questioning why the Harper government has kept silent on the deal. Neither the Canadian government nor the Canadian Forces announced the new agreement, which was signed Feb. 14 in Texas."
Russian Colonel Gen Vladimir Bulgakov, Commander of Russia’s Far East Military District, points out in these reports that it is ‘no wonder’ that neither the US or Canadian War Leaders want the masses of their citizens to know about these ‘unprecedented’ events as ‘soldiers by their inherent training are for use in war, not peace’.
These reports further note that though Canada currently possesses 125,000 active Military and 36,500 Reserve Troops, the majority of which have been ‘combat hardened’ in the US Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the only Canadian Troops available for any, so called, ‘civil emergency’ in the United States, are soldiers from its Special Operations Forces Command (CANSOFCOM), and which Russian Military Commanders rate as being one of the top Special Forces Units among all of the World’s Army’s.
The more likely use of these Canadian Troops on American Soil, these reports go on to say, would be for the patrolling of US Cities during times of civil war, internal unrest, or, most fearfully, the assisting of US Police in the rounding up of masses of US Citizens for arrest and interment.
This assessment of the truest intentions of the United States War Leaders granting power over their own citizens to Canadian Special Forces Troops, appears to be supported by information coming from US Troops returning from Iraq, and as we can read as reported by the Prison Planet News Service in their report titled "U.S. Troops Asked If They Would Shoot American Citizens", and which says:
"U.S. troops are being trained to conduct round-ups, confiscate guns and shoot American citizens, including their own friends and family members, as part of a long-standing program to prepare for the declaration of martial law, according to a soldier who recently returned from Iraq.
We received an e mail from "Scott", a member of a pipefitters union that runs an apprenticeship program called Helmets To Hard Hats, which according to its website, "Is a national program that connects National Guard, Reserve and transitioning active-duty military members with quality career training and employment opportunities within the construction industry."
Scott writes that his company hired a soldier who had recently returned from Iraq, who told him that U.S. troops were being quizzed on whether or not they would be prepared to shoot their own friends and family members during a national state of emergency in America."
An estimated timeline in these reports states that the American people could begin seeing Canadian Soldiers in their cities as early as this summer, as many experts are predicting that the massive food shortages being reported all around the World will begin causing food riots in many American cities.
To how bad the Global Food Crisis is becoming we can read as reported by Australia’s Adelaide Now News Service, and which says:
"A WORSENING global food shortage is a problem far more urgent than climate change, top Australian scientists have warned. The Australian Science Media Centre briefing heard why prices for some staple foods had risen by as much as 60 per cent in the past year, and how dramatic price rises are expected to sweep across all staples in the near future."
There remains no evidence to suggest, either, that the American people themselves are aware of the brutal future being planned for them. Even more sadly, perhaps, is the evidence suggesting that they don’t even want to know.
[link to www.whatdoesitmean.com]
Canadian Troops To Patrol US Cities As Food Riots Feared
By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
Russian Military Analysts are reporting in the Kremlin today that the United States has, for the first time in its history, granted rights to a Foreign Army to have ‘full power’ over the life and death of American Citizens in their own country.
Though not being reported to the American people by their propaganda media organs, the United States Northern Command Military Leader, US Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, and his Canadian counterpart, Air Force Lt.-Gen. Marc Dumais [both pictured top left] announced this new Military Pact this past week, and as we can read:
"U.S. Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, and Canadian Air Force Lt.-Gen. Marc Dumais, commander of Canada Command, have signed a Civil Assistance Plan that allows the military from one nation to support the armed forces of the other nation during a civil emergency.
“This document is a unique, bilateral military plan to align our respective national military plans to respond quickly to the other nation's requests for military support of civil authorities,” Renuart said. “Unity of effort during bilateral support for civil support operations such as floods, forest fires, hurricanes, earthquakes and effects of a terrorist attack, in order to save lives, prevent human suffering and mitigate damage to property, is of the highest importance, and we need to be able to have forces that are flexible and adaptive to support rapid decision-making in a collaborative environment.”
It is interesting to note, too, that the Canadian peoples, like their American neighbors to the south, were not told of these plans for their Military Forces, and as we can read as reported by Canada’s Canwest News Service, and who say:
"Canada and the U.S. have signed an agreement that paves the way for the militaries from either nation to send troops across each other's borders during an emergency, but some are questioning why the Harper government has kept silent on the deal. Neither the Canadian government nor the Canadian Forces announced the new agreement, which was signed Feb. 14 in Texas."
Russian Colonel Gen Vladimir Bulgakov, Commander of Russia’s Far East Military District, points out in these reports that it is ‘no wonder’ that neither the US or Canadian War Leaders want the masses of their citizens to know about these ‘unprecedented’ events as ‘soldiers by their inherent training are for use in war, not peace’.
These reports further note that though Canada currently possesses 125,000 active Military and 36,500 Reserve Troops, the majority of which have been ‘combat hardened’ in the US Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the only Canadian Troops available for any, so called, ‘civil emergency’ in the United States, are soldiers from its Special Operations Forces Command (CANSOFCOM), and which Russian Military Commanders rate as being one of the top Special Forces Units among all of the World’s Army’s.
The more likely use of these Canadian Troops on American Soil, these reports go on to say, would be for the patrolling of US Cities during times of civil war, internal unrest, or, most fearfully, the assisting of US Police in the rounding up of masses of US Citizens for arrest and interment.
This assessment of the truest intentions of the United States War Leaders granting power over their own citizens to Canadian Special Forces Troops, appears to be supported by information coming from US Troops returning from Iraq, and as we can read as reported by the Prison Planet News Service in their report titled "U.S. Troops Asked If They Would Shoot American Citizens", and which says:
"U.S. troops are being trained to conduct round-ups, confiscate guns and shoot American citizens, including their own friends and family members, as part of a long-standing program to prepare for the declaration of martial law, according to a soldier who recently returned from Iraq.
We received an e mail from "Scott", a member of a pipefitters union that runs an apprenticeship program called Helmets To Hard Hats, which according to its website, "Is a national program that connects National Guard, Reserve and transitioning active-duty military members with quality career training and employment opportunities within the construction industry."
Scott writes that his company hired a soldier who had recently returned from Iraq, who told him that U.S. troops were being quizzed on whether or not they would be prepared to shoot their own friends and family members during a national state of emergency in America."
An estimated timeline in these reports states that the American people could begin seeing Canadian Soldiers in their cities as early as this summer, as many experts are predicting that the massive food shortages being reported all around the World will begin causing food riots in many American cities.
To how bad the Global Food Crisis is becoming we can read as reported by Australia’s Adelaide Now News Service, and which says:
"A WORSENING global food shortage is a problem far more urgent than climate change, top Australian scientists have warned. The Australian Science Media Centre briefing heard why prices for some staple foods had risen by as much as 60 per cent in the past year, and how dramatic price rises are expected to sweep across all staples in the near future."
There remains no evidence to suggest, either, that the American people themselves are aware of the brutal future being planned for them. Even more sadly, perhaps, is the evidence suggesting that they don’t even want to know.
[link to www.whatdoesitmean.com]
Election Issues? What Issues?
Wrath Of Allah News
Aquil Aziz
Sitting back and seeing what is happening today, the outlook is just plain abysmal. The schools are broken, food and gas prices have gone through the roof and people are losing their homes right and left to foreclosure, even though the federal government is bailing out the collapsing banks. Currently there's a $700 billion bailout package pending in Congress.
Let's not even forget about the so called war on terror and the erosion of our rights. We haven't heard anything about the prisoners often called "detainees" down in that hell hole torture chamber called Guantanamo (Gitmo). The president admits to having torture meetings on torture in the white house and nothing is done. So much for justice and the rule of law.
Congress has abdicated in their obligation to the people as the president broke one law after the other. Bush and Cheney should have been impeached a long time ago, but the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi made sure that something like that never happens. However, you can be called a terrorist or enemy combatant and taken into custody by the government indefinately.
We're bombarded with government propaganda day in and day out. Celebrities being arrested for acting a fool is news that dominates on the major networks. Recently, the FCC ruled that TMZ, a celebrity gossip program and CBN's the 700 Club is bona fide newscasts.
What more can be said? It's a sad state of affairs in the United States.
After all that has happened over the last eight years, who cares? The American economy is going to collapse. Just look at what's happening to the dollar. Very very soon the dollar is going to be so worthless that we're going to see $100 bills lying on the ground. This writer does not see the American economy lasting more than a year. Hyper inflation is on the way along with a bankrupt U.S. government.
Since Congress allowed all this madness to take place and allowing this president and his administration to remain untouched from the rule of law; it's time to build a gallows or a guillotine right in front of the U.S. Capitol and bring all the members who supported this madness and corruption out and execute them. Then move on to the war criminals in the white house and pentagon. And in the grand finale, all the media propaganda puppets who cheerleaded this ride to destruction should be executed as well. I actually had a dream that this did happen.
Aquil Aziz
Sitting back and seeing what is happening today, the outlook is just plain abysmal. The schools are broken, food and gas prices have gone through the roof and people are losing their homes right and left to foreclosure, even though the federal government is bailing out the collapsing banks. Currently there's a $700 billion bailout package pending in Congress.
Let's not even forget about the so called war on terror and the erosion of our rights. We haven't heard anything about the prisoners often called "detainees" down in that hell hole torture chamber called Guantanamo (Gitmo). The president admits to having torture meetings on torture in the white house and nothing is done. So much for justice and the rule of law.
Congress has abdicated in their obligation to the people as the president broke one law after the other. Bush and Cheney should have been impeached a long time ago, but the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi made sure that something like that never happens. However, you can be called a terrorist or enemy combatant and taken into custody by the government indefinately.
We're bombarded with government propaganda day in and day out. Celebrities being arrested for acting a fool is news that dominates on the major networks. Recently, the FCC ruled that TMZ, a celebrity gossip program and CBN's the 700 Club is bona fide newscasts.
What more can be said? It's a sad state of affairs in the United States.
After all that has happened over the last eight years, who cares? The American economy is going to collapse. Just look at what's happening to the dollar. Very very soon the dollar is going to be so worthless that we're going to see $100 bills lying on the ground. This writer does not see the American economy lasting more than a year. Hyper inflation is on the way along with a bankrupt U.S. government.
Since Congress allowed all this madness to take place and allowing this president and his administration to remain untouched from the rule of law; it's time to build a gallows or a guillotine right in front of the U.S. Capitol and bring all the members who supported this madness and corruption out and execute them. Then move on to the war criminals in the white house and pentagon. And in the grand finale, all the media propaganda puppets who cheerleaded this ride to destruction should be executed as well. I actually had a dream that this did happen.
Democracy or Police State?
Tom Burghardt
Antifascist Calling
September 22, 2008
On Wednesday, Antifascist Calling reported on moves by the Department of Justice to seek blanket immunity for AT&T under provisions of the disgraceful FISA Amendments Act (FAA).
If approved by Judge Vaughn Walker, the presiding magistrate hearing the landmark Hepting v. AT&T lawsuit in federal district court in San Francisco, the giant telecommunications corporation and Bush crime family partner would walk away scott free.
The suit, brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on behalf of AT&T customers caught up in the state’s illegal internet and telephone driftnet surveillance, is challenging unconstitutional spying on U.S. citizens and legal residents.
The shocking extent of the "public-private partnership" in political repression was first revealed in depth when former AT&T technician Mark Klein filed an affidavit in support of EFF’s contention that AT&T had systematically violated their customers’ right to privacy.
As Antifascist Calling has previously reported on many occasions, the telecommunications giant had constructed a secret room (SG3 Secure Room, room number 641A) for the exclusive use of the National Security Agency’s spying operations at AT&T’s Folsom St. office.
On Saturday, EFF reported that the government "started the formal process for retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies sued by EFF and others for their involvement in the warrantless surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans." That hearing is set for December 2, 2008 in San Francisco.
The state filed a secret "certification" by U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey with the court along with a public submission of its claim of limitless executive power "during a time of war."
However in a bold, preemptive move on Thursday, EFF filed a new lawsuit against the government. That suit, Jewel v. NSA, targets the National Security Agency, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney’s sinister chief of staff, David Addington, and former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Filed "on behalf of AT&T customers," the civil rights organization has opened a new front against the government and their corporate partners. EFF declared:
The lawsuit, Jewel v. NSA, is aimed at ending the NSA’s dragnet surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans and holding accountable the government officials who illegally authorized it.
Evidence in the case includes undisputed documents provided by former AT&T telecommunications technician Mark Klein showing AT&T has routed copies of Internet traffic to a secret room in San Francisco controlled by the NSA. ("EFF Sues NSA, President Bush and Vice President Cheney to Stop Illegal Surveillance," Electronic Frontier Foundation, Press Release, September 18, 2008)
As in Hepting v. AT&T, the identical evidence of gross malfeasance on the part of well-heeled corporate lawbreakers who acted in concert with unaccountable secret state agencies, is central to Jewel v. NSA.
These covert intelligence operations arose as the result of secret Department of Justice memorandums written by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). According to an unsigned and undated memo released by by the OLC, the Justice Department claims that President Bush has an "inherent right" to carry out "communications intelligence targeted at the enemy." Indeed, as the extent of these illegal programs have revealed, the "enemy" is none other than the American people themselves!
A January 19, 2006 Justice Department White Paper, Legal Authority Supporting the Activities of the NSA Described by President Bush, states:
The NSA’s activities are supported by the President’s well-recognized inherent constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and sole organ for the Nation in foreign affairs to conduct warrantless surveillance of enemy forces for intelligence purposes to detect and disrupt armed attacks on the United States.
Under color of the dubious theory of the "unitary executive," propounded by ultra-rightist outfits such as the Federalist Society, Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights are flagrantly–and illegally–violated on a daily basis by the Bush administration. Such specious assertions represent nothing less than an open declaration of war on our rights and the framework for a limitless presidential dictatorship.
Senior EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston commenting on the intent of Jewel v. NSA averred,
"In addition to suing AT&T, we’ve now opened a second front in the battle to stop the NSA’s illegal surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans and hold personally responsible those who authorized or participated in the spying program. For years, the NSA has been engaged in a massive and massively illegal fishing expedition through AT&T’s domestic networks and databases of customer records. Our goal in this new case against the government, as in our case against AT&T, is to dismantle this dragnet surveillance program as soon as possible."
By targeting the individuals responsible for these illegal programs, EFF intends to bring these felons to justice by holding them accountable for the destruction of our constitutional rights. The Fourth Amendment states in plain and simple language:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
But in a perverse interpretation of the constitutional separation of powers, Bushist minions such as torture-enabler John C. Yoo, formerly an attorney with the DoJ’s Office of Legal Counsel and currently a tenured professor at the University of California’s Boalt Hall Law School, stated publicly that the President, in his role as "Commander-in-Chief," has the authority to bypass, indeed subvert, laws passed by Congress.
Under this novel interpretation of the Constitution, the President has the right under the theory of the "unitary executive" to grab unlimited executive power to conduct foreign and domestic policy as he sees fit.
As limited as the Watergate-era Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was, it represented an attempt by Congress after Nixon’s resignation to curtail unchecked Executive branch surveillance of domestic dissidents under color of "national security." Indeed, Nixon’s blatant and illegal surveillance of his political opponents was included in Article 2 of the impeachment articles against him.
In the view of miscreants such as Cheney, Addington and Yoo, congressional limitations on the president’s power are "unconstitutional" maneuvers meant to strip the Chief Executive of his rightful power to act as he–and the corporatists setting policy–see fit. Under their reading, the Executive, particularly in his role as "Commander-in-Chief," must interpret laws on an equal footing with the courts, if he is to perform his "wartime" function. However, no such provision exists in the U.S. Constitution and in fact, the "unitary executive" is a fantasy.
Since 1803, U.S. constitutional tradition has recognized that the courts wield what Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall called "judicial supremacy," that is, the court is the final arbiter of what is and what is not the law. Bushist ideologues stand this principle on its head and transform a society based on law into a "managed democracy" predicated on the whims of corporations and the men who wield executive power in their "unitary" interests.
If such flagrant violations of democratic and republican norms go unchecked–either by the coequal branches of government or salutary direct action by the people themselves, the rights of citizens to determine the fundamental nature of society is replaced by a Führerprinzip, that is to say, a "leader principle" rooted in an antidemocratic hierarchy of warlords that resemble the military structures of the Nazi Party. In other words, a high-tech, panoptic police state.
Since September 11, 2001, the United States Government has launched systematic assaults against the constitutional rights of American citizens and legal residents. As the illegal aggression against the people of Iraq has revealed in all its ghastly horror, the "war on terror" is a war of terror against anyone who would challenge U.S. imperialism’s claim to be undisputed "masters of the universe."
From warrantless wiretapping to torture, from preemptive wars of aggression and conquest to the plunder of the environment on behalf of corporate "friends," and from indefinite detention of "enemy combatants" to secretive plans for martial law, the Bush administration and their congressional enablers in both capitalist political parties demonstrate on a daily basis that the greatest threat to the American people comes, not from foreign terrorists or Islamic jihadists, but from neofascist fundamentalists here at home.
Antifascist Calling
September 22, 2008
On Wednesday, Antifascist Calling reported on moves by the Department of Justice to seek blanket immunity for AT&T under provisions of the disgraceful FISA Amendments Act (FAA).
If approved by Judge Vaughn Walker, the presiding magistrate hearing the landmark Hepting v. AT&T lawsuit in federal district court in San Francisco, the giant telecommunications corporation and Bush crime family partner would walk away scott free.
The suit, brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on behalf of AT&T customers caught up in the state’s illegal internet and telephone driftnet surveillance, is challenging unconstitutional spying on U.S. citizens and legal residents.
The shocking extent of the "public-private partnership" in political repression was first revealed in depth when former AT&T technician Mark Klein filed an affidavit in support of EFF’s contention that AT&T had systematically violated their customers’ right to privacy.
As Antifascist Calling has previously reported on many occasions, the telecommunications giant had constructed a secret room (SG3 Secure Room, room number 641A) for the exclusive use of the National Security Agency’s spying operations at AT&T’s Folsom St. office.
On Saturday, EFF reported that the government "started the formal process for retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies sued by EFF and others for their involvement in the warrantless surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans." That hearing is set for December 2, 2008 in San Francisco.
The state filed a secret "certification" by U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey with the court along with a public submission of its claim of limitless executive power "during a time of war."
However in a bold, preemptive move on Thursday, EFF filed a new lawsuit against the government. That suit, Jewel v. NSA, targets the National Security Agency, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney’s sinister chief of staff, David Addington, and former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Filed "on behalf of AT&T customers," the civil rights organization has opened a new front against the government and their corporate partners. EFF declared:
The lawsuit, Jewel v. NSA, is aimed at ending the NSA’s dragnet surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans and holding accountable the government officials who illegally authorized it.
Evidence in the case includes undisputed documents provided by former AT&T telecommunications technician Mark Klein showing AT&T has routed copies of Internet traffic to a secret room in San Francisco controlled by the NSA. ("EFF Sues NSA, President Bush and Vice President Cheney to Stop Illegal Surveillance," Electronic Frontier Foundation, Press Release, September 18, 2008)
As in Hepting v. AT&T, the identical evidence of gross malfeasance on the part of well-heeled corporate lawbreakers who acted in concert with unaccountable secret state agencies, is central to Jewel v. NSA.
These covert intelligence operations arose as the result of secret Department of Justice memorandums written by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). According to an unsigned and undated memo released by by the OLC, the Justice Department claims that President Bush has an "inherent right" to carry out "communications intelligence targeted at the enemy." Indeed, as the extent of these illegal programs have revealed, the "enemy" is none other than the American people themselves!
A January 19, 2006 Justice Department White Paper, Legal Authority Supporting the Activities of the NSA Described by President Bush, states:
The NSA’s activities are supported by the President’s well-recognized inherent constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and sole organ for the Nation in foreign affairs to conduct warrantless surveillance of enemy forces for intelligence purposes to detect and disrupt armed attacks on the United States.
Under color of the dubious theory of the "unitary executive," propounded by ultra-rightist outfits such as the Federalist Society, Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights are flagrantly–and illegally–violated on a daily basis by the Bush administration. Such specious assertions represent nothing less than an open declaration of war on our rights and the framework for a limitless presidential dictatorship.
Senior EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston commenting on the intent of Jewel v. NSA averred,
"In addition to suing AT&T, we’ve now opened a second front in the battle to stop the NSA’s illegal surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans and hold personally responsible those who authorized or participated in the spying program. For years, the NSA has been engaged in a massive and massively illegal fishing expedition through AT&T’s domestic networks and databases of customer records. Our goal in this new case against the government, as in our case against AT&T, is to dismantle this dragnet surveillance program as soon as possible."
By targeting the individuals responsible for these illegal programs, EFF intends to bring these felons to justice by holding them accountable for the destruction of our constitutional rights. The Fourth Amendment states in plain and simple language:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
But in a perverse interpretation of the constitutional separation of powers, Bushist minions such as torture-enabler John C. Yoo, formerly an attorney with the DoJ’s Office of Legal Counsel and currently a tenured professor at the University of California’s Boalt Hall Law School, stated publicly that the President, in his role as "Commander-in-Chief," has the authority to bypass, indeed subvert, laws passed by Congress.
Under this novel interpretation of the Constitution, the President has the right under the theory of the "unitary executive" to grab unlimited executive power to conduct foreign and domestic policy as he sees fit.
As limited as the Watergate-era Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was, it represented an attempt by Congress after Nixon’s resignation to curtail unchecked Executive branch surveillance of domestic dissidents under color of "national security." Indeed, Nixon’s blatant and illegal surveillance of his political opponents was included in Article 2 of the impeachment articles against him.
In the view of miscreants such as Cheney, Addington and Yoo, congressional limitations on the president’s power are "unconstitutional" maneuvers meant to strip the Chief Executive of his rightful power to act as he–and the corporatists setting policy–see fit. Under their reading, the Executive, particularly in his role as "Commander-in-Chief," must interpret laws on an equal footing with the courts, if he is to perform his "wartime" function. However, no such provision exists in the U.S. Constitution and in fact, the "unitary executive" is a fantasy.
Since 1803, U.S. constitutional tradition has recognized that the courts wield what Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall called "judicial supremacy," that is, the court is the final arbiter of what is and what is not the law. Bushist ideologues stand this principle on its head and transform a society based on law into a "managed democracy" predicated on the whims of corporations and the men who wield executive power in their "unitary" interests.
If such flagrant violations of democratic and republican norms go unchecked–either by the coequal branches of government or salutary direct action by the people themselves, the rights of citizens to determine the fundamental nature of society is replaced by a Führerprinzip, that is to say, a "leader principle" rooted in an antidemocratic hierarchy of warlords that resemble the military structures of the Nazi Party. In other words, a high-tech, panoptic police state.
Since September 11, 2001, the United States Government has launched systematic assaults against the constitutional rights of American citizens and legal residents. As the illegal aggression against the people of Iraq has revealed in all its ghastly horror, the "war on terror" is a war of terror against anyone who would challenge U.S. imperialism’s claim to be undisputed "masters of the universe."
From warrantless wiretapping to torture, from preemptive wars of aggression and conquest to the plunder of the environment on behalf of corporate "friends," and from indefinite detention of "enemy combatants" to secretive plans for martial law, the Bush administration and their congressional enablers in both capitalist political parties demonstrate on a daily basis that the greatest threat to the American people comes, not from foreign terrorists or Islamic jihadists, but from neofascist fundamentalists here at home.
Obama and 'the Bubba Vote'
[col. writ. 9/9/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
By now, if pundits were to be believed, Sen. Barack Obama was supposed to be coasting to an easy November win, buoyed by dramatic moments at the democratic Convention, and cruising on a comfortable lead in the polls.
But if ever there was an election season that proved that pundits couldn't catch the ball, this is it.
For the polls are neck-and-neck dead heats between the campaigns of Obama and Arizona Sen. John McCain (R- Ariz.). If there was a post-convention bounce, it went to McCain for his surprise pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for the V.P. spot.
She has energized a campaign that was seen as moribund just a few weeks ago.
There is another factor that we cannot ignore; what former GOP house majority leader, Dick Armey (R - Tex) calls 'the Bubba vote.
In Armey's words, "The Bubba vote is there, and it's very real, and it is everywhere," Armey went on to explain what he meant by 'the Bubba vote'; "There's an awful lot of people in America, bless their heart, who simply are not emotionally prepared to vote for a black man." There it is.
If this Bubba vote has kept Obama from bouncing after a successful convention, McCain's Palin pick has compounded this problem.
For it demonstrates that all the hue and cry over 'experience' was but a smokescreen for something else. It shows us that all the clamor over 'qualifications; was naught but pretext.
For after all is said and done, for millions of Americans, Barack Obama's blackness has made him automatically ineligible for election.
That's not issues; that's not views, that's not politics; that's race. Period.
And, truth be told, that's America, at its core.
After the Democratic conventions, many Black publications gushed over the history of the nomination. And while it's true it's never happened before, it's also true that a nomination is nothing more than a means to an end.
If he loses the election, the nomination goes into the Geraldine Ferraro closet, and it will be generations before this historic opportunity returns.
And, if 'the Bubba vote' gets its way, he may well lose.
It reminds us of what's called 'the Bradley effect,' after former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley ran for Governor of California. Bradley was leading in polls by double digits the night of the election.
By morning, he'd lost.
When Douglas Wilder ran for Governor, he led by 10 points in the polls. His victory was just over 1% of the vote.
So, the polls are neck-and-neck. Indeed, some show McCain leading.
What's that tell ya, but that 'the Bradley effect' (or should we call it 'the Bubba effect'?) is still at work?
--(c) '08 maj
[Sources: Wolf, Richard and Martha T. Moore, " Armey predicts Obama will hit blockade of 'Bubba', " USA Today, Thurs,. Sept. 4, 2008; Henry, Charles P., "Obama '08 - Articulate and Clean," Black Scholar. (Spr, '08). p. 5.)
By now, if pundits were to be believed, Sen. Barack Obama was supposed to be coasting to an easy November win, buoyed by dramatic moments at the democratic Convention, and cruising on a comfortable lead in the polls.
But if ever there was an election season that proved that pundits couldn't catch the ball, this is it.
For the polls are neck-and-neck dead heats between the campaigns of Obama and Arizona Sen. John McCain (R- Ariz.). If there was a post-convention bounce, it went to McCain for his surprise pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for the V.P. spot.
She has energized a campaign that was seen as moribund just a few weeks ago.
There is another factor that we cannot ignore; what former GOP house majority leader, Dick Armey (R - Tex) calls 'the Bubba vote.
In Armey's words, "The Bubba vote is there, and it's very real, and it is everywhere," Armey went on to explain what he meant by 'the Bubba vote'; "There's an awful lot of people in America, bless their heart, who simply are not emotionally prepared to vote for a black man." There it is.
If this Bubba vote has kept Obama from bouncing after a successful convention, McCain's Palin pick has compounded this problem.
For it demonstrates that all the hue and cry over 'experience' was but a smokescreen for something else. It shows us that all the clamor over 'qualifications; was naught but pretext.
For after all is said and done, for millions of Americans, Barack Obama's blackness has made him automatically ineligible for election.
That's not issues; that's not views, that's not politics; that's race. Period.
And, truth be told, that's America, at its core.
After the Democratic conventions, many Black publications gushed over the history of the nomination. And while it's true it's never happened before, it's also true that a nomination is nothing more than a means to an end.
If he loses the election, the nomination goes into the Geraldine Ferraro closet, and it will be generations before this historic opportunity returns.
And, if 'the Bubba vote' gets its way, he may well lose.
It reminds us of what's called 'the Bradley effect,' after former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley ran for Governor of California. Bradley was leading in polls by double digits the night of the election.
By morning, he'd lost.
When Douglas Wilder ran for Governor, he led by 10 points in the polls. His victory was just over 1% of the vote.
So, the polls are neck-and-neck. Indeed, some show McCain leading.
What's that tell ya, but that 'the Bradley effect' (or should we call it 'the Bubba effect'?) is still at work?
--(c) '08 maj
[Sources: Wolf, Richard and Martha T. Moore, " Armey predicts Obama will hit blockade of 'Bubba', " USA Today, Thurs,. Sept. 4, 2008; Henry, Charles P., "Obama '08 - Articulate and Clean," Black Scholar. (Spr, '08). p. 5.)
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
The Party's Over
Pat Buchanan
Fri Sep 19, 3:00 AM ET
The Crash of 2008, which is now wiping out trillions of dollars of our people's wealth, is, like the Crash of 1929, likely to mark the end of one era and the onset of another.
The new era will see a more sober and much diminished America. The "Omnipower" and "Indispensable Nation" we heard about in all the hubris and braggadocio following our Cold War victory is history.
Seizing on the crisis, the left says we are witnessing the failure of market economics, a failure of conservatism.
This is nonsense. What we are witnessing is the collapse of Gordon Gecko ("Greed Is Good!") capitalism. What we are witnessing is what happens to a prodigal nation that ignores history, and forgets and abandons the philosophy and principles that made it great.
A true conservative cherishes prudence and believes in fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets and a self-reliant republic. He believes in saving for retirement and a rainy day, in deferred gratification, in not buying on credit what you cannot afford, in living within your means.
Is that really what got Wall Street and us into this mess — that we followed too religiously the gospel of Robert Taft and Russell Kirk?
"Government must save us!" cries the left, as ever. Yet, who got us into this mess if not the government — the Fed with its easy money, Bush with his profligate spending, and Congress and the SEC by liberating Wall Street and failing to step in and stop the drunken orgy?
For years, we Americans have spent more than we earned. We save nothing. Credit card debt, consumer debt, auto debt, mortgage debt, corporate debt — all are at record levels. And with pensions and savings being wiped out, much of that debt will never be repaid.
Our standard of living is inevitably going to fall. For foreigners will not forever buy our bonds or lend us more money if they rightly fear that they will be paid back, if at all, in cheaper dollars.
We are going to have to learn to live again without our means.
The party's over
Up through World War II, we followed the Hamiltonian idea that America must remain economically independent of the world in order to remain politically independent.
But this generation decided that was yesterday's bromide and we must march bravely forward into a Global Economy, where we all depend on one another. American companies morphed into "global companies" and moved plants and factories to Mexico, Asia, China and India, and we began buying more cheaply from abroad what we used to make at home: shoes, clothes, bikes, cars, radios, TVs, planes, computers.
As the trade deficits began inexorably to rise to 6 percent of GDP, we began vast borrowing from abroad to continue buying from abroad.
At home, propelled by tax cuts, war in Iraq and an explosion in social spending, surpluses vanished and deficits reappeared and began to rise. The dollar began to sink, and gold began to soar.
Yet, still, the promises of the politicians come. Barack Obama will give us national health insurance and tax cuts for all but that 2 percent of the nation that already carries 50 percent of the federal income tax load.
John McCain is going to cut taxes, expand the military, move NATO into Georgia and Ukraine, confront Russia and force Iran to stop enriching uranium or "bomb, bomb, bomb," with Joe Lieberman as wartime consigliere.
Who are we kidding?
What we are witnessing today is how empires end.
The Last Superpower is unable to defend its borders, protect its currency, win its wars or balance its budget. Medicare and Social Security are headed for the cliff with unfunded liabilities in the tens of trillions of dollars.
What we are witnessing today is nothing less than a Katrina-like failure of government, of our political class, and of democracy itself, casting a cloud over the viability and longevity of the system.
Notice who is managing the crisis. Not our elected leaders. Nancy Pelosi says she had nothing to do with it. Congress is paralyzed and heading home. President Bush is nowhere to be seen.
Hank Paulson of Goldman Sachs and Ben Bernanke of the Fed chose to bail out Bear Sterns but let Lehman go under. They decided to nationalize Fannie and Freddie at a cost to taxpayers of hundreds of billions, putting the U.S. government behind $5 trillion in mortgages. They decided to buy AIG with $85 billion rather than see the insurance giant sink beneath the waves.
An unelected financial elite is now entrusted with the assignment of getting us out of a disaster into which an unelected financial elite plunged the nation. We are just spectators.
What the Greatest Generation handed down to us — the richest, most powerful, most self-sufficient republic in history, with the highest standard of living any nation had ever achieved — the baby boomers, oblivious and self-indulgent to the end, have frittered away.
To find out more about Patrick Buchanan, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
Fri Sep 19, 3:00 AM ET
The Crash of 2008, which is now wiping out trillions of dollars of our people's wealth, is, like the Crash of 1929, likely to mark the end of one era and the onset of another.
The new era will see a more sober and much diminished America. The "Omnipower" and "Indispensable Nation" we heard about in all the hubris and braggadocio following our Cold War victory is history.
Seizing on the crisis, the left says we are witnessing the failure of market economics, a failure of conservatism.
This is nonsense. What we are witnessing is the collapse of Gordon Gecko ("Greed Is Good!") capitalism. What we are witnessing is what happens to a prodigal nation that ignores history, and forgets and abandons the philosophy and principles that made it great.
A true conservative cherishes prudence and believes in fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets and a self-reliant republic. He believes in saving for retirement and a rainy day, in deferred gratification, in not buying on credit what you cannot afford, in living within your means.
Is that really what got Wall Street and us into this mess — that we followed too religiously the gospel of Robert Taft and Russell Kirk?
"Government must save us!" cries the left, as ever. Yet, who got us into this mess if not the government — the Fed with its easy money, Bush with his profligate spending, and Congress and the SEC by liberating Wall Street and failing to step in and stop the drunken orgy?
For years, we Americans have spent more than we earned. We save nothing. Credit card debt, consumer debt, auto debt, mortgage debt, corporate debt — all are at record levels. And with pensions and savings being wiped out, much of that debt will never be repaid.
Our standard of living is inevitably going to fall. For foreigners will not forever buy our bonds or lend us more money if they rightly fear that they will be paid back, if at all, in cheaper dollars.
We are going to have to learn to live again without our means.
The party's over
Up through World War II, we followed the Hamiltonian idea that America must remain economically independent of the world in order to remain politically independent.
But this generation decided that was yesterday's bromide and we must march bravely forward into a Global Economy, where we all depend on one another. American companies morphed into "global companies" and moved plants and factories to Mexico, Asia, China and India, and we began buying more cheaply from abroad what we used to make at home: shoes, clothes, bikes, cars, radios, TVs, planes, computers.
As the trade deficits began inexorably to rise to 6 percent of GDP, we began vast borrowing from abroad to continue buying from abroad.
At home, propelled by tax cuts, war in Iraq and an explosion in social spending, surpluses vanished and deficits reappeared and began to rise. The dollar began to sink, and gold began to soar.
Yet, still, the promises of the politicians come. Barack Obama will give us national health insurance and tax cuts for all but that 2 percent of the nation that already carries 50 percent of the federal income tax load.
John McCain is going to cut taxes, expand the military, move NATO into Georgia and Ukraine, confront Russia and force Iran to stop enriching uranium or "bomb, bomb, bomb," with Joe Lieberman as wartime consigliere.
Who are we kidding?
What we are witnessing today is how empires end.
The Last Superpower is unable to defend its borders, protect its currency, win its wars or balance its budget. Medicare and Social Security are headed for the cliff with unfunded liabilities in the tens of trillions of dollars.
What we are witnessing today is nothing less than a Katrina-like failure of government, of our political class, and of democracy itself, casting a cloud over the viability and longevity of the system.
Notice who is managing the crisis. Not our elected leaders. Nancy Pelosi says she had nothing to do with it. Congress is paralyzed and heading home. President Bush is nowhere to be seen.
Hank Paulson of Goldman Sachs and Ben Bernanke of the Fed chose to bail out Bear Sterns but let Lehman go under. They decided to nationalize Fannie and Freddie at a cost to taxpayers of hundreds of billions, putting the U.S. government behind $5 trillion in mortgages. They decided to buy AIG with $85 billion rather than see the insurance giant sink beneath the waves.
An unelected financial elite is now entrusted with the assignment of getting us out of a disaster into which an unelected financial elite plunged the nation. We are just spectators.
What the Greatest Generation handed down to us — the richest, most powerful, most self-sufficient republic in history, with the highest standard of living any nation had ever achieved — the baby boomers, oblivious and self-indulgent to the end, have frittered away.
To find out more about Patrick Buchanan, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
12th bank failure of the year announced
Regulators close down Ameribank Inc., a West Virginia-based-bank with total assets of $115 million.
By Catherine Clifford, CNNMoney.com staff writer
Last Updated: September 19, 2008: 8:48 PM EDT
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Ameribank Inc. was shut down on Friday by the Office of the Thrift Supervision, making it the 12th bank this year to go under.
The Northfork, West Virginia bank had total assets of $115 million and total deposits of $102 million, according to a statement on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Web site.
The FDIC was named receiver and announced that it entered into purchase and assumption agreements with Pioneer Community Bank, Inc., Iaeger, West Virginia, and the Citizens Savings Bank, Martins Ferry, Ohio, to take over all of Ameribank's deposits.
Ameribank has five branches located in West Virginia and three branches located in Ohio. Branches in West Virginia will reopen on Monday and Ohio branches will reopen on Saturday.
All customer accounts were automatically transferred to the two new banks and the full amount of their deposits will automatically be insured, the FDIC said.
Customers of the banks can still access their money over the weekend by writing checks or using ATM or debit cards, according to the statement by the FDIC.
A year of bank failures
This year 12 banks have been forced to close their doors. In July IndyMac was closed down marking the largest collapse of an FDIC-insured institution since 1984. The Pasadena, Calif.-based bank failed because it backed risky home loans. With the special Alt-A home loan that IndyMac offered, a home buyer had to show little evidence of income and assets.
When IndyMac was shut down, it had assets of $32 billion and deposits of $19 billion. While the FDIC protected most of IndyMac customer's assets, some customers lost some of their deposits.
The FDIC insures the assets held by the 8,451 institutions with a total of $13.4 trillion.
By Catherine Clifford, CNNMoney.com staff writer
Last Updated: September 19, 2008: 8:48 PM EDT
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Ameribank Inc. was shut down on Friday by the Office of the Thrift Supervision, making it the 12th bank this year to go under.
The Northfork, West Virginia bank had total assets of $115 million and total deposits of $102 million, according to a statement on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Web site.
The FDIC was named receiver and announced that it entered into purchase and assumption agreements with Pioneer Community Bank, Inc., Iaeger, West Virginia, and the Citizens Savings Bank, Martins Ferry, Ohio, to take over all of Ameribank's deposits.
Ameribank has five branches located in West Virginia and three branches located in Ohio. Branches in West Virginia will reopen on Monday and Ohio branches will reopen on Saturday.
All customer accounts were automatically transferred to the two new banks and the full amount of their deposits will automatically be insured, the FDIC said.
Customers of the banks can still access their money over the weekend by writing checks or using ATM or debit cards, according to the statement by the FDIC.
A year of bank failures
This year 12 banks have been forced to close their doors. In July IndyMac was closed down marking the largest collapse of an FDIC-insured institution since 1984. The Pasadena, Calif.-based bank failed because it backed risky home loans. With the special Alt-A home loan that IndyMac offered, a home buyer had to show little evidence of income and assets.
When IndyMac was shut down, it had assets of $32 billion and deposits of $19 billion. While the FDIC protected most of IndyMac customer's assets, some customers lost some of their deposits.
The FDIC insures the assets held by the 8,451 institutions with a total of $13.4 trillion.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Aspartame Study: 67% of Female Rats Developed Visible Tumors
PDF: Aspartame Study Female Rats Developed Visible Tumors
Victoria Inness-Brown, M.A.
Aspartame Experiment
September 15, 2008
“In my opinion, we are the rats of the pharmaceutical and chemical companies that liberally spread their synthetic chemicals worldwide, with no one fully understanding the long-term adverse effects—especially the complex interactions from injecting and intermixing thousands of toxic chemicals in the plant and animal kingdoms sustaining our planet.”—Victoria Inness-Brown
As a citizen scientist concerned about family members addicted to diet soda, I performed a 2-1/2 year scientific study on the effects of the artificial sweetener aspartame by putting aspartame (in the form of packets of NutraSweet™) in the drinking water of 60 rats, while keeping 48 as controls. Of my 30 females on aspartame, 20 of them—or 67%—developed tumors the size of golf balls or greater. Of my 30 males on aspartame, seven—or 23%—developed visible tumors. Five control females—or 21%—developed visible tumors generally smaller in size. No tumors were observed in my control males.
The percentage of females-to-males with tumors was approximately 3:1, which coincides with the complaints about aspartame registered with the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA)before it stopped accepting them, where females registered 77% of all complaints.
My rats on aspartame also developed other apparent health issues, such as paralysis, difficulty walking, spasmodic torticollis (also called dystonia, where the neck is twisted and the head continually tilted to one side), infected and bleeding eyes, skin lesions, thinning and yellowing fur, and obesity—which is sad, because people often use aspartame to lose weight.
1 H.J. Roberts, MD, Aspartame Disease, an Ignored Epidemic (West Palm Beach, FL: Sunshine Sentinel Press, Inc., 2001): 88. In reference to L. Tollefson, R.J. Barnard, and W.H. Glinsmann, “Monitoring of adverse reactions to aspartame reported to the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration,” in Proceedings of the First International Meeting on Dietary Phenylalanine and Brain Function, edited by R.J. Wurtman and E. Ritter-Walker, Washington DC (May 1987): 347-372.
Female on aspartame who often used her huge tumor as a pillow Male on aspartame whose hind legs became paralyzed while consuming aspartame.
Three of the rats in my control group developed thinning fur and one developed skin problems.
The US Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allows for the human consumption of 50 mg of aspartame per kg of body weight per day, which is equivalent to a 150-lb person drinking about 20 12-oz. cans of diet soda. My male rats received about 34 mg/kg of aspartame per day, which is equivalent to a 150-lb. (68-kg) human male drinking about 13 12-oz. cans or 2.25 two-liter bottles of diet soda a day. My females received about 45 mg/kg per day, which is equivalent to a 120-lb. (55-kg) human female drinking about 14 12-oz. cans or 2.4 two-liter bottles of diet soda a day.
FDA laws state that the ADI for any food additive should be one hundred times less than thelowest amount found to cause adverse health effects.
2 If my results are considered valid, then the ADI for aspartame should be the equivalent of less than 1/8 can of diet soda per day. However, if the tumor rate observed in my study is considered valid, then aspartame should be removed from the marketplace altogether.
According to the pro-aspartame authors of The Clinical Evaluation of a Food Additive: Assessment of Aspartame , “If the additive is found to cause cancer in either animals or humans at any dose, it is banned from use as a food additive, as a result of the Delaney Anticancer Clause of 1958.”
3 For more details and to view slide-show movies of my results, go to aspartameexperiment.com
For complete details, get My Aspartame Experiment: Report from a Private Citizen, available from my website as a downloadable e-book.
Note: After reading my report, my family member who had been consuming the most aspartame-laced diet soda said “ Your report is very convincing. Since reading it, I’ve cut way down on diet sodas with aspartame.”
Note : My heavily referenced new e-book, My Aspartame Experiment: Report from a Private Citizen, with compelling personal testimonies from aspartame victims, becoming an integral part of an astonishing story underscored by quotes from independent scientific studies and other sources reporting serious adverse effects from aspartame. Salted within the story are “Pollyanna-like” quotes from aspartame industry “talking points” that are also distributed by the numerous national and global regulatory agencies meant to protect the 200,000,000 consumers worldwide who daily ingest aspartame in over 6000 foods, drinks, pharmaceutical drugs and vitamins.
This powerful combination of strategically placed quotes and photos dramatically illustrates the stark contrasts between the studies sponsored by the aspartame industry that consistently claim aspartame is safe, versus those done by independent researchers consistently reporting serious adverse effects from the sweetener. The report also highlights the deep conflicts of interests of the scientists and doctors who did the highly-applauded pro-aspartame Magnuson 2007 Report, and debunks a multitude of other aspartame industry studies by exposing the flaws in their experimental designs.
Note:
My website aspartameexperiment.com is not to be confused with a site of a similar name posted on February 11, 2008 without my permission, and claiming that I was the author. That site was created by someone who scanned images from and rewrote an early, incomplete,
2 Dr. Christian Tschanz, Dr. Harriett H. Butchko, Dr. W. Wayne Stargel, and Dr. Frank N. Kotsonis, The Clinical Evaluation of a Food Additive: Assessment of Aspartame (New York, NY: CRC Press LLC, 1996), 24. 3 Ibid.
Incorrect, and tattered printout of my report that was a work in progress I had not released to the public. (I didn’t finish analyzing my data for another six months and had guessed at some of the information, such as the start date and duration of my experiment.) In addition, valid data in that version of my report was misinterpreted.
For example, the unauthorized site claims that my results were from consuming an equivalent in humans of a single can of diet soda per day, while the actual values are 13 and 14 cans daily for human males and females respectively. The unauthorized site was translated into several languages and linked to over 1,000 websites.
If you own one of those sites, please correct the information on your site and replace the unauthorized link with aspartameexperiment.com.
Victoria Inness-Brown, M.A.
Aspartame Experiment
September 15, 2008
“In my opinion, we are the rats of the pharmaceutical and chemical companies that liberally spread their synthetic chemicals worldwide, with no one fully understanding the long-term adverse effects—especially the complex interactions from injecting and intermixing thousands of toxic chemicals in the plant and animal kingdoms sustaining our planet.”—Victoria Inness-Brown
As a citizen scientist concerned about family members addicted to diet soda, I performed a 2-1/2 year scientific study on the effects of the artificial sweetener aspartame by putting aspartame (in the form of packets of NutraSweet™) in the drinking water of 60 rats, while keeping 48 as controls. Of my 30 females on aspartame, 20 of them—or 67%—developed tumors the size of golf balls or greater. Of my 30 males on aspartame, seven—or 23%—developed visible tumors. Five control females—or 21%—developed visible tumors generally smaller in size. No tumors were observed in my control males.
The percentage of females-to-males with tumors was approximately 3:1, which coincides with the complaints about aspartame registered with the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA)before it stopped accepting them, where females registered 77% of all complaints.
My rats on aspartame also developed other apparent health issues, such as paralysis, difficulty walking, spasmodic torticollis (also called dystonia, where the neck is twisted and the head continually tilted to one side), infected and bleeding eyes, skin lesions, thinning and yellowing fur, and obesity—which is sad, because people often use aspartame to lose weight.
1 H.J. Roberts, MD, Aspartame Disease, an Ignored Epidemic (West Palm Beach, FL: Sunshine Sentinel Press, Inc., 2001): 88. In reference to L. Tollefson, R.J. Barnard, and W.H. Glinsmann, “Monitoring of adverse reactions to aspartame reported to the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration,” in Proceedings of the First International Meeting on Dietary Phenylalanine and Brain Function, edited by R.J. Wurtman and E. Ritter-Walker, Washington DC (May 1987): 347-372.
Female on aspartame who often used her huge tumor as a pillow Male on aspartame whose hind legs became paralyzed while consuming aspartame.
Three of the rats in my control group developed thinning fur and one developed skin problems.
The US Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allows for the human consumption of 50 mg of aspartame per kg of body weight per day, which is equivalent to a 150-lb person drinking about 20 12-oz. cans of diet soda. My male rats received about 34 mg/kg of aspartame per day, which is equivalent to a 150-lb. (68-kg) human male drinking about 13 12-oz. cans or 2.25 two-liter bottles of diet soda a day. My females received about 45 mg/kg per day, which is equivalent to a 120-lb. (55-kg) human female drinking about 14 12-oz. cans or 2.4 two-liter bottles of diet soda a day.
FDA laws state that the ADI for any food additive should be one hundred times less than thelowest amount found to cause adverse health effects.
2 If my results are considered valid, then the ADI for aspartame should be the equivalent of less than 1/8 can of diet soda per day. However, if the tumor rate observed in my study is considered valid, then aspartame should be removed from the marketplace altogether.
According to the pro-aspartame authors of The Clinical Evaluation of a Food Additive: Assessment of Aspartame , “If the additive is found to cause cancer in either animals or humans at any dose, it is banned from use as a food additive, as a result of the Delaney Anticancer Clause of 1958.”
3 For more details and to view slide-show movies of my results, go to aspartameexperiment.com
For complete details, get My Aspartame Experiment: Report from a Private Citizen, available from my website as a downloadable e-book.
Note: After reading my report, my family member who had been consuming the most aspartame-laced diet soda said “ Your report is very convincing. Since reading it, I’ve cut way down on diet sodas with aspartame.”
Note : My heavily referenced new e-book, My Aspartame Experiment: Report from a Private Citizen, with compelling personal testimonies from aspartame victims, becoming an integral part of an astonishing story underscored by quotes from independent scientific studies and other sources reporting serious adverse effects from aspartame. Salted within the story are “Pollyanna-like” quotes from aspartame industry “talking points” that are also distributed by the numerous national and global regulatory agencies meant to protect the 200,000,000 consumers worldwide who daily ingest aspartame in over 6000 foods, drinks, pharmaceutical drugs and vitamins.
This powerful combination of strategically placed quotes and photos dramatically illustrates the stark contrasts between the studies sponsored by the aspartame industry that consistently claim aspartame is safe, versus those done by independent researchers consistently reporting serious adverse effects from the sweetener. The report also highlights the deep conflicts of interests of the scientists and doctors who did the highly-applauded pro-aspartame Magnuson 2007 Report, and debunks a multitude of other aspartame industry studies by exposing the flaws in their experimental designs.
Note:
My website aspartameexperiment.com is not to be confused with a site of a similar name posted on February 11, 2008 without my permission, and claiming that I was the author. That site was created by someone who scanned images from and rewrote an early, incomplete,
2 Dr. Christian Tschanz, Dr. Harriett H. Butchko, Dr. W. Wayne Stargel, and Dr. Frank N. Kotsonis, The Clinical Evaluation of a Food Additive: Assessment of Aspartame (New York, NY: CRC Press LLC, 1996), 24. 3 Ibid.
Incorrect, and tattered printout of my report that was a work in progress I had not released to the public. (I didn’t finish analyzing my data for another six months and had guessed at some of the information, such as the start date and duration of my experiment.) In addition, valid data in that version of my report was misinterpreted.
For example, the unauthorized site claims that my results were from consuming an equivalent in humans of a single can of diet soda per day, while the actual values are 13 and 14 cans daily for human males and females respectively. The unauthorized site was translated into several languages and linked to over 1,000 websites.
If you own one of those sites, please correct the information on your site and replace the unauthorized link with aspartameexperiment.com.
More Socialism for the Bankers: Fed to “Loan” AIG $85 Billion
Fed rescues AIG with $85 billion loan for 80% stake
By Edmund L. Andrews
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
WASHINGTON: Acting to avert a possible financial crisis worldwide, the U.S. Federal Reserve Board reversed course Tuesday and agreed to an $85 billion bailout that would give the U.S. government an ownership stake in the troubled insurance giant American International Group.
The decision, announced by the Fed only two weeks after the Treasury Department took over the quasi-government mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is the most radical intervention in private business in the central bank's history.
With time running out after AIG failed to get a bank loan to avoid bankruptcy, Treasury Secterary Henry Paulson Jr. and the Fed chairman, Ben Bernanke convened a meeting with House and Senate leaders on Capitol Hill at about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday to explain the rescue plan.
They emerged just after 7:30 p.m. with Paulson and Bernanke looking grim but top lawmakers generally expressing support for the plan. But the bailout is likely to prove controversial, because it effectively puts taxpayer money at risk while protecting bad investments made by AIG and other institutions does business with.
What frightened Fed and Treasury officials was not simply the prospect of another giant corporate bankruptcy, but AIG's role as an enormous provider of financial insurance, which effectively requires it cover losses suffered by other institutions in the instance of defaults of securities that they have purchased. That means AIG is potentially on the hook for securities that were once considered safe.
If AIG had collapsed — and been unable to pay all of its insurance claims — institutional investors around the world would have been instantly forced to reappraise the value of billions of dollars in debt securities, which in turn would have reduced their own capital and the value of their own debt.
"It would have been a chain reaction," said Uwe Reinhardt, a professor of economics at Princeton University. "The spillover effects could have been incredible."
Financial markets, which on Monday had plunged over worries about AIG's possible collapse, reacted with relief to the news of the bailout. In anticipation of a deal, stocks about 1 percent in the United States on Tuesday and were up about 2 percent in early trading in Asian markets Wednesday.
Still, the move will likely start an intense political debate during the presidential election campaign over who is to blame for the financial crisis that prompted the rescue.
Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said Paulson and Bernanke had not requested any new legislative authority for the bailout at the meeting Tuesday.
"The secretary and the chairman of the Fed, two Bush appointees, came down here and said, 'We're from the government, we're here to help them,' " Frank said. "I mean this is one more affirmation that the lack of regulation has caused serious problems. That the private market screwed itself up and they need the government to come help them unscrew it."
The decision was a remarkable turnabout by the Bush administration and Paulson, who had flatly refused over the weekend to risk taxpayer money to prevent the collapse of Lehman Brothers or the distressed sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America. Earlier this year, the government bailed out another investment bank, Bear Stearns, by engineering a sale to JPMorgan Chase that left taxpayers on the hook for up to $29 billion of bad investments by Bear Stearns. The government hoped at the time that this unusual step would both calm markets and lead to a recovery by the financial system. But critics warned at the time that it would only encourage others to seek bailouts, and the eventual costs to the government would be staggering.
The decision to rescue AIG came on the same day that the Fed decided to leave its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 2 percent, turning aside hopes by many on Wall Street that the Fed would try to shore up confidence by cutting rates once again.
Fed and Treasury officials initially had turned a cold shoulder to AIG, when company executives pleaded on Sunday night for the Fed to provide a $40 billion bridge loan to stave off a crippling downgrade of its credit ratings as a result of tens of billions of dollars of losses related to insurance investments that have turned sour.
But government officials reluctantly backed away from their tough-minded approach after a failed attempt to line up private financing with help from JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, which told U.S. government officials that they simply could not raise the money given both the general angst in credit markets and the specific fears of problems with AIG.
Another reason that AIG posed systemic risk is that it might have been forced to liquidate real estate and other assets at fire sale prices — a move that could drive property prices lowers and force countless other companies to mark down the value of their own holdings.
The complexity of AIG's business, and the fact that it does business with thousands of companies around the globe, make its survival critical at a time when there is stress throughout the financial system worldwide.
"It's the interconnectedness and the fear of the unknown, meaning the impact of a failure," said Roger Altman, a former Treasury official under President Bill Clinton. "But size is a factor, you can't ignore that. The prospect of world's largest insurer failing, together with the interconnectedness and the uncertainty about the collateral damage – that's why it's scaring people so much."
AIG is a sprawling empire built by Maurice "Hank" Greenberg who acquired hundreds of businesses all over the world until he was ousted amid an accounting scandal in 2005. Many of AIG's subsidiaries wrote insurance of various types. Others made home loans and leased aircraft. The diverse array of companies were more valuable under a single corporate parent like AIG, because business cycles offset other, giving AIG a relatively smooth stream of revenue and income.
After Greenberg's departure, AIG restated its books over a five-year period and instituted conservative new accounting policies. But before the company could really rebuild itself, it became embroiled in the mortgage crisis. Some of its insurance companies ended up with mortgage-backed securities on their books, for example. But AIG's downfall involved a new kind of insurance its financial products unit offered investors in complex debt securities.
Its stock tumbled faster this year as first the debt securities lost value, and then the derivatives-based insurance contracts came under a cloud.
The Fed's extraordinary rescue of AIG underscores how much fear remains about the destructive potential of the complex financial instruments, like credit default swaps, that brought AIG to its knees. The market for such instruments has exploded in recent years, but it is almost entirely unregulated. When AIG began to teeter in the last few days, it became clear that if it defaulted on its commitments under the swaps, it could set off a devastating chain reaction through the financial system.
"We are witnessing a rather unique event in the history of the United States," said Suresh Sundaresan, the Chase Manhattan Bank professor of economics and finance at Columbia University, in New York. He thought the near brush with catastrophe would bring about an acceleration of efforts within the Treasury and the Fed to put safety controls on the use of credit default swaps.
Most of AIG's subsidiaries are considered healthy and stable, and there is little question about who regulates them. AIG's crisis grew primarily out of its financial products unit, which dealt in complex debt securities and credit default swaps.
The swaps are not securities and are not regulated by the SEC And while they perform the same function as an insurance policy they are not insurance in the conventional sense, so insurance regulators do not monitor them either.
AIG's complex debt securities had already lost billions of dollars in value in the months before the crisis began, because their value depends on home values. But in the last two days, the swaps AIG's financial products unit had sold began eating up billions of dollars of AIG's cash and liquid assets. That ultimately paralyzed AIG because it could not find a way to keep up with the fast-growing need to provide cash under the terms of its swap contracts.
By Edmund L. Andrews
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
WASHINGTON: Acting to avert a possible financial crisis worldwide, the U.S. Federal Reserve Board reversed course Tuesday and agreed to an $85 billion bailout that would give the U.S. government an ownership stake in the troubled insurance giant American International Group.
The decision, announced by the Fed only two weeks after the Treasury Department took over the quasi-government mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is the most radical intervention in private business in the central bank's history.
With time running out after AIG failed to get a bank loan to avoid bankruptcy, Treasury Secterary Henry Paulson Jr. and the Fed chairman, Ben Bernanke convened a meeting with House and Senate leaders on Capitol Hill at about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday to explain the rescue plan.
They emerged just after 7:30 p.m. with Paulson and Bernanke looking grim but top lawmakers generally expressing support for the plan. But the bailout is likely to prove controversial, because it effectively puts taxpayer money at risk while protecting bad investments made by AIG and other institutions does business with.
What frightened Fed and Treasury officials was not simply the prospect of another giant corporate bankruptcy, but AIG's role as an enormous provider of financial insurance, which effectively requires it cover losses suffered by other institutions in the instance of defaults of securities that they have purchased. That means AIG is potentially on the hook for securities that were once considered safe.
If AIG had collapsed — and been unable to pay all of its insurance claims — institutional investors around the world would have been instantly forced to reappraise the value of billions of dollars in debt securities, which in turn would have reduced their own capital and the value of their own debt.
"It would have been a chain reaction," said Uwe Reinhardt, a professor of economics at Princeton University. "The spillover effects could have been incredible."
Financial markets, which on Monday had plunged over worries about AIG's possible collapse, reacted with relief to the news of the bailout. In anticipation of a deal, stocks about 1 percent in the United States on Tuesday and were up about 2 percent in early trading in Asian markets Wednesday.
Still, the move will likely start an intense political debate during the presidential election campaign over who is to blame for the financial crisis that prompted the rescue.
Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said Paulson and Bernanke had not requested any new legislative authority for the bailout at the meeting Tuesday.
"The secretary and the chairman of the Fed, two Bush appointees, came down here and said, 'We're from the government, we're here to help them,' " Frank said. "I mean this is one more affirmation that the lack of regulation has caused serious problems. That the private market screwed itself up and they need the government to come help them unscrew it."
The decision was a remarkable turnabout by the Bush administration and Paulson, who had flatly refused over the weekend to risk taxpayer money to prevent the collapse of Lehman Brothers or the distressed sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America. Earlier this year, the government bailed out another investment bank, Bear Stearns, by engineering a sale to JPMorgan Chase that left taxpayers on the hook for up to $29 billion of bad investments by Bear Stearns. The government hoped at the time that this unusual step would both calm markets and lead to a recovery by the financial system. But critics warned at the time that it would only encourage others to seek bailouts, and the eventual costs to the government would be staggering.
The decision to rescue AIG came on the same day that the Fed decided to leave its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 2 percent, turning aside hopes by many on Wall Street that the Fed would try to shore up confidence by cutting rates once again.
Fed and Treasury officials initially had turned a cold shoulder to AIG, when company executives pleaded on Sunday night for the Fed to provide a $40 billion bridge loan to stave off a crippling downgrade of its credit ratings as a result of tens of billions of dollars of losses related to insurance investments that have turned sour.
But government officials reluctantly backed away from their tough-minded approach after a failed attempt to line up private financing with help from JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, which told U.S. government officials that they simply could not raise the money given both the general angst in credit markets and the specific fears of problems with AIG.
Another reason that AIG posed systemic risk is that it might have been forced to liquidate real estate and other assets at fire sale prices — a move that could drive property prices lowers and force countless other companies to mark down the value of their own holdings.
The complexity of AIG's business, and the fact that it does business with thousands of companies around the globe, make its survival critical at a time when there is stress throughout the financial system worldwide.
"It's the interconnectedness and the fear of the unknown, meaning the impact of a failure," said Roger Altman, a former Treasury official under President Bill Clinton. "But size is a factor, you can't ignore that. The prospect of world's largest insurer failing, together with the interconnectedness and the uncertainty about the collateral damage – that's why it's scaring people so much."
AIG is a sprawling empire built by Maurice "Hank" Greenberg who acquired hundreds of businesses all over the world until he was ousted amid an accounting scandal in 2005. Many of AIG's subsidiaries wrote insurance of various types. Others made home loans and leased aircraft. The diverse array of companies were more valuable under a single corporate parent like AIG, because business cycles offset other, giving AIG a relatively smooth stream of revenue and income.
After Greenberg's departure, AIG restated its books over a five-year period and instituted conservative new accounting policies. But before the company could really rebuild itself, it became embroiled in the mortgage crisis. Some of its insurance companies ended up with mortgage-backed securities on their books, for example. But AIG's downfall involved a new kind of insurance its financial products unit offered investors in complex debt securities.
Its stock tumbled faster this year as first the debt securities lost value, and then the derivatives-based insurance contracts came under a cloud.
The Fed's extraordinary rescue of AIG underscores how much fear remains about the destructive potential of the complex financial instruments, like credit default swaps, that brought AIG to its knees. The market for such instruments has exploded in recent years, but it is almost entirely unregulated. When AIG began to teeter in the last few days, it became clear that if it defaulted on its commitments under the swaps, it could set off a devastating chain reaction through the financial system.
"We are witnessing a rather unique event in the history of the United States," said Suresh Sundaresan, the Chase Manhattan Bank professor of economics and finance at Columbia University, in New York. He thought the near brush with catastrophe would bring about an acceleration of efforts within the Treasury and the Fed to put safety controls on the use of credit default swaps.
Most of AIG's subsidiaries are considered healthy and stable, and there is little question about who regulates them. AIG's crisis grew primarily out of its financial products unit, which dealt in complex debt securities and credit default swaps.
The swaps are not securities and are not regulated by the SEC And while they perform the same function as an insurance policy they are not insurance in the conventional sense, so insurance regulators do not monitor them either.
AIG's complex debt securities had already lost billions of dollars in value in the months before the crisis began, because their value depends on home values. But in the last two days, the swaps AIG's financial products unit had sold began eating up billions of dollars of AIG's cash and liquid assets. That ultimately paralyzed AIG because it could not find a way to keep up with the fast-growing need to provide cash under the terms of its swap contracts.
Nobel Prize Winning Economist: Crisis As Bad As Great Depression Or Worse
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Wednesday, Sept 17, 2008
Two time Nobel-prize winner and former chief economist of the World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz has warned that the current financial crisis will continue for at least another eighteen months and in many ways represents a worse situation than the one faced by Americans during the great depression of the 1930s.
“You can paper things over for a while but eventually you have to face reality.” Stiglitz told the nationally syndicated Alex Jones show yesterday.
“This is clearly the most serious problem since the great depression and in some ways worse in terms of the financial institutions.” Stiglitz commented, referring to the fact that lenders are unwilling to take risks to finance each other because they no longer have complete access to their own undertakings let alone those of other institutions.
“The reason, in part, is that while some of the same problems that occurred during the great depression and have occurred since, such as excessive leverage, pyramid schemes, bubbles, have happened before, the so called innovation of Wall Street, the financial innovations, that were supposed to manage risk, created a kind of non transparency that is now so great that no one knows exactly the magnitude of the risk they face.”
“It is particularly bad because our financial institutions are based on trust, you put the money in the bank and you trust that you can get your money out, so trust is absolutely essential for the functioning of our financial markets and the functioning of our economy.” he continued.
“The problem is that much of the news on what is going on in the financial markets comes from those who are making money out of the financial markets. So if you were one of the people involved with Lehman Brothers or AIG, you’re going to be talking up the economy. The head of Lehman Brothers was quoted last April as saying we have turned the corner, the economy is on the uptick. And the same thing goes for the president and the secretary of treasury.”
“The fact is that they are involved in salesmanship.”
Describing the current situation as a “top down crisis”, Stiglitz also cited the $3 trillion cost of the Iraq war as a key factor in the economic downturn, saying it has increased the budget deficit and consumed resources that would otherwise promote growth.
“This is the first war in American history that has been totally financed on the credit card… For the last five years as the war has gone on we have been a debt economy. It is the first war since the revolutionary war that we have had to turn to foreigners to finance, 40% of our national debt is now being financed by foreigners… Even as we went into the war we had a big deficit, and yet the president called for tax cuts for upper middle class Americans.” he said.
“And there is another level of trust, those in other countries have to have trust that the American economy is working well, they have to trust that when the president says everything is going well, it is. This administration has really burned that trust, the president said there is no problem, there’s just a few too many houses been built. Well if that is the level of analysis the Untied States is giving about the nature of its economic problems, no wonder everybody around the world is losing confidence. “
Stiglitz is no stranger to positioning himself in opposition to the establishment on the economic front. In October 2001 he caused controversy when he exposed rampant corruption within the IMF and blew the whistle on their nefarious methods of inducing countries to fall under their debt before stripping them of sovereignty and hollowing out their economies.
“It is clear that the Bush administration is not responding to these problems, partly because the problems are of their own making.” Stiglitz asserted.
Over the next twelve months, Stiglitz predicts that house prices will continue to fall, more mortgages will go into foreclosure and more financial firms will be put into crisis.
“I am particularly worried about what I call the ‘real economy’. Basically when the financial system starts getting weak, it is not in a position to provide credit, to provide loans, to provide mortgages and that means in turn that housing prices are going to fall further, businesses are going to contract, unemployment is going to grow and it is a downward vicious cycle… I don’t want to be obsessively pessimistic but you have to be in fantasy land to say that everything is fine, and even to say that we have turned the corner. We’re still in the downward phase of this economic cycle. We should not anticipate emerging from this for a year and a half or longer.”
In a long term prediction 22 months ago, Stiglitz told listeners of the Alex Jones show that he believed a global economic crash would occur within 2 years. With major financial institutions now folding every week, others touting mergers just to stay afloat and stocks continually plummeting on a daily basis it seems that prediction is coming to pass.
Stiglitz stressed that in order to emerge from the crisis, the economy needs a stimulus, that really works, consisting of increased aid for local government, stronger unemployment insurance and more investment in infrastructure.
“I would take advantage of this particular time in order to stimulate our economy in ways that provide the basis of our longer term economic growth. If our economy is growing then we will be better able to manage some of this financial turmoil.” he concluded.
Infowars.net
Wednesday, Sept 17, 2008
Two time Nobel-prize winner and former chief economist of the World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz has warned that the current financial crisis will continue for at least another eighteen months and in many ways represents a worse situation than the one faced by Americans during the great depression of the 1930s.
“You can paper things over for a while but eventually you have to face reality.” Stiglitz told the nationally syndicated Alex Jones show yesterday.
“This is clearly the most serious problem since the great depression and in some ways worse in terms of the financial institutions.” Stiglitz commented, referring to the fact that lenders are unwilling to take risks to finance each other because they no longer have complete access to their own undertakings let alone those of other institutions.
“The reason, in part, is that while some of the same problems that occurred during the great depression and have occurred since, such as excessive leverage, pyramid schemes, bubbles, have happened before, the so called innovation of Wall Street, the financial innovations, that were supposed to manage risk, created a kind of non transparency that is now so great that no one knows exactly the magnitude of the risk they face.”
“It is particularly bad because our financial institutions are based on trust, you put the money in the bank and you trust that you can get your money out, so trust is absolutely essential for the functioning of our financial markets and the functioning of our economy.” he continued.
“The problem is that much of the news on what is going on in the financial markets comes from those who are making money out of the financial markets. So if you were one of the people involved with Lehman Brothers or AIG, you’re going to be talking up the economy. The head of Lehman Brothers was quoted last April as saying we have turned the corner, the economy is on the uptick. And the same thing goes for the president and the secretary of treasury.”
“The fact is that they are involved in salesmanship.”
Describing the current situation as a “top down crisis”, Stiglitz also cited the $3 trillion cost of the Iraq war as a key factor in the economic downturn, saying it has increased the budget deficit and consumed resources that would otherwise promote growth.
“This is the first war in American history that has been totally financed on the credit card… For the last five years as the war has gone on we have been a debt economy. It is the first war since the revolutionary war that we have had to turn to foreigners to finance, 40% of our national debt is now being financed by foreigners… Even as we went into the war we had a big deficit, and yet the president called for tax cuts for upper middle class Americans.” he said.
“And there is another level of trust, those in other countries have to have trust that the American economy is working well, they have to trust that when the president says everything is going well, it is. This administration has really burned that trust, the president said there is no problem, there’s just a few too many houses been built. Well if that is the level of analysis the Untied States is giving about the nature of its economic problems, no wonder everybody around the world is losing confidence. “
Stiglitz is no stranger to positioning himself in opposition to the establishment on the economic front. In October 2001 he caused controversy when he exposed rampant corruption within the IMF and blew the whistle on their nefarious methods of inducing countries to fall under their debt before stripping them of sovereignty and hollowing out their economies.
“It is clear that the Bush administration is not responding to these problems, partly because the problems are of their own making.” Stiglitz asserted.
Over the next twelve months, Stiglitz predicts that house prices will continue to fall, more mortgages will go into foreclosure and more financial firms will be put into crisis.
“I am particularly worried about what I call the ‘real economy’. Basically when the financial system starts getting weak, it is not in a position to provide credit, to provide loans, to provide mortgages and that means in turn that housing prices are going to fall further, businesses are going to contract, unemployment is going to grow and it is a downward vicious cycle… I don’t want to be obsessively pessimistic but you have to be in fantasy land to say that everything is fine, and even to say that we have turned the corner. We’re still in the downward phase of this economic cycle. We should not anticipate emerging from this for a year and a half or longer.”
In a long term prediction 22 months ago, Stiglitz told listeners of the Alex Jones show that he believed a global economic crash would occur within 2 years. With major financial institutions now folding every week, others touting mergers just to stay afloat and stocks continually plummeting on a daily basis it seems that prediction is coming to pass.
Stiglitz stressed that in order to emerge from the crisis, the economy needs a stimulus, that really works, consisting of increased aid for local government, stronger unemployment insurance and more investment in infrastructure.
“I would take advantage of this particular time in order to stimulate our economy in ways that provide the basis of our longer term economic growth. If our economy is growing then we will be better able to manage some of this financial turmoil.” he concluded.
US Economy: Rudderless and Reeling From Direct Hits
Paul Craig Roberts
Information Clearing House
September 16, 2008
We were promised a “New Economy” of high-tech tradable services to take the place of the offshore manufacturing economy. Wondering what had become of the “New Economy,” Duke University’s Offshoring Research Network searched for it and located it offshore. Yes, the activities of the “New Economy” are also outsourced offshore.
Call centers, IT operations, back-office operations, and manufacturing have long been moved offshore. Now high-value-added proprietary activities such as research and development, engineering, product development, and analytical services are being sent offshore. All that’s left is finance, and it is crumbling before our eyes.
Independent broker-dealers are disappearing: Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers.
These venerable institutions were too thinly capitalized for the risks that they took. Merrill Lynch is now part of the Bank of America, and Lehman Brothers is history.
Ill-advised financial deregulation led to financial concentration and not to more efficient markets.
Independent local banks, which focused on financing local businesses, and Saving and Loan Associations, which knew the local housing market, have been replaced with large institutions that package unanalyzed risks and sell them worldwide.
Regulation over-reached. The pendulum swung. Deregulation became an ideology and a facilitator of greed.
Deregulating electric power gave us Enron.
Deregulating the airlines destroyed famous American brand names such as Pan Am, shrank the number of companies, and caused a decline in service. When airlines were regulated, they could afford standby equipment, and cancelled flights were rare. Today, the bottom line prohibits standby equipment, and mechanical problems result in cancelled flights. When economists calculated the benefits of deregulation, they left out many of its costs.
There are no longer any blue chip companies, which means that investing for retirement has become a crapshoot. People realize this; thus, the privatization of Social Security has no support.
If we look realistically at the US economy, we see that what is not moved offshore is being bailed out. Last year, the US Department of Energy was authorized to make $25 billion in loans to auto manufacturing firms and suppliers of automotive parts. Last week the Secretary of the Treasury took $5 trillion dollars in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac home mortgages under its wing.
The Congressional Budget Office says this action by the Treasury means “that the operations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be directly incorporated into the federal budget.”
http://cboblog.cbo.gov/ Their revenues would be treated as federal revenues, and their expenditures as federal expenditures. If the former were greater than the latter, there would be no reason for the takeover.
The open question is: what do these new liabilities do to the Treasury’s own credit standing?
For now, this question is submerged. The traditional practice of fleeing to the US dollar and US Treasury bonds during periods of financial stress and uncertainty has boosted the dollar and kept interest rates low. But sooner or later the large US budget deficit, worsened by recession and bailouts, and the large trade deficit, which requires constant recycling of dollars held by foreigners into US financial and real assets, will result in renewed effort on the part of foreigners to lighten their dollar holdings.
When this time arrives, US interest rates will have to rise in order for the government to be able to continue to rely on foreigners to recycle the dollars acquired in trade to finance the US government’s annual budget deficit.
The current financial problems have pushed into the background the larger problems of the US budget and trade deficits. Goods and services for American markets that US corporations outsource offshore return as imports, which widen the US trade deficit. Moving production offshore reduces US GDP and employment and increases foreign GDP and employment. Moving production offshore reduces the export capacity of the US economy while raising the import bill.
Therefore, how is the trade deficit to be closed? One way is through the dollar’s loss in exchange value, which would reduce American consumers’ real incomes and leave them too poor to purchase the offshore goods and services.
How is the budget deficit to be closed when jobs are disappearing and GDP (tax base) is being relocated offshore?
Not by higher taxes. Higher taxes are problematic for a recessionary economy in which unemployment, properly measured, is already in double digits ( www.shadowstats.com ).
Some people have speculated that the budget deficit will be closed by dismantling entitlement programs such as Medicare. However, considering the cost of medical insurance, this would be catastrophic for tens of millions of older Americans.
The more likely avenue will be a raid on private pensions. The Clinton administration’s appointee, Alicia Munnell, as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy argued that private pensions should face a capital levy to make up for the fact that their accumulation was tax free. I expect that the federal government, faced with its own bankruptcy, will resurrect this argument, as it will be preferable to printing money like a banana republic or Weimar Germany.
In the 21st century, the US economy has been kept going by debt expansion, not by real income growth. Economists have hyped US productivity growth, but there is no sign that increased productivity has raised family incomes, an indication that there is a problem with the productivity statistics. With consumers overloaded with debt and the value of their most important asset–housing–falling, the American consumer will not be leading a recovery.
A country that had intelligent leaders would recognize its dire straits, stop its gratuitous wars, and slash its massive military budget, which exceeds that of the rest of the world combined. But a country whose foreign policy goal is world hegemony will continue on the path to destruction until the rest of the world ceases to finance its existence.
Most Americans, including the presidential candidates and the media, are unaware that the US government today, now at this minute, is unable to finance its day to operations and must rely on foreigners to purchase its bonds. The government pays the interest to foreigners by selling more bonds, and when the bonds come due, the government redeems the bonds by selling new bonds. The day the foreigners do not buy is the day the American people and their government are brought to reality.
This is not the financial position of a superpower.
Will what happened to Lehman Brothers today be America’s fate tomorrow?
Information Clearing House
September 16, 2008
We were promised a “New Economy” of high-tech tradable services to take the place of the offshore manufacturing economy. Wondering what had become of the “New Economy,” Duke University’s Offshoring Research Network searched for it and located it offshore. Yes, the activities of the “New Economy” are also outsourced offshore.
Call centers, IT operations, back-office operations, and manufacturing have long been moved offshore. Now high-value-added proprietary activities such as research and development, engineering, product development, and analytical services are being sent offshore. All that’s left is finance, and it is crumbling before our eyes.
Independent broker-dealers are disappearing: Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers.
These venerable institutions were too thinly capitalized for the risks that they took. Merrill Lynch is now part of the Bank of America, and Lehman Brothers is history.
Ill-advised financial deregulation led to financial concentration and not to more efficient markets.
Independent local banks, which focused on financing local businesses, and Saving and Loan Associations, which knew the local housing market, have been replaced with large institutions that package unanalyzed risks and sell them worldwide.
Regulation over-reached. The pendulum swung. Deregulation became an ideology and a facilitator of greed.
Deregulating electric power gave us Enron.
Deregulating the airlines destroyed famous American brand names such as Pan Am, shrank the number of companies, and caused a decline in service. When airlines were regulated, they could afford standby equipment, and cancelled flights were rare. Today, the bottom line prohibits standby equipment, and mechanical problems result in cancelled flights. When economists calculated the benefits of deregulation, they left out many of its costs.
There are no longer any blue chip companies, which means that investing for retirement has become a crapshoot. People realize this; thus, the privatization of Social Security has no support.
If we look realistically at the US economy, we see that what is not moved offshore is being bailed out. Last year, the US Department of Energy was authorized to make $25 billion in loans to auto manufacturing firms and suppliers of automotive parts. Last week the Secretary of the Treasury took $5 trillion dollars in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac home mortgages under its wing.
The Congressional Budget Office says this action by the Treasury means “that the operations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be directly incorporated into the federal budget.”
http://cboblog.cbo.gov/ Their revenues would be treated as federal revenues, and their expenditures as federal expenditures. If the former were greater than the latter, there would be no reason for the takeover.
The open question is: what do these new liabilities do to the Treasury’s own credit standing?
For now, this question is submerged. The traditional practice of fleeing to the US dollar and US Treasury bonds during periods of financial stress and uncertainty has boosted the dollar and kept interest rates low. But sooner or later the large US budget deficit, worsened by recession and bailouts, and the large trade deficit, which requires constant recycling of dollars held by foreigners into US financial and real assets, will result in renewed effort on the part of foreigners to lighten their dollar holdings.
When this time arrives, US interest rates will have to rise in order for the government to be able to continue to rely on foreigners to recycle the dollars acquired in trade to finance the US government’s annual budget deficit.
The current financial problems have pushed into the background the larger problems of the US budget and trade deficits. Goods and services for American markets that US corporations outsource offshore return as imports, which widen the US trade deficit. Moving production offshore reduces US GDP and employment and increases foreign GDP and employment. Moving production offshore reduces the export capacity of the US economy while raising the import bill.
Therefore, how is the trade deficit to be closed? One way is through the dollar’s loss in exchange value, which would reduce American consumers’ real incomes and leave them too poor to purchase the offshore goods and services.
How is the budget deficit to be closed when jobs are disappearing and GDP (tax base) is being relocated offshore?
Not by higher taxes. Higher taxes are problematic for a recessionary economy in which unemployment, properly measured, is already in double digits ( www.shadowstats.com ).
Some people have speculated that the budget deficit will be closed by dismantling entitlement programs such as Medicare. However, considering the cost of medical insurance, this would be catastrophic for tens of millions of older Americans.
The more likely avenue will be a raid on private pensions. The Clinton administration’s appointee, Alicia Munnell, as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy argued that private pensions should face a capital levy to make up for the fact that their accumulation was tax free. I expect that the federal government, faced with its own bankruptcy, will resurrect this argument, as it will be preferable to printing money like a banana republic or Weimar Germany.
In the 21st century, the US economy has been kept going by debt expansion, not by real income growth. Economists have hyped US productivity growth, but there is no sign that increased productivity has raised family incomes, an indication that there is a problem with the productivity statistics. With consumers overloaded with debt and the value of their most important asset–housing–falling, the American consumer will not be leading a recovery.
A country that had intelligent leaders would recognize its dire straits, stop its gratuitous wars, and slash its massive military budget, which exceeds that of the rest of the world combined. But a country whose foreign policy goal is world hegemony will continue on the path to destruction until the rest of the world ceases to finance its existence.
Most Americans, including the presidential candidates and the media, are unaware that the US government today, now at this minute, is unable to finance its day to operations and must rely on foreigners to purchase its bonds. The government pays the interest to foreigners by selling more bonds, and when the bonds come due, the government redeems the bonds by selling new bonds. The day the foreigners do not buy is the day the American people and their government are brought to reality.
This is not the financial position of a superpower.
Will what happened to Lehman Brothers today be America’s fate tomorrow?
How We Got Here: It's Housing, Stupid
by Chris Isidore
Thursday, September 18, 2008
The Wall Street crisis has been caused by plunging housing prices. So despite the billions of dollars being thrown at the problem, experts say more trouble lies ahead.
The nation's financial system is in the midst of a massive shakeup and many on Wall Street and in Washington are pointing fingers and looking for someone to blame.
But in the end, it all comes back to one issue - housing.
Earlier this decade, it was much easier to get a mortgage. Home prices soared about 85% from 1996 through 2006 in inflation-adjusted dollars, creating a bubble.
Then the bubble popped. And the fallout isn't over yet, experts say.
In the past two weeks, the government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch sold itself to Bank of America.
If all that weren't enough, the Federal Reserve announced late Tuesday night that it was loaning $85 billion to insurer American International Group.
None of this would have happened if the housing market had not imploded, leaving all these firms with staggering losses from their investments tied to mortgages.
"These institutions, which weathered all kinds of calamities before, including depressions, are being knocked out," said Lakshman Achuthan, the managing director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute. "It's a testament to the significance of the problem we have here."
Thus, experts agree that there are likely to be future shocks to the financial system until the housing market finally hits bottom.
Even Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, the administration's point man in the many rescue discussions of the past month, admits this.
"The housing correction poses the biggest risk to our economy," Paulson said the day he announced the Fannie and Freddie seizure. "Our economy and our markets will not recover until the bulk of this housing correction is behind us."
The Problem of Falling Home Prices
But because of the depth of the housing problems, it may take a long time before real estate prices head higher again. Here's why.
Home prices, while sharply off from the 2006 peaks, are still high in comparison to long-term gains in income, rents or overall prices, suggesting that they still have a way to fall, according to experts.
The reason housing is wreaking havoc even on insurers like AIG and big investment banks, who do not make mortgage loans, is that during the boom, trillions of dollars of mortgages were packaged together into securities that promised to pay investors with the proceeds of those loan payments.
Those securities paid better rates than other types of assets during the boom years. So many investors from around the globe poured as much money as they could into those securities.
Faced with this demand, lenders starting making more loans to riskier borrowers, including people who might not be able to afford their mortgage payments in the future and even many with no proof of income.
When prices were rising, this wasn't a problem. The risk of loan foreclosure or default was limited because many homeowners were able to sell their house for more than they owed and make a profit.
But once prices topped out and began falling, loan defaults and foreclosures started shooting higher as homeowners found it more difficult to sell their house. This created problems not just for subprime borrowers but even for those with good credit and income.
When foreclosures rose, the value of the various types of securities tied to mortgages started to fall, causing huge losses up and down Wall Street. It also made banks less eager to extend credit because of the risks involved.
A Downward Spiral
This credit crunch in of itself slowed the economy, leading to job losses and more defaults, feeding a downward spiral that has been difficult to stop.
"A really bad situation -- a home price bubble bursting -- was made significantly worse when the recession began," said Achuthan. "Now we have to let this thing play out."
Some experts even argue that the steps being taken to rescue firms like AIG could make a recovery in housing and the broader economy more difficult, as financial firms and investors become more reluctant to lend money.
"We are certainly taking credit and squeezing it tighter and tighter," said Kevin Giddis, managing director of investment bank Morgan Keegan. "Housing needs buyers. Buyers need credit."
Achuthan said that even though rates for mortgages and other types of loans have fallen in the last two weeks, those loans are becoming more difficult for many consumers and businesses to get because banks are severely tightening their lending standards.
And if housing prices do fall further, that will only cause more losses in the financial sector and perhaps more failures of banks, insurers and securities firms.
"I would hesitate to say the worst is behind us," Achuthan said.
So even with perhaps hundreds of billions of tax dollars going to AIG, Fannie and Freddie, one expert said the only real solution to the housing problem is for the correction in housing to finish running its course.
"We want home prices to return to normal," said Barry Ritholtz, CEO of Fusion IQ and author of the upcoming book "Bailout Nation."
"Until that happens, you can throw as much money at the market as you want at the situation....and it ain't going to make any difference," Ritholtz said.
Copyrighted, CNNMoney. All Rights Reserved.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
The Wall Street crisis has been caused by plunging housing prices. So despite the billions of dollars being thrown at the problem, experts say more trouble lies ahead.
The nation's financial system is in the midst of a massive shakeup and many on Wall Street and in Washington are pointing fingers and looking for someone to blame.
But in the end, it all comes back to one issue - housing.
Earlier this decade, it was much easier to get a mortgage. Home prices soared about 85% from 1996 through 2006 in inflation-adjusted dollars, creating a bubble.
Then the bubble popped. And the fallout isn't over yet, experts say.
In the past two weeks, the government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch sold itself to Bank of America.
If all that weren't enough, the Federal Reserve announced late Tuesday night that it was loaning $85 billion to insurer American International Group.
None of this would have happened if the housing market had not imploded, leaving all these firms with staggering losses from their investments tied to mortgages.
"These institutions, which weathered all kinds of calamities before, including depressions, are being knocked out," said Lakshman Achuthan, the managing director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute. "It's a testament to the significance of the problem we have here."
Thus, experts agree that there are likely to be future shocks to the financial system until the housing market finally hits bottom.
Even Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, the administration's point man in the many rescue discussions of the past month, admits this.
"The housing correction poses the biggest risk to our economy," Paulson said the day he announced the Fannie and Freddie seizure. "Our economy and our markets will not recover until the bulk of this housing correction is behind us."
The Problem of Falling Home Prices
But because of the depth of the housing problems, it may take a long time before real estate prices head higher again. Here's why.
Home prices, while sharply off from the 2006 peaks, are still high in comparison to long-term gains in income, rents or overall prices, suggesting that they still have a way to fall, according to experts.
The reason housing is wreaking havoc even on insurers like AIG and big investment banks, who do not make mortgage loans, is that during the boom, trillions of dollars of mortgages were packaged together into securities that promised to pay investors with the proceeds of those loan payments.
Those securities paid better rates than other types of assets during the boom years. So many investors from around the globe poured as much money as they could into those securities.
Faced with this demand, lenders starting making more loans to riskier borrowers, including people who might not be able to afford their mortgage payments in the future and even many with no proof of income.
When prices were rising, this wasn't a problem. The risk of loan foreclosure or default was limited because many homeowners were able to sell their house for more than they owed and make a profit.
But once prices topped out and began falling, loan defaults and foreclosures started shooting higher as homeowners found it more difficult to sell their house. This created problems not just for subprime borrowers but even for those with good credit and income.
When foreclosures rose, the value of the various types of securities tied to mortgages started to fall, causing huge losses up and down Wall Street. It also made banks less eager to extend credit because of the risks involved.
A Downward Spiral
This credit crunch in of itself slowed the economy, leading to job losses and more defaults, feeding a downward spiral that has been difficult to stop.
"A really bad situation -- a home price bubble bursting -- was made significantly worse when the recession began," said Achuthan. "Now we have to let this thing play out."
Some experts even argue that the steps being taken to rescue firms like AIG could make a recovery in housing and the broader economy more difficult, as financial firms and investors become more reluctant to lend money.
"We are certainly taking credit and squeezing it tighter and tighter," said Kevin Giddis, managing director of investment bank Morgan Keegan. "Housing needs buyers. Buyers need credit."
Achuthan said that even though rates for mortgages and other types of loans have fallen in the last two weeks, those loans are becoming more difficult for many consumers and businesses to get because banks are severely tightening their lending standards.
And if housing prices do fall further, that will only cause more losses in the financial sector and perhaps more failures of banks, insurers and securities firms.
"I would hesitate to say the worst is behind us," Achuthan said.
So even with perhaps hundreds of billions of tax dollars going to AIG, Fannie and Freddie, one expert said the only real solution to the housing problem is for the correction in housing to finish running its course.
"We want home prices to return to normal," said Barry Ritholtz, CEO of Fusion IQ and author of the upcoming book "Bailout Nation."
"Until that happens, you can throw as much money at the market as you want at the situation....and it ain't going to make any difference," Ritholtz said.
Copyrighted, CNNMoney. All Rights Reserved.
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