November 29, 2007

The Annapolis Surrender Negotiations

I'm not alone in thinking the "historic" Annapolis Summit has the feel of surrender negotiations. Granted, waring parties always seek to gain an advantage prior to entering peace negotiations, but Israel's advantage is absolute.

During the past seven years of the Bush administration, the Palestinians have been divided and conquered. The US has assisted in the process and cannot be considered an honest broker. But they're not brokering a peace negotiation; they're brokering a surrender.

November 28, 2007

Republican Operatives: Serial Election Fraudsters

We're well aware of Bush's Republican operatives tampering with US elections. This has been documented by Robert Kennedy Jr. in Rolling Stone, the BBC's Greg Palast in 2000 and 2004, and Congressman John Conyers. (More on 2004 election manipulation).

And there are more dots to connect. First, this activity is far more insidious than the sealing of elections in Florid and Ohio. It's clear that a the US Attorney firing scandal has a deeper plot that is connected to voter suppression on a massive scale.

Second, there are foreign dots to connect. The Bush administration is implicated in two recent cases. We hear reports like the following:
U.S. tensions with Russia are on the rise over accusations of vote-meddling. On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the Bush administration of trying to taint parliamentary elections set for next week. Putin says the U.S. influenced European monitors to cancel plans to observe the vote.

Why? Because, months after everyone has forgotten this news blip, Bush's "set up" will allow his operatives to say, "there were no monitors in the Russian election," thereby casting doubt on the election's legitimacy. The violation is so egregious that Vladimir Putin himself spoke out in response (translated):

We have information that, once again, this was done on the recommendation of the U.S. State Department. We, of course, will take this into account in our inter-state dealings; this is for sure. Actions such as these cannot wreck the elections in Russia. Their aim is to deprive the elections of legitimacy, that is absolutely clear. But they are not going to achieve that [1].


Clip of Putin Statement

Then, on November 28, 2007, we heard Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro reveal that he had a document that appeared to be from an American at the embassy in Caracas referring to a plan to impede a referendum on Sunday to consider giving new powers to the Venezuelan executive branch.

If it's true, we are going to declare this official from the U.S. Embassy persona non grata and eject him from the country because he would have been interfering in the internal matters of Venezuela. [2]

It seems to be true, based on a detailed account by Professor James Petras, which exposes a CIA operation pincer (Tenaza in spanish).

But it doesn’t stop there. The Republicans have institutionalized their elections interference through the US taxpayer funded “National Endowment for Democracy.” This nice sounding institution funded the International Republican Institute of Washington, an arm of the GOP, to run training sessions for the youth wing of the right wing Mexican PAN political party and fund a US corporation to collect data that was likely used to suppress votes.

The illegal operations all involve pre-election suppression tactics. The US company ChoicePoint, which helped purge Florida voter rolls prior to 2000 election, is implicated widely. According to BBC investigative journalist Greg Palast. Referring to ChoicePoint, which received a no-bid contract from the Bush administration to collect data supposedly for use in "fighting terrorism," it appears the information was used to scrub voter rolls or to cage voters and create challenge lists:

Foreign — that is, American — interference in political campaigns is a crime. That didn’t stop Team Bush. However, when the theft of its citizen files was discovered, Argentina threatened to arrest ChoicePoint contractors until the company returned the tapes — and Mexico’s attorney general did in fact arrest the ChoicePoint data thieves to avoid his party from looking too much the stooge of its Washington patron.

Similar operations were conducted in Venezuela using ChoicePoint.

More suppression occurs during the voting process, such as challenging voters via caging lists developed prior to the election, allocating too few voting machines in targeted districts to create long lines, changing polling places to sow confusion or force the use of provisional ballots, which are less likely to be counted, etc, which leads to...

... operations after the voting is completed. In Mexico, 17 polling sites documented the votes cast for Bush-supported Caldaron vastly exceeded the number of registered voters at a site. These numbers only represent what was proven soon after the election. There was also documentation of several ballot boxes found in dumps in México City, where support for the more liberal candidate Obrador was very strong.

One can go on and on about what can no longer be denied. The Bush Republicans have been conducting illegal voter suppression campaigns, inside and outside the United States, on a sophisticated level, and continue to do so. If this makes your blood boil, check out Black Box Voting, citizens who are taking action.

Sources:

1. DemocracyNow!, Headlines, November 27, 2007.

2. Reuters, Venezuela may expel U.S. envoy over vote suspicions, Patricia Rondon, November 28, 2007.

November 26, 2007

Is the State Secrets Privilege Legitimate?

With the state secrets privilege making headlines, its worth looking back at where it came from.

Associated Press reporter, Pamela Hess, writes:
The principle was established a half-century ago when, ruling in a wrongful-death case brought by the widows of civilians killed in a military plane crash, the Supreme Court upheld the Air Force's refusal to provide an accident report to the plaintiffs. The government contended releasing the document would compromise information about a secret mission and intelligence equipment.

But she ends it there. Further investigation reveals that the deaths might have been wrongful, which was the only secret being hidden by the State. According to Answers.com

In 2000, the accident reports were declassified and released, and it was found that the argument was fraudulent, and there was no secret information. The reports did, however, contain information about the poor state of condition of the aircraft itself, which would have been very compromising to the Air Force's case.

The state secrets doctrine becomes illegitimate when we loose trust in the Government (i.e., the executive branch). We have good cause to lack trust in the Government. Another example from the AP article follows:

a federal judge in Virginia last week ordered the government to give trial prosecutors, defense lawyers and her clerk security clearances to review classified material in a terrorism case. Defense lawyers say the material will show the government failed to turn over evidence obtained by illegally monitoring their client's communications, and they want a new trial. The government says the information is protected by the state secrets privilege.

In that example, we see evidence that attorney-client privilege is unraveling, while the state secrets privilege is tightening.

It's called the State Secrets "Privilege;" it's not a right, and the current government has lost it's privilege. We need to use the checks and balances, which partly define our democracy, and require judicial review of all specific Government claims of this privilege.

Sources:

Associated Press, Challenges brew over 'state secrets', Pamela Hess, November 26, 2007.

November 25, 2007

Amazing Ukulele

A friend told me that a great rendition of George Harrison's While My Guitar Gently Weeps was available on YouTube.... played on ukulele. I immediately envisioned a good voice accompanied by ukulele. Then he told me it was an instrumental piece played in Central Park, NYC.

The person who posted the YouTube version says he's not responsible for the production. He continues, "For that, you guys will have to thank Jason at ukkuleledisco.com who is the video's original producer. The original video can be found at jake's page on ukuleledisco.com, with other videos from Jake Shimabukuro."


Jake Shimabukuro: While My Guitar Gently Weeps

November 23, 2007

Challenge the Pentagon Claims

The Pentagon is claiming it is about to run out of money, and that it's the Democrat's fault. As noted in a November 21 OOIBC blog entry, Congressman John Murtha has called the Pentagon's Bluff.

Murtha has taken a risk by doing this. He needs the support of his colleagues in Congress. You can help by writing your Representative.

Here's what I wrote:

Your colleague, Rep. John Murtha, has taken a strong stand and needs your support. He has challenged the truthfulness of Pentagon claims that they are soon to run out of money, and that this is putting US troops in danger. The Pentagon is blaming the Democratic Congress.

The Pentagon claims should be challenged. Please contact the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on my behalf and ask them if it is possible to substantiate the Pentagon claims. Please coordinate your CBO request with the office of Rep. John Murtha.

By asking your representative to contact the CBO, and to coordinate with Murtha's Office, you initiate action and create buzz on Capitol Hill. If we're lucky, the CBO will validate Murtha's assertion that the Pentagon is exaggerating it's claims of running out of money.

Also...

Leave a voice mail or send a FAX to Rep. John Murtha. It's vital that he knows he has support on this.

(202) 225-2065 (fill his voice mail box over the holiday weekend)
(202) 225-5709 fax

November 21, 2007

Murtha Calling Pentagon's Bluff

US Representative John Murtha needs our support to sustain his call of the Pentagon's bluff. Bush has rejected Congress's military spending bill and is now "accus[ing] Democrats of failing to support soldiers and their families," according to the Los Angeles Times.

The White House is trotting out Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell, and even a retired Army general, Montgomery C. Meigs, who claims that bomb squads will suffer almost immediately if Congress does not relent.

Murtha says these guys are lying. We need to rally to his side so that he'll keep it up.

According to the LA Times, "Pentagon officials advanced plans to lay off 200,000 civilians because of budget shortfalls, prompting Democratic charges of fear-mongering." Murtha said,

They're scaring people. They're scaring the families of the troops.

Murtha, formerly known as a military hawk, asked reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference:

Because the Pentagon says it, you believe it? You believe what the Pentagon says? All the things that they have told us: 'Mission accomplished,' 'Al Qaeda connection,' 'weapons of mass destruction,' on and on and on. And you believe the Pentagon?

No. We don't believe the Pentagon. It's time to call their bluff. The only way to stop this war is the No Legislation Alternative; send no funding bill to Bush and there's no bill to veto.

Take Action:

Contact the LA Times authors and urge them to follow up with Representative John Murtha.

peter.spiegell@atimes.com

julian.barnes@latimes.com

Contact Murtha
and offer support on calling the Pentagon's bluff.
(202) 225-2065 (fill his voice mail box over the holiday weekend)
(202) 225-5709 fax

Contact other Media Outlets
to indicate your support of Murtha and urge them to reflect your sentiment in their coverage.

Meanwhile...

Spiegel and Barns report, "Congress passed a separate $471-billion Defense Department budget, but that measure did not include the war costs." Compare that with Clinton and Bush 41 defense budgets:

During the 1992 Presidential campaign, Bill Clinton denounced George Bush - quite properly - for failing to recognize that the Cold War was over. But Clinton's $263 billion Defense Department budget is a mere $10 billion lower than that projected by the Bush Administration, and retains just about all of the silly or sinister weapons boondoggles from the Reagan/Bush era. [2]

Not all of that increase can be blamed on inflation. And to think that Hilary and Barak want to increase the size of our military [3].

Source:

1. Los Angeles Times, Pentagon officials move ahead on layoff plans in anticipation of funds drying up. Democrats say they're exaggerating, Peter Spiegel and Julian E. Barnes, November 21, 2007

2. The Progressive, Cold War - the sequel - Clinton Defense budget - Editorial, May 1993.

3. The Hill, ’08 hopefuls would grow the military, Roxana Tiron, May 02, 2007.

November 19, 2007

Pakistan's Supreme Court Decision

Sound familiar?
A Supreme Court, hand-picked by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, swiftly dismissed legal challenges to his continued rule on Monday, opening the way for him to serve another five-year term — this time solely as a civilian president.

CNN reported, December 12, 2000:

the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in Saturday to stop the [Florida Supreme] court-ordered manual count of tens of thousands of presidential election ballots in Florida.

Seven of the nine Supreme Court justices were appointed by Republican presidents.

Justice Stevens wrote that "preventing the recount from being completed will inevitably cast a cloud on the legitimacy of the election." To say nothing of the legitimacy of the US Supreme Court and so-called democracy in the United States.

Sources:

CNN, Sharply divided high court stops Florida recount, December 10, 2000.

November 18, 2007

Sweetheart Insider Loans for Bush

Once upon a business digest...

President Bush has called for an end to some of the very insider transactions that he used as a director of Harken Energy in the late 1980s. Mr. Bush received two low-interest loans and then benefited from the company's relaxation of the terms of one loan. On Tuesday, he challenged directors to "put an end to all company loans to corporate officers."

Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, discounted suggestions that Mr. Bush was being hypocritical in calling for an end to loans of a kind he once received. Mr. Bartlett said that while such loans had been properly used in the past, they had recently been abused.

Yea, right. More details on the loans.

Bush a Phony Businessman:

In 1986, Bush's company, Spectrum 7, was on the brink of insolvency. Harken bought it, paying Bush and his partners roughly $2 million in Harken stock. Bush's name and connections were the main reasons Harken was willing to offer so much to purchase the otherwise ruined Spectrum 7, pay impressive director's and consultant's fees, and generous loans to someone who had yet to launch a successful business venture.

More serious questions surrounded Bush's 1990 sale of his Harken stock. Basically, Bush used the loans to buy Harken stock. Bush later sold the stock on inside information shortly before the company announced major losses. In 1991, the Security and Exchange Commission investigated Bush for fraud, including failure to report the stock sale, but... when you're the President's son, justice doesn't seem to apply the same as it would otherwise.

Harken pulls an Enron: Facing large end-of-year losses, Harken sold a chain of gas stations for $11 million to a group of investors, including Harken's chair and a director. Harken received $1 million, and loaned the rest to the investors. In an Enronian bit of accounting, Harken posted a $7.9 million current profit. Harken's executives obtained approval for the transaction from Harken's directors, among them Bush.

I've directly quoted extensively from The Truth About George . Com [2].

Sources:

1. New York Times, Business Digest, July 11, 2002.

2. TheTruthAbout George.com

November 17, 2007

Global Climate Change Accelerating

I'm debating with myself. Will George Bush go down in history as a war criminal or global climate change criminal? Perhaps both, but certainly the latter. People in the future might forget the wars, and Bush might escape prosecution on war crimes, but they will be living the global climate disaster.

When I read that scientists have concluded global warming is accelerating my thought was, "This means they are VERY certain about global warming." That comes from my physics background; detecting "acceleration" means you already know something about the velocity of the trend. By analogy, it's one thing to see a car is moving in a particular direction at some velocity, but it's more difficult to tell that it's picking up speed. Scientists have apparently confirmed the latter.

Bush's White House is just grasping the fact that the car is moving in the direction of climate change. I doubt they appreciate the fact that it's picking up speed.

The Associated Press writes, "Sharon Hays, a White House science official and head of the U.S. delegation, said the certainty of climate change was clearer now than when Bush rejected Kyoto." Hays said,
What's changed since 2001 is the scientific certainty that this is happening.... Back in 2001 the IPCC report said it is likely that humans were having an impact on the climate...

The AP adds, "but confidence in human responsibility had increased since then."

Yvo de Boer, the U.N.'s top climate change official, recently said,

What's new is the clarity of the signal, how clear the scientific message is ... "The politicians have no excuse not to act.

To toss in another physics concept, the trend in global warming has inertia, which means, even if the foot is eased, the car will simply drop to a constant velocity (we'll keep getting warmer); even if the foot is taken off the gas pedal and the car slows down, it will keep going in the same direction (getting warmer); even if the brakes are applied, it will keep going in the same direction (getting warmer). Inertia.

Actually, the point about inertia isn't new, but it is news in the corporate media. This was known in the mid-1990s when I was grad school. There's a physical reason for it. As the earth warms, and the northern regions locked in permafrost get soggy, the frozen organic matter is subject to bacteria decay and gives off methane, a greenhouse gas that's at least ten-times as efficient as carbon dioxide in trapping solar radiation in the earth's changing atmosphere. As the earth warms, and permafrost melts, more of this gas is released, thereby generating more gas, leading to more warming in a positive feedback process. Inertia

In theory, this process could spin out of control, that is, lead to the "runaway greenhouse effect." It's called "runaway" because it runs away from human control to do anything about it. It could lead to the total demise of the Earth.

The sick reality is that the Bush crony capitalists, like Blackwater World Wide, are positioning themselves to profit from this emerging disaster. I've not read Naomi Klein's recent book on disaster capitalism, but I'd have to guess it touches on this topic. If not, her paperback version of The Shock Doctrine should.

Sources:

Associated Press, UN panel gives dire warming forecast, ARTHUR MAX, November 17, 2007.

November 15, 2007

Writers Strike Information

Keep up with the writers guild strike at UnitedHollywood.blogspot.com

The success of future internet media reform is tied closely to the success of the writers.

November 13, 2007

Support = Cut Off Funding and Bring Our Troops Home

If I was one of the troops, I'd want the Democrats to take no funding action; no bill, no vote, no veto, no more support for Bush's Iraq occupation policy. That would place the ball back in Bush's court to either leave us in Iraq without resources (his choice and blame on him), or bring us home. The sooner that happens, the less likely I'd end up like Isaac Gallegos, a burned pawn in a rich man's war.

A friend reports that this picture first appeared in the San Antonio Express News last week. There is a multi-million dollar facility for wounded soldiers in San Antonio.
George Bush has been to San Antonio five times as President and he finally had the guts to come by and see the soldiers in rehab. In classic Dubya style, as the picture tells, he seems to find something really amusing. You will note the soldiers in the picture don't look too amused. This one picture says a 1000 words about that man and his presidency.

Link to All of the Pictures.

November 10, 2007

The Subprime Scam

I started writing about the "irrational exuberance" of the real estate market at the end of 2005 as it became clear that the debt feast was coming to an end.

The unraveling of the real estate market isn't funny for people who are stressing over the loss of their home. 2.8 million families are facing unaffordable mortgages that are predicted to go bust over the next 18 months. It's even less funny when one realizes that the inside crowd knew they were making fortunes off of a boom cycle that would surely bust after they'd made their riches. For those getting rich, the "exuberance" wasn't "irrational."

The following video uses humor to explain how the subprime scam worked. British comedians John Bird and John Fortune perform their skit entitled, "The Last Laugh," for the ITV South Bank Show.



Sources:

Credit to Gary North who posted a link to this video in his essay Two Kinds of Experts, November 8, 2007, LewRockwell.com.

November 9, 2007

Musharraf Must Go

Remember the people power movement in the Phillipines? Musharraf's authoritarian regime is on the verge of facing a similar uprising.

Musharraf's excuse of fighting terrorism doesn't explain why he is targeting democracy movement activists, lawyers and supreme court members for arrest in their homes and offices. Just like Bush and Cheney, the so-called "war on terrorism" is being used as a way to cover up the excesses of crony capitalism and control the non-elites. Pakistan's current situation is a foreshadow of what is to come to the US if we don't roll back the executive powers that Bush/Cheney are attempting to grab.

Musharraf risks facing the same surge of legitimate dissent as Ferdinand Marcos. Musharraf can't arrest his way into maintaining power. Neither can Bush and his ilk, like Giuliani.

Sources:

Associated Press, Bhutto under house detention in Pakistan, ZARAR KHAN, November 9, 2007.

November 7, 2007

Dollar Slipping From Position as Foreign Exchange Reserve

The word, "Yikes!" comes to mind:

The dollar swooned amid speculation that China will seek to diversify some of its foreign currency stockpiles beyond the greenback.

The 13-nation euro hit a fresh record against the dollar -- rising to $1.4729 -- before falling back [to $1.4554]. The dollar lost ground following word that a senior Chinese political figure said China should spread its $1.43 trillion foreign exchange reserves beyond the dollar into the euro and other strong currencies.

Sources:

Associated Press, Stocks Plunge With Dollar; Dow Down 360, Tim Paradis, November 7, 2007.

November 6, 2007

The "R" Word

Recession. We'll be lucky to simply have a recession.

Those who were old enough in the late 1970s and 80s remember Japan. So smart, selling high quality small cars while the US auto makers kept selling huge gas guzzlers. Japan had so much money pouring in that it was buying up US real estate and business icons.

You haven't heard a lot about Japan since then. That's because they've been in a "Japanese-style economic stagnation, which eventually evolved into a deflationary recession." Japan has been in this condition for well over a decade.

Before it's fall from grace, Japan had a trade surplus. Japan was, and remains, a power house auto maker. The US is neither. It has outsourced blue and white collar jobs that are not coming back, has a historic level of debt held by Japan, China, Saudi Arabia and other foreign countries, and is on the brink of expanding its military adventures beyond the Iraq quagmire into Iran. In other words, a "fall from grace" of historic proportions has been teed up for the United States. It reminds one of the saying, "The bigger they are, the harder they fall."

At a Reuters Finance Summit in New York, James Dunne, chief executive of Sandler O'Neil & Partners, said:

I think that the risk of a recession is greater than people realize.

Howard Lutnick, CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald company of 9/11 notoriety agreed:

I think there is a serious risk to the economy.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan thinks there is a one-in-three chance of a recession in the near future.

John Duffy, chairman and CEO of Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, gave a more colorful answer when asked where the U.S. economy is headed over the next year or so:

In the toilet.

Returning to the point I've raised above, the question is not whether we're going to have a recession, but how severe. Charles Peabody, partner at New York-based research firm Portales Partners LLC raised the reference to the "Japan-style" melt down and said:

We're moving into a recession, and over time -- the length of which is difficult to predict.

Sources:

Reuters, Wall Street firms see recession nearing, John Poirier, November 6, 2007.

November 5, 2007

Cool Sites from Down Under

If you're into Adventure, of the kind that can make your computer slog and slow to a near halt, you might check out First Fleet On. Williams/Nash, Pioneers Australia. Quirky site with interesting graphics, like the one below, but with a dash of something that made my browhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifser nearly freeze (it didn't go all the way to "Not Responding," but I did have to quit the browser twice.

Ric, if you get this message, you might want to turn off some of the "Whiz Bang" cool stuff on your site... it seems to be too much for the average computer to handle.


The site reminds me of Daniel's Seeking Utopia, another eye candy inspiration.

November 4, 2007

Unaffordable Mortgages

Andrew Jakabovics explains the mortgage crisis from the perspective of the home owner:
Many families who bought homes using an adjustable rate mortgage in the past several years face a Catch-22 situation highlighted by today’s home sales and price data: they face a rate reset with payments they can’t sustain, they will have difficulty refinancing their current mortgage because they now have negative equity, and they will be unable to sell quickly because of the glut of homes in the market.

This mess was predicted years ago. Back then, when debating whether or not there was a real estate bubble, I asked skeptics the following question, "How many times have you heard a friend or work colleague say, 'At today's prices I couldn't afford to buy the house I currently own.'" You didn't need higher math or economics to know we were facing a bubble.

In his October 24, 2007 piece on the Center for American Progress web site, Jakabovics looks over the horizon to see where this is going:

There are more than 2.8 million families with mortgages that reset in 2007 or 2008. The average monthly payment these loans will spike 37 percent when the reset happens. It is estimated that the new payments will cost the average family an additional $10,000 per year in mortgage costs.

At an average of 2.6 people per household, the 2.8 million families cited above translates to over 7 million people directly facing foreclosure in the next year or so, or about 2.4% of Americans. Many more millions of friends, relatives and work associates will be indirectly affected. Many marriages will fail and jobs will be lost in the process. Some will act out in violence and others will commit suicide during their ordeal. This is just another example of the disparity between the Main Street economy and Wall Street economy.

The Federal Reserve is pumping money into Wall Street, but little of that is trickling down to Main Street. Instead, the money is being used to offset the losses of large finanical institutions. These institutions are too large for the Fed to allow them to fail (read "monopolistic").

Sources:

Center for American Progress, Andrew Jakabovics on New Housing Numbers, October 24, 2007.

November 3, 2007

Citigroup and Citibank in Bailout Mode

Citigroup's crisis is a reflection of the United States and the world. Inside-crowd capitalism, allowed to run rampant by Republicrat policies, need an inside fix.

Imagine if you could take out a loan, buy stocks or other on-paper investments with the loan, later sell the stocks, pay off the loan and keep the profit. Better yet, imagine if you had a bank, could give yourself a loan, and do the same thing for yourself and "clients," for a fee in addition to the interest on the loan. What a way to game the system. Can't be legal, can it? Actually, this is what Citibank and Citigroup have been doing.

The Glass-Steagall Act, following the 1929 stock market crash, separated investment banks (Citigroup) and commercial banks (Citibank) making this type of thing illegal. In 1987, banking laws (Section 20) were changed to allow commercial banks to have subsidiaries that could offer investment services. This, in part, precipitated a massive consolidation of banks in the late 1990s, though the mergers were world wide.
Between 1990 and 1998, the number [of bank mergers] averaged about 510 per year compared with 345 per year over the 1980--89 period. As a result of this activity, the number of banks operating in the U.S. has declined about 30 percent since 1990. [LINK]

An indication of the severity of the home mortgage liquidity crisis we're in was a further bending of the rules for Citibank/group by federal regulators in August 2007. At the time, one had to wonder if that would be enough to bail out this scheme. Apparently it wasn't.

As an indication of the inside-crowd capitalism, we're reminded that Clinton-era Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin is the Citigroup executive committee chairman. Saudi Arabian Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is on the Citigroup executive committee as Citigroup's biggest individual shareholder. Where do people get off bashing Michael Moore for exposing Saudi influence over US policy? True conservatives know that Moore is speaking truth to power.

I'm reminded of the quote by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini:

Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.

Update:

From our libertarian friends, Gary North in particular, we hear the following:
The new CEO of Citigroup, America's largest bank, is a former Goldman Sachs co-chairman and a former Secretary of the Treasury, Robert Rubin. Goldman Sachs has made record profits in recent months. How? By selling short the subprime mortgage bond market.

Sources:

Associated Press, Report: Citigroup CEO Will Offer to Resign Sunday; Board Expected to Hold Emergency Meeting, November 2, 2007.

Two Kinds of Experts
, or "The CEO Formerly Known as Prince," Gary North, November 8, 2007, LewRockwell.com.

November 1, 2007

Jim Hightower at 2007 Fighting Bob Fest

If you're not familiar with Jim Hightower, you've gotta be. He was introduced to me as the guy who said, "The middle of the road is for yellow lines and dead armadillos." Unlike the wishy washy Democrats, Hightower says, "take sides." He's the kind of guy who, when talking about mixed emotions, quips, "Mixed emotions are when your sixteen year old daughter comes home late from the high school prom with a Gideon Bible under her arm."

He's a funny, irreverent Texan who is helping lead the charge to take back America. He's America's #1 Populist. If you take the time to hear him out, you'll be energized and inspired to join the fight for America's small-d democratic values.


Jim Hightower at the 2007 Fighting Bob Fest