Like Sauraman who had to go begging so should Richard B. Cheney and his shadow government should not benefit from government money due to his belief that the Office of the Vice President is neither a part of the executive or the legislative branches of government.  Since he believes that his office should be above any checks and balances between the three co-equal branches of  government (i.e., our organizational table) as envisioned by the founders and written into the Constitution, it is time to use the power of inherent subpeona to literally enforce the will of Congress on Richard Cheney's acts of treason against the Constitution through the setting up a seperate government that acts against the government in power.

Dan Froomkin, Washington Post journalist, writes:

How far will Vice President Cheney go to shield himself and his office from public scrutiny?

Last spring, Cheney asserted that he wasn't subject to executive-branch rules about classified information because he wasn't actually part of the executive branch.

Now his office argues that he and his staff are completely immune from congressional oversight. That's right: Completely immune.

This cannot be seen as anything other than to place the Office of the Vice President above the Constitution and has regal powers that is in direct opposition to the Constitution.  What Cheney and his lawyers are arguing for is to create a imperial power that is above the laws of this nation.

Of course the corporate media has failed to tell the American people of this internal threat to our nation.  Froomkin continues with a very short list of U.S. journalists that covered it:

Carrie Johnson, Washington Post: Their refusal marks the latest skirmish in a lengthy battle over the scope of presidential authority and the administration's treatment of detainees. Under Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey and his predecessor, Alberto R. Gonzales, the Justice Department has refused to enforce congressional subpoenas for testimony.

Laurie Kellman, Associated Press: A previous dispute is being hashed out in federal court, with Conyers' committee suing White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former presidential counsel Harriet Miers for refusing to comply with subpoenas on the firings of federal prosecutors. The White House maintains that their testimony is off-limits from congressional oversight under executive privilege.

Now why would journalists, who have a special duty that they are charged with in the Constitution, fail in their duty to the American people over treasonous acts committed by Richard Cheney?

Is it because we are now in the decline phase of Pax Americana?  The rise of America was in the last century and that in the new century we are in decline not of the slow fall like the Roman Empire or British Empire but a decline fueled on steriods and we, our generation, will live to endure such a fall.

If there is such a thing as the one man theory of history then can we disprove it because the people can be greater than one man? 

Do you feel that politicians see us as a means to an end?  How else can it be when this is coming? San Francisco Chronicle reporters Zachary Coile writes:

“They are the biggest hypocrites in the world,” said Medea Benjamin, the San Francisco-based founder of the anti-war group CodePink. “They want to paint the Republicans as warmongers and they want to keep funding the war, and they think we don’t see through this?”

What was it that Democratic candidates were elected to do?  End the war.  As many other commentators have noted that is the reason the Democratic controlled Congress is held in such low esteem.  They have singularly failed in carrying out the will of the people.  Coile continues:

Pelosi was pressed on the issue last week during a sit-down with CNN’s Larry King. “Your party became the majority in the House primarily pledging to end the war,” King said. “That didn’t happen.”

“No,” Pelosi acknowledged. “It didn’t happen because we had hoped that the president would listen to the will of the people and at least be willing to compromise on … how the war is conducted and some timetable for redeployment of our troops.”

Congress watchers said Democrats are still stung after losing repeated battles with the White House and Republicans over the war last year.

“Last year they tried a lot of confrontation and they went nowhere,” said Louis Fisher, a constitutional scholar at the Library of Congress and an expert on congressional war powers. He said Democrats still fear being portrayed as putting U.S. troops at risk if they try to shut off war funds.

Either Speaker Pelosi is ignorant or blind to what Mr. Bush sees the legislative branch as nothing more than an ATM for his war(s)?

As other campaigns have run like "The Backbone" and "Fighting Dems" to backstop and support Democratic candidates and elected officials.  But do they really listen to?  They listen to the inside the "Beltway" consultants that feed them b.s. about what is important, so important, that the lives of Americans are worth less.

Who supports their misperceptions about "strength and American patriotism" because that "voice" is louder than our voices who go to their offices to talk to them about getting out of Iraq?  Corporate media who bangs the bloody, Republican drum about "putting our troops at risk if funding is cut off" by offering their viewers no other views except the view that it is acceptable for Americans to die without cause.

It is high time that Pelosi and the other leaders in the Democratic Party have to face protests for life- the lives that too many have been cut short for a war that is without purpose- not only at their jobs but 24/7 now.  Remember what kind of reaction that Speaker Pelosi had in 2007?  WSWS journalist Patrick Martin writes:

“Look,” she said, “I had, for five months, people sitting outside my home, going into my garden in San Francisco, angering neighbors, hanging their clothes from trees, building all kinds of things—Buddhas? I don’t know what they were—couches, sofas, chairs, permanent living facilities on my front sidewalk.”

Pelosi’s remark—imagine that riffraff “sleeping on my sidewalk”—is reveals the enormous social distance between the masses of working people, housewives, students who oppose the war, and the privileged ruling elite. And her disparaging reference to the First Amendment demonstrates the hostility of a big business politician towards the democratic rights of the working class

It is time for those Democratically elected leaders know that their jobs are not for life but will face challenges because they are no longer a solution to the problem but enabling the problem.  They had a mandate and have failed. 

It is time for the working men and women to halt the machinery of war:

(h/t to my friend Michael for forwarding this)

In a major step for the U.S. labor movement, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has announced that it will shut down West Coast ports on May 1, to demand an immediate end to the war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Middle East. This is the first time in decades that an American union has decided to undertake industrial action against a U.S. war. The action announced by the powerful West Coast dock workers union, to stop work to stop the war, should be taken up by unions and labor organizations throughout the United States and internationally. And the purpose of such actions should be not to beg the bourgeois politicians whose hands are covered with blood, having voted for every war budget for six and a half years, but a show of strength of the working people who make this country run, and who can shut it down!

In a major step for the U.S. labor movement, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has announced that it will shut down West Coast ports on May 1, to demand an immediate end to the war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Middle East. In a February 22 letter to AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, ILWU International president Robert McEllrath reported that at a recent coast-wide union meeting, “One of the resolutions adopted by caucus delegates called on longshore workers to stop work during the day shift on May 1, 2008 to express their opposition to the war in Iraq.”

This is the first time in decades that an American union has decided to undertake industrial action against a U.S. war. It is doubly important that this mobilization of labor’s power is to take place on May Day, the international workers day, which is not honored in the U.S. Moreover, the resolution voted by the ILWU delegates opposes not only the hugely unpopular war in Iraq, but also the war and occupation of Afghanistan (which Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and Republican John McCain all want to expand). The motion to shut down the ports also demands the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the entire region, including the oil sheikdoms of the strategically important Persian/Arab Gulf......

Well what do you think?  The art of the political attack ad is nothing new since the beginning of politics.  I would guess that archeologists will find political attack ads on the pottery and walls of buildings in the ancient ruins of Mesopotamian civilizations which predate ancient Greek civilization by a millienium or so.

John Lundberg, HuffingtonPost.com, writes:

...wondering how politicians went after one another before television. It turns out the Ancient Greeks--inventors of Democracy--may also have invented the first smear tactic: the attack poem...

A well-timed poetic assault in front of the right audience could do some serious damage to one's rival. Archilochus, a soldier and renowned poet in the 7th Century BC, had such a gift for these attacks that it's said he drove a rival--and his entire family--to hang themselves. His verse was nasty enough to get him banned from Sparta. Just how how nasty could Archilochus get? Here's a poem he directed at a rival (all translations are from Brooks Haxton's book Dances for Flute and Thunder from Viking Press):

Swept overboard, unconscious in the breakers,

strangled with seaweed, may you wake up in a gelid

surf, your teeth, already cracked into the shingle,

now set rattling by the wind, while facedown,

helpless as a poisoned cur, on all fours you puke

brine reeking of dead fish. May those you meet,

barbarians as ugly as their souls are hateful,

treat you to the moldy wooden bread of slaves.

And may you, with your split teeth sunk in that,

smile, then, the way you did when speaking as my friend.

So the art of the attack ad has come down through the ages in one form or another.  Alex Balk has a number of negative attack advertisments from American political history. There is a number of scholars who have examined attack ads and have drawn some conclusions, including that attack ads and negative campaigning in general does not suppress voter turnout.  David Mark, Reason magazine, writes:

This conventional wisdom is dead wrong, argues the Vanderbilt political scientist John Geer, author of the 2006 book In Defense of Negativity: Attack Ads in Presidential Politics. "Journalists and academics think of negative campaigning as personal attacks," says Geer. "I don't particularly worry about it. It's going to take something a little more consequential to hurt this country than some rough 30-second spots."

Geer's research demonstrates that negative ads tend to be more substantive than positive spots, because to be credible they must be better documented and specific. His analysis of television campaign advertising from 1960 through 2004 found that nearly three-quarters of the claims in negative spots involved issues, not attacks on candidates' characters or values. "You can't just attack President Bush for being weak on the economy," Geer says. "You need to be more specific when you attack. You have to say why. For the attacks to work, they have to be based on fact."

Mother Jones magazine reporters Leslie Savan and Dave Gilson write:

And that means the classic TV attack ad, supplemented and invigorated by viral video, is not going away anytime soon. Television is "perfect for political advertising," says Advertising Age columnist and On the Media cohost Bob Garfield—in part because it allows candidates to target specific regions and demographics, and in part because it delivers a (somewhat) captive audience.

If you are interested in political campaigning then check this website out: Campaign Ad Watch. If you know of an attack ad, campaign ad, or just something interesting let them know here.

What is wrong with the funding for important public policy think tanks on the  progressive/liberal side? 

Rockridge is most associated with its co-founder and nationally known promoter of "framing," George Lakoff. But we came to know that it had a wonderful, committed, intelligent staff that tirelessly worked on helping to gain the high ground from right-wing think tanks by creating strategies for asserting progressive values in a manner that was cogent and persuasive.

Unfortunately, we learned on April 21 that Rockridge must cease its work due to lack of sufficient funding. It is a dilemma faced by many innovative efforts to counter the right-wing rhetoric and think tanks. There has been some growth in investment in long-term progressive infrastructure -- beyond the immediacy of the political races themselves -- but not nearly enough.

I can only see that money is what matters. 

"Today's continuing success of the Hoover Institution is in large part attributable to the huge contribution of the Volker Fund, an endowment of tens of millions of dollars that support the domestic research programs of the Institution," said Raisian. "As chairman of the Volker Foundation, Morris Cox was key in arranging for a gift of $7 million which has grown tenfold today."

And this:

The market value of Hoover’s endowment as of August 31, 2004, was $276 million, with an additional $15 million of current reserves held in endowment.

Look at the expenditures and revenue for the American Enterprise Institute, which does not include it's internal endowment:

AEI enjoyed another year of very solid financial performance in 2006, with revenues of $28.4 million and $23.6 million in expenditures.

Now look at the Heritage Foundation Annual Report for 2007:

Assets:

196,846,298

Operation Expenses:

48,783,325

Operation Revenue:

48,783,325

Operating Surplus:

429,078 

What am I missing...an inspirational think tank co-founded by George Lakoff yet it goes under because progressive/liberal deep pocket funders cannot see beyond the next election cycle?  Is that it?

There has been much discussion on the part of some people on the left on developing a "pipeline" that is the equivalent to what the right has.  I.e., recent graduates from higher education are hired by institutions like the Hoover Institute, American Enterprise Institute, etc. and then will be able to write and publish at their endowed chairs because the right's deep pocket funders are able to understand that in order to develop the intellectual part of a social movement it is necessary to spend money over long time frames.

This is the biggest weakness that developing a left wing counter part has been so far unsuccessful to do because there is no consistent stream of money to fund insitutions beyond the election cycle.

Will it be up to small donors to fulfill the gap and have the persistence of vision to make it work?

How would you make the financials work that is people powered rather than have a few "fat cats" pulling the strings? 

Check it out!

(h/t to Beth Arnold at Huffingtonpost.com) 

Rush Limbaugh deserves to heard as he stands on his soapbox on a street corner and not on the public airwaves.  He reminds me of that guy who is always holding that sign "Clinton raped Junita Brodderick" on Denver street corners. 

Isn't his calling for riots at the Democratic National Convention a justification for him to be banned from the public airwaves?  Why not call Mayor Hickenlooper, 720-865-9016, and ask him if he believes that is what public figures should be doing in a nation at war? 

I cannot believe that radio stations buy his show through Premier Radio Networks. 

There needs to be concerted action in Denver to get "Rush off the Air and On the Street Corner" where he belongs.

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What happens when one market goes bust?  In a globalized market the effects will have an international impact that will force governments to intravene, but what happens if governments don't because of their economic belief in "free" market(s)?

We have seen that Mr. Bush and his cohort has a faux belief in free market (i.e., Friedman economic theory) by the action of Fed. Chairman Bernanke's federal loan guarantee to JPMorgan's buyout of Bear Stearns. 

But what would happen if a major economic power would allow that to happen to let the market work by itself without any "safety" net?

From the Independent's reporter Clifford Coonan writes:

It took just two years for China's blue-chip share index, the Shanghai Composite share index to register a 500 per cent gain, rising from 1,000 to 6,000 points but it has taken only around five months for it to tumble from 6,000 to below 3,000.

Will this lead to great internal unrest as China's rulers have to wrest with Tibet and a faltering global economy?  What will happen to the 150,000,000 million new investors in their stock markets in Shanghai and Shenzhen?  Those small investors will be hurt the most by the loss of over 1,000,000,000,000 dollars in valuation of corporations because they hold the view that "muscular government intervention to keep everything in the garden rosy ahead of China's big party to mark its emergence as a global economic and political power".  This has not been the case.

Do you think that the U.S. government would stand by if the Dow lost half it's value?

----------------------------------

There has been a remarkable lack of commentary on Hillary Clinton's willingness to spread the nuclear umbrella to countries in the Middle East.  Why is that?

Why would she say that if Isreal is attacked by nuclear weapons from Iran that we would respond with "massive retaliation"?  Why would she say that other Middle East countries would enjoy the umbrella of our nuclear arsenal too?  What countries?  Surely she would not have in mind the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia?

DailyKos.com writer Troutfishing writes:

George E. Lowe, who wrote the 1964 book "The Age of Deterrence" ( Little, Brown) and has won awards for his writing on nuclear deterrence as well, about WHY "massive [nuclear] retaliation" is such a loaded term and WHY the "Meet The Press" folks may have been taken aback by Clinton's "nuclear umbrella" idea...

"Who the HELL is she talking to ? Whose IDEAS are these", Lowe asked me, rhetorically, "Clark didn't seem to know anything about this, he was blindsided. So where did these crazy, dangerous ideas come from ? Look, I've been in this business for fifty years, I know nuclear deterrence. She had to have been talking to somebody like Doug Coe or his elite inner circle."

It was conjecture, and George Lowe would be the first to admit that, but he would also stick to his call pegging Clinton's "nuclear umbrella" as a fast track to global nuclear war. Nuclear weapons can't be used as "umbrellas". That's nuts, an idea one would have expected from SAC head General  Curtis LeMay, parodied in Dr.Strangelove. Today, one would expect it from a neocon.. if she talks like a NeoCon, if she cavorts with NeoCon, if she makes the same sort of mistakes  "NeoCon".

Remember that Iran, per the National Intelligence Estimate, has put a stop to it's nuclear weapons program(s) in 2003, but Hillary is still espousing the dangerous lie that Mr. Bush and the Neo-Cons like Cheney and Perle still hold a belief in- no matter what Iranian leaders and our own intelligence agencies say- Iran is developing nuclear weapons.  Hillary seems to have the same false belief and is commited to using any means to prevent that from happening.

What will happen if Hillary becomes president?   

John Kerry sent out this email via Save the Internet Blog for commentary on Net Neutrality:

By Sen. John Kerry

This may be the only place I don’t feel the need to play up the importance of tomorrow’s Commerce Committee hearing on Net Neutrality.

When I’ve talked to other people – and when I post on other blogs – about this hearing, I always try to grab people’s attention and tell them that, even with the primary tomorrow, we need to keep our eyes on the ball when it comes to Net Neutrality and the future of the Internet...

Because – bottom line – our economic and political future is tied up in a free and open Internet, available to all Americans. That involves making sure the content of the Internet flows freely, and it involves expanding broadband to the urban and rural areas that are underserved with our current infrastructure...

So, I ask again: what would you like to see discussed in this hearing? And I’ll check back after the hearing to get your impressions on what transpired.

Thanks, John Kerry

If you have a stake in this then let him know (you have to register to leave a comment) now. 

The Dow Jones goes for broke with your money.  Dow rises on Friday:

Citigroup, the nation's biggest bank, encouraged investors with results that didn't contain any big surprises. The New York-based bank reported a loss of $5.1 billion during the first quarter because of poor bets on mortgages and leveraged loans, but the loss was half the $10 billion recorded for the preceding quarter.

So what am I missing?  The biggest bank in America posts a huge loss because of the poor bets (read bundled mortage debt into SIV, etc.) yet the stock brokers seem to have a fairy tale belief in "happy endings" for their financial institutions. 

Subodh Kumar, global investment strategist at Subodh Kumar & Assoc. in Toronto, said: 

This is the first week of earnings reports, and the marquee companies in general have been able to report good earnings, and the banks have been able to raise capital, and the market is responding to that.

But, wait, doesn't Mr. Kumar have a direct stake in how the stock markets will be affected?  He certainly is not biased.  

Again, "Helicopter" Bernanke has used his position as Fed Chairman which is opposite of what the Fed's tradition mission is  as George Will writes:

The Fed has no mandate to be the dealmaker for Wall Street socialism.

But who is going to bear the burden of this meltdown?  It is not going to be Wall Street but the taxpayer, us, the little guys.

Walkaways are becoming the norm for the people who bought into the housing boom as a means of investing (read flipping properties) and it was those investors who began to send mortagage banks "jingle" mail instead of checks.  Catherine Reagor, of the Arizona Republic, writes:

Investors started the walk-away trend, but it has spread to the typical homeowner.

Duncan Black, Eschaton blog, writes:

Also, there's a pretty big gray area between "don't want to pay" and "can't pay." There are people who are fairly financially sound but who need to move. If the bank won't accept a short sale, they're either stuck or they're going to mail in the keys.

Here is the hard data not on the sub-prime mess but on the speculative housing market by people who are ranked as Alt-A for mortagage loans.  gJohnsit, Dailykos.com, crunches the numbers and comes up with this:

Now let's look at Alt-A's.

Total Alt-A mortgages U.S.: 2,384,592

 Slightly smaller than subprime, but...

Average Alt-A balence U.S.: $299,117

 Alt-A mortgages are nearly twice as large as subprime mortgages.

Total Alt-A owner-occupied U.S.: 1,722,861

 Nearly 28% of Alt-A homes are not owner-occupied (aka speculators). Only about 9% of subprime loans aren't owner-occupied. If you don't live there you are much more likely to walk away from a home you can't afford.

Number of Alt-A mortgages with a current payment U.S.: 1,499,030

 This is a very scary number. This means that 37% of all Alt-A mortgages are delinquent. However, very few of them were delinquent by more than 60 days. Thus we are looking at the early stages of massive foreclosures in Alt-A's.

Percentage of Alt-A with no or low documentation U.S.: 73.1%

 Alt-A is the home of the "liar loan", unlike subprime where less than 30% were liar loans.
  Now put "liar loan" together with "speculator" and you get a witches brew of trouble.

Percentage Alt-A with cash out refinance U.S.: 38.2%

 They didn't extract their equity quite as fast as the subprime borrower, but a large percentage of them did.

Average Alt-A loan to value at origination U.S.: 89.85%

 That means that even more Alt-A borrowers, nearly all of them, used 100% mortgages than subprime borrowers did.

So what is going to happen?  A severe recession.  The housing/real estate meltdown has just begun and it has taken the international community to stave off the very first wave of economic bad news.  If globalization has tied the financial system into one than the govenments are forced to lend money to those institutions to stave off the entire system from collapsing.  From what I've been able to glean from newspapers the entire bail out for the biggest banks by governments is to the tune of at least $250,000,000,000 USD.  That's right the governments of the Unites States, Britian, France, Germany has bailed out their financial institutions on  the order of one quarter of a trillion dollars so far.

But will the entire finacial system be overwhelmed by the next, and larger, wave of real estate/housing collapse?

Remember even "Helicopter" Bernanke had to go back to school and learn about the various financial insturments being created by banks to repackage mortage debt to investors.

Couple it with the collapse in trust of the U.S. dollar and you have the makings of a "perfect storm".  Thomas Tan, CFA, writes:

It shows the deterioration of the trust in US $ by the world which the US $ is depending on for its support. The only reason the US $ became the world reserve currency is because people trusted it. With this trust, the US can issue all its papers to the world and pay for all the cheap oil, raw material, finished goods around the World, with foreign central banks holding these papers to finance the high US living standards.

Now why would the world start to lose trust in the US?  Could it be due to the reckless fiscal and financial policies by Mr. Bush and his cohort?  Could it be due to the way this nation has a off the books accounting for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which was perfectly mirrored by Enron/Arthur Anderson accounting practices?  Could it be that there is something to hide by Mr. Bush by the fact that much financial information is not being reported by Treasury anymore?

When the people of America lose their trust in government and the international community lose their trust in our currency what will happen?  It will not be a "fairy tale" ending. 

Chain of command convenience is what Mr. Bush has done to the command chain in the military.  Otherwise why should this happen?  Richard Norton-Taylor, journalist for The Guardian, writes:

Myers and his closest advisers were cut out of the decision-making process. He did not know that Bush administration officials were changing the rules allowing interrogation techniques, including the use of dogs, amounting to torture.

Digging further there is this example from Boston Globe reporter Charlie Savage writes:

The administration has proposed a regulation requiring "coordination" with politically appointed Pentagon lawyers before any member of the Judge Advocate General corps - the military's 4,000-member uniformed legal force - can be promoted.

Other examples abound including the setting up of the Office of Special Plans by Donald Rumsfeld to give and massage information that only supported their belief and conclusion that Saddam had an ongoing nuclear weapons program. Whose antecedent was Team B whose senior membership included Wolfowitz, Pipes, Rumsfeld and Cheney from the 1970's that publicized the infamous "missile gap" due to the Soviet mindset of being "offensive" which laid the groundwork for Reagan's tremendous defense increases that broke the U.S. budget.

Mr. Bush only wanted information to confirm his preconceived ideas about Saddam's nuclear weapons.  To this end, Seymour Hersch writes in 2003:

How did the American intelligence community get it so wrong?

Part of the answer lies in decisions made early in the Bush Administration, before the events of September 11, 2001. In interviews with present and former intelligence officials, I was told that some senior Administration people, soon after coming to power, had bypassed the government’s customary procedures for vetting intelligence.

Remember the Declaration of Independence:

“He affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.”

But Bush officials believe that they are only beholden to him not to the Constitution.  For example Sara Taylor, in Senate Judiciary testimony in 2007:

Early on in a colloquy with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Taylor earnestly testifies: "I took an oath. And I take that oath to the president very seriously."

But, wait, how does this apply to our military?  Remember that Admiral Fallon is the latest example of a commander who did not follow Mr. Bush's idea to go to war with Iran.  Remember General Shinseki who told Congress that it would take hundreds of thousands of American troops to be committed to Iraq yet Chairman Meyer's under cut his subordinate by stating that Gen. Shinseki was just "pulling numbers out of the air"?

One has to look to see that Mr. Bush only cares that that military respond to his wishes and not to their sworn oath to Consitution.  Commanders that fail that have no honor or respect. 

While people are aware that jobs are being lost because of the incompetent handling of the economy by Wall Street and Mr. Bush.  What struck me just as much is the fact that 80,000 full time jobs are being converted to part time jobs per month for the last five months.

That's right- 400,000 more workers now work part time instead of full time in the last five months.

New York Times journalist Peter S. Goodman writes:

At the end of last month, more than 4.9 million people were working part time either because they could not find full-time jobs or because their companies had cut hours in the face of slack business, according to a Labor Department survey. That represented an increase of 400,000 since November...

But from November through March, as employers began to scale back in a variety of ways, wage growth fell below the pace of inflation, meaning that paychecks were effectively shrinking.

But for Wall Street it's business as usual because the business section reporters relie upon information like this:

"There's a lot of strength in the global market, and that's been the ongoing story, but I think we're probably in the final stage of the dollar's decline," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist for New York-based brokerage house Avalon Partners.

What makes you think that Peter Cardillo is an unbiased source?

This is just a financial house of cards that is in the process of falling.  The financial system is built upon a basis of trust.  Without trust you get such events as Bear Stearns here or Northern Rock, fifth largest mortagage bank in Great Britian, or IKB Deutsche Industriebank in Germany that the respective governments has to bailout. 

Whenever I see reporters quoting financial analysts from corporations about problems within the industry I won't believe them because they are trying to protect the industry and are biased because they are paid to be so.

Sharif Ghalib, the Asia Times, writes about what British are up in in Afghanistan:

Hence, Musa Qala, destined to fall back into the hands of government forces the next year, turned out to become the first known recourse by the British in a series of ensuing attempts, all in tune to the 19th century-era Great Game mantra of ethnic wrangling, dealmaking and disbursement of cash to tribal chiefs in return for short-lived loyalties.

Subsequently, in December 2007, a British and an Irish diplomat were expelled by the Afghan government, accused of holding secret talks with the Taliban in Helmand province. Details of the accusations released by the Afghan government shockingly even spoke of plans by the British to set up a military training camp in southern Afghanistan aimed at providing training for as many as 2,000 Taliban fighters. 

Where does this fit into Mr. Bush's "Long War"?  It doesn't, but it has led to charges by Hamid Karzai that the British have gone back to the "Great Game" strategy of their colonial past.

By having former colonial power in Afghanistan, which the Afghans had fought three wars with, as a part of "the coalition of the willing" the U.S. is being tarred by their actions which are seen by the Afghan government and its people as being nothing more than a ploy to allow foreign powers access to vital commerical interests- specifically oil transport.

While the eyes of Americans are being lulled to sleep by "Dancing with the Stars" their government under the ministrations of Mr. Bush and his cohort has shown to be asleep and unaware of what the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq really feel because Mr. Bush have an obsession with bring "democracy" to the mud people as due their "white man's burden". 

Democracy is fragile and the founders of this nation knew it very well.  I believe that Thomas Jefferson is correct-"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."   But a nation's people that has been fattened by fast food corporations ("bread") and distracted by the "family values" politicians with the complicity of corporate media ("circuses") into a vast slumber of dogma.

Why else would explain this lack of outrage at what is happening?

(h/t to Buzzflash.com) Dean Yates, reporter for Reuters, writes:

Iraq will seek parliamentary approval for a strategic agreement being negotiated with the United States even though it expects heated debate over the deal, Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said.

Yet the great and powerful Mr. Bush finds congressional approval of the treaty, which it is, to be onerous will use cheap semantic tricks to avoid congressional approval and is in defiance of the Constitution by doing so.

Washington Post reporter Michael Abramowitz noted, on January 24, 2008:

 As described by administration officials, the accord would amount to a standard "status of forces agreement" with a friendly country. It would cover such issues as the power U.S. forces would have to arrest and detain Iraqis, or the rules covering engagement with the enemy.

Historically, such agreements have not been submitted to Congress for approval, though administration officials concede that if they were to agree to certain security "guarantees" for the Iraqis, they would have to bring the matter before the Senate. Lawmakers are insisting that the proposed agreement is already broad enough to require congressional review.

So the Iraqi parliment can vote to approve the treaty because of the blood and sweat of the American soldier.  But the Constitution of the United States which states specifically that Congress must approve any treaty cannot?

What am I missing?

We have seen the videos of protests world wide over the subjugation of Tibet with the Olympic torch running, even here in the United States.  As German Chancellor Angelica Merkel has stated that the German head of state will not be at the opening ceremony in China as will British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.  French President Nicolas Sarkozy is contemplating boycotting too.  The civilized world's leaders should stand in solidarity with those world leaders in jilting China over their ruthless oppression of Tibet.

But wait...aren't we missing someone?

What of Mr. Bush?  Will he do so too?  Associated Press reports:

The kind of "quiet diplomacy" that the U.S. is practicing is a better way to send a message to China's leaders rather than "frontal confrontation," Stephen Hadley said.

"I don't view the Olympics as a political event," Bush said this past week. "I view it as a sporting event."

John Avarosis, AmericaBlog.com, comments:

So basically, Bush is now doing China's bidding. Going public and actually criticizing other countries that have taken a stand against the Chinese communist dictatorship. Tell me again, what exactly do the Republicans stand for any more? Big government, wasteful spending, incompetent national security, and coddling communists. That's right.

Is Jefferson wrong?  Have we, the people, come to be complacent in our co-called material wealth?  Akin to the propaganda that has covered the people's eyes in Oceania to their "wealth" or technological "miracles" of the "Rube Goldberg" kind in Sam Lowry's world.  Have corporations created a world in which we cannot see the reality?

If we are not seen on corporate media can we be real and legitimate? 

The U.S. spends on average twice as much on health care as other industrialized nations, and has overall worse outcomes. Paul Krugman’s & Robin Wells’ commentary ("The Health Care Crisis and What to Do About It," The New York Review of Books, 3/23/06) attributes the U.S. health care crisis to high dependence on fragmented, for–profit private insurances, hospitals and numerous middlemen that add health costs without adding value. Noting "the strange persistence, in the teeth of all available evidence, of the belief that the private sector can provide health insurance more efficiently than the government," Krugman and Wells remark that free-market ideology is "wholly inappropriate to health care issues." As many observe, health is not a commodity, like a car or house.

Factors of declining U.S. health care:

•      -Washington and the Bush administration are in thrall to insurance and drug industry lobbyists.
•      -The privatization-for-profit increases the fragmentation of U.S. health care, swelling the ranks of the uninsured.
•      -Commercial insurance has abandoned the principle of shared risk, shifting more risk to consumers, and has adopted the principle of adverse selection to guarantee profits for shareholders.
•      -Private insurances continue to skim over 20 percent of costs for profit and CEO salaries.

Employer-provided health coverage is unraveling, as U.S. health costs rise twice as high as inflation and 4 times faster than wages, prompting more employers to reduce/eliminate health coverage.

Medicaid rolls grow, as Medicaid picks up the slack from the unraveling system of employer-based insurance.

•      -Medicaid is particularly vulnerable as a means-tested program – its consituency is not politically powerful.
•      -Authors: "Funding for Medicaid depends on politicians' sense of decency, always a fragile foundation for policy."
•      -States fund an average 40 percent of Medicaid – unable to operate at a deficit, states are squeezed by growing Medicaid costs.
•      -Attempts to privatize Medicaid for profit – states like South Carolina are seeking federal waivers to offer recipients vouchers for purchase of private insurance – certain to be inadequate for many.

So-called ‘consumer-directed’ health plans requiring higher out-of-pocket medical expenses are not a cure.

•      -Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) serve as a tax break for the rich, but do nothing for the lower income.
•      -HSAs undermine employment-based health care, encouraging adverse selection – HSAs are attractive to healthier individuals, tempting them to opt out of company plans, leaving them less healthy individuals.

The authors cite a large body of evidence indicating that public insurance of the kind in many European countries achieves equal or better results at much lower cost.

Unfortunately, political will is lacking. Krugman and Wells call it "politically smarter" and "economically superior" to educate voters about the huge advantages of a single payer system, than to merely attempt to coopt the drug and insurance lobbies by writing them into compromise plans that they will likely oppose anyway. Alternatively, say the authors,"things will have to get much worse before reality can break through the combination of powerful interest groups and free-market ideology."

Everything speaks to the need to grow a grassroots movement in order to overcome the powerful insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies that write policy, as they did Medicare prescription drug reform, with billions of dollars of subsidies and inflated profits to enhance their bottom lines.

I agree with Eschaton blog:

Personally, I think we should do all of those things.

[via Booman Tribune] 

If you were strategizing a blogswarm to get Congress, the press, and the administration to do something, what would you suggest we focus on? Should we focus on the lack of media coverage? Should we focus on getting a special prosecutor? Should we focus on getting the administration to comply with requests for documents and testimony from congressional committees?

[via ACLU] 

The American Civil Liberties Union is calling on Congress to demand an independent prosecutor to investigate possible violations by the Bush administration of laws including the War Crimes Act, the federal Anti-Torture Act, and federal assault laws.

Again Booman on Chairman Conyers:

I hear John Conyers asked an assembled crowd today in Philadelphia whether any of them would object to impeaching the president. No one objected. Then he asked whether anyone would object to impeaching Cheney. Again, no one objected. I don't know the full context of Conyers' remarks, but the timing indicates it is related to Bush's admission.

[via Pensito Review] 

OLBERMANN: If there‘s a paper trail regarding this, John, is this—is this a war crimes trial waiting to happen somewhere some day?

TURLEY: It‘s always been a war crimes trial ready to happen. But Congress is like a convention of Claude Raines actors. Everyone‘s saying, we‘re shocked, shocked; there‘s torture being discussed in the White House. But no one is doing anything about it. So what we have is the need for someone to get off the theater and move to the actual in going and trying to investigate these crimes.

Will bloggers here in Colorado take up the call to arms?  Will there be enough heat generated that Deputy Whip DeGette do ANY thing at all?   What does Perlmutter, Salazar, and Udall think and support? 

As Professor Turley noted that Bush has bragged about "harsh" interrogation methods being used.  As the world knows and the U.S. newspapers are afraid to mention that "harsh" and "enhanced" interrogation methods are those employed by Torquemada of the Spanish Inquisition.  

Where do our Colorado Democratic elected Representatives stand on this moral and human rights issue because Mr. Bush and his National Security Principals Committee have committed grevious transgressions against American law and treaties that have the force of law under our Constitution (per Section VI, paragraph 2)?

Just checking the Rocky and Denver Post shows nothing on their frontpage and search site.

Bloggers, activists, and patriots it is time to do our duty to defend our honor and our Constitution. 

The American people do not want to be spied upon by Big Brother Bush anymore.  Spying on Americans is like any other dictator who fears for his life.  When I see that the Department of Fatherland Security just ignores Congress and the people of America than this is not America under the auspices of the Constitution and the right to privacy that we expect under the Bill of Rights.

Why use the most sophisticated technologies of our intelligence services to spy on you and me?  

Spencer S. Hsu, Washington Post journalist, writes:

The Bush administration said yesterday that it plans to start using the nation's most advanced spy technology for domestic purposes soon, rebuffing challenges by House Democrats over the idea's legal authority...

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his department will activate his department's new domestic satellite surveillance office in stages...

Sophisticated overhead sensor data will be used for law enforcement once privacy and civil rights concerns are resolved, he said...

However the Dems, including Jane Harmon, are at least aware of this latest domestic spy program against Americans.  From Hsu:

"I have had a firsthand experience with the trust-me theory of law from this administration," said Harman, citing the 2005 disclosure of the National Security Agency's domestic spying program, which included warrantless eavesdropping on calls and e-mails between people in the United States and overseas. "I won't make the same mistake. . . . I want to see the legal underpinnings for the whole program."

But as standard operating procedure that this administration will simply lie to the press and the American people.  Hsu writes:

DHS officials said the demands are unwarranted. "The legal framework that governs the National Applications Office . . . is reflected in the Constitution, the U.S. Code and all other U.S. laws," said DHS spokeswoman Laura Keehner. She said its operations will be subject to "robust," structured legal scrutiny by multiple agencies.

I want action not "I want to see the legal underpinnings..." because Mr. Bush is an extraordinary demagogue for domestic spy programs that transgress U.S. laws.  It is time for Congress to pull the financial plug on the entire Department of Homeland Security.  We, the people, do not and have never deserved a government agency that is solely devoted to spying on Americans for nefarious political and private business missions.

It is time to go on air to every talk show and let everyone know that we should not be spied on by our own government, go to every townhall by our elected representatives, visit every elected official when he/she has "open" office hours because the Constitution was never intended to become a security blanket.  It is the instrument that keeps us vigiliant for signs of the second coming of god anointed kings. 

Darth Cheney had to hold Mr. Bush's hand during a closed door interview with the 9/11 Commission...

Darth Cheney's own words, Sept 16, 2001:

We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will. We've got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies, if we're going to be successful. That's the world these folks operate in, and so it's going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective...

...one of the by-products, if you will, of this tragic set of circumstances is that we'll see a very thorough sort of reassessment of how we operate and the kinds of people we deal with... we need to make certain that we have not tied the hands, if you will, of our intelligence communities in terms of accomplishing their mission.

Torture is barbarity.  There is no "torture lite" or "enhanced" interrogation techniques which is a civilized covering for the barbarity that we do to the prisoners in our custody from this mythological "war on terror" started by Mr. Bush. There is no debate, contrary to pundits and magazines, that Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney have dragged America into the realm of where war criminals reside and breed.

We, Americans, now stand for the "dark side" it is unequivocable and puts to shame the founding ideals that our forebearers fought for.

AP reporters Lara Jakes Jordan and Pamela Hess write:

Bush administration officials from Vice President Dick Cheney on down signed off on using harsh interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists after asking the Justice Department to endorse their legality...The officials also took care to insulate President Bush from a series of meetings where CIA interrogation methods, including waterboarding, which simulates drowning, were discussed and ultimately approved.

What is astonishing is the fact that there is a paper trail now that must be discovered from the memorandums and minutes of meetings by the National Security Council.  The excuse of "the computer lost my files" is nonsense.  The only way to "lose" files is for a willful act of erasure.  

Congress must now act on this information.  It is time for the House of Representatives to act on empanelling a special investigatory committee for the impeachment of Vice President Cheney. 

The House Judiciary Committee, Robert Wexler (D-FL), Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), are calling for hearings on the impeachment of Vice President Richard Cheney.  Suppport Wexler's petition, which has over 230,000 signatures.  Call, 202-225-3951, or email Chairman Conyers Judiciary Committee and tell him firmly and politely that you support Wexler, Gutierrez and Baldwin.