13568 QuickLinks

Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Amy Goodman:: "Invasion of the Sea-Smurfs"
(1 comments) Is Posse Comitatus Dead? U.S. Troops on U.S. Streets

Monday, October 6, 2008
Keating Economics - John McCain and the Making of an Economic Crisis
The current economic crisis demands that we understand John McCain's attitudes about economic oversight and corporate influence in federal regulation. Nothing illustrates the danger of his approach more clearly than his central role in the savings and loan scandal of the late '80s and early '90s.

Monday, October 6, 2008
Thar She Grows
Last summer, an engineering nonprofit group called New York Sun Works opened a new urban farm-and set it afloat on the Hudson River. The Science Barge, which reopens in May, is totally off the electrical grid, and grows tomatoes, peppers, and squash with zero carbon emissions and no runoff.

Sunday, October 5, 2008
Belgian PM talking to private groups about Fortis stake
Belgium's prime minister said Sunday that he was in talks with private groups on the future of the troubled Fortis financial group and that there would be an announcement "within hours". Over the weekend the Belgian government has been mulling the future of Fortis, amid speculation that it could totally nationalise the Belgian part of the ailing group or sell assets to BNP Paribas or another suitor.

Sunday, October 5, 2008
Merkel pushes bank rescue to avert German financial crisis
(2 comments) Chancellor Angela Merkel said her government was scrambling Sunday to salvage a rescue plan for German bank Hypo Real Estate so "an institution's crisis does not become a crisis for the entire system".

Sunday, October 5, 2008
Citigroup says wins injunction to block Wachovia-Wells Fargo merger
- US banking giant Citigroup said it had obtained a court injunction to freeze a proposed merger between rivals Wachovia and Wells Fargo. "Citi tonight was granted emergency injunctive relief extending the exclusivity agreement between Citi and Wachovia Corp. until further order of the court," Citi said in a statement late Saturday.

Sunday, October 5, 2008
A brief history of financial woe
It's a recurring theme of capitalism. Speculative manias, loose money and sharp operators combine to inflate asset bubbles that eventually burst. Every time, though, the market recovers - eventually. Here's a quick overview of financial crises and recoveries.

Sunday, October 5, 2008
The Great Depression: Memories of the worst of times
Charles Pokluda wasn't well-educated and didn't own a car, but he held a job at a packing plant on Fort Worth's north side. And if a member of his family had a need - really needed something - he found a way to provide. It was the 1930s and the immigrant from Moravia didn't have a bank account. He trusted his assets to a balding, elegant gentleman who wore a full beard and a frock coat with two rows of buttons...

Sunday, October 5, 2008
Democrats Could Hit 60 Senate Seats
"The possibility that Democrats will build a muscular, 60-seat Senate majority is looking increasing plausible," according to Politico, "with new polls showing a powerful surge for the party's candidates in Minnesota, Kentucky and other states."

Sunday, October 5, 2008
SNL: Fey back as Palin, with Latifah as Ifill - Video
In case you missed it...here's Saturday Night Live's ongoing 'roast' of Sarah Palin.

Sunday, October 5, 2008
Gay elders' distinctive challenges get closer look
Long overlooked by society at large, and even by younger gays, elderly gays and lesbians are emerging as distinct community, getting more help and attention as they confront challenges that differ in many ways from their heterosexual counterparts.

Sunday, October 5, 2008
Hurrican Ike's environmental toll apparent - half million gallons of crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico
Hurricane Ike's winds and massive waves destroyed oil platforms, tossed storage tanks and punctured pipelines. The environmental damage only now is becoming apparent: At least a half million gallons of crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico and the marshes, bayous and bays of Louisiana and Texas, according to an analysis of federal data...

Sunday, October 5, 2008
Europeans scramble to save failing banks
Germany joined Ireland and Greece on Sunday in guaranteeing all private savings accounts, putting Europe's biggest economy at odds with calls for a unified European response to the global financial meltdown. The decision came as governments across Europe scrambled to save failing banks, working largely on their own a day after leaders of the continent's four biggest economies called for tighter regulation and a coordinated...

Sunday, October 5, 2008
Palin's Ayers Attack "Racially Tinged"
...though she may have scored a political hit each time, her attack was unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret.

Sunday, October 5, 2008
Miami-Dade contractors employed Capitol Hill lobbyist
Medley defense contractors, who received federal earmarks through Lincoln Diaz-Balart, employed a lobbyist who pleaded guilty in a corruption probe.

Sunday, October 5, 2008
Reign of Lies
(1 comments) What's the major cause of the nation's financial crisis? Lies; a river of lies emptied into a sea of mendacity, sucked up into the sky again by a great hurricane of deceit and rained back down upon us in a deluge of prevarication.

Sunday, October 5, 2008
2008 Executive PayWatch
(1 comments) The chief executive of a Standard & Poor's 500 company made, on average, $14.2 million in total compensation in 2007, according to preliminary data from The Corporate Library. Problems with executive compensation came to a head in 2007 with large severance packages given to CEOs of companies at the center of the mortgage crisis. The International Monetary Fund estimates that the financial turmoil set off by the collapse...

Sunday, October 5, 2008
Tax Analyst: Long-Awaited Emergency Economic Stabilization Act Passed By Congress
The financial bailout package, now passed by both House and Senate, includes numerous tax breaks added to the bill by the Senate, including an AMT patch, individual and business tax extenders, energy incentives, and disaster tax relief. It also contains an extension for home mortgage debt forgiveness relief, and a tax crackdown on compensation and severance pay for certain financial executives, and parity for mental health...

Sunday, October 5, 2008
Mike Lillis: The Golden Parachute Survives
The creators of the financial mess may go unpunished.

Sunday, October 5, 2008
No rescue in sight for what ails economy
Even if the financial bailout works, the economy faces troubles too pervasive and entrenched to be solved any time soon, analysts say.

Sunday, October 5, 2008
THE RECKONING: Agency’s ’04 Rule Let Banks Pile Up New Debt
Many events in Washington, on Wall Street and elsewhere around the country have led to what has been called the most serious financial crisis since the 1930s. But decisions made at a brief meeting on April 28, 2004, explain why the problems could spin out of control. The agency’s failure to follow through on those decisions also explains why Washington regulators did not see what was coming.

Sunday, October 5, 2008
Bruce Springsteen: From the Stage at the Vote For Change Rally in Philadelphia
(1 comments) I've spent 35 years writing about America, its people, and the meaning of the American Promise. The Promise that was handed down to us, right here in this city from our founding fathers, with one instruction: Do your best to make these things real: opportunity, equality, social and economic justice, a fair shake for all of our citizens, the American idea, as a positive influence, around the world for a more just and peaceful..

Saturday, October 4, 2008
The 100 powerful black Britons who are changing the world
(1 comments) They have transformed lives, governments and even continents. A new Powerlist of the most influential black people in Britain paints a portrait of a confident, dynamic group who are defying stereotypes and reshaping the society around them...

Saturday, October 4, 2008
Non-profit offers $100k reward for info tying Rove to election rigging
A non-profit organization has offered a $100,000 reward to anyone who can supply information tying Republican strategist Karl Rove and computer expert Michael Connell to illegally manipulated elections, according to a Friday press release. The group is called Velvet Revolution and is looking for evidence of criminal activity and Connell's relationship with Rove.

Saturday, October 4, 2008
Govt. Uses Contractors to Probe Iraq Contractors
State Dept. Move to Let Contractors Probe Complaints Over Other Contractors May Be Illegal

Saturday, October 4, 2008
EPA to Americans: Drink rocket fuel!
Amidst news of the Wall Street bailout and the release of Sarah Palin's tax returns, this was one Friday-afternoon announcement from the Bush administration that was easy to miss. It was yet another instance of the Environmental Protection Agency declaring that it plans to do not much of anything much to protect the environment or your health.

Saturday, October 4, 2008
Nader on the Bailout
Now that Congress has done the dastardly deed in approving Bush's bailout, Ralph Nader, independent candidate for president, is issuing a call for American taxpayers to summon their members of Congress who voted for this wrongheaded $700 billion bailout of the Wall Street speculators and crooks to meet in a local public auditorium and answer up for their surrender to the corporate welfare kings and banksters.

Saturday, October 4, 2008
UK: Homeowners Stop Mortgage Equity Withdrawal
The Bank of England's latest figures show that Britons have abruptly abandoned the habit of borrowing against their houses and flats through mortgage equity withdrawal, bringing to an end a decade-long era of the nation using its homes as cash machines.

Saturday, October 4, 2008
The arrogance of Sarah Palin
The process of campaigning is, in essence, a job interview, no? In what universe would does the applicant (candidate) get to choose what question(s) they will be asked or deign to answer and from whom they will be questioned? That is how disrespectful of the electorate (we are supposed to be the bosses last time I checked, no?) the McCain/Palin 08 campaign has been since he put Palin on the ticket.

Saturday, October 4, 2008
McCain's Tax Returns Hide Gambling Winnings
Gambling has tax implications. Admitted gambler John McCain's tax returns say nothing about gambling winnings or losses. The real purpose of preparing his tax return and omitting the gambling winnings is so that people would not know how much he gambled?

Saturday, October 4, 2008
McCain health care plan a bait-and-switch
The McCain plan would be a dramatic change to the way Americans get health insurance. The Republican presidential nominee, who makes opposition to tax hikes a centerpiece of his campaign, has proposed to tax the health benefits that 156 million people get through the workplace as income.

Saturday, October 4, 2008
Failed bank chiefs to face sanctions: Sarkozy
The leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Italy vowed at an emergency summit Saturday to help European banks and financial institutions in trouble but also to sanction the heads of failed banks. The quartet also issued a joint call for a Group of Eight industrial powers summit "as soon as possible" to review rules governing financial markets, Sarkozy told a press conference.

Saturday, October 4, 2008
Bush 'Coalition of the Willing' Shrinks Again As Poland Opts Out of Iraq
(1 comments) Poland ended its military presence in Iraq Saturday with a ceremony for its approximately 900 troops at Camp Echo, Qadasiyah Province.

Saturday, October 4, 2008
Two US helicopters crash land
TWO US Blackhawk helicopters crashed in northern Baghdad's Sunni district of Adhamiyah today. While Wall Street gets a bailout, our military men and women continue to fight and die on foreign soil in an illegal war, ignored by the campaign-obsessed media, while receiving pay checks that barely keeps their families off food stamps.

Saturday, October 4, 2008
Obama savages McCain on health care with one month to go
Exactly one month before the presidential vote, Democrat Barack Obama Saturday accused Republican rival John McCain of scheming to deprive millions more Americans of life-saving health insurance.

Saturday, October 4, 2008
Gordon Brown urged to pay millions to stop oil firms destroying Amazon rainforest
Paying off the oil baron capitalists to save the environment. Free-market my a**.

Saturday, October 4, 2008
Biden cancels events as mother-in-law battles illness and family called to hospice
The Senator from Delaware's campaign spokesman, David Wade, put out a statement saying "the campaign has cancelled Sen. Biden's schedule today and tomorrow because of a serious illness in Jill Biden's family. Hospice has advised the Bidens to remain close by, and we appreciate everyone's respect for the family's privacy."

Saturday, October 4, 2008
Obama Opens Wide Lead in Pennsylvania
The latest Morning Call/Muhlenberg College tracking poll in Pennsylvania shows Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. John McCain, 51% to 39%. Obama's overall lead in the poll has increased from 4 points to 12 points in the last nine days.

Saturday, October 4, 2008
U.S. cuts condom funding in Africa
(1 comments) The U.S. government has acted to keep contraceptives from reaching clinics run by a charity in Africa, claiming the group condones forced abortions.

Saturday, October 4, 2008
Catherine Bennett: Let this woman die as she chooses, not in a death plant
The last time assisted suicide was debated at Westminster, the Bishop of Portsmouth, the Rt Rev Kenneth Stevenson, explained that death is too important to leave to dying people. 'Dying,' said the bishop, disclosing that he had been diagnosed with leukaemia, 'is not an entirely individual matter. It is corporate.' In the case of Debbie Purdy, it could hardly be more so

Saturday, October 4, 2008
McCain Could Be Forced Out Of Pennsylvania Too, Union Chief Says
A sharp turn toward Obama hasn't been reflected in the polling thus far. However, even as McCain surrogates have repeatedly touted Pennsylvania as a possible pick-up state, Obama has maintained a stubborn lead over the last six months, according to Pollster.com's best-fit line of all surveys taken.

Saturday, October 4, 2008
Episcopal diocese OKs split over Bible, gays
Clergy and lay members of the theologically conservative Pittsburgh diocese voted overwhelmingly Saturday to break from the liberal Episcopal Church.

Saturday, October 4, 2008
Palin links Obama with terrorists
Further evidence that the McCain/Palin ticket will sacrifice America's international reputation by engaging in slim politics. Suggesting that a seated US Senator 'pals' with terrorists is a criminal act with elements of treason at its heart.

Friday, October 3, 2008
WV Miners Support Obama, Spurn NRA
More than 440 workers who are members of the United Mine Workers of America took what's called a Memorial Day instead of going to work. Union officials say they took the day to protest after a film crew from the National Rifle Assocation showed up at the Consol mine last week to interview union workers. They say the crew tried to get union coal miners to speak out against Barak Obama.

Friday, October 3, 2008
New AD: Why John McCain Must Release His Health Records
See Brave New Films new ad that the three cable networks - Fox, CNN, & MSNBC - refuse to air. McCain has had cancer 4 times...shouldn't voters know the details of this 71 year old's health.

Friday, October 3, 2008
US cuts off family planning group in Africa
U.S. barring contraceptive distribution in 6 African countries...The move affects Ghana, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

Friday, October 3, 2008
Filling the grocer cart costing 10.5% more
(1 comments) A basket of 16 basic food items cost $48.68 over the past three months, up 10.5% from a year ago, the American Farm Bureau Federation...The latest survey from the nation's largest farm organization underscores the pressures reverberating throughout the food chain, from the American farm to the executive suites of the largest U.S. packaged-food manufacturers.

Friday, October 3, 2008
Project Censored: The Top 10 Stories the US News Media Missed in the Past Year
The daily dispatches and nightly newscasts of the mainstream media regularly cover terrorism, but rarely discuss how the fear of attacks is used to manipulate the public and set policy. That's the common thread of many unreported stories last year, according to an analysis by Project Censored. "This year, war and civil liberties stood out," Peter Phillips, project director since 1996, said of the top stories.

Friday, October 3, 2008
Global Starvation Ignored by American Policy Elites
Over 30,000 people a day (85% children under 5) die of malnutrition, curable diseases, and starvation. The numbers of unnecessary deaths has exceeded three hundred million people over the past forty years. US has 'oil' policy, but has no 'food' policy.

Friday, October 3, 2008
Iran willing to abandon uranium enrichment, envoy suggests
(1 comments) Iran would consider suspending uranium enrichment if the country were guaranteed a supply of nuclear fuel for its power stations, a senior Iranian diplomat said yesterday. Western officials responded cautiously to the remarks, pointing out that Iran had already been offered a legally binding fuel supply in a multinational proposal put forward in 2006, and renewed in June.

Friday, October 3, 2008
Iraqis Blame Lack of Political Progress for Bombings
Wa'il Abd al-Latif, an independent member of parliament saw a relationship between the bombings and the sources of the recent political tension that have not been resolved. One of these contentious issues is the security agreement being negotiated by PM al-Maliki with the Bush admin. He said that there is a crisis of confidence over the ability and willingness of the (Shiite-dominted) government and the Awakening Councils...

Friday, October 3, 2008
Palin's debate flowchart
(1 comments) Here's a funny take on Sarah Palin's strategy for Thursday night's debate that's floating around now.

Friday, October 3, 2008
Hey there, Joe Six-Pack
So, Governor Palin et al, let me tell you who the Joe Six-Pack that you think you're talking to really is. Joe is the guy I worked with who served in Vietnam, worked construction, had four kids, thought Portland micro-brews were for hippies and weirdos -- and told me one day about having to change churches, because "our pastor spends all his time talking about how bad the gays are, and I go to church for God...

Friday, October 3, 2008
Woman, 90, Shoots Self Inside Foreclosed Home
The plight of an Ohio woman who shot herself as deputies tried evict her from her foreclosed home was part of congressional debate on the $700 billion bailout. Kucinich used Polk's circumstances as he spoke against the rescue plan that eventually passed the U.S. House of Representatives 263-171.

Friday, October 3, 2008
RICH: McCain’s Suspension Bridge to Nowhere
John McCain may be the first presidential candidate in our history to risk wrecking the country even before being voted into the Oval Office.

Friday, October 3, 2008
Who'd have thought it? There's a redneck revolution taking shape in them thar'hills
(1 comments) The white poor, socially Republican, many in vital swing states, may be turning Democrat...There is only one minority left in American society that can still be safely treated with disdain and mockery: the rednecks.

Thursday, October 2, 2008
The Senate bailout vote - How they voted
How the Senate voted Wednesday on the financial bailout bill (S. Amdt. 5685 to H.R. 1424)

Thursday, October 2, 2008
LGBT Alaskans on Sarah Palin
Short documentary on Sarah Palin's policies as viewed by several LGBT citizens of Alaska.

Thursday, October 2, 2008
Make-Believe Maverick
Rolling Stone takes a closer look at the life and career of John McCain and reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty

Thursday, October 2, 2008
Naomi Klein Weighs In On US Bail-Out from Canada
Klein says that the bailout plan on the table was not a solution to the crisis; instead, it changed the location of the crisis from Wall Street to Washington, DC and then made it a public crisis.

Thursday, October 2, 2008
Fire (Or Impeach) Paulson and His Stooges!
Treasure Sec Paulson should have been fired when he sent Congress a flagrantly unconstitutional bill that would make him tin-pot dictator with no judicial review for his actions. As if the constitution were toilet paper. Then he should have been fired yesterday when it was revealed that he brought a fellow stooge from his old firm, Goldman-Sachs into an emergency meeting about the fate of A.I.G. to pitch the deal.

Thursday, October 2, 2008
Scientists Trace The Origin Of AIDS Virus to the 19th Century
(1 comments) he AIDS virus has been circulating among people for about 100 years, decades longer than scientists had thought, a new study suggests. Genetic analysis pushes the estimated origin of HIV back to between 1884 and 1924, with a more focused estimate at 1908.

Thursday, October 2, 2008
US election: Fake pollsters trying to discredit Obama
Barack Obama's campaign is receiving increasing complaints about scam pollsters involved in dirty tricks operations to discredit the Democratic candidate. The Republican Jewish Coalition has admitted its use of this "push-polling" technique but claims survey was legitmate.

Thursday, October 2, 2008
It's all relative, but McCain has changed says his cousin
A part of me is made very sad to write this article. As I've said, my family has followed John's life and career with no absence of pride. If there ever were a Republican we might consider voting for, it would have been my cousin John. But, as he continually demonstrates in this campaign, my cousin John is long gone. "Straight talk" has been replaced with "flip-flop."

Thursday, October 2, 2008
Homeowner rescue plan that could solve the banking crisis?
A Mortgage Workout for the People (citizens) of the USA This is a suggested plan to help every citizen of the USA whose current mortgage obligation exceeds the value of their primary home.

Thursday, October 2, 2008
Using Sarah Palin for Fundraising, Planned Parenthood Nets $760k in Donations
Alaskan Gov Sarah Palin, currently John McCain's VP running mate for the 2008 elections, is staunchly anti-abortion and is an unlikely contributor to such pro-choice organizations like Planned Parenthood. But thanks to a clever viral e-mail campaign that urged Palin detractors to make a donation in her name, Planned Parenthood received a donation so far of $763,350 in Palin's name. Nearly 30,000 people responded from 50 states

Wednesday, October 1, 2008
PrintWhatYouLike Helps You Conserve Paper, Ink & Sanity
Do you personally hate printing content directly from the web - even if the page "has been formatted for printing?" It seems web designers and corporations alike do not care about the environment or your wallet (ink is expensive!). Here is a site via the Make Use Of Directory that will greatly improved the quality of printing.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008
MichaelMoore.com : Here's How to Fix the Wall Street Mess ...from Michael Moore
My suggestions, listed below, are predicated on the singular and simple belief that the rich must pull themselves up by their own platinum bootstraps. Sorry, fellows, but you drilled it into our heads one too many times: There... is... no... free... lunch. And thank you for encouraging us to hate people on welfare! So, there will be no handouts from us to you. The Senate, tonight, is going to try to rush their version...

Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Senate approves $700 billion economic bailout.
Bailout passed in Senate 74-25

Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Special Prosecutor Named To Investigate Firings Of US Attorneys
Attorney General Michael Mukasey named a prosecutor Monday to investigate whether former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, other Bush administration officials or Republicans in Congress should face criminal charges in the firings of nine U.S. attorneys. Mukasey's appointment of Nora Dannehy, the acting U.S. attorney in Connecticut, to continue the inquiry leaves open the possibility...

Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Smaller Banks Thrive Out of the Fray of Crisis
Banks throughout the United States carried on with the business of making loans yesterday even as federal officials warned again that their industry is on the verge of collapse, suggesting that the overheated language on Capitol Hill may not reflect the reality on many Main Streets. The industry is resilient despite the struggles of some members.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008
The free market preachers have long practised state welfare for the rich   : Information Clearing House - ICH
Bailing out banks seems unprecedented, but the US government's form in subsidising big business is well established

Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Kucinich on the Bailout
The $700 billion bailout for Wall Street, is driven by fear not fact. This is too much money in too a short a time going to too few people while too many questions remain unanswered. Why aren't we having hearings on the plan we have just received? Why aren't we questioning the underlying premise of the need for a bailout with taxpayers' money? Why have we not considered any alternatives other than to give $700 billion...

Monday, September 29, 2008
After Taking Credit For Bailout Bill, Is McCain Campaign Willing To Share Responsibility For Its Failure?
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) hasn't been involved in the deep negotiations over details of the bailout bill. In fact, he was largely silent during a meeting with President Bush and top congressional leaders. As the AP reported, the one role that both Democrats and Republicans alike were counting on McCain to play was to "deliver GOP votes" for the bailout bill.

Monday, September 29, 2008
Chalmers Johnson, The Pentagon Bailout Fraud
sometime in 2009 the direct costs of the war the Bush admin once predicted would cost perhaps $50-60 billion in total will stand at more than $800 billion, or $100 billion above the cost (if all goes well, which it won't) of the bailout of the financial system now being proposed in DC. Estimates of the true long-term costs of his war of choice, including payments of health care and veterans benefits into the distant future...

Monday, September 29, 2008
McCain Admits Health Plan Would Increase Taxes
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who has previously promised "not [to] raise your taxes nor support a tax increase," finally admitted that his health care tax credits would not cover the costs of a comprehensive health insurance plan...

Monday, September 29, 2008
Bailout a Bust!
At the end of the 15-minute vote, which was being held open long after time had expired, 141 Democrats voted for the bill. They were joined by 65 Republicans. However, 94 Democrats voted against the measure, along with 133 Republicans. The Dow plunged during the vote falling over 500 points and still falling...

Monday, September 29, 2008
Sarah's No Paleontologist But She's Outspoken in Her Flintstone Fantasies
GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin was dead serious when, during a "casual conversation" soon after being elected mayor of Wasilla, she told music teacher Pillip Munger that "dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth at the same time" and explained away fossil track evidence by saying that "she had seen pictures of human footprints inside the tracks." Ya-ba-daba-doo!

Monday, September 29, 2008
PPP Poll: Obama Moves Ahead in North Carolina
A new Public Policy Polling survey in North Carolina finds Sen. Barack Obama has taken the lead over Sen. John McCain for the first time, 47% to 45%.

Monday, September 29, 2008
The Declining Popularity of Sarah Palin in North Carolina
As Obama pulls ahead of McCain in the NC polls, does Sarah Palin's recent public disasters with the Main Stream Media give cause or excuse to this new development?

Monday, September 29, 2008
Crisis Spreads to Europe
The contagion from the Wall Street crisis spread throughout Europe yesterday with the governments of Iceland and Germany stepping in to rescue ailing banks, following the decision in Britain to nationalise Bradford & Bingley and the bail-out of the Belgian bank Fortis late on Sunday.

Monday, September 29, 2008
Paulson's statement on the failed bail out
I'm disappointed in today's vote, but leaders on both sides of the aisle worked hard. I've spoken to them and I know they share my great disappointment.

Sunday, September 28, 2008
The War Economy
The debt was $5.7 trillion when Bush took office; it will be $10.3 trillion by the time he leaves. While Congress hesitates to appropriate $700 billion for the financial crisis, the administration still is pouring $12 billion a month into Iraq, also raising the question of how the Iraq war funds could be spent better at home...

Sunday, September 28, 2008
Greg Palast: Rove Has Already Fixed the 2008 Election
(6 comments) Greg Palast speaks about the potential for stealing the 2008 presidential election.

Sunday, September 28, 2008
Congress, White House reach financial bailout deal
(1 comments) 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.

Sunday, September 28, 2008
McCain and Team Have Many Ties to Gambling Industry
John McCain's gambling problem...maybe not so much a 'maverick' or high stakes compulsive gambler?

Sunday, September 28, 2008
DOWD: Sound, but No Fury
(1 comments) The presidential debate should have been a cinch for Barack Obama. But he willfully refuses to accept that debates are not a lecture hall; they’re a joust.

Sunday, September 28, 2008
PEROT: Emergency Financial Rescue Plan
(1 comments) Yep, he's back...Ross Perot has resurrected the 'pie chart' for our benefit and puts forth an intriguing planeins that includes items such as: Reinstitute a modernized Glass-Stegall Act, which covers all financial institutions including hedge funds...Create an Emergency Financial Crimes Unit in the Department of Justice...Raise the FDIC guarantee on bank accounts from $100,000 to $250,000...etc.

Saturday, September 27, 2008
America's Total Debt Report
$ 53 Trillion - - and soaring. America has become more debt-dependent - - than ever before with total debt of $53 trillion, or $175,154 per man, woman and child and each added dollar of new debt produces less increased national income...

Saturday, September 27, 2008
DEBATE: The Attack File
A scorecard checking the attacks on the candidates

Saturday, September 27, 2008
Juan Cole: Fact-Checking the Debate
(1 comments) Middle East expert, Juan Cole, fact checks the assertions made by the candidates: Pakistan, the Surge, Kissinger, torture, and the mortgage crisis.

Friday, September 26, 2008
Manage Your Life with Free Online Time Management Tools
In addition to offering a wealth of info, the internet also provides us with a ton of tools. Are you taking full advantage of them? For example, how well do you manage your life? Are you well organized, do you easily remember birthdays, deadlines and appointments? Should you struggle with these tasks, don't worry, most of us are. Fortunately, you are free to change things and make your life a little easier...

Friday, September 26, 2008
US Interrogator: Abuses in Iraq Violated International Law
A military interrogation expert, Air Force Col. Steven Kleinman, told Congress on Thursday that prior to the abuses at Abu Ghraib, he witnessed interrogations of Iraqi detainees that he considers violations of the Geneva Conventions. One interrogation was conducted by an Air Force civilian and a contractor employed by his own organization...

Friday, September 26, 2008
Palin's Russian Roulette
A veteran reporter from Palin's home state, Hal Bernton, reported in the Seattle Times this month how Russian politicians had sought more contact with the governor, but in vain. The governor cut funding and her office's participation...

Friday, September 26, 2008
Leaked: John McCain's Debate Reminders to Himself
Satire from 23/6

Friday, September 26, 2008
What Did Bush Tell Gonzales?
In March 2004, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales made a now-famous late-night visit to the hospital room of AG Ashcroft, seeking to get Ashcroft to sign a certification stating that the Bush admin's warrantless wiretapping program was legal. According to people familiar with statements recently made by Gonzales to federal investigators, Gonzales is now saying that Bush personally directed directed him to make the visit...

Friday, September 26, 2008
Give Your Presentations A Boost With ZoomIt (Windows Only)
Imagine you are giving a PowerPoint presentation to a roomful of people. Perhaps you need to get your point across with a chart but the guy on the fourth row can't make it out. With a click of a mouse you can now zoom in and focus on that part of the screen with the important information and then zoom back out. You save your audience the pain of squinting. Plainly speaking, ZoomIt gives you three tools to play around with...

Friday, September 26, 2008
Debating a Catastrophe
Connecting the political and financial plot lines

Thursday, September 25, 2008
Senior Foreign Policy Adviser Randy Scheunemann 'McCain's Foreign Lobbyist Of The Day'
In an effort to call attention to McCain's foreign policy agenda, Progressive Accountability is highlighting a different McCain adviser each day this week who is tied to foreign countries and foreign lobbying efforts. Sometimes Randy Scheunemann's clients are working with American interests, sometimes, in the case of the "Ukraine", they are working against them.

Thursday, September 25, 2008
While McCain campaign attacks continue, Fox News, CNN asserted as fact that McCain "suspended" or "suspends" his campaig
Fox News and CNN news anchors continue to assert that Sen. John McCain has "suspended" his campaign, even though McCain campaign surrogates continue to appear on cable news networks attacking Sen. Barack Obama.

Thursday, September 25, 2008
McCain Campaign Still Active Across The Country
John McCain declared on Wed that he would suspend his run for the White House and return to DC to help resolve the country's economic crisis. But while the candidate himself left the trail, the campaign itself is decidedly still open for business. Across the country, McCain campaign offices are up and running, accepting volunteers, conducting phone banking, literature dropping and other GOTV activities...

Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Ten Things You Should Know About Bush's Trillion Dollar Fleecing Plan
3. Is This Even Legal? The Constitutionality of the plan is being hotly debated, according to Frank James, writing on the Chicago Trib's blog: Troubling to many critics is the breathtaking extraconstitutionality of the proposal which would give the Treasury secretary unusual powers that couldn't be countermanded by Congress or the courts. That appears on its face to violate the Constitution's assertion of a balance of power.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Progressive Conditions for a Bailout
* Principles to Guide the Bailout * Principles for Restructuring the Financial System * Principles to Guide the Bailout * Principles for Restructuring the Financial System *

Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Breaking: McCain Proposes Suspending Campaign To Focus On Financial Crisis
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is announcing that he would like to suspend his campaign and delay Friday's foreign policy debate to focus on the financial crisis. According to MSNBC, McCain would like to come back to Washington and help work out a bailout package on Thursday. Watch MSNBC's report:

Monday, September 15, 2008
How housing bill helps banks, not taxpayers
This is the complicated story of how Congress' recent $300 billion housing bill is a theft of taxpayer money.

Monday, September 15, 2008
Poll: Public opposes increased presidential power
Americans strongly oppose giving the president more power at the expense of Congress or the courts, even to enhance national security or the economy, according to a new poll.

Monday, September 15, 2008
McCain-onomics
If elected president, McCain plans to double down on Bush's corporate and individual tax cuts. His plan calls for reducing the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, a plan that would save corporations $175 billion per year, with $45 billion going to America's 200 largest companies as identified by Fortune Magazine. The five largest U.S. oil companies would save a grand total of $3.8 billion per year.

Monday, September 15, 2008
Media restricted from covering Hurricane Ike's devastation.
(1 comments) Yesterday in a local report on KTRK-TV in Houston, TX, reporter Wayne Dolcefino revealed that media have been blocked from covering Hurricane Ike's devastation. In a press conference, Dolcefino pressed Gov. Rick Perry on why media aren't even allowed to fly over parts of Galveston Island, noting that media access was far better in Mississippi and Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina...

Monday, September 15, 2008
Palin's rapid fade
In the span of five days, Palin has gone from +17 to +4 -- a statistically significant shift. This includes the Gibson interview as well as the media's sudden focus late last week on the Palin/McCain lies. In comparison, Biden is at 48/32/20, Obama is at 54/38/8, and McCain is at 51/45/4. So Palin may not be the least popular of the four -- McCain is...

Monday, September 15, 2008
McCain Blasts Wall Street Failure, Neglects To Mention His Adviser Helped Cause It
If McCain wants to hold someone accountable for the failure in transparency and accountability that led to the current calamity, he should turn to his good friend and economic campaign adviser, Phil Gramm. Before translating his senate seat for Wall Street, Gramm's authored legislation, written with the help of financial industry lobbyists, essentially removed newfangled financial products called swaps from any regulation.

Monday, September 15, 2008
Which McCain Will Show Up Tomorrow?
McCain flip-flops on regulation for Wall Street, wobbles on solution

Monday, September 15, 2008
McCain Economic Advisor Phil Gramm's UBS prepares for new write-down of $5 billion
McCain economic advisor, Phil Gramm helped pave the way for this risky business behavior that led to current crisis while in the Senate, and he then accepted a plum $1 million/year job with UBS, the previously high flying bank. Gramm is also McCain's economic brain and likely choice to run the Treasury Department where Henry Paulson now works. Can you imagine?

Monday, September 15, 2008
"Another Walter Reed-Type Scandal"
Soldiers at the military hospital languished in part due to incompatible databases and dismal record keeping. Welcome to the Pentagon's $20 billion medical-records boondoggle.

Monday, September 15, 2008
Conference sees 'serious constitutional crisis,' plans prosecutions
On Saturday morning in Andover, Massachusetts, as about 120 activists, adademics, constitutional scholars, public officials and legal experts gathered in the Wyndham hotel, the building suddenly went dark. "We were already so effective, the government tried to shut us down," said conference organizer Lawrence Velvel, dean of the Massachusetts School of Law...

Monday, September 15, 2008
Spike in jobless rate for women is worst in more than 33 years
A sharp monthly rise in unemployment for women could be a sign that the economic slowdown has begun to hit working women with a force not seen in decades.

Monday, September 15, 2008
Jewish Voters Report Calls Disparaging Obama
Jewish voters in Florida and at least one other state are being targeted by a telephone survey tying Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama to Palestinian causes, an advocacy group alleged Monday.

Monday, September 15, 2008
Access Your Websites Quickly With Firefox's 'Fast Dial'
(1 comments) Meet "Fast Dial" for Firefox. View all your favorite websites on the screen as pictures that you can just click with a mouse. It's awesome, and makes live as net junkie really good.

Monday, September 15, 2008
Cheney Turned Down Request To Oversee Katrina Recovery Because "˜He Doesn't Do Touchy-Feely'
For OEN's own Dr. Ben Marble...Dick comes clean. I think he deserves a "double dog, f*ck you Dick Cheney."

Sunday, September 14, 2008
Crisis on Wall Street as Lehman Totters, Merrill Seeks Buyer, AIG Hunts for Cash
U.S. Opts to Avoid Lehman Rescue, Stirring a Momentous Weekend for American Finance; Traders Brace for a Chaotic Monday

Sunday, September 14, 2008
Jittery road ahead for global markets
Wall Street and the U.S. government played a game of chicken over the weekend, and neither side backed down, pushing Lehman Brothers toward bankruptcy and setting off worries of a worldwide sell-off as markets opened Monday.

Saturday, September 13, 2008
Jane Roberts :: One Issue Voter
Bush Administration refused to release $34 million to the United Nations Population Fund to please the Republican Party's religious right and anti-United Nations constituencies. What is at stake? The fate of the world's women and girls and thus the fate of the world.

Saturday, September 13, 2008
Nitrogen emerges as the latest climate-change threat
(2 comments) Scientists are raising alarms about yet another threat to Earth's climate and human well-being. This time it's nitrogen, a common element essential to all life.

Saturday, September 13, 2008
No Energy Expert At Senate Hearing Willing To Say That Oil Drilling Is America's Most Important Issue
After listening all the problems currently facing the country - mortgage meltdown, a health care system that burns 16% of GDP, Medicare liability, Bush admin/GOP has run up $7.7 trillion in national debt, US burning $10 billion a month in Iraq - Sen. Whitehouse asked the experts whether anyone thought drilling was the "number one issue" right now. Almost nine seconds went by with complete silence... Well, it doesn't seen so.

Saturday, September 13, 2008
Palin has no clue how entitlements work. - VIDEO
Tonight in an ABC interview, host Charlie Gibson asked Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) if she would cut entitlements - such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Palin, however, began talking about spending by government agencies, demonstrating a fundamental ignorance on economics

Saturday, September 13, 2008
Quagmire, Phase 2: The Invasion of Pakistan
The United States has just invaded Cambodia. The name of Cambodia this time is Pakistan, but otherwise it's the same story as in Indochina in 1970.

Saturday, September 13, 2008
Gov. Palin Admin Still Pursuing "˜Nowhere' Project - ProPublica
Gov. Palin's administration acknowledges that it is still pursuing a project that would link Ketchikan to its airport-with the help of as much as $73 million in federal funds earmarked by Congress for the original project. "What the media isn't reporting is that the project isn't dead," Roger Wetherell, spokesman for Alaska's Department of Transportation...

Saturday, September 13, 2008
Greenspan: US can't afford McCain tax cuts
(2 comments) Alan Greenspan says the country can't afford tax cuts of the magnitude proposed by Republican presidential contender John McCain - at least not without a corresponding reduction in government spending.

Saturday, September 13, 2008
WaPo Gives McCain Campaign 4 Pinocchios
The Pinocchio Test I will give Governor Palin a pass this week, to mark her inaugural media outing. Four Pinocchios for McCain for his clumsy attempt to rewrite history.

Friday, September 12, 2008
WHAT MAKES PEOPLE VOTE REPUBLICAN?
(2 comments) What makes people vote Republican? Why in particular do working class and rural Americans usually vote for pro-business Republicans when their economic interests would seem better served by Democratic policies? We psychologists have been examining the origins of ideology ever since Hitler sent us Germany's best psychologists, and we long ago reported that strict parenting and a variety of personal insecurities work together...

Friday, September 12, 2008
HIGHLIGHTS OF GIBSON INTERVIEW: Palin Explains Her National Security Credentials:'Energy' And The Fact That "˜You Can
In his interview with Sarah Palin that aired this morning on Good Morning America, ABC's Charlie Gibson challenged the governor on whether she has any national security experience. Some highlights from the interview:

Friday, September 12, 2008
John McCain's ads are LIES. Here's the video proof.
What looks to be a slit in his lying face is moving, so it must be BS.

Friday, September 12, 2008
Venezuela Joins Bolivia in Expelling U.S. Ambassador
Chavez gives U.S. Ambassador Patrick Duddy 72 hours to leave the oil-rich country.

Friday, September 12, 2008
What Is the Bush Doctrine, Anyway?
Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's evident cluelessness when asked in an interview yesterday if she agreed with the Bush Doctrine is appropriately being seen as emblematic of her ignorance of foreign policy.

Friday, September 12, 2008
What Bush Will Surrender in Iraq
Bruce Ackerman and Oona Hathaway write in an opinion column for Time that what is being billed as a leaked draft of the agreement between Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, recently published in Iraq by the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, would clearly contravene the U.S. Constitution...

Friday, September 12, 2008
DRAFT: Bush's Un-Constitutional Status Of Forces Agreement with Iraq
Congress, please get your butts back to Washington and save our Constitution from further abuse by the neocons.

Friday, September 12, 2008
McCain Grilled On "The View": Sarah Palin, His Abortion Stance, His Obama Attack Ads, And More
Video of McCain McSquirming To Divert Attention from his McLying

Friday, September 12, 2008
Sheriff: New Evidence: Palin Had Direct Role In Charging Rape Victims For Exams
Palin's role is now confirmed by Wasilla City budget documents available online. Under Sarah Palin's administration, Wasilla cut funds that had previously paid for the medical exams and began charging victims or their health insurers the $500 to $1200 fees.

Friday, September 12, 2008
Gulf production nearly 100% cut, platform "destroyed" as Hurricane Ike sweeps into Texas (Scandinavian Oil-...
The count of shut-in oil in the wake of Hurricane Ike in the Gulf of Mexico has risen to 1.26 million barrels per day, with 562 oil platforms and 93 rigs evacuated after the second big storm in three weeks. Meanwhile, damage from Hurricane Gustav's sweep left an unmanned production platform "destroyed" and left an oil slick.

Friday, September 12, 2008
Public Comments On Patient Rights vs. Provider Conscience
the proposed regulations allow health care providers to opt out of any service they may find objectionable - even contraceptive and family planning services. This kind of a regulation would have a very real, extremely severe impact on women's lives. 98% of women will use birth control at some point in their lives. As Jessica Arons writes, health care providers may, "...be able to deny women access to oral contraceptives...

Friday, September 12, 2008
Shelby says government could rescue Lehman Bros.
Another government rescue of a major financial services firm loomed Friday as the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee suggested a bailout of Lehman Brothers could be coming.

Friday, September 12, 2008
TX GOP Rep. Conaway: "Obama is no Jesus Christ"
(4 comments) What in the hell is happening to this country? "Madam Speaker, I know Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ is a personal friend of mine. Sen. Obama is no Jesus Christ."

Friday, September 12, 2008
SEX, DRUGS, AND OIL - Fun and games at the Interior Dept.
More on the Interior Department's Sex and Oil Scandal Don't you just love these Republican moral values??

Friday, September 12, 2008
Dooblet : Find Alternatives to Everything
Dooblet is a one of a kind search tool that helps you find alternatives to almost anything. It can be some software program (iTunes, Limewire, Nero, Outlook, Photoshop etc.), music group, car model, mobile phone (iPhone, Blackberry etc.). Simply enter the name of the product and click on 'dooble!' to get the list of alternatives.

Friday, September 12, 2008
Blogger's detention sparks fears
Late on Tuesday night, I spoke to Raja Petra Kamarudin. We were supposed to meet face-to-face earlier in the day, but Malaysia's most vociferous anti-government campaigner could not make it. He was in hiding. Three days later, he was detained.

Friday, September 12, 2008
Bolivia province under martial law
The Bolivian government says it has declared martial law in an eastern province where at least eight people have been killed in clashes between pro- and anti-government activists

Friday, September 12, 2008
World waits for details of Zimbabwe power-sharing deal
If Zimbabwe's politicians had expected news of a power-sharing deal to elicit a wave of euphoria, they were to be disappointed yesterday as the world hedged its bets and waited to see how much power Robert Mugabe had really ceded to his bitter rival, Morgan Tsvangirai

Friday, September 12, 2008
General Jaruzelski goes on trial for the imposition of martial law in 1981
A frail but stiff-backed General Wojciech Jaruzelski strode into a Polish courtroom as if on parade yesterday to face trial for using tanks and bayonets to crush the Solidarity revolution in the bleak midwinter of 1981.

Friday, September 12, 2008
Galveston Sheriff Leaves 1,000 Inmates AND Deputies To Die To Ike
Same thing happened in Katrina, as I recall. The stupidity and callousness is astonishing.

Thursday, September 11, 2008
McCain finds it tough without Palin
McCain shook hands with supporters and strode up to a podium to deliver a statement. But as he spoke, chants of "Obama, Obama, Obama" filled the room.

Thursday, September 11, 2008
D.C. Election Glitch Blamed On Equipment
D.C. election officials blamed a defective computer memory cartridge yesterday for producing what appeared to be thousands of write-in votes that officials say did not exist.

Thursday, September 11, 2008
Delay Seen for Fence At U.S.-Mexico Line
The Bush administration is unlikely to complete 670 miles of border fence by year-end as required by Congress because of surging construction costs and problems acquiring private land along the border with Mexico, Homeland Security Department officials acknowledged yesterday...Admin officials also contended that they are running out of money. Costs for vehicle barriers have climbed 40% since February, to $2.8 million per mile.

Thursday, September 11, 2008
NEW BAILOUT? Pressure Builds as Lehman Faces Mounting Losses
Lehman’s fortunes dwindled further on Wednesday as the firm, staggered by the biggest loss in its 158-year history, fought to regain confidence among investors.

Thursday, September 11, 2008
Bringing John McCain Back to Reality
The mysterious Unclassified Producer goes over John McCain's speech, noting that it shows, ummm, not just a slight break with the real world but a full on schizoid break. (Ok, he uses different, much funnier words than that.) Watch. Laugh. Cry. And in the process leave Fantasy Island for reality. It's not as pretty here, but it's the real world. It'd be nice if McCain lived in it.

Thursday, September 11, 2008
What Republicans REALLY Mean When They Say Drill! Baby! Drill!
They mean sex, corruption, and political scandal. DRILL FOR THE THRILLS!!! Oh, baby...

Thursday, September 11, 2008
Let's Get Palin On Rachel Maddow's Show!
(7 comments) Republicans are such whiny little babies. Barack Obama can go onto Bill O'Reilly's show without putting any limits on Falafel Man whatsoever, yet the babysitters of poor widdle Princess Sarah will only deign to allow ABC's Charles Gibson to approach her deferentially on hands and knees, asking only those questions personally approved by the McCain campaign's Steve Schmidt. Cowards. Let's put Sarah in Rachel's corner...

Thursday, September 11, 2008
Ohio Secretary of State Brunner Does Right by Voters
(1 comments) To prevent partisan voter-caging operations, Brunner issued a binding directive to all county election boards, instructing them that parts of the 2006 challenge laws were unconstitutional and stating that granting a residency challenge based only on returned mail violates the National Voter Registration Act. Brunner's directive also advises that voters must be to be given due notice of any challenge before Election Day.

Thursday, September 11, 2008
US oilfield deaths rise sharply
While Bush's Interior Dept was screwing every thing that walked at the taxpayers expense, at least 598 oilfield workers died on the job between 2002 and 2007 as the number of deaths per year has risen by around 70%.

Thursday, September 11, 2008
Colorado meatpacking plant lays off 100 Muslim workers - Los Angeles Times
JBS Swift & Co. fires about one-fourth of 400 workers who had walked off the job, demanding break time to pray during the holy month of Ramadan. The union local says it will fight the action.

Thursday, September 11, 2008
Nealy $1 billion wasted in Katrina no-bid contracts - Ike next
70% of contracts awarded without full bidding, Democratic report says. Watch out for Texas and Ike. Time to fleece the taxpayers for Bush and Cheney's oil buddies. Might as well just open the Treasury and let them have at what is left - $10 trillion in IOUs.

Thursday, September 11, 2008
Matt Damon on Sarah Palin: Calling All 527s
In the wake of the nervousness many people are feeling over Obama's inability to counter McCain's negative campaiging, there is a big drive going on now in Democratic circles to fund 527s to hit back on his behalf.

Thursday, September 11, 2008
Gina Gershon Parodies Sarah Palin (VIDEO)
If Sarah Palin shoots you in the face, the reason is...she was aiming for it!

Thursday, September 11, 2008
Mississippi illegally screws with its ballot to deceive voters
(1 comments) Defying state law, they have decided to hide a hard-fought race for the United States Senate at the bottom of the ballot, where they clearly are hoping some voters will overlook it. Their proposed design is not only illegal. It shows a deep contempt for Mississippi’s voters. Republicans have long had a lock on the state’s two Senate seats. But this year, former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, a Democrat, has been running close...

Thursday, September 11, 2008
Yuri Baranchik :: The War Which Will Help McCain Win
Georgia has done a great job as the proving ground during the five-day war. With the help of this war, those who are promoting the Republican nominee in the US presidential race have found out all they needed to know.

Thursday, September 11, 2008
Drill here, drill now | | A pipe dream
Graph shows exactly the 'increase' off-shore drilling will yield.

Thursday, September 11, 2008
MOMocrats: Keep Religion Private and Out of the White House
Presidents are not elected to serve God. They're elected to serve the people. Religious figurative servitude is strictly a personal choice and something that should never enter into a political campaign. It's about the fact that religious conservatives like Palin and Bush consistently hide behind their faith in times of political and personal crisis refusing to admit their wrongdoings and mistakes, instead chalking it up to...

Thursday, September 11, 2008
Finding and Reading Comic E-Books on The Web
Normal guys like me usually love comic books... While nothing can beat dead tree printed comic books during 'morning rituals', reading your friendly neighborhood heroes on-screen could also be nice.

Thursday, September 11, 2008
Palin: "Nuclear War With Russia A Go!"
Palin just suggested, that the US would go to war with Russia over Georgia or the Ukraine: Palin advocated the accession of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, meaning that if attacked again in the future, the United States would be bound to go to war. "I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help," she said.

Thursday, September 11, 2008
BREAKING: Whistleblower: McCain Used Senate Resources to Enable Wife's Addiction
A whistleblower says that John McCain involved members of his Senate staff in Cindy McCain's troubled medical charity, while his wife was stealing narcotics from the charity and cruising through airport security with a diplomatic passport. The whistleblower, Tom Gosinski, was fired by Cindy McCain after he expressed concerns about her addiction to painkillers and her penchant for writing prescriptions in other people's names.

Thursday, September 11, 2008
ZERO: An Investigation Into 9/11 - The Full Documentary
(8 comments) The full documentary being broadcast in Russia to 30 million this day. Watch and learn what may become the motivation of an international investigation into 9/11 truth.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Palin Warned to Stop Disparaging Sister's Ex | Judge Says "Form of Emotional Child Abuse"
A judge repeatedly told Palin and family not to badmouth her sister's ex. "It is the mother's [Hackett's] responsibility to set boundaries for her relatives and insure [sic] they respect them, and the disparagement by either parent, or their surrogates is emotional child abuse," Judge Suddock wrote.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Will Lehman Brothers Be Bailed Out? Should It?
Lehman is the center of an anxiety show all of its own. Its shares fell 45% on news that Korea Development Bank wasn't interested in a deal. Then there are the three fears: coming 3rd quarter earnings, expected to be horrid; its exposure to risky real estate and mortgages, a market already plagued with uncertainty...; as went Bear Stearns, so goes Lehman Brothers?

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
The Food Project
(1 comments) "Creating personal and social change through sustainable agriculture" is the mission of The Food Project, an NGO in the Boston area that combines urban agriculture and youth development. Since its beginnings in 1991 the organization's many successes have made it a model for similar programs countrywide. The Food Project operates both urban and suburban farms - from a garden within a city block to a 31 acre farm in Lincoln, MA.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Corn ethanol pushes up food prices
Food prices have shot up 170 percent in the past six years, putting a serious burden on the world's poor and causing food riots in some countries, according to a new report from the World Bank. The report found that the increase was largely caused by U.S. and European government support for biofuels, particularly corn ethanol. This analysis shows a 30% to 60% increase in food prices is due to biofuels.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
She's Clueless, He's Worse
Ignorance is bliss, which perhaps explains Gov. Sarah Palin being so confidently wrong about the root cause of the federalization of most of the nation's mortgage market. But what is Sen. John McCain's excuse? Both act as if the financial meltdown of the U.S. economy has nothing to do with the policies of the political party they represent-but she at least may not know any better.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Presidential Electoral College Tie Not Impossible
What if the Electoral College were to end in a tie at 269 electoral votes apiece? This is not an unrealistic election scenario. Therefore, the maintenance of a strong Democratic majority in the House could develop into the most important aspect of the 2008 campaign. The 12th Amendment to the Constitution says that, in the event of a tie, the presidency is decided by the vote of the members of the House, and VP by the Senate.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Don't Fear The Deficit
There are progressive answers to the deficit crisis. They lie in being both bolder and smarter about the policies we propose and in how we leverage govt resources. To take just one example: On Tuesday a coalition of labor, environmental and progressive policy orgs unveiled a two-year, $100 billion energy investment program. Such a program would create an estimated two million jobs-bringing our current 6% unemployment to 5%.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
SAP Embraces Next-Generation Collaborative Innovation With InnoCentive
Further enhancing the value of the SAP ecosystem for customers and partners, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced a global agreement with and SAP NetWeaver® Fund investment in InnoCentive, Inc., a global online open innovation marketplace. The addition of InnoCentive to the SAP ecosystem further fosters co-innovation by providing a global platform in which solution-providers are financially rewarded...

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Landmark Russian TV Debate on 9/11
Thierry Meyssan reports from Moscow that he and other leading international 9/11 truth experts have completed taping a television debate which will be telecast on the first national program of Russian state television this coming Friday, September 12. This no-holds barred, free-wheeling debate, featuring strongly divergent opinions about what really happened on and about September 11, 2001...

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Interior Dept official increased employee's 'performance award' for providing him with cocaine.
Part of the "culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" at the Denver Minerals Management Service involved employees illegally taking drugs, often while at the office. According to the new Interior Department Inspector General's report, Gregory Smith, Program Director of the Royalty in Kind Program, referred to cocaine as "office supplies" and rewarded his employees for obtaining it for him...

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
As the Lies Pile Up, McCain's Former Fans Increasingly Repulsed by the Cynicism
one by one, the weight of this evidence has demonstrated to McCain's former fans what a dishonorable, cynical creature John McCain has become.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
ISYN! On 7th Anniversary Of Attacks, White House Claims Bin Laden Was Not The "˜Mastermind' of Sept. 11
Q But Osama bin Laden is the one that - you keep talking about his lieutenants, and, yes, they are very important, but Osama bin Laden was the mastermind of 9/11 – PERINO: No, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the mastermind of 9/11, and he's sitting in jail right now.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Bush administration officials exchanged sex for oil.
Coke, bribes, graft, sex... What won't the Bush Administration do for the oil companies? Who is running the Interior Department? Heidi Fleiss?

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich - 9/11: The Truth Can Move Us Forward
America must move from the errant, retributive justice of 9/11 to a healing, restorative process of truth and reconciliation.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Iraq Cancels Six No-Bid Oil Contracts
An Iraqi plan to award six no-bid contracts to Western oil companies, which came under sharp criticism from several United States senators this summer, has been withdrawn...

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Hurricane Ike and Oil Refineries/Infrastructure Thread #2 (9/10 16:30 EDT)
Hurricane Ike's current track predicts landfall between Corpus Christi and Galveston, but has been moving northwards. Within the current NHC storm path lies about 5 million bpd of US petroleum refining capacity.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008
IRAQ: Now that is "debaathification" with extreme prejudice!
It seems increasingly clear that it has been a set of dirty wars. Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that Ali al-Lami, an Iraqi politician, protege of Ahmad Chalabi,and member of the Debaathification Committee,is being charged by a high unnamed US official with providing info on Iraqis to the "special groups" (Iranian-run cells within Iraqi Shiite militia), which was useful to them in assassinating these individuals.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008
The New Von Spakovsky Voter Suppression Crusade: Absentee Ballots
Whenever I wonder what the new phony Republican game the vote outrage is going to be, I google the term "Von Spakovsky." Given that it's an election year, I've been keep tabs on him, because he is a tell for what the GOP is testing out in advance of the election. Especially since he landed that new gig at the Civil Rights Comm as a "consultant" (read: wingnut welfare sop for his failure to land on the FEC).

Monday, September 8, 2008
U.S. Military Relied On Oliver North To Dispute Afghanistan Civilian Deaths
Times of London revealed that the US had been relying on accounts from an embed: FOX's Oliver North. The US military said that its findings were corroborated by an 'independent' journalist embedded with the US force. Relying on North for a "fair and balanced" view is a major mistake as North routinely makes biased and unsourced claims...

Monday, September 8, 2008
Palin's first gaffe: Claims Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac are taxpayer-funded.
(2 comments) Speaking in Colorado this weekend, Gov. Sarah Palin tried to explain the recent federal bailout by claiming that lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had "gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers." The companies, however, "aren't taxpayer funded but operate as private companies. Palin's statement "is somewhat nonsensical because up until yesterday there was sort of no public funding there."

Monday, September 8, 2008
Lawsuit to Ask That Cheney's Papers Be Made Public
In a preemptive move, historians and open-government advocates concerned that Vice President Cheney, who has long bristled at requirements to disclose his records, will destroy or withhold key documents that illustrate his role in forming US policy, have asked a federal judge to declare that Cheney's records are covered by the Presidential Records Act of 1978 and cannot be destroyed, taken or withheld without proper review.

Monday, September 8, 2008
HIGHLIGHTS: Bob Woodward's New Book "The War Within"
(1 comments) Woodward's book "reveals that the administration's efforts to develop a new Iraq strategy were crippled by dissension among the president's advisers, delayed by political calculations and undermined by a widening and sometimes bitter rift in civilian-military relations." Woodward portrays Bush as an out-of-touch commander in chief who was slow to recognize the threat posed by the growing Iraqi insurgency...

Monday, September 8, 2008
Alaska senator to retain oversight of Palin probe
Alaska Sen. French to retain oversight of Palin 'troopergate' probe

Monday, September 8, 2008
ECONOMY: Falling Down
(1 comments) Even with federal intervention, I have estimated the cumulative gap between what our economy could have produced -- had we invested in actual businesses, rather than, say, mortgages for people who couldn't afford their homes -- and what we will produce over the period of our slowdown to be more than $1.5 trillion.

Monday, September 8, 2008
Arianna Huffington: Sarah Palin: A Trojan Moose Concealing Four More Years of George Bush
The point is that Palin & the circus she's brought to town are simply a bountiful collection of small lies deliberately designed to distract the country from one big truth: the havoc that George Bush and the Republican Party have wrought, and that John McCain is committed to continuing. Every sec. of this campaign not spent talking about the Republican's record, and John McCain's role in that record, is a victory for McCain.

Monday, September 8, 2008
JOSH MARSHALL | Slow Slide Into Oblivion
Palin will sit down for multiple interviews with Gibson in Alaska over two days said McCain adviser Mark Salter. Political interviews are never done like this. Because it makes the questioning entirely at the discretion of the person being interviewed and their handlers. The interviewer has to be on their best behavior, at least until the last of the 'multiple interviews' because otherwise they get the boot.

Monday, September 8, 2008
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Bailout Pulled in Dozens of Lawyers
Though Treasury's plan to place Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae into a conservatorship was just finalized Sunday, a cadre of lawyers has been hard at work on the deal for weeks. A team from Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton was counsel to Morgan Stanley, which advised the Treasury Department on the bailout.

Monday, September 8, 2008
Legality of Prison Telephone Rates Argued in Court
Today, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) challenges the constitutionality of the unlawful tax levied on families who received collect calls at exorbitant rates from their loved ones in New York State prison. CCR is seeking refunds for the men and women who were the victims of 10 years of a kickback contract that gave New York State 57.5 percent of the phone company's profits.

Monday, September 8, 2008
Voter Registration by Students Raises Cloud of Consequences
Late last month, as a voter-registration drive by supporters of Senator Barack Obama was signing up thousands of students at Virginia Tech, the local registrar of elections issued 2 releases warning a range of dire consequences. The releases warned that such students could no longer be claimed as dependents on their parents' tax returns, a statement the IRS says is incorrect, and could lose scholarships or health insurance...

Monday, September 8, 2008
Biologists on the Verge of Creating New Form of Life
A team of biologists and chemists is closing in on bringing non-living matter to life. It's not as Frankensteinian as it sounds. Instead, a lab led by Jack Szostak, a molecular biologist at Harvard Medical School, is building simple cell models that can almost be called life. Szostak's protocells are built from fatty molecules that can trap bits of nucleic acids that contain the source code for replication.

Monday, September 8, 2008
George Lakoff: Death by Definition: Save the Endangered Species Act! Now!
(3 comments) The Endangered Species Act is our primary legal tool for environmental protection. We have until September 15--about a week--to save the Endangered Species Act. Not just some species, but the Act itself! Bush administration officials are proposing redefinitions of terms that would allow conservative appointees in federal agencies to virtually the destroy the Act.

Monday, September 8, 2008
US government fails to provide sufficient support to New Orleans
As New Orleans residents return following Hurricane Gustav, they're finding that government help is not on the way - The Republicans strike again.

Monday, September 8, 2008
A DANGEROUS ALLY: British reverence for the White House is not reciprocated
Endorsing the presidential candidature of Senator John McCain, Bush declared: "We need a president who understands the lessons of September 11, 2001: that to protect America, we must stay on the offensive, stop attacks before they happen, and not wait to be hit again." A bit of a head-scratcher that one about stopping attacks before they happen. Does it also mean we hit our enemies before they know they are our enemies?

Monday, September 8, 2008
FROOMKIN: A Failure of Leadership
It's official now: President Bush is the Keystone Kop-in-chief, disinterestedly overseeing a bunch of deputies who keep bumping into each other and falling down on the job. "Woodward also quotes [John] McCain expressing frustration with the Bush White House, clenching his fists in the West Wing and exclaiming to Woodward: 'Everything is f-cking spin.'"

Sunday, September 7, 2008
McCain: The Grinning Corpse
(1 comments) Some people should not make a habit of smiling. On most people it looks good; some, though, seem not to have the proper face for the task. When John McCain smiles, the look is reminiscent of a skull wrapped tightly in a large wet sock. He smiles so rarely during speeches that it is disconcerting; he does it with such a pained grimace that it is very nearly frightening.

Sunday, September 7, 2008
Palin finally agrees to first tv interview.
(1 comments) Under intense criticism for refusing to talk to the media, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) "is offering her first televised interview to ABC News in the coming week in Alaska." The campaign said that an interview "was offered to ABC's Charlie Gibson several days ago and that they expect it to happen in the latter part of the week in Alaska."

Sunday, September 7, 2008
Chris Wallace Fact-Checks Sarah Palin's Bogus "˜Bridge To Nowhere' Claims
WALLACE: During her 1.5, 2 years as Governor, Alaska continued to get more federal money for pork-barrel projects per capita than any state in the country and...she supported the Bridge to Nowhere. And it was only after the federal government dropped it out, killed it, the Congress killed it that she then opposed it. And in fact she still got the money for the approach, the ramp to the Bridge to Nowhere.

Sunday, September 7, 2008
Rather than Vetting Palin, McCain Will Orchestrate a Cover-Up of Her Abuse of Power
It's bad enough that a presidential ticket claiming to run on reform is now orchestrating a cover-up of an apparent abuse of power. What's really stunning is that they're conducting this cover-up in lieu of actually vetting Sarah Palin. The Cover-Up????

Sunday, September 7, 2008
16 Free, Fun, Simple & Addictive Games To Take The Edge Off
in the spirit of productive-lessness (Unproductiveness? Unproductivity?) I would like to introduce 16 simple, free and fun games which only require a very short attention span. I must warn you though, some of these games are pretty addictive and may very likely distract you from your pending workload. But that's the point, isn't it?

Sunday, September 7, 2008
Winning America's Real Culture War: Egalitarian vs. Authoritarian
The radical right has consolidated its grip on the Republican Party, this much is clear. The corporate economic conservatives behind John McCain's curtain are happy to be the more or less silent partners of the theocrats and racist thugs in the dangerous enterprise that is today's GOP. It is also the case that McCain and Sarah Palin have decided to reignite the hate-filled domestic conflicts of the 20th century.

Sunday, September 7, 2008
Mortgage Giant Overstated the Size of Its Capital Base
US govt to announce takeover of Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae after advisers poring over the concluded that Freddie's accounting methods had overstated its capital cushion causing deep concern among foreign investors that the companies' debt might not be repaid. Falling home prices, which are expected to lead to more defaults among the mortgages held or guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie, contributed to the urgency.

Sunday, September 7, 2008
State of the Nation: McCain brings same cynicism and carelessness that bedevils Bush
The selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate - a candidate not only "uniquely and supremely unqualified" for the office she seeks, but one for whom casual and cavalier abuse of power is an apparent matter of routine - is only the latest indicator that John McCain views his would-be presidency with precisely the same cynicism and carelessness that bedevils the current administration.

Sunday, September 7, 2008
Polish agents tell of CIA jails
Polish intelligence sources have for the first time confirmed that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) ran a secret prison facility on Polish soil.

Sunday, September 7, 2008
ALASKAN DIVIDEND - Palin Releases Oil Revenue Checks One Month Early
More than 600,000 Alaskans will each receive $3,269 starting this week, as the oil-rich state distributes its eagerly anticipated annual dividend from the Alaska Permanent Fund a month earlier than usual. The checks include a one-time $1,200 bonus, paid out of a treasury surplus, to help offset soaring fuel prices.

Sunday, September 7, 2008
This cynical choice has left McCain’s honour in shreds
A conservative Republican woman who idolizes Margaret Thatcher decries McCain's choice of Palin as cynical and dishonorable: "In choosing a woman he doesn’t know or understand, purely for electoral advantage, he reveals a dishonourable lust for office, a disrespect for women generally and a dishonourable indifference to the future of his country..."

Sunday, September 7, 2008
Amazing TV Campaign Spot: 'Man from Illinois' vs. Military Hero--But It's 1952!
(1 comments) From Illinois, whence Lincoln came/His leadership has won him fame A soldier man is always found/To think in terms of battlegrounds But Stevenson --Civilianson-- Will lead us till the peace is won.

Sunday, September 7, 2008
Bruce Wilson: Sarah Palin's Churches and The Third Wave: New Video Documentary
Sarah Palin's churches are actively involved in a resurgent movement declared heretical by the Assemblies of God in 1949. This is the same 'Spiritual Warfare' movement featured in "Jesus Camp," which showed young children being trained to do battle for the Lord. At least three of four of Palin's churches are involved in the movement to train a young "Joel's Army" to take dominion over the United States and the world.

Sunday, September 7, 2008
Report: McCain Pushed Woman In A Wheelchair
On Sunday, McClatchy Newspapers published a story on Sen. John McCain's oft-discussed temper, detailing one incident in which McCain allegedly pushed a woman in a wheelchair. In 1996, McCain was met in the Senate office halls by a group of family members of POW-MIAs who had been pressing him to pursue more information on their relatives. Six people present have written statements describing what they saw.

Sunday, September 7, 2008
Inside Sarah Palin's Charismatic Religion: "Soldiers of Christ"
An in-depth look at the charismatic fundamentalism that informs Sarah Palin's religious/political ideology.

Sunday, September 7, 2008
Palin's Hockey Rink Leads To Legal Trouble in Town She Led
Under Palin's mayorship, Wasilla began building roads and installing utilities for the project before it had unchallenged title to the land. The misstep led to years of litigation and at least $1.3 million in extra costs for a small municipality with a small budget. What was to be Ms. Palin's legacy has turned into a financial mess that continues to plague Wasilla. After the debacle, the city hired an administrator to run it.

Sunday, September 7, 2008
Anne Kilkenny interview with NPR on her Sarah Palin email that has gone viral
(1 comments) An email launched from a dial-up connection in Alaska by long time Palin acquaintance and Wasilla resident goes viral and in days she has over 350,000 results on Google.

Sunday, September 7, 2008
Cool Websites and Tools
(1) Anyvite - Simple but very useful event planning tool when it comes to sending invites to a lot of people for a particular event. Also allows to track the responses, provides mobile access, etc. Read more: AnyVite - Event Planning And Sending Invites Made Easy.(2) Autofill PDF Labels - Lots of free, downloadable and printable PDF label templates for business cards, name badges, CD labels, shipping labels, file folder...more

Sunday, September 7, 2008
JO FISH: Parah Salin' in Flyover Country
The red-meat offered up by the lipstick-wearing pit bull from Alaska to the "base" of the republican party (aka "aged cottage cheese") included an interesting and thinly-veiled pitch toward the culture wars that the republicans are seeking to ignite over the next 60 days. Her Assembly-of-God Creationism and no-holds barred attitude is her ticket to assume the center-ring ringmistress position in the culture war circus...

Sunday, September 7, 2008
OBAMA CAMPAIGN: Torture and the Rule of Law -- New Proposals
Would Obama prosecute the Bush administration for torture? Obama's brain trust wants to form a commission on torture and call Bush officials as witnesses, but put off prosecutions -- if any -- till a second term.

Sunday, September 7, 2008
Biden: Republicans Silent on Issues That Matter to Middle Class
(2 comments) A sometimes angry Sen. Joe Biden on Friday railed against the "abject failure" of Republicans to help middle-class Americans cope with shrinking wages, job losses and the rising cost of gas, groceries, health insurance and college. The Delaware senator and Democratic VP nominee brought a crowd of 1,200 people at Maple Point Middle School to their feet by pointing out "what I didn't h