Undergrads identify Pearl murder suspects after FBI gave up

08/15/2008 @ 10:44 am
Filed by David Edwards and Muriel Kane

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow reported on Thursday that a group of college students may have succeeded where the FBI failed in identifying the killers of journalist Daniel Pearl.

Although four men were convicted of Pearl's murder in Pakistan in 2002, there were thought to be as many as 19 more suspects.

Democracy versus the people

A new account of Haiti's recent history shows how the genuinely radical politics of Lavalas and its leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, proved too threatening to the country's wealthy elite and their foreign backers.

Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide and the Politics of Containment

Peter Hallward, Verso, 480pp, £16.99

Noam Chomsky once noted that "it is only when the threat of popular participation is overcome that democratic forms can be safely contemplated". He thereby pointed at the "passivising" core of parliamentary democracy, which makes it incompatible with the direct political self- organisation and self-empowerment of the people. Direct colonial aggression or military assault are not the only ways of pacifying a "hostile" population: so long as they are backed up by sufficient levels of coercive force, international "stabilisation" missions can overcome the threat of popular participation through the apparently less abrasive tactics of "democracy promotion", "humanitarian intervention" and the "protection of human rights".

Did Washington waste millions on faulty voting machines?

By Greg Gordon | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding that have gone to upgrade the nation's voting machines since 2003 were used to purchase touch-screen systems that many states are now scrapping because of concerns about their security and reliability.

State governments in Alaska, California, Florida, Iowa, Maryland, Tennessee and New Mexico have decided to replace their touch-screen electronic machines. While some states have completed the switch, others won't finish replacing the machines until 2010. Nationwide, the federal government spent $1.2 billion on new voting machines between 2003 and 2007.

The return of the great powers

Russia lost the original Cold War, but the United States is now weaker than it was 20 years ago

Saturday, 16 August 2008

What would George Kennan, peerless diplomat and father of the "containment" doctrine that guided America in the Cold War have said? Russian troops strut about Georgia as if they own the place; an American President lambastes the Kremlin, while Russia's foreign minister sneeringly comments that "you can forget about ... Georgia's territorial integrity", hinting at de facto annexation of the disputed regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Would not Kennan, were he still alive, conclude that history has gone on a 60-year fast rewind, and that the Cold War is back?

The answer is an unequivocal no. Vladimir Putin's Russia is a most unlovable power. But it is no longer the world-wide ideological adversary of the West, using proxy wars on four continents to advance its cause. In some respects it is not adversary but ally (albeit an often fickle one) of the US on issues such as Iran, North Korea and the Middle East.

U.S. May Ease Police Spy Rules

More Federal Intelligence Changes Planned

By Spencer S. Hsu and Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, August 16, 2008; A01

The Justice Department has proposed a new domestic spying measure that would make it easier for state and local police to collect intelligence about Americans, share the sensitive data with federal agencies and retain it for at least 10 years.

The proposed changes would revise the federal government's rules for police intelligence-gathering for the first time since 1993 and would apply to any of the nation's 18,000 state and local police agencies that receive roughly $1.6 billion each year in federal grants.

Joseph Galloway: A sad week for Georgia, America and the world

Only someone with a tenuous grasp on reality and a poor knowledge of history and the world could have looked into the flinty eyes of a onetime colonel in the Soviet KGB and "found him very straightforward and trustworthy."

That was newly elected President George W. Bush's pronouncement in June 2001, on his first meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin.

This week President Bush got another look into the eyes and soul of Putin, as did the rest of the world, as Putin sent Russian T-72 tanks and Su-25 fighter-bombers roaring into the independent neighboring state of Georgia.

The State of Working America

U.S. TRAILS IN BID FOR ECONOMIC GOLD IN MOST CATEGORIES

If economics were an Olympic event that gave medals to the nations that do best at allocating resources and labor to meet their people’s needs, the outcome of that contest would tell us nothing about the nations’ athletic prowess, of course. But it would offer great insight into each contender’s social values and priorities. The Economic Policy Institute has matched up the economy of the United States against 19 other industrialized countries (list below). While the results show deficiencies with the U.S. economic model, they also present lessons for how to better serve and enrich the lives of the U.S. population.

A chapter from the forthcoming book, The State of Working America 2008/2009 by Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein, and Heidi Shierholz, makes these economic comparisons. It finds that among its economic peers, the United States takes home the gold in two categories: productivity and per capita income. But unfortunately, in crucial events that define the winners and losers in American society – poverty, inequality, and work hours – the U.S. is far from medal contention.

Russia and Georgia: All About Oil

Michael Klare | August 13, 2008

Editor: John Feffer

In commenting on the war in the Caucasus, most American analysts have tended to see it as a throwback to the past: as a continuation of a centuries-old blood feud between Russians and Georgians, or, at best, as part of the unfinished business of the Cold War. Many have spoken of Russia’s desire to erase the national “humiliation” it experienced with the collapse of the Soviet Union 16 years ago, or to restore its historic “sphere of influence” over the lands to its South. But the conflict is more about the future than the past. It stems from an intense geopolitical contest over the flow of Caspian Sea energy to markets in the West.

This struggle commenced during the Clinton administration when the former Soviet republics of the Caspian Sea basin became independent and began seeking Western customers for their oil and natural gas resources. Western oil companies eagerly sought production deals with the governments of the new republics, but faced a critical obstacle in exporting the resulting output. Because the Caspian itself is landlocked, any energy exiting the region has to travel by pipeline – and, at that time, Russia controlled all of the available pipeline capacity. To avoid exclusive reliance on Russian conduits, President Clinton sponsored the construction of an alternative pipeline from Baku in Azerbaijan to Tbilisi in Georgia and then onward to Ceyhan on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast -- the BTC pipeline, as it is known today.

Rove critic on terror watch list...

My very good friend, author Jim Moore - who wrote Bush's Brain - has been on the no fly list for some-time now.

[see CNN video at link]

FBI Appears To Change Theory In Anthrax Case

By Andrew Tilghman - August 14, 2008, 1:53PM

Last week, the Washington Post published a story that appeared to finally tie Bruce Ivins to that New Jersey mailbox where the 2001 anthrax letters were mailed -- something the feds have been unable to do in their six-year investigation.

The Post breathlessly reported in a story -- headlined "New Details Show Suspect Was Away On Key Day" -- that Ivins took part of the day off on Sept. 17.

Paul Krugman: The Great Illusion

So far, the international economic consequences of the war in the Caucasus have been fairly minor, despite Georgia’s role as a major corridor for oil shipments. But as I was reading the latest bad news, I found myself wondering whether this war is an omen — a sign that the second great age of globalization may share the fate of the first.

If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, here’s what you need to know: our grandfathers lived in a world of largely self-sufficient, inward-looking national economies — but our great-great grandfathers lived, as we do, in a world of large-scale international trade and investment, a world destroyed by nationalism.

Bad Penny

By Rick Perlstein

August 14th, 2008 - 6:11pm ET

Watch Media Matters' Paul Waldman decimate author liar Jerome Corsi:

Jeffery Feldman usefully reminds us that Corsi was basically an accessory to a crime:

The Swift Boat group did more than just lie about John Kerry in a book. They broke Federal Election laws, were found guilty, and paid a huge fine.

"I've written eight books since 2004": I love that he considers this a selling point.

Dig especially the bit seventeen minutes in on former Cheney aide and longtime GOP operative Mary Matalin's role in the book: "Once Mr. Corsi's book came out it fit right in to the conservative promotion machine.

String Of EPA Legal Losses On Everglades No Fluke

Latest Stinging Court Ruling Cites EPA Regional Office Clean Water Abdication

Washington, DC — A long series of federal court rulings that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been derelict in protecting the water quality of the Everglades is prompting calls for a probe of the agency’s regional operations. The most recent federal court decision takes EPA to task for repeatedly violating the very Clean Water Act that it is supposed to administer.

On July 29, 2008, Miami U.S. District Judge Alan Gold excoriated EPA, finding that the agency had shirked its duty to enforce basic water quality standards and, in so doing, “violated its fundamental commitment and promise to protect the Everglades” and “acted arbitrarily and capriciously.” This is only the latest in a long series of cases stretching back more than a decade that have all gone against EPA.

The outrage in your credit card's fine print

Penalty fees make up nearly half of industry revenues.

By Mark Lange
from the August 13, 2008 edition

Blue Ridge Summit, PA. - Would you sign a contract that says, "Any term can be changed at any time for any reason, including no reason"? Anyone who uses a credit card already has.

Such are the absurd terms of the consumer credit-card industry, which is poised to be the next big crisis (after housing) that banks have aided and abetted in US households.

Americans have now racked up nearly $1 trillion in credit-card debt. As housing equity shrinks and costs rise, agencies such as Moody's report swelling numbers of accounts with balances three or more payments past due. Reinforced by abusive industry practices, the plastic safety net is becoming a permanent cage.

Obama campaign issues rebuttal to book's claims

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer
Thu Aug 14, 7:32 PM ET

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama hit back Thursday with a 40-page rebuttal to the best-selling book "The Obama Nation," arguing the author is a fringe bigot peddling rehashed lies.

Jerome Corsi's anti-Obama book, "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality," claims the Illinois senator is a dangerous, radical candidate for president. The book is a compilation of all the innuendo and false rumors against Obama — that he was raised a Muslim, attended a radical, black church and secretly has a "black rage" hidden beneath the surface.

Who Orchestrated the Fall of Bear Stearns?

By Nicholas von Hoffman, The Nation
Posted on August 15, 2008, Printed on August 15, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/95153/

This is one scandal the National Enquirer has not reported. No babies with mystery fathers, no former vice presidential candidates cowering in a hotel basement to escape the paparazzi.

This scandal, relegated to the business pages if covered at all, is un-juicy compared to l'affaire Edwards, with a wife betrayed, children humiliated, hypocrisy exposed -- it is a small wonder, after the ethical hemming and hawing, that the big-time publishers and broadcasters jumped in to take part in the fun.

Bringing Down Bear Began as $1.7 Million of Options

By Gary Matsumoto

Aug. 11 (Bloomberg) -- On March 11, the day the Federal Reserve attempted to shore up confidence in the credit markets with a $200 billion lending program that for the first time monetized Wall Street's devalued collateral, somebody else decided Bear Stearns Cos. was going to collapse.

In a gambit with such low odds of success that traders question its legitimacy, someone wagered $1.7 million that Bear Stearns shares would suffer an unprecedented decline within days. Options specialists are convinced that the buyer, or buyers, made a concerted effort to drive the fifth-biggest U.S. securities firm out of business and, in the process, reap a profit of more than $270 million.

Ted Rall: Hope for Audacity

NEW YORK--Unless something happens, John McCain will win.

Of course, "unless something happens" is the biggest qualifier in the world, more than adequate to CYA me should Obama prevail. It's politics. There are almost three months. Odds are something will happen.

Still, it wasn't supposed to be this way. Obama's electoral handicaps--his racial identification and short resume--should have easily been eclipsed by Bush's--er, McCain's well-stocked aviary of albatrosses. McCain was and remains short of money. His campaign organization is a mess. Republican bosses are unenthusiastic, both about his prospects and about the direction he would take his party should he win. He has aligned himself with the most unpopular aspect of the wildly unpopular outgoing administration, the Iraq War.

Air Pollution Damages More Than Lungs: Heart And Blood Vessels Suffer Too

ScienceDaily (Aug. 14, 2008) — As athletes from around the world compete in the Beijing Olympics, many are on alert for respiratory problems caused by air pollution. They should also be concerned about its toxic effects on the heart and cardiovascular system, mounting research shows.

Solar Collector Could Change Asphalt Roads Into Renewable Energy Source

ScienceDaily (Aug. 14, 2008) — Anyone who has walked barefoot across a parking lot on a hot summer day knows that blacktop is exceptionally good at soaking up the sun’s warmth. Now, a research team at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) has found a way to use that heat-soaking property for an alternative energy source.

US foreclosure filings surge 55 percent

By ALAN ZIBEL, AP Business Writer
Thu Aug 14, 12:02 AM ET

The number of homeowners stung by the dramatic decline in the U.S. housing market jumped last month as foreclosure filings grew by more than 50 percent compared with the same month a year ago, according to data released Thursday.

Nationwide, more than 272,000 homes received at least one foreclosure-related notice in July, up 55 percent from about 175,000 in the same month last year and up 8 percent from June, RealtyTrac Inc. said. That means one in every 464 U.S. households received a foreclosure filing last month.

Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac monitors default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions. More than 77,000 properties were repossessed by lenders nationwide in July, the company said.

Timing of political messages influences voter preferences, U of Minnesota researcher finds

As the choice nears voters put more weight on the details

In political campaigns, timing is almost everything. Candidates communicate with voters over a long period of time before voters actually vote. What candidates say to these voters is, of course, important, but it turns out that when they say it also influences voter preferences.

Why Obama's reliance on lofty rhetoric has succeeded thus far is a puzzle addressed in the paper "It's Time to Vote: The Effect of Matching Message Orientation and Temporal Frame on Political Persuasion," forthcoming in the Journal of Consumer Research. The research, co-authored by the University of Minnesota's Akshay Rao, Hakkyun Kim (Concordia) and Angela Lee (Northwestern), demonstrates that the timing and content of political messages affects voters, particularly swing voters.

Plastics suspect in lobster illness

MBL scientist investigates role of environmental toxin in shell disease

MBL, WOODS HOLE, MA—The search for what causes a debilitating shell disease affecting lobsters from Long Island Sound to Maine has led one Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) visiting scientist to suspect environmental alkyphenols, formed primarily by the breakdown of hard transparent plastics.

Preliminary evidence from the lab of Hans Laufer suggests that certain concentrations of alkyphenols may be interfering with the ability of lobsters to develop tough shells. Instead, the shells are weakened, leaving affected lobsters susceptible to the microbial invasions characteristic of the illness.

David Bossie's big play

It won't be a post-Labor Day blockbuster or win critical acclaim, but Bossie's Citizens United is rolling out 'Hype: The Obama Effect,' an anti-Obama documentary that aims to make waves

Regnery has published a major anti-Obama book -- David Freddoso's "The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate" -- and 2004 Swiftboater Jerome Corsi has written his -- "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality." All sorts of folks are peddling anti-Obama t-shirts, mugs, bumper stickers and more. Now it's David Bossie's turn for a big politico/merchandizing play.

Although still a relatively young man, Bossie, the president of Citizens United, has been a political mudslinger for a nearly two decades. He gained some national notoriety in the 1990s when he was relentless in his pursuit of Bill and Hillary Clinton, and later that decade was fired from his position as an investigator for a House committee. Earlier this year, Bossie "took out classified newspaper ads in Columbia University's newspaper and the Chicago Tribune ... searching for [Obama's] ... term paper," supposedly a thesis on Soviet nuclear disarmament, Jim Popkin, NBC News Senior Investigative Producer, reported in late July. Although he could find it, he wrote in an e-mail to NBC News that "A thesis entitled Nuclear Disarmament, written at the height of The Cold War in 1983, might shed some light upon what Barack Obama thought about our most pressing foreign policy issue for 40-plus years (U.S.-Soviet Relations)."

McCain adviser got money from Georgia

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer
Wed Aug 13, 5:42 PM ET

John McCain's chief foreign policy adviser and his business partner lobbied the senator or his staff on 49 occasions in a 3 1/2-year span while being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by the government of the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

The payments raise ethical questions about the intersection of Randy Scheunemann's personal financial interests and his advice to the Republican presidential candidate who is seizing on Russian aggression in Georgia as a campaign issue.

McCain warned Russian leaders Tuesday that their assault in Georgia risks "the benefits they enjoy from being part of the civilized world."

Update: David Cay Johnston and Jeffrey Feldman to Speak at BuzzFlash Sep. 27 Philly Conference

We recently announced that registration would be opening soon (see below) for a Saturday, September 27th, BuzzFlash-sponsored conference in Philadelphia: "Bridging the Gap Between Progressives and the Working Class: A Dialog on Common Values."

We're slowly revealing the all star and diverse line up of progressives, labor, and working class speakers (and this will be interactive, not just speeches). First we were proud to let you know that Richard Trumka, second in command at the AFL-CIO, will be addressing the group. And we also revealed that Joe Bageant, author of "Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War," will be speaking at the conference.

Inflation surges to 5.6%

Consumers feel the sting as prices jump again to highest point since 1991 - monthly increase twice what was expected.

By Aaron Smith, CNNMoney.com staff writer
Last Updated: August 14, 2008: 1:26 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The annual inflation rate surged to 5.6% in July - the highest point in 17 years, the government announced Thursday.

The previous month's reading on annual inflation was 5%.

The July increase matched the 5.6% level in January 1991, when the Persian Gulf War was raging.

Can't find WMD in Iraq? Plant it?

Three years ago, I wrote the following:

Secretive military unit sought to solve political WMD concerns prior to securing Iraq, intelligence sources say

New allegations indicate that American civilian military leadership may have used an off-book quasi-military team to address political issues, placing those concerns above securing peace in the region, RAW STORY has learned.

Three U.S. intelligence sources and a source close to the United Nations Security Council say that the Pentagon civilian leadership under the guidance of Stephen Cambone, appointed to lead Defense Department intelligence in March 2003, dispatched a series of “off book” missions out of the ultra-secretive Office of Special Plans (OSP). The team was tasked to secure the following in order of priority: fallen Navy pilot Scott Speicher, WMD and Saddam Hussein.

A recipe for saving the world's oceans from an extinction crisis

Jeremy Jackson, senior scientist emeritus of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, asserts in the Aug. 12 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that the following steps, if taken immediately, could reverse the demise of the oceans.

A Danish fix for the US mortgage crisis

By George Soros

Published: August 11 2008 19:21 | Last updated: August 11 2008 19:21

The recent compromise struck between the Treasury and Democrats in Congress on the fate of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage guarantors, constitutes the worst of all possible worlds. The Treasury offered a blank cheque to come to the rescue, if necessary, but the managements of both companies were kept in place. They know that their survival depends on not drawing on that blank cheque. They will therefore do everything in their power to reduce the need for any new equity capital that would be dilutive. In short, as privately owned but undercapitalised financial institutions, the GSEs cannot fulfil their stated mission of providing stability, liquidity and affordability to the nation’s housing finance system.

Fred's Footprint: The best solution to climate change

What's the best way to fix climate change, to stamp out the emissions that are warming our planet? I don't mean what technology. That's actually coming along quite nicely. I mean what are the international legal and financial levers that can pulled to get the technology, on the scale needed, from the test rigs to the national grids?

Later this month, in Accra, Ghana, the UN's lumbering Kyoto negotiations will have another stab at what to do after 2012. They will come up against the familiar stand-off. On the one hand, is the rich world's reluctance to accept emissions limits that will add to the cost of doing business unless developing countries subscribe to emissions controls. On the other, developing countries utter their familiar (and not unreasonable) cry: "You caused the problem; you fix it."

Green Roofs Differ in Building Cooling, Water Handling Capabilities

July 28, 2008

AUSTIN, Texas — The first study to compare the performance of different types of green roofs has been completed by the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin and suggests that buyers shouldn't assume these roofs are created equal.

Interest in vegetated roofs has increased as water and energy conservation becomes more important to property owners. Yet the study of six different manufacturers' products found the green roofs varied greatly in capabilities such as how much they cooled down a building's interior and how much rainwater they captured during downpours.

Measuring the "Colbert Bump"

Do Politicians Raise More Funds After Appearing on The Colbert Report Comedy Show?

Washington, DC—Democratic politicians receive a 40% increase in contributions in the 30 days after appearing on the comedy cable show The Colbert Report. In contrast, their Republican counterparts essentially gain nothing. These findings appear to validate anecdotal evidence regarding the political impact of the program, such as the assertions by host Stephen Colbert that appearing on his program provides candidates with a “Colbert bump” or a rise in support for their election campaigns.

This analysis of one of America’s most well-known pop icons of recent years is conducted by political scientist James H. Fowler (University of California, San Diego), who is also a self-identified fan of the show. The research appears in the July issue of PS: Political Science and Politics, a journal of the American Political Science Association. It is online at /imgtest/PSJuly08Fowler.pdf.

Thomas Frank: The Audacity of Nope

It sounds very nice to say, as Barack Obama has done perhaps too much, that the upcoming election is about "hope" and "change." But those anodyne words conceal what I think is the public's true desire: Negation.

Come November, voters will have a chance to rid themselves of a political order that they have come to hate. Sen. Obama's task is to help them heave it overboard.

It seems hard to believe after all the happy Republican talk a few years ago about a "permanent majority," but the public is now more unified in its antipathy toward the GOP than it has been in a long time -- maybe since Watergate, maybe since the Hoover administration.

Why My Family Quit Using Plastic

By James Glave, The Tyee
Posted on August 13, 2008, Printed on August 13, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/94849/

I said goodbye to a few old friends this morning.

I dropped Sabrina and Duncan at day camp and continued on down the road to my community's recycling depot. There, I walked up to the big green "mixed plastics" bin and tossed in my FridgeSmart stackables, Ziploc Twist n' Locs and, perhaps most painful of all, my beloved half-cup-size Rubbermaid Servin' Savers -- indispensable snack-stashers that fit perfectly inside my kids' lunch boxes.

The pension-plan cookie thief

By The Mogambo Guru

To show you that the level of disgusting corruption at the end of long booms created by an excess of money and credit extends beyond the obvious slimeballs at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Congress, the Federal Reserve, the banks, and damned near everywhere else you look, a headline in last Monday's Wall Street Journal adds to the total tonnage of crud with the page one headline "Companies Tap Pension Plans To Fund Executive Benefits", which let companies use the pension plans of the regular employees to "pay for executives' supplemental benefits and compensation."

Now, I will note for the record that every time I try that crap with the employee pension plan or the petty cash account at work, everybody starts running around screaming about what a thieving, lying, despicable crook I am, and then everybody else starts adding to the accusatory din by saying how I'm probably the one who stole the cookies out of their stupid sack lunches, too, which weren't all that good (and kind of stale, too), so I don't know what all the fuss is about.

The Lies About Obama

By Brent Budowsky
August 12, 2008

Editor’s Note: Despite the conventional wisdom that the U.S. news media is “in the tank” for Barack Obama, something close to the opposite seems to be true, as many political reporters repeat scurrilous attacks on the Democrat without fact-checking or grill him in interviews to show how tough they can be.

For instance, Big Media acted almost as a surrogate for John McCain in pounding Obama over the Iraq War “surge” and in misrepresenting his comments to a closed Democratic caucus. In this guest essay, Brent Budowsky also recalls the silence of the press when McCain lied about Obama’s canceled visit to a U.S. troop hospital:

What is the responsibility of reporters, editors and publishers when a candidate for high office is the target of a campaign of attack and personal destruction employing the systematic use of lies, smears, innuendo and character assassination?

Gas And The Suburbs

by Ryan Avent

Will expensive gas kill the suburbs? Journalists can't stop asking the question, and an increasing number of suburb defenders are rising in protest. The easy answer is: it depends. It depends on what happens to gas prices, and it depends on how we respond. But the best way to think about how American urban geography will change in response to expensive gas is to break the question down into smaller parts. I'm going to try to do that today.

Smaller part one is this: will expensive gas lead to rejuvenated center cities? One thing that often gets neglected in news stories on this question is the extent to which center cities were resurgent before gas prices really took off. Central areas in both older cities and Sunbelt boomtowns began seeing new waves of investment beginning in the late 1990s. There were three main reasons for this. A big one was the rapid decline in urban crime that had plagued cities in the late 80s and early 90s.

Auditors question Blackwater contracts

By Elizabeth Olson

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

WASHINGTON: Blackwater Worldwide, the contractor whose provision of private security in Iraq has been under scrutiny, and its affiliated companies may have improperly obtained more than $100 million in contracts meant for small businesses, according to federal auditors.

A report by the Small Business Administration's inspector general, issued in July, found that Blackwater and its affiliates, including Presidential Airways, won 39 contracts in the fiscal years 2005, 2006 and 2007 despite indications that the companies employed more than the number specified by the U.S. government. In some cases, the report said, the companies also had higher revenues than allowed for a small business.

Changes in Work Force, not Pay, Narrowing the Gender Wage Gap

Are working women treated more fairly in today’s labor market than they were 30 years ago? Absolutely not, according to groundbreaking new research by Brown University economist Yona Rubinstein and Casey Mulligan of the University of Chicago. Disputing decades of economic literature, the economists show that the apparent narrowing of the wage gap between working men and women is actually due to the type of women who are now working — not how much they’re being paid. The findings are published in The Quarterly Journal of Economics.

Thomas Frank's 'The Wrecking Crew' Explains the Right's All-Out Assault on Good Government

Submitted by BuzzFlash on Mon, 08/11/2008 - 2:01pm. Interviews A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

I think that what we're seeing now -- no-bid contracts -- is disgusting. ... That's the closest thing that you're ever going to get to government-backed business. At the end of the day, that's really what it's about. It's not about free market utopianism. It's about government by business.

-- Thomas Frank, author of The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule

* * *

One election cycle back, Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas? helped Democrats understand the problem they had holding on to their erstwhile base of working middle America. Now in his latest book, The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule, Frank nails the conservatives who have outsourced, privatized, shrunk, and absolved government of any impulse it might have to hold itself accountable to citizens.

As reviewer James Warren of the Chicago Tribune sums up Frank's expose of the conservatives now in charge of government: "Its leaders laugh off the idea of the public interest as airy-fairy nonsense; they caution against bringing top-notch talent into government service; they declare war on public workers. They have made a cult of outsourcing and privatizing, they have wrecked established federal operations because they disagree with them, and they have deliberately piled up an Everest of debt in order to force the government into crisis. The ruination they have wrought has been thorough; it has been a professional job."

Downsizing of finance underway

By Martin Hutchinson

A committee led by Gerald Corrigan, former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, produced a report that promises to revolutionize finance. It proposes to place severe limits on derivatives, bringing them under the ambit of regulators and protecting retail investors from their more egregious products.
His report met with a favorable reception from the major international banks; not surprising as it shuts the stable door after horses have bolted to the extent of about US$500 billion of losses and counting. For investor and market protection, it doesn't go far enough. However it does represent the first institutional step towards a goal that all non-financiers should welcome: the downsizing of finance in the US and global economy.

Riddle of the burst bubble

Commentary and market watch by Doug Noland

Here's how I see it. Many are celebrating the bursting of the energy/commodities bubble. Rapidly declining oil and resource prices are now expected to alleviate inflationary pressures while bolstering household purchasing power. There'll be no pressure on the US Federal Reserve to raise rates, while their global central bank compatriots can soon begin cutting. The consensus view is that this is bullish for the US economy and stock market and, if nothing else, market action did take attention away from troubling financial and economic news.

Oil in troubled mountains

By Robert M Cutler

MONTREAL - The armed conflict between Russian and Georgia has further exposed the fragile position of the energy links running through the smaller country from the Caspian Sea to developed market economies.

Russian forces are placed to disrupt oil flows through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which has carried Caspian Sea oil from Azerbaijan across Georgia to Turkey since 2006, and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzerum pipeline, which opened last year and exports gas to Turkey, as well as the older Baku-Supsa "early oil" line that runs to the Georgian Black Sea coast.

Bush could weaken Endangered Species Act

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Parts of the Endangered Species Act may soon be extinct.

The Bush administration wants federal agencies to decide for themselves whether highways, dams, mines and other construction projects might harm endangered animals and plants.

New regulations, which don't require the approval of Congress, would reduce the mandatory, independent reviews government scientists have been performing for 35 years, according to a draft first obtained by The Associated Press.

Most companies in US avoid federal income taxes

By JENNIFER C. KERR, Associated Press Writer
Tue Aug 12, 6:31 AM ET

Two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005, according to a new report from Congress.

The study by the Government Accountability Office, expected to be released Tuesday, said about 68 percent of foreign companies doing business in the U.S. avoided corporate taxes over the same period.

Collectively, the companies reported trillions of dollars in sales, according to GAO's estimate.

"It's shameful that so many corporations make big profits and pay nothing to support our country," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who asked for the GAO study with Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.

What Is The Predator State?

By James K. Galbraith - August 11, 2008, 11:32AM

For those who are interested in reviews, The Predator State has so far garnered three: Pedro da Costa in Reuters, Roger Gathman in the Austin American-Statesman, and Randall Wray in the Journal of Economic Issues. Kevin Horrigan of the St Louis Post-Dispatch also devoted a column to it, and Tom Frank gave it a mention in the Wall Street Journal. Last Friday and Saturday, it was the top seller on Amazon under "Economic Policy". All of this is not too bad, for a book published less than a week ago.

Gathman takes note of something important. The book originated, in part, as a challenge from my father, delivered in our last conversation, on Wednesday, April 26, 2006 in his room at Mount Auburn hospital. Dad seemed, at the time, to be recovering (slightly) from a bout of pneumonia, and had the energy to ask what I was working on. I told him of some recent lectures on predation. "You should write a short book on corporate predation," he said. "It will make you the leading economic voice of your generation." And then he added his typically modest, typically paternal touch, "If I could do it, I would put you in the shade."

Iraq to revive oil deal with China

By SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated Press Writer
Sun Aug 10, 3:26 PM ET

Iraq and China are set to revive a $1.2 billion oil deal that was canceled after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, the Iraq's oil ministry said Sunday.

An initial agreement with China is expected to be signed at the end of August to develop the billion-barrel Ahdab oil field south of Baghdad, the ministry said in a statement.

Bill Moyers: The Poverty Business

BILL MOYERS:There's always been money to be made from people who have no money. That's because low income families turn to fast, easy, and pre-approved credit to make ends meet. But once they've signed on the dotted line, they often find their troubles have just begun. According to the Federal Reserve, the amount of money owed by households earning $30,000 or less between 1989 and 2004, soared to $691 billion — that's an increase of nearly 250%.

These households are what one entrepreneur describes as "low-hanging fruit" — just waiting to be plucked. Nothing new about this.

Loan sharks have been around to prey on the poor for centuries, but now the sharks are trying to spiff up their image, relocating from back alleyways to friendly-looking storefronts.

The Next Bubble Is on the Way: Credit Card Debt

Why Are We All Complicit in Our Own Economic Servitude?

by Danny Schechter

Let me try a few words out on you: “Charge It,” “Swipe It” and “Priceless.”

You know exactly what I am talking about. We all have credit and debit cards. We all use them, and many of us keep our lives going because of them.

That is, until the bill becomes due.

Paul Krugman: Can It Happen Here?

The draft Democratic Party platform that was sent out last week puts health care reform front and center. “If one thing came through in the platform hearings,” says the document, “it was that Democrats are united around a commitment to provide every American access to affordable, comprehensive health care.”

Can Democrats deliver on that commitment? In principle, it should be easy. In practice, supporters of health care reform, myself included, will be hanging on by their fingernails until legislation is actually passed.

Ivins' Strain Of Anthrax Was Not So Rare After All

By Andrew Tilghman - August 8, 2008, 4:29PM

Remember, at the beginning of the week, when the New York Times reported that "at least 10 people" had access to that critical flask of anthrax linking Dr. Bruce Ivins to the 2001 anthrax attacks?

At the time, we thought that was really significant. Ten people? How did the FBI eliminate the other nine people as suspects to know Ivins was the guilty one?

Tomgram: Mike Davis, Welcome to the Next Epoch

For those who didn't happen to notice, perhaps because it wasn't exactly front-page news in most of the country, NASA's James Hansen, the man who first alerted Congress to the dangers of global warming 20 years ago, returned to testify before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming this week. This time around, he was essentially offering a final warning on the subject. Unless the U.S. begins to act soon, he pointed out, "it will become impractical to constrain atmospheric carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas produced in burning fossil fuels, to a level that prevents the climate system from passing tipping points that lead to disastrous climate changes that spiral dynamically out of humanity's control."

For the "elements of a 'perfect storm,' a global cataclysm" being assembled, he placed special blame on the "CEOs of fossil energy companies [who] know what they are doing and are aware of [the] long-term consequences of continued business as usual." He added that they should, in his opinion, "be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature… I anticipate testifying against relevant CEOs in future public trials." That's a novel thought in our nation's capital. Oh, and while he was at it, he probably should have thrown in George W., Dick C., and crew. What they haven't done (and what they've blocked from being done) over these last eight years may turn out to be their greatest crime of all. Talk about smoking guns... or is it melting ice?

Election Advice From Michael Moore

Here's the problem:

Beginning with their stunning inability to defeat the most detested politician in American history, Richard Nixon, and continuing through their stunning inability to defeat the most detested politician in the world, George II, the Democrats are the masters of blowing it. And they don't just simply "blow it" - they blow it especially when the electorate seems desperate to give it to them.

In his new book, Mike's Election Guide 2008, Michael Moore explains what Barack Obama can to do to lose the presidency again.

Michael Kinsley: Learning to Read Democrat

Seattle

THE purpose of a party platform is pandering, but it is pandering of a particular sort. The Democratic Party’s platform committee has produced its 2008 edition, and now this draft awaits approval at the Democratic National Convention later this month. Like all platforms, it is not an outreach document. It is aimed at the faithful, under the assumption that only they will read it.

The platform is Democrats’ assurance that the party still loves them, their reward for supporting a candidate who may not have been their first choice and their consolation for betrayals yet to come. Much of it is written in code, lest it fall into the wrong hands.

Translating the document is no simple task. First, an alarmist note. Democrats favor “tough, practical and humane immigration reform.” And, “We will provide immediate relief to working people who have lost their jobs, families who have lost their homes and people who have lost their way.” It’s not clear what that third item refers to. Tax credits for G.P.S. devices? Presumably, “people who have lost their way” doesn’t mean illegal immigrants trying to find the border.

WPost Admits Bungling Obama Quote

By Robert Parry
August 10, 2008

The Washington Post’s ombudsman says the newspaper’s original source for a quote that was used to portray Barack Obama as a megalomaniac now disputes the Post’s negative interpretation that has spread across cable TV, the Internet and even into a John McCain attack ad.

Post ombudsman Deborah Howell also acknowledges that neither Post reporter who relied on the misleading quote spoke directly with the source, checked out its accuracy, or made any independent effort to determine the context of the remark, which was made to a closed Democratic caucus meeting on Capitol Hill on July 29.

In her column, “The Anger Over an Obama Quote,” Howell adds that she has been contacted by about 160 people, including congressional officials, who said the Post twisted the meaning of the quote by taking it out of context. But the newspaper still refuses to run a full-scale correction or a clarification or even print a letter protesting the distortion.

Thomas Frank to Colbert: The argument of my book is that conservatives suck

By: SilentPatriot on Saturday, August 9th, 2008 at 6:45 AM - PDT

Thomas Frank appeared on “The Colbert Report” last night to promote his new book, The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule, and succinctly explained the thesis of his latest work thusly: Conservatives may be good at winning elections, but they suck when it comes to governing.

“Once you start treating it as a business, you know once you start turning over government operations to the market you’re not talking about democracy any more. What you’re talking about is plutocracy. Rule by the wealthy. Rule by the market.”

Energy Fictions

A toxic combination of $4 gasoline, voter anxiety and presidential ambition is making it impossible for this country to have the grown-up conversation it needs about energy.

The latest evidence comes from Senator Barack Obama, who in less than a week has reversed his stance on tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, softened his opposition to offshore drilling and unveiled an out-of-nowhere proposal to impose a windfall profits tax on the oil companies and funnel the money to consumers in the form of a $1,000 tax rebate.

Pentagon Papers figure Anthony Russo dies at 71

Anthony J. Russo, a researcher who helped leak the Vietnam-era Pentagon Papers to the media and prompted wider public questioning of the war, has died, police said.

Russo, 71, died in his native Suffolk on Wednesday, police records technician Susan Hart said Sunday. The cause of death was not immediately made public.

The case that became known as the Pentagon Papers helped put the Vietnam War on trial.

It began when Daniel Ellsberg, a top military analyst disillusioned with American policy, decided to release a top-secret, 47-volume Defense Department study of the U.S. role in Indochina over three decades. Russo helped him reproduce and distribute copies of the study.