Glenn Greenwald: A Country in Shambles, Under GOP Rule

There are few things that make political coverage more unbearable -- and more distorting -- than The David Brooks Syndrome: the extremely patronizing and ill-informed pretense, shared by media and right-wing elites alike, that they can study the Little Common Person like a zoo animal, and then translate and give voice to their simple-minded, good-hearted, salt-of-the-earth perspectives. Rarely has this mentality been so transparent as in the wake of the Biden-Palin debate, as pundits and right-wing polemicists like Brooks, Peggy Noonan and Rich "Starbursts" Lowry rushed forward to proclaim giddily that Regular Americans would love Sarah Palin and this love could even help McCain win, despite -- or, really, because of -- her vapid, content-free telegenic presence.

Actual empirical evidence -- called "polling data" -- has almost uniformly demonstrated how false these condescending pats on the head are, as every single poll conducted thus far (at least that I'm aware of) found that Americans believed that Biden won and is the far more serious candidate for office, and huge numbers continue to have profound doubts about Palin's fitness for office. And the first tracking poll to report a full post-debate day of polling -- the Research 2000 poll for Daily Kos -- finds Obama with a 13-point lead, his largest ever. This joint right-wing/pundit claim that Americans would swoon in the face of Palin's empty chatter, self-conscious folksiness and chronic, seizure-like winking says much more about those making the claim than it does about their Regular People subjects.

When It Comes to Palestine and Israel, the US Simply Doesn't Get It

Biden and Palin hid like rabbits from the centre of the Middle East earthquake

by Robert Fisk

Palestinians ceased to exist in the United States on Thursday night. Both Joe Biden and Sarah Palin managed to avoid the use of that poisonous word. "Palestine" and "Palestinians" - that most cancerous, slippery, dangerous concept - simply did not exist in the vice-presidential debate. The phrase "Israeli occupation" was mercifully left unused. Neither the words "Jewish colony" nor "Jewish settlement" - not even that cowardly old get-out clause of American journalism, "Jewish neighbourhood" - got a look-in. Nope.

Those bold contenders of the US vice-presidency, so keen to prove their mettle when it comes to "defence", hid like rabbits from the epicentre of the Middle East earthquake: the existence of a Palestinian people. Sure, there was talk of a "two-state" solution, but it would have mystified anyone who didn't understand the region.

Commentary: Government by Goldman Sachs comes to end

By Michael D. MacDonald | McClatchy Newspapers

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — As we watch market values plummet and politicians debate — at last — the proper relationship between government and finance, an era in American history is ending. It wasn't understood as an era during its time, and it never had a name. Its name, though, was on the tip of our tongues: It was the Neoliberal Era.

Neoliberalism began with Ronald Reagan and continued for 27 years through George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton to George W. Bush, and it rested on one fundamental principle: Financial markets, which are knowing, efficient and flexible, should have more power to decide public policy than democratic governments do.

Interview with Noam Chomsky

Chomsky: "The Majority of the World Supports Iran"

Subrata Ghoshroy, AlterNet. October 3, 2008.

In an exclusive and wide-ranging interview, Chomsky discusses the global politics of Iran's and India's attempts to become nuclear powers.


Chomsky: "If the U.S. Carries Out Terrorism, It Did Not Happen"

Subrata Ghoshroy, AlterNet. October 4, 2008.

In an exclusive interview, Noam Chomksy weighs in on the financial collapse, the election and the power of U.S. propaganda.

The Reckoning: Agency’s ’04 Rule Let Banks Pile Up New Debt

By STEPHEN LABATON

“We have a good deal of comfort about the capital cushions at these firms at the moment.” — Christopher Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, March 11, 2008.

As rumors swirled that Bear Stearns faced imminent collapse in early March, Christopher Cox was told by his staff that Bear Stearns had $17 billion in cash and other assets — more than enough to weather the storm.

Drained of most of its cash three days later, Bear Stearns was forced into a hastily arranged marriage with JPMorgan Chase — backed by a $29 billion taxpayer dowry.

Paul Krugman: Edge of the Abyss

As recently as three weeks ago it was still possible to argue that the state of the U.S. economy, while clearly not good, wasn’t disastrous — that the financial system, while under stress, wasn’t in full meltdown and that Wall Street’s troubles weren’t having that much impact on Main Street.

But that was then.

The financial and economic news since the middle of last month has been really, really bad. And what’s truly scary is that we’re entering a period of severe crisis with weak, confused leadership.

Report: White House Involved in U.S. Attorney Firings

Probe Hampered By the Refusal of Karl Rove and Others To Be Interviewed, Says Report

By MURRAY WAAS and JUSTIN ROOD
September 29, 2008

The Justice Department probe of the firings of nine U.S. attorneys was severely hampered by the refusal of former White House political aide Karl Rove and other White House officials to be interviewed by investigators, according to a report made public by investigators today.

Additionally, the White House refused to turn over to Justice Department investigators emails and other documents that investigators believed were crucial to uncovering the truth as to why the U.S. attorneys were fired, the report said.

Justice Dept. Appoints Special Prosecutor After Report Faults Gonzales for US Attorney Firings

Attorney General Michael Mukasey has appointed a special prosecutor to continue the probe into whether political misconduct led to the firing of nine US attorneys. The move came after Justice Department investigation singled out Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for his conduct in the firings, accusing of him of “abdicating” his responsibility and questioning his faulty and evasive public statements. We speak to Murray Waas of the National Journal. [includes rush transcript]

‘Flawed’ SEC Program Failed to Rein in Investment Banks

by Ben Protess , ProPublica - October 1, 2008 6:01 pm EDT

The Securities and Exchange Commission last week abolished the special regulatory program that it applied to Wall Street's largest investment banks. Known as the "consolidated supervised entities" program, it relaxed the minimum capital requirements for firms that submitted to the commission's oversight, and thus, in the view of some experts, helped create the current global financial crisis.

But the SEC's decision to ax the program currently affects no one, since three of the five firms that voluntarily joined the program previously collapsed and the other two reorganized.

Congress Must Address the Underlying Housing Crisis

The Drum Major Institute for Public Policy encourages Congress to view the next vote on the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act as an opportunity to restart the debate on how to "rescue" the economy with the conviction that what is good for middle-class families is good for Wall Street, as opposed to the other way around. To the extent that a direct investment in the financial services industry is made, it should fully complement large-scale mortgage restructuring and foreclosure prevention efforts and the re-regulation of the financial services industry.

The defeat of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act on September 29th was more than a major legislative setback. It represented the failure of our political leadership to appropriately frame the challenges, and therefore the problems, that face our nation during this extraordinary moment in our nation's history. Secretary Paulson and Congress sought to address deteriorating confidence and liquidity in the capital markets, which is a symptom of the real crisis. However, the underlying, fundamental weakness in our economy is that millions of middle-class and aspiring middle-class Americans cannot afford to meet the terms of their abusively underwritten mortgages.

The Really Hard-to-Swallow Truth About the Bailout

Myriad cultural historians have noted the American belief that success is a sign of God's favor. Over the past couple of decades, He has had a downright lovefest with the already-rich -- so much so that the richest 400 Americans now have more money stashed away than the combined bottom 150 million Americans. Some $1.6 trillion.

This was accomplished by selling off or shipping out every available asset, from jobs to seaports, smashing usury and anti-monopoly laws, raiding the public coffers and manipulating the medium of exchange and blackmailing the peasantry regarding common needs such as health care and energy to keep their asses warm, to name a few. The ultimate coup was to convince the entire nation that the well-being of the rich, meaning the well-being of Wall Street, was indeed the common man's well-being.

Economy sheds most jobs since 2003, more cuts seen

By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer
1 hour, 52 minutes ago

Jobs are vanishing at the fastest pace in more than five years with pink slips likely to keep stacking higher in the months ahead, an urgent signal the country may be careening toward a deep and painful recession just as Americans prepare to elect a new president.

Whether that's Democrat Barack Obama or Republican John McCain, one of them will be dealing with the weakest employment climate in years.

Increasingly skittish employers dropped the ax even harder in September, chopping payrolls by 159,000 — more than double the cuts made just one month before. It was the ninth straight month of job losses. A staggering 760,000 jobs have disappeared so far this year.

Glenn Greenwald: ACLU's Mike German on new FBI spying powers

Last month, Attorney General Michael Mukasey announced that the FBI -- with four months left in the Bush administration -- was adopting new regulations for itself which would vastly increase its power to investigate and spy on American citizens, on U.S. soil, even in the absence of any suspicion that the targeted citizen is involved in any wrongdoing. My guest today on Salon Radio is former long-time FBI agent and current ACLU Policy Counsel Michael German to discuss those new regulations, why they are both so dangerous and counter-productive, the ways in which FBI Director Robert Mueller is spouting clearly misleading statements to justify them, and what the prospects are for stopping their implementation.

6 environmental research studies reveal critical health risks from plastic

Exposure to Bisphenol A, phthalates and flame retardants are strongly associated with adverse health effects on humans and laboratory animals. A special section in the October 2008 issue of Environmental Research, "A Plastic World" provides critical new research on environmental contaminants and adverse reproductive and behavioral effects.

How the Bailout Is Like a Hedge Fund.

It's massively leveraged. It's buying distressed assets. It's taking equity stakes …

By Daniel Gross
Posted Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2008, at 3:35 PM ET

The Wall Street bailout is alive again. In an effort to make the $700 billion bailout palatable, the architects of the law have larded it up with all sorts of goodies, such as increasing the levels of deposit insurance, sparing some taxpayers the ravages of the Alternative Minimum Tax, and extending tax breaks for alternative energy. Henry Paulson's three-page sprig has sprouted into a 451-page Christmas tree. (The current version of the bill, in all its lengthy glory, can be seen here.)

What's most interesting about the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 is just how much it reads like a prospectus for a hedge fund. In the past, hedge funds—secretive pools of capital—were open only to qualified (read: rich) investors. But with the stroke of a pen, President Bush will soon make all American citizens investors in the world's biggest fund—and a democratic one at that. Taxpayers won't just be the investors. We'll own the management company, too. Best of all? For at least a few months, we'll have the former CEO of Goldman Sachs run our investment for a very small fee. Call it the "Universal Hedge Fund."

Topsoil's Limited Turnover: A Crisis in Time

Boulder, CO, and Madison, WI — 1 OCTOBER 2008

Topsoil does not last forever. Records show that topsoil erosion, accelerated by human civilization and conventional agricultural practices, has outpaced long-term soil production. Earth's continents are losing prime agricultural soils even as population growth and increased demand for biofuels claim more from this basic resource.

Top geomorphologist David R. Montgomery of the University of Washington says that "ongoing soil degradation and loss present a global economic crisis that, although less dramatic than climate change or a comet impact, could prove catastrophic nonetheless, given time."

This is your brain on politics

U.S. presidential candidates have been stumping for nearly two years with their every move being analyzed and reported ad nauseum. Logically, voters should be able to tap into lots of information when they make their decisions come November. But it turns out there's a lot more going on when we step behind the curtain to cast our ballot.

Though it is impossible to know for sure whether people actually vote along party lines, for example, many psychological studies have shown that political affiliation plays a large role, not just in the voting booth, but when people must decide how they feel about political issues, as well. Emory University political psychologist Drew Westen and his colleagues previously published a study in which they correctly predicted people's views on political issues based solely on their emotions.

Glenn Greenwald: The right's two-pronged religion of rage and self-pity

The Right in this country -- meaning the faction that followed George Bush for the last eight years -- long ago ceased being a movement of political ideas and is driven by two, and only two, extreme emotions: (1) intense, aggressive rage towards their revolving door of enemies, and (2) bottomless self-pity over how unfairly they're being treated. As their imminent defeat looks increasingly likely (potentially on a humiliating scale), these two impulses are in maximum overdrive, feeding off one another in endless self-perpetuation (the more they lose, the more victimized they feel, the more they rage against their enemies who oppress them, etc.).

The Right's rejection by the public can't possibly be due to anything they have done. It can only be due to some extremely vicious enemy that oppresses them uniquely and so very unfairly. For the moment, they're only losing because The Leftist Mainstream Media hates them and is deeply biased against them.

Glenn Greenwald: David Cay Johnston on the bailout

This interview can be heard by clicking PLAY on the recorder below:

Glenn Greenwald: My guest today is David Cay Johnston, who is the long-time Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter for The New York Times, just recently retired from there, and who also published a book at the end of 2007, the now very appropriately titled book: Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense, and Stick You with the Bill. David, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me today.

David Cay Johnston: Thank you, Glenn.

McCain's Kremlin Ties

by Mark Ames & Ari Berman
October 1, 2008

Over the course of the presidential campaign, John McCain has repeatedly emphasized his willingness to stand up to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as proof that only he possesses the fortitude and judgment to become the next leader of the free world. In his acceptance speech at the Republican convention, McCain lashed out at Putin and the Russian oligarchs, who, "rich with oil wealth and corrupt with power...[are] reassembling the old Russian Empire." McCain rushed to publicly support the Georgian republic during its recent conflict with Russia and amplified his threat to expel Moscow from the G-8 club of major powers. His running mate, Sarah Palin, suggested in her first major interview that the United States might have to go to war with Russia one day in order to protect Georgia--the kind of apocalyptic scenario the United States avoided during the cold war.

Pressure Builds on House After Senate Backs Bailout

By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON — The Senate strongly endorsed the $700 billion economic bailout plan on Wednesday, leaving backers optimistic that the easy approval, coupled with an array of popular additions, would lead to House acceptance by Friday and end the legislative uncertainty that has rocked the markets.

In stark contrast to the House rejection of the plan on Monday, a bipartisan coalition of senators — including both presidential candidates — showed no hesitation in backing a proposal that had drawn public scorn, though the outpouring eased somewhat after a market plunge followed the House defeat. The Senate margin was 74 to 25 in favor of the White House initiative to buy troubled securities in an effort to avoid an economic catastrophe.

Bailout Passes Senate; 9 Reasons That's Bad News for You

By Sen. Bernie Sanders, Huffington Post
Posted on October 1, 2008, Printed on October 2, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/101224/

This country faces many serious problems in the financial market, in the stock market, in our economy. We must act, but we must act in a way that improves the situation. We can do better than the legislation now before Congress.

This bill does not effectively address the issue of what the taxpayers of our country will actually own after they invest hundreds of billions of dollars in toxic assets. This bill does not effectively address the issue of oversight because the oversight board members have all been hand picked by the Bush administration. This bill does not effectively deal with the issue of foreclosures and addressing that very serious issue, which is impacting millions of low- and moderate-income Americans in the aggressive, effective way that we should be. This bill does not effectively deal with the issue of executive compensation and golden parachutes. Under this bill, the CEOs and the Wall Street insiders will still, with a little bit of imagination, continue to make out like bandits.

SE Asian memo to Wall St

By Shawn W Crispin

BANGKOK - Seared into Southeast Asia's collective memory is the iconic image of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, where International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Michel Camdessus towered with crossed arms over a bent-down Indonesian President Suharto as he signed a sovereignty-eroding bailout agreement for his distressed economy.

Now with Wall Street's historic collapse, many in the region eagerly anticipate a reciprocal Kodak moment, with a US investment banker signing over his once-prestigious financial assets to an acquiring Japanese banker, Chinese money manager or perhaps even Singapore's champion of state-led capitalism, Lee Kuan Yew.

Crisis control fit for the TV age

By Julian Delasantellis

The millionaires in the US Senate, apparently moved by the prospect of having to actually live on their salary rather than their substantial investments, passed by a 75-24 vote a sweeter version of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) than the one that failed in the US House of Representatives on Monday, the rejection helping to drive the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 777 points.

The House is scheduled to once again vote on the proposal on Friday; perhaps enough previously recalcitrant arms have been twisted, bent, fractured and, if that doesn't work, ripped straight off the shoulders to obtain a passage vote there, as well.

Wolfowitz up to more mischief?

By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - Just 15 months after being forced to resign as president of the World Bank over a conflict of interest regarding his professional and personal relationship with his girlfriend, former deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz may be involved in another, far more geostrategic conflict of interest.

It involves his dual roles as chairman of the State Department's International Security Advisory Board (ISAB) and chairman of the US-Taiwan Business Council. Among the latter's US members are military contractors who have been dying to get the George W Bush administration's approval to sell about US$11 billion worth of arms to the island to protect it against the threat of an attack by the mainland.

Firing Back on the CRA Libel

By Sara Robinson

Conservative pundits and politicians have piled onto the excuse like shipwreck victims clinging to a passing log: The real blame for the current economic crisis lies not with anything they did, but rather with the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act—a successful Carter-era program designed to get banks to stop covert discrimination, and encourage them to invest their money in low-income neighborhoods.

It's always easy to tell when the cons are completely lost at sea. The lies get more absurdly preposterous—and also more transparently self-serving. But when they go so far as to openly and unapologetically latch onto race and class as an excuse for their woes (which this is, at its heart), you know they're taking on water fast—and scared of going under entirely.

Thomas Frank: The GOP Blames the Victim

Capitalism sure is fragile if subprime borrowers can ruin it.

Two weeks ago, I wrote that the breakdown of the nation's financial industry was undeniably a self-induced injury; that it would finally force conservatives to own up to the wrongheadedness of their deregulatory project; that they couldn't possibly blame the disaster on any of their traditional bogeymen.

But I had forgotten about conservatives' extraordinary instincts for blame-evasion. This is a movement, after all, that blandly recasts its greatest idols as traitors once their popularity has crashed; that routinely sloughs off responsibility for . . . well . . . anything since, by its logic, conservatism has never really been tried in the first place. Consider in this respect Mitt Romney's remarkable speech to the Republican convention a few weeks ago, in which he rallied his party against Washington -- a place his party has controlled, to one degree or another, for nearly three decades -- by listing the city's various institutions and crying, "It's liberal!"

It's called 'negational identity,' and new study finds it's a powerful political tool

In the current Presidential campaign it has been said often enough to become a cliche: both candidates will need to reach beyond their respective political bases to appeal to a larger-than-usual body of independent voters.

How to do so? Accentuate the negative -- or "negational identity," as behavioral scholars put it.

"Even if individuals cannot agree on who they are, they often agree on who or what they are not," a new study explains. "Simply reminding people of what they are not can transform attitudes towards different groups, shift loyalties, and political preferences, and thus drive coalition building."

Media conservatives baselessly blame Community Reinvestment Act for foreclosure spike

Summary: Several conservatives in the media have recently blamed the Community Reinvestment Act for the current financial crisis -- when, in fact, the CRA does not apply to institutions making the vast majority of troubled loans underlying the crisis. It applies only to depository institutions, such as banks and savings and loan associations. Experts have estimated that 80 percent of high-priced subprime loans were offered by financial institutions that are not subject to the CRA.

Several conservatives in the media have recently blamed the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) for the current financial crisis -- when, in fact, the CRA does not apply to institutions making what some experts have estimated to be the vast majority of troubled loans underlying the crisis.

What Wall Street Hoped to Win

By PAM MARTENS

“I got a lot of Ph.D. types and smart people around me who come into the Oval Office and say, ‘Mr. President, here’s what’s on my mind.’ And I listen carefully to their advice. But having gathered the device (sic), I decide, you know, I say, ‘This is what we’re going to do.’ And it’s ‘Yes, sir, Mr. President.’ And then we get after it, implement policy.”

-- President George W. Bush, October 3, 2007

Pity poor President Bush. He’s been pushed aside as The Decider. The Decider’s strut and press entourage, along with the coffers of the United States, were to be handed to Henry M. (Hank) Paulson, U.S. Treasury Secretary, who was to have sweeping authority to share newly augmented plunder with his cronies on Wall Street and set up a vast new bailout bureaucracy, all at taxpayer expense.

But, at last, the People’s House may be listening to the people. The House of Representatives voted yesterday to reject the bailout measure 228 to 205.

* * * * Truthout Original The Anthrax Case Reopens: Why Did the FBI Let the Fort Detrick Scientists Investigate Themselves?

Tuesday 30 September 2008
by: Bill Simpich, t r u t h o u t | Report

The Congressional anthrax hearings of September 16-17 revealed that public pressure is keeping the doors open in the anthrax case. FBI Director Robert Mueller promised that the FBI will provide their evidence to a panel of experts for scientific evaluation. The battle will now turn to the independence of this panel, and whether "all evidence" or merely "scientific evidence" will be under review.

During the hearings, Mueller found himself under fire by Senator Patrick Leahy and Congressman John Conyers for not having answers to their questions. Republican Arlen Specter was furious at Mueller for his unwillingness to assure them that Congress would have a role in determining the panel's composition.

Senate to Vote Today on the Bailout Plan

By CARL HULSE and ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON — Senate leaders scheduled a Wednesday vote on a $700 billion financial bailout package after accepting tax breaks and a higher limit for insured bank deposits in a bid to win House approval and send legislation to President Bush by the end of the week.

Top lawmakers said the Senate proposal, worked out after a day of behind the scenes maneuvering, would include tax breaks for businesses and alternative energy and higher government insurance for bank deposits.

Slow Rise for a New Era

By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, October 1, 2008; A17

We are, just now, stuck between eras. The old order -- the Reagan-age institutions built on the premise that the market can do no wrong and the government no right -- is dying. A new order, in which Wall Street plays a diminished role and Washington a larger one, is aborning, but the process is painful and protracted.

It shuddered to a halt on Monday, when House Republicans, by 2 to 1, declined to support the administration's bailout plan. To lay the blame on Speaker Nancy Pelosi's speech (in which she even noted the work of House GOP leaders in crafting the compromise) is to miss the larger picture: The proposal asked Republicans to acknowledge the failure of the market and the capacity of government to set things right. It asked them to repudiate their worldview, to go against the beliefs that impelled many of them to enter politics in the first place.

Gold, manipulation and domination

By Henry C K Liu

All over the world, trade in gold had been the favored device for evading national foreign exchange controls from the end of World War II to 1971. In 1946, the Bretton Woods regime adopted in 1944 became operational, thereby forbidding the importation of gold for private speculative purposes in signatory nations. Britain was a signatory but Portugal was not.

Thus a gold-smuggling operation between the Portugal colony of Macau and the British territory of Hong Kong flourished until 1974, two years after the United States took the dollar off gold, in effect abolishing the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates, when Hong Kong abolished a law that requires a special license to import gold for re-export. Tiny Macau became one of the world's biggest importers and re-exporters of gold during this period.

Truth, lies and ticker tape

By Spengler

To bankers and politicians who insist that the world will come to an end if the US Congress does not approve the proposed US$700 billion bailout package, I wish to say: "It is not the end of the world. It is just the end of you." Sadly, it won't be. America's financier caste will live to fleece another day.

There are no atheists in the trenches, and no free-marketeers in Congress after a nearly 10% fall in stock prices. A chorus of erstwhile conservative voices led by the likes of Newt Gingrich, the Republican firebrand of the 1990s, now argues that the proposed $700 billion bailout package is flawed, but it is better to enact it than to do nothing. This simply is not true.

Should We Dispose of Disposals?

The best way to get rid of your leftover food.

By Jacob Leibenluft
Updated Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2008, at 6:34 AM ET

I'm sorry to say I live in an apartment without a composter for organic waste. Given the circumstances, am I better off feeding my leftover mashed potatoes into the garbage disposal, so they don't end up in a landfill? Or should I throw them in the trash can, so they don't end up the water supply?

For years, the great garbage-disposal wars have been going on without most of us even noticing. Cities like New York—along with many governments in Europe—banned disposals altogether, arguing that the added food waste would overtax the water-treatment system. (New York removed the ban for residential kitchens in 1997.) Meanwhile, the appliance manufacturers—along with homeowners and restaurants who prefer getting rid of food through the drain—have argued that the disposal is actually a green machine, reducing the amount of trash sent to landfills.

Mark Crispin Miller: Spoonamore Reveals The Plan To Steal The Next Election

Here, in this shattering new interview, Stephen Spoonamore goes into harrowing detail about the Bush regime's election fraud, past, present and--if we don't spread the word right now--to come. Since he's the only whistle-blower out there who knows the perps themselves, and how they operate, we have to send this new piece far and wide.

Here Spoon tells us that McBush's team--i.e., Karl Rove and his henchpersons-- have their plan in place to steal this next election: by 51.2% of the popular vote, and three electoral votes.

Those who remember the Depression fear its return

By Amy Wilson | Lexington Herald-Leader

The worldwide economic depression that began on Oct. 29,1929, is still everywhere if we'd look. Our infrastructure got built, our population shifted forever, our national character was forged.

But for some reason, the lessons have been lost.

Geneva Spickard draws a long line to represent a bunch of celery and divides it into thirds. She laments that her daughter only uses the middle third.

Treasury Would Emerge With Vast New Power

By FLOYD NORRIS

During its weeklong deliberations, Congress made many changes to the Bush administration’s original proposal to bail out the financial industry, but one overarching aspect of the initial plan that remains is the vast discretion it gives to the Treasury secretary.

The draft legislation, which will be put to a House vote on Monday, gives Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and his successor extraordinary power to decide how the $700 billion bailout fund is spent. For example, if he thinks it wise, he may buy not only mortgages and mortgage-backed securities, but any other financial instrument.

Will Wall Street's Meltdown Turn America Into a Police State?

By Scott Thill, AlterNet
Posted on September 30, 2008, Printed on September 30, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/100689/

"Raw capitalism is dead." -- Henry Paulson, U.S. Treasury secretary

"Can't we just all go out and say things are OK?" -- President Bush, to congressional leaders during bailout negotiations

I'm not much of an Army Times reader, but after reading that a brigade was shipping from Iraq in October to serve as "an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks" in the homeland right before the election, my antennae perked up. Same as they did when I read that an electoral college doomsday scenario exists in which Dick Cheney casts the deciding vote that gives McCain-Palin the White House.

That is, if Cheney and Bush don't take it for themselves. That may sound like fantasy, but don't kill the messenger. They are all strands of the Gordian knot the Bush administration has tied around the neck of the American people for the last two presidential terms, best represented today by the failed bailout of banks, brokers and other complicit parties that have since jacked the American people out of trillions. And while the Army Times revelation or election doomsday may turn out to be paranoia rather than prescience, the evidence just isn't there.

Why Conservatives Led the Fight Against the Bailout Deal

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on September 30, 2008, Printed on September 30, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/100857/

On Monday, the Bush administration's massive Wall Street bailout went down to a narrow defeat in the House. After the 228-205 vote, markets crashed, and the usual partisan finger-pointing followed. According to the Washington Post, Speaker Nancy Pelosi "maintained that Democrats 'delivered on our side of the bargain' by getting 60 percent of House Democrats to support a bill that was built around the Bush administration's proposal, whereas 67 percent of House Republicans voted against it."

At first glance, it may appear that the 133 House Republicans who broke with their party's leadership did so out of principle -- that they bravely stood up against a massive cash transfer to those most responsible for precipitating the financial crisis in the first place. They appeared to be gambling a lot in taking that principled position, despite the fact that the bailout had drawn fire from across the political spectrum. The conventional wisdom, after all, has gelled around the idea that only an unprecedented cash infusion into the ailing banking system will stave off a potential Next Great Depression. The message many rebellious conservatives sent was that it takes courage to roll the dice with the world's economy six weeks before an election, even if the public was deeply skeptical of the measure (the reality is that almost none of the lawmakers who face tight races this fall voted for the bailout, fearing a backlash from voters; Congress is not known for courage or principle on the eve of an election).

The cost of 'no government'

By Julian Delasantellis

In the inky blackness of the night, I hear them. Here in the US Pacific Northwest, with the sun no longer ionizing the upper levels of the atmosphere, I can hear AM radio signals from stations up to 3,000 kilometers away, all the way to Chicago and beyond. For the most part they carry the buzz of call-in political talk shows, and it all sounds pretty much the same from one end of the radio spectrum to the other - when it comes to the financial system bailout bill that went down to defeat on Monday in the US House of Representatives, a violent, vitriolic, passionate, deeply visceral opposition to events transpiring in Washington, DC, can be heard.

If I didn't know better, I might have thought that I was listening to voices being broadcast from behind the borders of some oppressive dictatorship; it's citizens, like resistance fighters in World War II Europe, desperately calling out for help from the free world. So great is the alienation of the government from its people on this issue, you might have thought that the callers were making one final testament of the truth, for surely they believed that come the next dawn would also come the trucks to carry them off to the re-education camps.

Why the US is losing in Afghanistan

By Anthony H Cordesman

Most of the literature on the cost of the Iraq War, Afghan War, and "war on terror" focuses on the burden it places on the federal budget and the US economy. These are very real issues, but they also have deflected attention from another key issue: whether the war in Afghanistan is being properly funded and being given the resources necessary to win.

The situation in Afghanistan has now deteriorated steadily for more than five years, an assessment the US intelligence community has agreed to in its latest analysis of the war. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) commander in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, has noted that violence was at least 30% higher in September 2008 than in September 2007, and was driven by three factors:

The insurgents have adapted their tactics to smaller scale IEDS and ambush type attacks.

The US and NATO/International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have greater presence, and therefore greater contact with the insurgency.

A deteriorating condition in these tribal areas of Pakistan. More drugs and insurgents are being sent over the border.

Thomas Frank: Wrecking, Wrecking, Wrecked

The great fear that hung over the business community in the 1970s was death by regulation, and the great goal of the conservative movement, as it rose to triumph in the 1980s, was to remove that threat--to keep OSHA, the EPA, and the FTC from choking off entrepreneurship with their infernal meddling in the marketplace.

Defunding those agencies was one way to stop the killer bureaucrats; another was to stuff them full of business-friendly personnel who would go easy on regulated. The signature conservative regulatory idea became "voluntary enforcement", because everyone now knew that efficient markets regulated themselves. Bad practices or tainted products drove away consumers; therefore firms had an incentive to behave, an incentive far more powerful than some top-down scheme in which big brother told them what to do.

House Votes Down Financial Bailout Deal

by Julie Hirschfeld Davis

The House today defeated a $700 billion emergency rescue for the nation's financial system, ignoring urgent warnings from President Bush and congressional leaders of both parties that the economy could nosedive into recession without it.

Stocks plummeted on Wall Street even before the 228-205 vote to reject the bill was announced on the House floor.

Bush and a host of leading congressional figures had implored the lawmakers to pass the legislation despite howls of protest from their constituents back home. Despite pressure from supporters, not enough members were willing to take the political risk just five weeks before an election.

Common insecticide can decimate tadpole populations

Insecticide malathion initiates chain reaction that deprives tadpoles of food source, indirectly killing them at doses too small to kill them directly

PITTSBURGH—The latest findings of a University of Pittsburgh-based project to determine the environmental impact of routine pesticide use suggests that malathion—the most popular insecticide in the United States—can decimate tadpole populations by altering their food chain, according to research published in the Oct. 1 edition of Ecological Applications.

Gradual amounts of malathion that were too small to directly kill developing leopard frog tadpoles instead sparked a biological chain of events that deprived them of their primary food source. As a result, nearly half the tadpoles in the experiment did not reach maturity and would have died in nature. The research was funded by a National Science Foundation grant.

Experiment Demonstrates 110 Years of Sustainable Agriculture

The oldest continuous cotton production experiment shows that winter legumes are as effective as nitrogen fertilizer in producing non-irrigated, 10-yr average cotton yields.

MADISON, WI, September 29, 2008 – A plot of land on the campus of Auburn University shows that 110 years of sustainable farming practices can produce similar cotton crops to those using other methods.

In 1896, Professor J.F. Duggar at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama (now Auburn University) started an experiment to test his theories that sustainable cotton production was possible on Alabama soils if growers would use crop rotation and include winter legumes (clovers and/or vetch) to protect the soil from winter erosion.

Two Portraits of a Bioterror Suspect

As FBI Paints Ivins as Killer, Friends Recall Him as Good, if Flawed

By Anne Hull, Marilyn W. Thompson and Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, September 28, 2008; Page A01

Two days before he was found unconscious at home, felled by a lethal dose of Tylenol and valium, microbiologist Bruce E. Ivins logged on to one of the "express computers" on the second floor of the library in downtown Frederick.

He typed in the name of a Web site devoted to the anthrax-mailings investigation, a perplexing, unsolved case that had dragged on for seven years. At 7:13 p.m., the computer connected to a page that included comments from FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, who was confident that the case soon would be solved. "I tell you, we've made great progress in the investigation," he said.

Paul Krugman: The 3 A.M. Call

It’s 3 a.m., a few months into 2009, and the phone in the White House rings. Several big hedge funds are about to fail, says the voice on the line, and there’s likely to be chaos when the market opens. Whom do you trust to take that call?

I’m not being melodramatic. The bailout plan released yesterday is a lot better than the proposal Henry Paulson first put out — sufficiently so to be worth passing. But it’s not what you’d actually call a good plan, and it won’t end the crisis. The odds are that the next president will have to deal with some major financial emergencies.

Correntewire: The Crisis Explained

Submitted by lambert on Thu, 2008-09-25 23:40.

By one RDF:

Joe goes to the track and bets $2 on a horse.

Two guys standing nearby get into a discussion and Fred says to Sam, “I’ll bet you $5 that Joe wins his bet.”

Next to them are Bill and Bob. Bill says: “I’ll bet you $10 that Fred welshes on his bet if he loses.”

Next to them is Sally. Sally says: “For $3 I’ll guarantee to Bill that if Bob fails to pay off, I’ll make good on the bet.”

Deal reached on financial markets bailout

Congress leaders, Bush administration reach tentative deal on financial bailout deal

CHARLES BABINGTON and ALAN FRAM, AP News
Sep 28, 2008 00:38 EST

Congressional leaders and the Bush administration reached a tentative deal early Sunday on a landmark bailout of imperiled financial markets whose collapse could plunge the nation into a deep recession.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the $700 billion accord just after midnight but said it still has to be put on paper.

More Americans are on food stamps but say the aid is not enough

By Patrick McGee | Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Krystal Follet’s husband left her in January. Her boss fired her in March. Her landlord gave her an eviction notice two weeks ago.

A tough year for someone with two children to feed.

Follet has turned to food stamps. The 31-year-old Arlington woman is among millions of Americans applying for government help to get enough to eat.

"I don’t know how I would have fed them," Follet said. "Even when I worked, it was a struggle trying to get everything paid."

The number of people on food stamps has been increasing for months. In June, the figure was 28.6 million, according to the government.

A shattering moment in America's fall from power

The global financial crisis will see the US falter in the same way the Soviet Union did when the Berlin Wall came down. The era of American dominance is over

John Gray, The Observer
Sunday September 28 2008

Our gaze might be on the markets melting down, but the upheaval we are experiencing is more than a financial crisis, however large. Here is a historic geopolitical shift, in which the balance of power in the world is being altered irrevocably. The era of American global leadership, reaching back to the Second World War, is over.

You can see it in the way America's dominion has slipped away in its own backyard, with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez taunting and ridiculing the superpower with impunity. Yet the setback of America's standing at the global level is even more striking. With the nationalisation of crucial parts of the financial system, the American free-market creed has self-destructed while countries that retained overall control of markets have been vindicated. In a change as far-reaching in its implications as the fall of the Soviet Union, an entire model of government and the economy has collapsed.

Save Pensions

By TERESA GHILARDUCCI

THE meltdown in the financial industry isn’t merely a housing story populated by panicked home owners. Near retirees’ and retirees’ lives have been turned upside down, too, as their risky 401(k) savings accounts erode.

It’s too bad that, in their plan to bail out investment firms, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, do not address the problems of older workers and retirees. The Treasury-Federal Reserve proposal should give not only investment banks but also retirees and those close to retirement the option to clear the junk — bad mortgage-based securities and their derivatives — out of their 401(k) accounts and invest in government-guaranteed bonds.

Frank Rich: McCain’s Suspension Bridge to Nowhere

WHAT we learned last week is that the man who always puts his “country first” will take the country down with him if that’s what it takes to get to the White House.

For all the focus on Friday night’s deadlocked debate, it still can’t obscure what preceded it: When John McCain gratuitously parachuted into Washington on Thursday, he didn’t care if his grandstanding might precipitate an even deeper economic collapse. All he cared about was whether he might save his campaign. George Bush put more deliberation into invading Iraq than McCain did into his own reckless invasion of the delicate Congressional negotiations on the bailout plan.

By the time he arrived, there already was a bipartisan agreement in principle. It collapsed hours later at the meeting convened by the president in the Cabinet Room. Rather than help try to resuscitate Wall Street’s bloodied bulls, McCain was determined to be the bull in Washington’s legislative china shop, running around town and playing both sides of his divided party against Congress’s middle. Once others eventually forged a path out of the wreckage, he’d inflate, if not outright fictionalize, his own role in cleaning up the mess his mischief helped make. Or so he hoped, until his ignominious retreat.

Behind Insurer’s Crisis, Blind Eye to a Web of Risk

By GRETCHEN MORGENSON

“It is hard for us, without being flippant, to even see a scenario within any kind of realm of reason that would see us losing one dollar in any of those transactions.”

— Joseph J. Cassano, a former A.I.G. executive, August 2007

Two weeks ago, the nation’s most powerful regulators and bankers huddled in the Lower Manhattan fortress that is the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, desperately trying to stave off disaster.

As the group, led by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., pondered the collapse of one of America’s oldest investment banks, Lehman Brothers, a more dangerous threat emerged: American International Group, the world’s largest insurer, was teetering. A.I.G. needed billions of dollars to right itself and had suddenly begged for help.