98 QuickLinks

Saturday, November 14, 2009
Obamacare in the Context of a Captive Democratic Party by Luke Mitchell
The debate ought to have been about why we pay more money for worse health care than other developed countries. Instead it has been a power struggle among insurance giants, drug giants, and hospitals. All will benefit from huge Federal subsidies with any of the proposals currently under consideration.

Friday, November 13, 2009
A Federal Employment Policy: What a radical idea!
(4 comments) Paul Krugman, writing his column in the NYTimes, seems almost apologetic about suggesting that the country might have an employment policy and not just an economic stimulus program. When the government subsidizes people, that's socialism - bad. When the government subsidizes corporations, that's capitalism - good.

Monday, November 2, 2009
Glenn Greenwald: Obama and the State Secrets Loophole he Once Decried
(2 comments) EFF is a civil rights group suing officials of the Bush Administration. The Obama Justice Dept is not just defending Bush - they are seeking to dismiss the suit on the grounds that in order to defend it they would have to reveal state secrets. In other words, any time we invoke "state secrets", we don't have to defend our actions or even tell you what they were. The administration has absolute immunity any time it needs it.

Monday, October 26, 2009
Julian Sanchez on Obama's War on Terror
The Obama administration makes vague, reassuring noises about constraining executive power and protecting civil liberties, but then merrily adopts whatever appalling policy George W. Bush put in place. A lopsided and depressingly bipartisan majority approved legislation that would reauthorize the worst features of the Patriot Act

Friday, October 23, 2009
London Review: Obama's Delusion
(3 comments) The conceit of accommodating one's enemies inch by inch to attain bipartisan consensus seems with Obama almost a delusion in the literal sense: a fixed false belief. That the central lesson about his domestic enemies has not yet been learned by Obama is the mystery of the first eight months of his presidency.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Wall Street's Naked Swindle by Matt Taibbi
(2 comments) Financial markets have become so corrupt that the prices don't really reflect any reality. Wall St insiders can make the prices anything they want because they can create shares out of thin air. Wouldn't you like to be able to create US T-Bills and sell them, borrowing as much money as you want at AAA rates? There are privileged players that essentially have a license to print money.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Robert Fisk on Demise of the Dollar
Since 1980, the ability of the US to spend more than we produce has been supported by printing more money. The US has been able to do this without causing hyperinflation because expanding international trade soaks up more and more dollars each year. Now the hegemony of the dollar is threatened by China, Brazil, Russia and OPEC, who have come together secretly, planning to replace the dollar as the world's medium of exchange.

Monday, October 5, 2009
Frank Rich: The Will to Reform Washington?
Obama promised a change from shady, revolving-door collaboration between special interests and government. He vowed to “do our business in the light of day” — with health care negotiations broadcast on C-Span. "I intend to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over." His promise to make Americans trust government again is the core of his platform, essential to his agenda.

Friday, September 25, 2009
Court Holds Ashcroft Personally Liable for Preventive Detention
(1 comments) A Calif Federal Appeals Court has found former AG John Ashcroft personally liable for casting a broad, illegal net of preventive detention after 9/11. The plaintiff was Abdullah al-Kidd, a young American born of Arabic descent who was twice jailed without charges or probable cause, let alone a conviction.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009
9/11 Commission Now Rejects its Own Report
(7 comments) John Farmer, who drafted the 9/11 Commission report, has just come out with a book in which he says it was a pack of lies. Arab strongmen with boxcutters? A fairy tale. (Please don't tell the New York Times.) Farmer claims the support of the other Commissioners as well. Curiouser and curiouser. But the book doesn't tell us what actually DID happen on 9/11; only that it was so very different from the story we were told.

Sunday, September 20, 2009
Charge that Blackwater killed Benazir Bhutto
(2 comments) A highly-placed retired Pakistani military officer has charged that the US engineered the assassination of Benazir Bhutto 2 years ago, and blackmailed local news outlets that wanted to tell the story. Bhutto was a former Prime Minister and the daughter of another assassinated Prime Minister, an enormously popular center-left leader who had bravely returned from exile and was widely expected to seek leadership again.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009
HuffPo: 9/12 Tea Party - A Lot Smaller than Reported
(1 comments) It is curious that antiwar demonstrations, including the massive march of 15Feb03 preceding the Iraq War, are downplayed in the news, or unreported. It is more curious when a small band of racist kooks demonstrating against Obama gets major national coverage. Now it is revealed that a photo of the crowd at that event was faked. (Note actual attendance even lower than the 70,000 quoted at HuffPo - eyewitnesses say < 20,000.)

Friday, August 21, 2009
Krugman: Obama 'Shocked and Surprised'
The Obama administration - which seems to be backing away from the "public option" for health insurance - is shocked and surprised at the furious reaction from progressives. Well, I'm shocked and surprised at their shock and surprise. A backlash in the progressive base — which pushed President Obama over the top in the Democratic primary and played a major role in his general election - has been building for months.

Saturday, August 15, 2009
Taliban Funding and US Assistance to Afghanistan, by Jean MacKenzie for Global Post
Anecdotal evidence is mounting that the Taliban are taking a hefty portion of assistance money coming into Afghanistan from the outside.

Friday, June 26, 2009
Wash Post: Obama Drafting Orders to Defy Habeas Corpus
(7 comments) GW Bush broke with a 900-year tradition to claim that people could be imprisoned indefinitely without a hearing on the President's say-so. Now Obama is drafting an executive order to continue this practice, in defiance of the Constitution and international law.

Thursday, June 25, 2009
Bob Herbert Disillusioned with Obama
(1 comments) Policies that were wrong under Bush are no less wrong because Obama is in the White House. We thought that a President Obama would stop the madness, end the nightmarish approach to national security. But Mr. Obama has shown no inclination to bring even the worst offenders of the Bush years to account, and seems willing to move ahead in lockstep with the secrecy and the most egregious activities of the Bush era.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Progressive (?) Caucus vs Single Payer
These are the good guys, 71 of the most liberal Democrats. They're supposed to be struggling to represent us while being outvoted most of the time by more conservative members. So why are they refusing to even LISTEN to the case for single-payer health care? Report from Nick Skala about his experience testifying before "our representatives".

Tuesday, June 16, 2009
NYT: Second World Economic Summit in Yekaterinburg
The NYTimes reports that leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China are frustrated with America and eager to move world trade out of US$, into some neutral currency. They say mainstream economists don't think there's much BRIC can do in the short run because they're holding so many $$ in reserve. We'll know soon enough.

Monday, June 15, 2009
The American Empire is Bankrupt, by Chris Hedges
(2 comments) Asian heads of state are meeting this week in Yekaterinburg, Russia to discuss economics. The US has been uninvited. Will they create a new world currency to replace the dollar? Our way of life hangs in the balance, because for 30 years we have been able to sustain ourselves only by heavy foreign borrowing, based on trust in the dollar. We've heard dire warnings before, b

Thursday, March 26, 2009
China Proposes a New International Medium of Exchange
The world needs a stable, universal currency, there is powerful inertia keeping the US Dollar in that role. But years of Federal irresponsibility have forced the world to consider a painful and confusing transition to an alternative. The US has a lot to lose if this movement comes to fruition.

Sunday, March 22, 2009
War on Iraq: Year 7
Frank James, Chicago Tribune It is the first time in which there was so much suspicion at the war's start that a President's personal vendetta were being conflated with national security concerns. Saddam had been implicated in a bomb plot targeting Bush's father. It was a conflict so self-evident that in any other scenario, the president would have had to recuse himself.

Thursday, March 19, 2009
Galbraith on the Economy: No Return to Normal
(2 comments) The oddest thing about the Geithner program is its failure to act as though the financial crisis is a true crisis. If banks are recapitalized without changing their management, why should we expect them to change the behavior that caused the insolvency in the first place?

Sunday, March 15, 2009
NYTimes Publishes First-hand Accounts of Torture
Disseminating the truth is both necessary and sufficient for the transformation of society. We bear witness to the horrors perpetrated in our names so that this practice may be widely known: Torture cannot stand to the light of day. Here the NYTimes has published accounts written by Red Cross inspectors at Guantanamo.

Saturday, March 14, 2009
Obama Continues Bush Policy on Habeas Corpus
The Obama Administration today changed the rationale for indefinite detention without trial, but supported the same policy by a different name. A Justice Dept filing signaled that the new administration would aggressively defend the right to keep prisoners locked up at Guantanamo without access to a court hearing, on the President's word alone.

Thursday, March 12, 2009
Ehrenreich: Reimagining Socialism
(2 comments) There was supposed to be a revolution, remember? Capitalism would fall when people got tired of living on the crumbs that fall from the rich, and rose up in some fashion--preferably inclusively, democratically and nonviolently--and seized the wealth for themselves. What we weren't prepared for was that capitalism would fall when resources were exhausted and the Earth was under siege.

Thursday, March 12, 2009
Bloomburg News comes out for Single Payer
Obama has said he would keep an open mind on health solutions. But not single-payer: "The president doesn't believe that's the best way to achieve the goal of cutting costs and increasing access." Independent analyses show single-payer would offer $400 billion in annual savings and provide "effective cost containment provisions such as bulk purchasing and global budgeting."

Friday, March 6, 2009
Essential Error of Obamanomics
(2 comments) In today's column, Paul Krugman argues that Bernanke and Geithner have yet to acknowledge the depth of the economic crisis. Their 'rescue plans' are based on the idea that mortgage-backed securities are 'worth more than anyone is willing to pay for them', and that propping up their price will put the economy back on track. The truth is that losses are real and permanent.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Cockburn: The Parable of the Shopping Mall
From the aftermath of wars spring the opportunities for change. Capitalism is war. For the left it should be a time of unrivaled opportunity. For example: the shopping mall. Today's failed or failing malls can be converted to mixed-use, with residential housing, public spaces and constructive social functions. For the left, this is a chance richer than the 1970's. We should not be shy.

Thursday, February 19, 2009
Euro Central Banks in Trouble
The Telegraph of London reported last week a huge liability in bank assets, only to pull the article a few hours later. If true, the size of the deficit amounts to 2 years of the GDP of all of Europe.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009
NYTimes: Obama's War on Terror Resembles Bush's
Even as it pulls back from harsh interrogations and other sharply debated aspects of George W. Bush's "war on terrorism," the Obama administration is quietly signaling continued support for other major elements of its predecessor's approach to fighting Al Qaeda, including "Extraordinary Rendition".

Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Scott Horton: Insider report from Gitmo
Former Gitmo guard describes the arrival of detainees in full sensory-deprivation garb, sexual abuse by medical personnel, torture by other medical personnel, brutal beatings out of frustration, fear, and retribution, the first hunger strike and its causes, torturous shackling, positional torture, interference with religious practices and beliefs, verbal abuse...fascinating reading.

Friday, February 6, 2009
What it was like to vote in Iraq last week
Description by a Baghdad resident of difficulties with the recent election.

Thursday, January 29, 2009
NYTimes opines that Newspapers should be shielded from economics
Since the Internet is "a cesspool" of false information, the authors call on philanthropists everywhere to create endowments to subsidize the mainstream press, thereby assuring that people don't get wrong ideas.

Thursday, January 29, 2009
Obama Bombs Pakistan
Obama follows Bush pursuing undeclared war in Pakistan. War is fought with robotic planes and remote controlled missiles. 8 people died when missiles hit a compound near Mir Ali, an al-Qaeda hub in Pakistan's North region. 7 more died when hours later 2 missiles hit a house in Wana. Local officials said the target in Wana was a guest house owned by a pro-Taliban tribesman. 3 children were killed.

Monday, January 5, 2009
11th Hr Coup: Bush Eviscerates Endangered Species Act
Fr Natl Wildlife Federation: The Bush Administration today issued a final rule eliminating the Endangered Species Act requirement that federal agencies consult with independent scientists. "Wildlife and marine biologists form the pillars of scientific integrity that support the Endangered Species Act. Knocking them out of the process will erode the foundation of this bedrock law.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Scott Horton: Why We Must Prosecute Bush
(1 comments) Open criminality is a cancer upon democracy. We can't just "move on" from the Bush era until we set the Constitution back in its place, and make a clear line between controversial policies and crimes against humanity. Let us begin with prosecutions for authorizing torture. This is the right place to begin because the violation is crystal clear, and Bush and Cheney have both admitted to it in public.

Saturday, December 27, 2008
En Route to Military Rule by Wm Norman Grigg
(8 comments) The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 was supposed to keep the Federal government from deploying military forces within our borders to control US citizens. But under the Bush Administration, the military has had an expanded role in police action against drugs, in disaster aid, in domestic surveillance, and (most frightening) in opposing political demonstrations.

Friday, December 26, 2008
Madoff: Are we being told the whole story?
(3 comments) Everyone agrees Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme. He even admitted it himself in a court of law. There was never any investment plan - just a lot of hoopla that encouraged people to buy in. Why should we doubt this story? Because the people who bought in were multi-billion dollar institutional managers who could detect a Ponzi scheme with their eyes closed. So who profited from the fiction that it was a Ponzi scheme?

Thursday, November 20, 2008
Raimondo: Dubious prospects for peace
The Bush Administration is right now negotiating to leave a poison pill to the incoming Obama administration, assuring our continued presence in Iraq. Another harbinger of war: Hillary Clinton as Sec of State carries too much baggage to be a strong voice against the war.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Greenwald: Bipartisanship is not "Change"
(2 comments) There has been massive bipartisan support for the worst of the Bush agenda: the Patriot Act 1 and 2; the invasion of Afghanistan; ongoing occupation of, Iraq; Military Commissions Act (authorizing torture & eliminating right to trial); warrantless eavesdropping; telecom immunity; $700B bailout; No Child Left Behind; declaring Iran to be 'Terrorist' - all passed with Democratic support. So what does Obama propose to "change"?

Thursday, October 30, 2008
Shoot the Messenger: Voting machines will no longer be tested
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) today notified SysTest Laboratories Inc. of its intent to suspend the laboratory's accreditation based upon actions taken by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Monday, October 27, 2008
Cockburn Against Obama (not for McCain)
(1 comments) Obama invokes change. Yet never has the dead hand of the past had a "reform" candidate so firmly by the windpipe. Is it possible to confront America's problems without talking about the arms budget? The Pentagon is spending more in inflation-adjusted terms than at any time since WW II. Obama wants to enlarge the army by 90,000, escalate the war in Afghanistan, prosecute a bigger, smarter war on terror.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008
D Sirota: Treasury Redacts Key Provisions of Bailout Contracts
Is there anyone who still believes that secrecy in the Bush White House is all about keeping us safe from the 'terrorists'? In fact, secrecy has been a cover for the most criminal regime in US history. Here is the latest example: After pledging 'full transparency', Paulson isn't telling us the terms of his discretionary giveaways to Wall St cronies.

Monday, October 20, 2008
Chris Floyd: Obama should reject the endorsement of a war criminal.
(1 comments) Colin Powell is more responsible for the mass murder spree in Iraq than any other person except George W. Bush, who gave the actual order for the hit. For it was Powell who "made the sale" for the Bush Faction's deceitful warmongering campaign. Powell's reputation as a wise, moderate, impartial statesman – the very thing that made him the most effective shill for the war crime in Iraq – was itself almost entirely a fiction.

Saturday, October 11, 2008
Chris Floyd: The Smokeless Gun of Flagrant Election Fixing
There's a pattern of systematic vote suppression in key states, but no one is to blame for it. It's just some kind of rare and unpleasant natural phenomenon, like, say, a boll weevil infestation. Or the war crimes in Iraq. Or the American torture program. Or the destruction of the American economy.

Saturday, October 11, 2008
Frank Schirrmacher: Assume the Fetal Position
(3 comments) Western societies have anticipated many things but not this attack from inside. It is incredibly comprehensive: from the rhetorical preparations for Iraq war to climate policy, the attack on the constitution, the surveillance of all intellectual and scientific endeavors and ending in the implosion of the financial system. This president leaves behind all of the world's democracies in a deeply traumatized state.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Inside report: the Looting of the US Economy to fund Secret Govt Ops
A Bush I insider says the financial markets are in much worse shape than reported. The Fed is not just printing oodles of dollars, but "printing gold" by selling "gold certificates" not backed by any gold. And the GNMA mortgage bonds are fraudulently using the same mortgage 10 times to back 10 different bonds. What has been reported is the tip of the iceberg. Value of the dollar must collapse.

Saturday, September 20, 2008
McCain Quote of the Day
(16 comments) "Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
NYTimes Reports Scandal at Interior Dept
As Congress prepares to debate expansion of drilling in taxpayer-owned coastal waters, the Interior Department agency that collects oil and gas royalties has been caught up in a wide-ranging ethics scandal - including allegations of financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct.

Sunday, August 31, 2008
Federal Raids in Minneapolis to Pre-empt Demonstrations
Help! Democracy in crisis! The vote has been stolen from us, the newspapers and TV news are muted, and just at the time when massive demonstrations seem to be the only firewall between here and fascism, a warning shot is fired over the heads of all those who might think of organizing one. The civil liberties community needs a high-profile, concerted response.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Denver Police use Tear Gas on Non-violent Demonstrators
This article appeared in a NYTimes blog, but not in the print edition. I am concerned that the Newspaper of Record doesn't find this worthy of more coverage. The pattern of building jail cells, clubbing photographers, and gasing small groups of non-violent demonstrators suggests a policy decision to use police violence as a deterrent to legitimate political expression.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Gorbachev Exposes Bias in Reporting of Georgian War
The planners of this campaign clearly wanted to make sure that, whatever the outcome, Russia would be blamed for worsening the situation. The West then mounted a propaganda attack against Russia, with the American news media leading the way.

Friday, August 15, 2008
War Doesn't Pay - When Will We Learn?
(2 comments) Paul Krugman writes in today's NYTimes that our prosperity and security depend on an international marketplace that cannot be taken for granted. Instability in the Middle East and now in Russia/Georgia underscore the fragility of Western dependence on natural resources from parts of the world that are politically unstable.

Friday, August 15, 2008
The NYTimes pronounces the "I" word
(1 comments) This is a balanced (!) account by Carl Hulse of the pressure on Pelosi to hold impeachment hearings.

Saturday, August 9, 2008
Anthrax - 9/11 - Convenient Suicides - "Terror" as a Ruse
(1 comments) In this editorial, former Reagan cabinet member and WSJ columnist Paul Craig Roberts lays out the big picture along with the evidence that supports it. The Bush Administration has created the specter of an "International Terrorist Threat" from whole cloth as an excuse for the secretive, authoritarian excesses that support their political power.

Friday, August 1, 2008
"Suicide" of Scientist from DoD Anthrax Lab
(7 comments) In the weeks after 9/11/01, deadly, weapon-grade anthrax spores were mailed to Democratic congressional leaders. These bioweapons were traced to US govt labs, but the crime remained unsolved. Was this act of terrorism ordered by the Bush Administration? The man who could tell us was about to face trial, when he conveniently "committed suicide". Call me a conspiracy theorist.

Friday, August 1, 2008
An Israeli academic recommends Nuking Iran on the OpEd page of the NYTimes
(2 comments) Benny Morris is a formerly-progressive historian from Ben Gurion University in Tel Aviv. Here he makes a prominent, irresponsible case for a nuclear first strike to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Sunday, June 29, 2008
Frank Rich on Terrorist Attacks as a Political Influence
(2 comments) No one at the NYTimes has been permitted to approach the truth about 9/11. Frank Rich comes perhaps as close as he dares by highlighting the statement by McCain insider Charles Black that a domestic terrorist attack would be "a big advantage" for his campaign. In private, he is surely gaming this out further, George Carlin-style. What would be the optimum timing? What city should be targeted, from a Republican perspective?

Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Iraq: Will we ever get out?
ThomasPowers of NYBooks Getting out of Iraq will require the same kind of resolution as it took to get in: a willingness to ignore the consequences. Is it possible that the new president will have that kind of resolution? I think not. Clinton & Obama don't sound drained of hope or bright ideas, determined to cut losses and end the agony. Planning for withdrawals might begin on Day One, but the plans will be hostage to events.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Charges dropped against Gitmo "terrorist" whose Confession was obtained through torture
The Pentagon has dropped charges against a Saudi citizen alleged to have been the "20th hijacker" in the 9/11 attacks. Mohammad al-Qahtani was one of six Guantanamo Bay inmates charged with murder and war crimes in February. Lawyers for al-Qahtani say charges are being dropped because his confession was obtained under torture.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Forget Nuclear
(1 comments) from Rocky Mountain Inst: There's a major propaganda campaign underway to convince us that nuclear power is necessary to replace dwindling supplies of fossil fuels and forestall global warming. The truth is that nuclear power is so expensive that even with massive govt subsidies it cannot attract corporate investment. And this is true before considering the long-term costs of nuclear waste or avoiding attacks or sabotage.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008
What nuclear renaissance?
(1 comments) The notion that nukes make sense and are the version of green preferred by grown-ups is being conjured by a slick PR campaign. The truth is that nuclear power was never economically competitive, and that's why huge, new subsidies are being proposed. Nuclear power would make no economic sense, even if it weren't an environmental disaster, carrying a legacy of toxic waste 1,000 generations into the future.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008
GOP managing the Dem Primary?
by Ernest Partridge (Crisis Papers) The pre-convention Democratic campaign could not be working out better for the Republicans even if the GOP had planned it this way. Perhaps they did. If so, their wholly-owned subsidiary, the corporate media, appears to be dutifully following their instructions to the letter.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Conviction reversed after 27 years behind bars
The Innocence Project has secured the release of James Woodard based on DNA evidence. He is the 18th convicted man to be cleared in Texas Dallas Cty alone. The case was unique in that the DNA evidence cleared him of rape, and additional evidence was obtained to demonstrate that the same man who raped the victim also murdered her. Slowly, the tide is turning against the travesty of false, often bigoted convictions.

Monday, April 21, 2008
NYTimes: Pentagon Shills disguised as TV Experts
(1 comments) Sunday's NYTimes reports that many of the analysts who are regularly quoted and interviewed on the major TV networks are actually paid propagandists, working for the Pentagon and posing as "independent" experts.

Saturday, April 12, 2008
Numbers Racket - playing games with govt economic statistics
Kevin Phillips, a died-in-the-wool Republican, details some of the ways that the definitions of the most important government economic statistics have changed to serve the short-term interests of the White House occupant at the time. Affected are GDP, unemployment, and inflation rates. Every administration since Reagan has partaken. We are poorer and in more debt, with less options for repaying it, than we have been told.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Truckers' Strike - Barbara Ehrenreich
Hundreds of independent truckers blocked traffic around the country to protest high gas prices. It would not be responsible for the MSM to let us know this is happening, because it might encourange other acts of defiance.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Pressure the Dem Candidates to Take a Stand on the War
(2 comments) Naomi Klein: While Clinton and Obama denounce the war with great passion, they both have detailed plans to continue it. It is during a hotly contested campaign that anti-war forces have the power to actually sway US policy.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Too Pretty to be a Fighter
Obama may be the best of the '3 Blind Mice' but we should know better than to expect too much from him. Obama jumped to the defense of Joe Lieberman in his time of greatest shame, and when Dick Durbin denounced torture in Guantanamo on the Senate floor, it was Obama who asked the Senate to forgive his "mistake". The distance he takes from Rev Wright warns us that he is too polite to call America's great injustices by name.

Monday, March 3, 2008
Ruling in Wikileaks case: a narrow victory
(1 comments) Wikileaks.org is a web site designed to make it safe for whistleblowers to disclose anonymously information about criminal behavior to which they are privy. After a lawsuit last month, a court order shut down the entire site! Now the order has been appealed, and the site has permission to re-open. All this attention has given invaluable publicity to the operation.

Sunday, March 2, 2008
United Technologies offers to buy Diebold
The New York Times reports a takeover offer for Diebold Corp from United Technologies. UT is the Federal Government's 6th largest defense contractor. One division of Diebold makes electronic voting machines that count votes in secret. The offer amounts to nearly twice the market value of all Diebold stock. No one is talking about possible conflicts of interest.

Thursday, February 28, 2008
The Ghost Story
The entire electoral process has become centered on establishing the candidates' "toughness," as if the only "virtue" a leader must fully possess is unflinching willingness to declare war. Never mind the question of whether, since 1945, war makes sense. No surprise that no presidential candidate questions the current Pentagon budget, which surpasses every record set during the Cold War. That would be political suicide.

Saturday, February 16, 2008
Vote Machine: How Republicans Hacked the Justice Dept, by Scott Horton
The first priority of the Bush Jstice Dept was helping Republicans at the polls. One of the ways the dept would accomplish this was by restaffig the branch primarily responsible for making sure Americans are allowed access to the ballot box--the Civil Rights Division--so that it would work actively to PREVENT minorities from voting...Thorough, researched article on Inglesias (NM), Seigelman (AL),&ct with historic perspective.

Monday, February 11, 2008
NYTimes: Mortgage Crisis Spreads past Subprime Loans
Even borrowers with strong credit are feeling the pinch as home values fall and monthly payments rise. People with good credit histories are falling behind on their payments for home loans, auto loans and credit cards at a quickening pace. The rise in prime delinquencies, while less severe than the one in the subprime market, nonetheless poses a threat to the battered housing market and to the economy as a whole.

Friday, February 8, 2008
Who cut Internet Cables to the Muslim World?
(1 comments) Disruption of internet service in the Middle East last week required many undersea cables to be severed in a few days' time. The nation most affected is Iran. Who is responsible for this act of sabotage? There are few institutions in the world with the ability and the motivation to stage such a crime.

Monday, January 28, 2008
Global impact of meat consumption
(from NYTimes Science page) Livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world's greenhouse gases - more than transportation... If Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan - a Camry, say - to the ultra-efficient Prius.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Nothing to Fear? What about Fear itself?
Remarkably, the New York Times Science page today reports the obvious: that literally millions of Americans are being killed by physiological effects of fear that are directly traceable to scare tactis from the Homeland Security Dept. (Meanwhile no American has died in a terrorist incident, but returning Iraq vets are involved in a wave of domestic violence, including killing. http://tinyurl.com/26gnb9)

Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Wave of Violence and Murder when Vets return from Iraq
Post-traumatic stress is taking a huge toll on our society. Trained to hate, annealed in a living hell, returning Iraq vets are not just a nightmare for the VA hospitals; they are bringing a wave of violence to families and communities across America. Congratulations to The NYTimes for a powerful investigative piece that used to be their staple, but is now rare.

Monday, January 14, 2008
Cholesterol drug fails clinical trial
Statin drugs that lower cholesterol are also powerful anti-inflammatory agents. Some medical researchers say that cholesterol levels have no effect on heart attack risk for the great majority of people. If they are right, there are much safer ways to lower inflammation (which everyone agrees is a good thing): I recommend aspirin, fish oil, and tumeric (curcumin).

Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Justice Delayed, by David Cole
(1 comments) On October 29, the Bush Administration abandoned a two-decade effort to deport two Palestinian immigrants. When they were arrested, they were college students, Reagan was president, and they were accused of spreading communist propaganda. The charges against them were changed again and again to keep up with the times. At last, they were charged with violating the Patriot Act 15 years before it was enacted! Now they are free.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Governor Jailed for Questioning his Electoral "Defeat"
(1 comments) Don Siegelman, Democratic governor of Alabama from 1999 to 2003, has been convicted and jailed in a "bribery" case that sounds a lot like politics as usual. Could it be that the real reason he was charged was that he was getting too close to the conspiracy that altered the vote totals in 2002, where Seligman was "defeated" in a private, midnight "Recount" attended only by Republicans.

Sunday, November 11, 2007
Instant Coup in Pakistan, Slow Coup in America by Frank Rich
The Bush years have brought an effective assault on our democratic institutions from within. The public has not erupted in riots as the executive branch has subverted the rule of law in often secretive increments. The results amount to a quiet coup, ultimately more insidious than a blatant putsch like Musharraf's. To believe that this corruption will simply evaporate when the Bush presidency is done is to underestimate ...

Sunday, November 4, 2007
Frank Rich on the Politics of Saber-Rattling over Iran
(3 comments) Joe Biden quipped that there are only 3 things in a Giuliani sentence: "a noun, a verb and 9/11." Meanwhile, Hillary the frontrunning Democrat has voted for a resolution supporting Bush to use force against Iran. Rich warns that this could mean trouble for Hillary in 2008: Noun+verb+9/11 - also Bush's strategy in 2004 - would once again square off against a Democrat who was for a preemptive war before being against it.

Monday, October 22, 2007
Who will rule us after the next 9/11? (Slate article by Ron Rosenbaum)
(2 comments) Our President has issued by fiat a national security directive, NSPD-51, that lays the groundwork for his office to declare a state of emergency, cancel elections, and take over powers of the Legislative and Judicial branches. That's what's in the directive we see. The directive also refers to "Annexes" = additional parts of the directive that are so classified all Congress members have been denied access.

Sunday, October 21, 2007
Suicide is Not Painless
Rich's expos� this week is a grand tour of corruption and profiteering in the Iraq War, with lots of footnotes and historic references. War is the costliest kind of graft, as each dollar of profit for Haliburton or Blackwater costs thousands of public dollars, in addition to lost lives and human tragedy. Corruption is endemic, extending to the White House. Does the connection to Hillary still surprise us?

Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Rove Masterminded Vote Theft
This video was broadcast last week in England. It's the kind of news that gets routinely censored in the US. By creating a web address that was similar to the one the White House used for their secret Greg Palast cleverly intercepted emails that with mis-typed addresses, including some of the "caging lists" used to target minority voters for exclusion.

Friday, July 27, 2007
New Evidence Clearly Indicates Pat Tillman Was Executed
(14 comments) Pat Tillman died a hero's death, fighting for his country. No, that story was a cover-up: Pat Tillman died in a friendly fire accident in Afghanistan. Not this either? New evidence indicates that Tillman was executed mob-style by his own commanders to prevent his returning to the states and becoming an anti-war icon.

Friday, July 20, 2007
NY Times: Holt and Feinstein election reform bills scrapped for now
(2 comments) Those of us who have fought against HR811 and SB1487 have won a mixed blessing. The bills will not go forward. This means that the 2008 election will be conducted under the Federal rules we have now, and our next job is to work for transparency in elections at the state and county levels.

Thursday, July 19, 2007
A Wake-up Call, by Paul Craig Roberts
(6 comments) The Republican Party is toast if an election is held in 2008 after another year of failure in Iraq. Will the Rove team stand idly by and allow this to happen, or will they orchestrate another terror attack on US soil to galvanize support for the Administration? Michael Chertoff has predicted a terror attack soon. Rick Santorum has hinted the same thing a week earlier. Maybe they know something we don't.

Monday, June 25, 2007
More "free speech" for corporate dollars
The Supreme Court loosened rules on corporate advertising to promote political candidates.

Monday, June 25, 2007
Less free speech for students
The Supreme Court today upheld censorship of student posters in schools.

Saturday, May 5, 2007
Health Care in America - Snap out of it! by Atul Gawande
(1 comments) Cancer grows slowly, and often a patient won't seek medical care until the tumor is huge. Similarly, health care in the US is a crisis in slow motion. Will we wake up and fix it before it's too late?

Thursday, April 19, 2007
Administration pursued aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout,
For six years, the Bush administration, aided by Justice Department political appointees, has pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007
That was an Anti-war Vote? by Alexander Cockburn
When Congress attached a 'withdrawal deadline' to the supplemental appropriation bill for the war in Iraq, their gesture was even weaker than has been reported. Not only does it require no change for a full year and a half, but even after September, 2008, troops are permitted to remain in Iraq for diplomatic protection, counterterrorism operations and training Iraqi Security Forces. Doesn't this sound like Bush's surge?

Friday, March 30, 2007
More potential 2004 election illegalities rock Ohio's Hocking County as Cleveland braces for a legal firestorm
(1 comments) Free Press, Fitrakis & Wasserman: Three of the four election board members in Cuyahoga Cty, Ohio (Cleveland) have resigned under pressure from newly elected Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner. Holding out is Robert Bennett, chair of the BoE and chair of the Republican State Committee. Bennett has close ties to Karl Rove in the White House, and he is suspected of being a prime architect of the 2004 election theft in Ohio.

Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Robert Parry: WPost's Editorial Fantasyland
(1 comments) Why is the Washington Post Editorial Page repeating the White House's fabricated version of the Plame leak and the role of Joe Wilson in discrediting the Niger/Uranium connection?

Sunday, February 4, 2007
Europeans may know more than Americans about Bush's intentions in Iran
(2 comments) As the American disaster in Iraq deepens and domestic and foreign opposition grows, "neo-con" fanatics such as Vice-President Dick Cheney believe their opportunity to control Iran's oil will pass unless they act no later than the spring.

Sunday, November 12, 2006
Massive undervote throws a Florida Congressional Race
(3 comments) Sarasota County, FL reported a 13% undervote rate in the hotly-contested Congressional race where Chris Jennings sought to unseat Vern Buchanan. Buchanan won by 368 votes in the latest count, but there were 18,000 undervotes in Sarasota Cty alone.