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Naomi Wolf: Give Me Liberty (must-see video)
"Interview with Naomi Wolf author of “Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries” given October 4, 2008 on Mind Over Matters, KEXP 90.3 FM Seattle."
We must impeach this president NOW!
Video from http://www.youtube.com/user/talkingsticktv
More posts:
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/category/police-sta...
http://wordpress.com/tag/the-economy-sucks-and-or-colla... "Interview with Naomi Wolf author of “Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries” given October 4, 2008 on Mind Ove... more -
Betrayed by the Bailout: The Death of Democracy
Photo used with permission from http://stpaulrnc.shutterfly.com/20,
http://www.myspace.com/japhletba
by William Cox
featured writer
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/
http://www.thevoters.org/
October 3, 2008
On this date, October 3, 2008, the American people were betrayed by those whom they had elected to represent them. The members of Congress who voted for the Wall Street “bailout” violated their oath of office to “support and defend the Constitution” … “that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same” … “and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: …”
Without holding any meaningful hearings or public discussions and listening only to those most responsible for the economic disaster, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Congress abdicated its responsibility to the American people.
Locking out most members from all discussions, the congressional “leadership” emerged from their backrooms with legislation that grants Secretary Paulson the ability to spend at least $700 billion to “take such actions as [he] deems necessary” … ” to promote financial market stability.”
Entrusting tremendous political and financial power (and a ton of borrowed money that taxpayers will have to repay with interest) into Paulson’s sole discretion, members of Congress must have been aware that, prior to his cabinet appointment in 2006, Paulson worked for 32 years at Goldman Sacks, one of the Wall Street firms that stands to benefit greatly from his “actions.”
[...]
Many have already exercised their First Amendment right to petition their government for the redress of grievances. A majority of the members of Congress, the two presidential candidates, and the President paid no attention to the economic experts and the thousands and thousands of voters who protested the bailout and who begged them to rescue the people rather than the rich and powerful.
The people can always take to the streets in protest, and they probably will do so in growing numbers as the economic circumstances become more harsh.
The U.S. government is already planning for the eventuality – not with the helping hand of supplemental legislation to help with mortgages, jobs, shelter or food, but with the mailed fist of military suppression. The Army Times reports the current deployment within the United States “homeland” of an “on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies or disasters, including terrorist attacks.” The Army acknowledges that the Northern Command may call upon the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team to help with “civil unrest and crowd control.”
[...]
continued at http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2008/10/03/betrayed... Photo used with permission from http://stpaulrnc.shutterfly.com/20, http://www.myspace.com/japhletba by William Cox ... more -
Does the bailout bill mark the end of America as we know It?
Photo used with permission from http://www.myspace.com/japhletba
http://stpaulrnc.shutterfly.com/20
by Richard C. Cook
featured writer
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/
http://www.richardccook.com/
October 2, 2008
Tonight the Senate passed the $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill by a vote of 74-25. This follows the rejection of the bill by the House on Monday. In an MSNBC poll, 62 percent of Americans oppose the giveaway, but the lobbyists are doing everything possible to assure the rejection is overturned. According to Bob Borosage, co-director of The Campaign for America’s Future, House leaders “are bringing in the small business lobby and the banking lobby to buy the twelve Republican votes they need.”
The Senate took up the bill in order to pressure House members who voted against it to change their positions when it returns to a vote on the House floor on Friday. This procedure may be unconstitutional, because revenue bills must originate in the House, but there is no time or political will for anyone to mount a challenge on constitutional grounds. As another means of inducement—or blackmail—the bill includes the repeal of the wildly unjust alternative minimum tax.
Every reputable economist commenting on the bill opposes it, including NYU’s Nouriel Roubini, who says the plan is “totally flawed.”
“a disgrace: a bailout of reckless bankers, lenders, and investors that provides little direct debt relief to borrowers and financially stressed households and that will come at a very high cost to the US taxpayer.”
My own view is that the plan is worse than that: a crime; grand larceny on a monumental scale.
Here’s why: We know that the debacle started with homeowner defaults on subprime mortgages and that it has now spread to other types of mortgages as foreclosures spread. We know that the unhealthy use of subprime mortgages started during the Clinton administration, as did the bundling and sale of these mortgages into mortgage-backed securities sold in the financial markets.
What has not been reported is that the Bush administration turned these acts of reckless lending into a national program of mortgage fraud. Soon after George W. Bush became president in 2001, meetings at the White House between Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and administration officials became more frequent. According to mortgage industry insiders I have interviewed, direction soon began to come down from the banks to mortgage brokers to falsify borrower income information to allow them to qualify for loans that were otherwise out of reach.
[...]
Well, it is already happening. In the post-bubble era there will be no more economic engines for the American economy. A long term recession and depression are inevitable, and they are expected by those in the know. In fact, there has been a plan in the works for a very long time to bring down the U.S. economy, and it will be happening over the coming months.
This is why the government is also preparing to implement martial law, or something close to it, in case public unrest breaks out. We will likely also see a clampdown on free speech, the right to protest, and use of the internet. Federal facilities are being prepared all around the country to backstop state prisons and local jails that are already bursting at the seams.
[...]
continued at http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2008/10/02/does-the... Photo used with permission from http://www.myspace.com/japhletba http://stpaulrnc.shutterfly.com/20 by Richard C. Cook ... more -
Dennis Kucinich: Someone Sticks Up A Bank They Get A Jail Sentence!
video from http://www.youtube.com/user/CSPANJUNKIEdotORG
http://cspanjunkie.org/
October 02, 2008 C-SPAN
***
Action Alert:
From the Nader campaign
But for now, we’re back at it, trying to derail the $700 billion Mother of All Bailouts.
The bill will be voted on by the House of Representatives tomorrow.
So, here’s what we need you to do now.
Call Congress’ main switchboard number at 202.224.3121.
Ask for your member of Congress.
(If the main switchboard number is jammed, you can Google your member’s name and find a direct dial phone number. If your member of Congress voted against the first bailout bill, you can find their direct dial phone number on this spreadsheet our staff just cobbled together.)
pdf file: http://goto.votenader.org/t?r=1795&c=1459307&l=...
Tell the person who answers the phone to please take a message for your elected representative.
The message for your member of Congress is this:
Please vote against the bailout bill.
Call 202.224.3121.
Tell your member of Congress:
Please vote no on the bailout.
Let’s crank it up.
And get it done.
Onward to November
The Nader Team
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/tell-con...
http://wordpress.com/tag/the-economy-sucks-and-or-colla... video from http://www.youtube.com/user/CSPANJUNKIEdotORG http://cspanjunkie.org/ October 02, 2008 C-SPAN *** Action Alert: ... more -
Nader Blasts Corporate Bailout, Warns of Taxpayer Revolt
www.fogcityjournal.com
http://www.fogcityjournal.com/wordpress/2008/10/01/nade...
October 1, 2008
see also:
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2008/10/01/behind-t...
http://wordpress.com/tag/the-economy-sucks-and-or-colla... www.fogcityjournal.com http://www.fogcityjournal.com/wordpress/2008/10/01/nader-blasts-corporate-bailout-warns-of-taxpayer-revolt/ ... more -
Behind The Deregulatory Curtain by Ralph Nader
by Ralph Nader
Oct 1, 2008
http://www.nader.org/index.php?/archives/2063-Behind-Th...
The current finger pointing by the deregulation crowd in Congress and their ideological soul mates in the media reminds me of the 1939 film classic The Wizard of Oz. It is as though these spin masters want us to pay no attention to the government officials behind the deregulation curtain.
Indeed, the right-wing pundits and the revisionists in Congress are spending an inordinate amount of time falsely claiming that our nation’s current financial disaster stems from the Community Reinvestment Act, a law passed by Congress and signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. The primary purpose of this modest law is to require banks to report on where and to whom they are making loans. Community organizations have used the data produced as a result of this law to determine if banks were meeting their lending obligations in the minority and lower-income communities in which they do business. Congress passed this law because too many lenders were discriminating against minority borrowers. “Redlining” was the name given to the practice by banks of literally drawing a red line around minority areas and then proceeding to deny people within the red border home loans – even if they were otherwise qualified. The law has been in place for 30 years, but the right-wing fringe claims it somehow is responsible for predatory lending practices that date back just to the beginning of this decade.
Notice what these revisionists are not mentioning.
No “thank you” to former Senator Phil Gramm for pushing the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act.. This law was passed in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929 - and designed to separate banking from securities activities. In 1999, when Congress passed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and in so doing repealed Glass-Steagall the banks strayed into rough waters by looking for fast money from risky investments in securities and derivatives.
[...]
continued at above link by Ralph Nader Oct 1, 2008 http://www.nader.org/index.php?/archives/2063-Behind-The-Deregulatory-Curtain.html ... more -
Dennis Kucinich on The Rachel Maddow Show on the Bailout
video from http://www.youtube.com/user/VOTERSTHINKdotORG
http://cspanjunkie.org/
September 30, 2008 MSNBC Rachel Maddow Show
more on the economy:
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2008/09/29/rep-denn...
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2008/09/28/dennis-k...
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2008/09/30/they-jus...
http://wordpress.com/tag/the-economy-sucks-and-or-colla... video from http://www.youtube.com/user/VOTERSTHINKdotORG http://cspanjunkie.org/ September 30, 2008 MSNBC Rachel Maddow Show ... more -
Dennis Kucinich: Is this the U.S. Congress or the Board of Directors at Goldman Sa...
Video from http://www.youtube.com/user/CSPANJUNKIEdotORG
http://cspanjunkie.org/ September 28, 2008 C-SPAN
see also:
Rep Burgess: We Are Under Martial Law! As Declared By The Speaker Last Night!
http://current.com/items/89349365_rep_burgess_we_are_un...
more stories on the economy: http://wordpress.com/tag/the-economy-sucks-and-or-colla... Video from http://www.youtube.com/user/CSPANJUNKIEdotORG http://cspanjunkie.org/ September 28, 2008 C-SPAN see also: ... more -
Rep Burgess: We are under martial law! As declared by the speaker last night!
Video from http://www.youtube.com/user/CSPANJUNKIEdotORG
http://cspanjunkie.org/ September 28, 2008 C-SPAN
more stories on the economy: http://wordpress.com/tag/the-economy-sucks-and-or-colla... Video from http://www.youtube.com/user/CSPANJUNKIEdotORG http://cspanjunkie.org/ September 28, 2008 C-SPAN ... more -
The Real Costs of the Bailouts
Sudeep Reddy writes an informative article for the Wall Street Journal discussing the $1 trillion cost of recent bailouts.
"That sum [$700 billion] amounts to about a quarter of the U.S. government's annual spending. It's more than the Pentagon's annual budget, more than the nation pays out each year in Social Security benefits and more than the federal government's cost for Medicare and Medicaid.
Members of Congress then asked the questions that continue to be on many Americans' minds:
* How will the U.S. pay for this program and the previously announced aid to Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and American International Group?
(The Washington Mutual seizure doesn't add to the U.S. tab because the bulk of WaMu's operations are being taken over by J.P. Morgan Chase without cost to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.)
* And what will these efforts end up costing us all in taxes?
(Part of the answer is known today but other aspects -- including the ultimate tab for these rescue programs -- may not be clear for years or even decades.)
$1 Trillion Commitment
The total government commitment so far in its current and proposed bailouts: $1 trillion. But most of that money would give the government a claim on assets -- such as home mortgages and insurance operations -- that have actual value...
Biggest U.S. Bailout
In the rescue plan Congress was negotiating last week -- at $700 billion the biggest bailout in U.S. history -- a key goal is to remove much of those soured mortgage securities from banks' books, possibly through an auction system.
The government -- taxpayers, essentially -- would then hold those assets until they can be sold off in a more normal market once the economy and housing market recover.
A key point: The $700 billion would come from selling debt to the public, raising the total federal debt, which is approaching $10 trillion now.
But it's not direct government spending, which shows up as part of the U.S. budget. If the mortgage debt loses value over time, however, the U.S. would have to record those losses as spending. That could increase the budget deficit, which eventually must be offset by higher taxes or lower spending.
So taxpayers face the risk of losing some part of the $700 billion -- but could also turn a profit if the U.S. ends up selling those holdings for more than the purchase price...
With all these rescue efforts, even if the U.S. government profits after its expenses, there's still a broader unquantifiable cost: whether bailing out financial institutions and markets will create expectations for more taxpayer support down the road when Wall Street or big businesses get into trouble.
Government officials acknowledge that risk. But they say taxpayers are being helped in the long run because stronger financial markets will translate into more economic growth and higher tax revenue."
Full article at link... Sudeep Reddy writes an informative article for the Wall Street Journal discussing the $1 trillion cost of recent bailouts. ... more -
Ron Paul: You Can Not Place Value Into Assets That Are Worthless!
Video from http://www.youtube.com/user/VOTERSTHINKdotORG
http://cspanjunkie.org/
September 27, 2008 News Corp
More on Ron Paul: http://wordpress.com/tag/paul-ron-md/
http://wordpress.com/tag/the-economy-sucks-and-or-colla... Video from http://www.youtube.com/user/VOTERSTHINKdotORG http://cspanjunkie.org/ September 27, 2008 News Corp ... more -
Ralph Nader on Bill Maher and Sarah Palin? She’s a BIMBO! BIM-BO! and Chris Rock
Video from http://www.youtube.com/user/VOTERSTHINKdotCOM
http://cspanjunkie.org/
Plus 3 more videos from his show at the above link.
See also:
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2008/09/27/nader-wh...
http://wordpress.com/tag/nader-ralph/
If you missed the debate: http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2008/09/27/barack-o... Video from http://www.youtube.com/user/VOTERSTHINKdotCOM http://cspanjunkie.org/ ... more -
The Battle of Seattle
Stuart Townsend, Director/Writer/Producer of film "Battle in Seattle," discusses the riots that erupted around the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 in Seattle, Washington.
Battle in Seattle is In theaters now. Stuart Townsend, Director/Writer/Producer of film "Battle in Seattle," discusses the riots that erupted around the WTO Minis... more -
Sex, Drugs, and Big Oil: New Scandal Rocks D.C.
The Bush administration has long been accused of having too close a relationship with the oil industry. The investigative report was released a day after President Bush had a private lunch with Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, the man in charge of the agency at the heart of the scandal.
That was behind closed doors.
"The government employees who oversee offshore oil drilling are literally and figuratively in bed with big oil," said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.
The allegations of bad behavior involve about a dozen government employees in Denver and Washington - workers who sell U.S. mineral rights to oil companies, which is one of the government's biggest sources of revenue besides taxes.
They're supposed to be looking out for the taxpayers' interest. But according to the inspector general, they rigged contracts, and engaged in illegal moonlighting, drugs, sex and gift-taking from oil company representatives.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/10/cbsnews_inves... The Bush administration has long been accused of having too close a relationship with the oil industry. The investigative report was r... more -
Confessions of An Economic Hitman
This is a very important lecture to watch to help put the dots together.
http://www.economichitman.com/
"In this shocking memoir, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins tells of his own inner journey from willing servant of empire to impassioned advocate for the rights of oppressed people. Covertly recruited by the United States National Security Agency and on the payroll of an international consulting firm, he traveled the world—to Indonesia, Panama, Ecuador, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and other strategically important countries. His job was to implement policies that promoted the interests of the U.S. corporatocracy (a coalition of government, banks, and corporations) while professing to alleviate poverty—policies that alienated many nations and ultimately led to September 11 and growing anti-Americanism. Within a few weeks of its release , Confessions of an Economic Hit Man landed onThe New York Times Bestseller List, then 19 other bestseller lists including the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. The author has been interviewed repeatedly on national radio and television shows, including Amy Goodman's Democracy Now, CSPAN's Book TV, and PBS' Now with David Brancaccio. And now the book is being published in 9 languages around the world. According to John Perkins, "It is accomplishing an important objective in inspiring people to think and talk and to know that we can change the world." This is a very important lecture to watch to help put the dots together. http://www.economichitman.com/ ... more -
Five Major Non-Profit Organizations Participate in 5 Actions.com
Greenpeace, Global Exchange, Ocean Revolution, Rainforest Action Network and Organic Consumers are all part of 5Actions.com, a new hub for activisim and action.
Each non-profit sponsors an action that anyone, the expert activist or the uninitiated, can participate in and change the world... some of them are as simple as making S'MORES!
5 Actons motto is "You are about to change everything." What concerns you most: fair trade (chocolate), the oceans (plastic), energy (coal), trees (old growth forests), or food (GMOs)? You can do something about it.
The 5 Actions site is an initiative started by Stuart Townsend, the writer/director of Battle in Seattle, and implemented with the help of ANT-20 and Lori Wallach's Public Citizen.org.
I think this is a pretty cool idea. Why shouldn't non-profits band together to strengthen and support each other? What do you think of this? Is activism something that interests you? Do you think it's worth effort? Can simple actions change the world? Greenpeace, Global Exchange, Ocean Revolution, Rainforest Action Network and Organic Consumers are all part of 5Actions.com, a new hub... more -
No Wolf Whistles for Sarah Palin’s Compassion
www.copyright-free-photos.org.uk/wolves/02-grey-wolf.htm
by Walter Brasch
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Defibrillator usage increased last week after John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate and only a heartbeat from the presidency. But, shortly after most Republicans were shocked back to life they circled the wagons to declare she was the perfect choice. Apparently, the cure also included a dose of psychotropic drugs as well.
The pundits and commentators rallied beside Palin, even lying about how great her ghost-written acceptance speech was, apparently in the mistaken belief that they are being fair and balanced. Since Palin is the topic of everyone’s greatest love or deepest enmity, I won’t be writing about her life and most of her positions.
I won’t write about her lack of experience–or her outrageous statements that she has more experience than Barack Obama, and her delusion that she deserves any of Hillary Clinton’s 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling.
Although I would like to say something about her vicious attacks on community organizers, persons who sacrifice so much to help those with so little, I won’t. That’s for others to talk about.
[...]
Killing moose is apparently one of the reasons that as governor she encourages wolf hunts. Alaska is the only state that allows hunters to use helicopters not only to kill wolves but also to chase them down and then execute them while they lay exhausted from the chase. No hunter would ever consider this to be fair chase hunting.
Palin has even offered a $150 bounty for every wolf killed in Alaska. Kill every one of the 9,000 or so wolves in Alaska, and the taxpayers will reap a harvest of about $1.3 million. And, don’t worry about wolves being extinct in Alaska. There’s still another 5,000 or so in the Lower 48, most of which are protected by the Endangered Species Act.
Wolves are highly intelligent social animals, who are loyal to their mates, care for their children, and protective of all in their pack. Humans should emulate them rather than murder them.
But just this past May, Sarah Palin had no problem with her own Department of Fish and Game killing 14 orphaned wolf pups in their own dens, in violation of her state’s own law.
[...]
continued at link
see also:
http://wordpress.com/tag/palin-sarah/
Sarah Palin's speech writer exposed:
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2008/09/07/from-%e2...
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/party-wh...
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2008/09/04/the-dail...
http://current.com/items/89277017_hillarious www.copyright-free-photos.org.uk/wolves/02-grey-wolf.htm by Walter Brasch featured writer Dandelion Salad ... more -
Take a load off Fannie: bailout or nationalization for the mortgage giants?
“Take a load off Fanny, take a load for free;
“Take a load off Fanny, and (and) (and)
“You put the load right on me.”
– The Band, “The Weight,” 1968
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac own or guarantee nearly half the $12 trillion U.S. mortgage market. Not long ago, they were the darlings of Wall Street, ranking next to U.S. bonds as among the safest and most conservative investments in the world. They are called “government-sponsored enterprises” (GSEs), although they are entirely privately owned and specifically disclaim government backing on their prospectuses. The market has taken these disclaimers with a wink and a nod and has assumed that the GSEs are “too big to fail,” forcing the government to save them from their reckless investment schemes. Fannie and Freddie’s preferred shares have been considered so safe that banking regulators let banks count them in the capital required as a cushion against loan losses. This is now proving to be a serious problem, because both the common and preferred shares of the distressed duo are suddenly plunging. Between May 15 and August 25, Fannie’s common shares lost 77% of their value, while its preferred shares lost 58.8% in that short time. Freddie Mac’s preferred shares plunged even more, down 65.5%.1 That could be a disaster for many banks, which are loaded to the gills with these preferred shares. Banks already reeling from losses on mortgages and mortgage-backed securities are now being hit at the core, shrinking their capital base. Loss of bank capital works as leverage in reverse: at a capital requirement of 10%, $1 lost in capital wipes out $10 in loans.
Ironically, the recent plunge in Fannie and Freddie shares has been blamed on the bailout plan that was supposed to save them. In July, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson sought and was granted the authority to extend an unlimited credit line to the GSEs, which now have liabilities totaling about $5 trillion; and to capitalize them by buying their stock, effectively nationalizing them. At a July 15 hearing in Washington, Paulson assured a group of Senators that Congress probably would not have to go through with the plan. “If you have a bazooka in your pocket and people know it,” he said, “you probably won’t have to use it.” But bazookas can spook the very people they were supposed to reassure. After the plan was approved, foreign central banks slashed their Fannie and Freddie bond purchases by more than 25%, and shareholders rushed to dump their stock. On August 22, Moody’s downgraded Fannie and Freddie’s outstanding preferred stock by a full five notches, from A1 to Baa3 (or slightly above “junk”), and their Bank Financial Strength Ratings from B- to D+ (a one-half notch above D, something reserved for companies in default). Since the private sector isn’t buying, the Treasury is likely to wind up capitalizing the companies by buying new stock itself, seriously diluting the value of existing shares. A government bailout would be expected to wipe out the common shares, but it is becoming increasingly clear that the preferred stock is in jeopardy as well, jeopardizing the banks that hold it.
[...]
by Dr. Ellen Hodgson Brown
Featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Continued at the above link (it's a long post). “Take a load off Fanny, take a load for free; “Take a load off Fanny, and (and) (and) “You put the load right on me.” ... more -
From militarism to peace
Col. (Retd.) Ann Wright on responsible US withdrawal from Iraq and the prospects for a peaceful future.
Mary Ann Wright has been a career military woman, a State Department diplomat, and an influential spokesperson in the anti-war movement. She served 13 years in active duty, 16 years in the Army reserves, and another 16 years as a foreign diplomat in countries such as Nicaragua, Somalia, Uzbekistan, and Sierra Leone. She is coauthor with Susan Dixon of "Dissent: Voices of Conscience", the stories of those in the Bush administration and other governments who have had the courage to speak out. "Dissent" was published January 2008 by Koa Books. Col. (Retd.) Ann Wright on responsible US withdrawal from Iraq and the prospects for a peaceful future. ... more
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