BRAVO! For David Fiderer - he is DECONSTRUCTING the attempts by George Will and the Right-Wing Media - at the urging of John McCain, Sarah Palin, and the Republican Party - TO BLAME THE _ENTIRE_ US and world financial economic crisis on MINORITIES (BLACK AMERICANS) in general, and FANNIE MAE in particular.
We here at DemocraticNationUSA have _NO_ doubt that 'Democratic' Party leaders have been in the middle of the DEREGULATION agenda, and have not stood up forcefully enough to the climate of greed and lack of oversight on Wall St. and in the financial markets.
BUT TO BLAME THIS _ENTIRE_ ECONOMIC CRISIS on Fannie Mae is patently absurd - especially since THE REPUBLICAN PARTY WAS IN CONTROL of BOTH the White House AND CONGRESS from 2002 to 2006. As recently as JULY 2006, PRESIDENT Bush's OWN Secretary of Treasury QUASHED RUMORS that Fannie Mae needed a bailout, Treasury Secretary Paulson flatly asserting that there would be no bailout for Fannie Mae.
BUT - IF Sec. Paulson had to ACKNOWLEDGE the POTENTIAL need for a bailout at Fannie Mae, SHOULD HE NOT HAVE ADDRESSED a BUDDING CRISIS THERE long before September and October 2008?????
===================================
Wagging the Dog With Fannie Mae: Republicans Explain the Financial Crisis With Racist Mythology
David Fiderer
Posted October 9, 2008
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-fiderer/wagging-the-dog-with-fann_b_133388.html
"Is this video a lie?" wrote someone in response to my last piece on HuffPost.
No, "lie" is an inadequate description. I uploaded the video link, seen by two million people before me, and gasped at the artful perversion of history. It was like a post-millennium version of The Birth of a Nation. In that silent film classic, a pivotal scene is prefaced by the title card:
"AN HISTORICAL FACSIMILE of the State House of Representatives of South Carolina as it was in 1870."
Then we see black legislators in session, drinking whiskey, eating chicken, resting bare feet on their desks, and leering after white women. As J. Lapper wrote:
"This is also the first instance of "bait and switch" in the film. Prior to this, as noted above, [Director D.W.] Griffith used 'historical facsimiles' to give the film an air of historical accuracy...The subversive logic being, 'Earlier we saw facsimiles of Sherman's March, Lee's surrender and Lincoln's assassination. We know those are true. This must be too.'"
The updated "historical facsimile" from NakedEmperorNews.com, is just as dishonest and just as racially incendiary, since it has the semblance of reasonableness and reality. The hero at the Congressional hearings is the courtly southern gentleman, Republican Richard Baker, whose calls for regulatory oversight are drowned out by the shiftless uncouth blacks: Maxine Waters, Gregory Meeks, Lacy Clay, Artur Davis and Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines, aided by one white guy, Barney Frank.
[Update at 9:00 am October 10, 2008: Yesterday John McCain echoed this video by saying, "Democrat members of Congress fought against reform and it is a matter of record and hearings that they said everything was fine." Barney Frank was one of the "willing co-conspirators."]
To appreciate the mendacity of the video, you need to understand the history of what happened at Fannie Mae, and the causes of the current financial crisis. You'd be hard pressed to get that knowledge from mainstream media, whose piecemeal reporting comes across like blind men describing an elephant.
Into this void of understanding, Republicans have sought to absolve themselves of blame with a racist mythology that has gone viral. George Will, a chief proponent, neatly summarized the narrative on This Week last Sunday:
"In fact, much of the crisis we're in today is because the government set out to fiddle the market. That is, we had regulation in effect with legislation that would criminalize as racism and discrimination if you didn't lend to nonproductive borrowers. We had Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac existed to rig the housing market because the market would not have put people in homes they could not have afforded."
Will's narrative is about as accurate as D.W. Griffith's portrayal of Reconstruction. Fox News invokes it constantly. The ABC commentator invokes four different phenomena, none of which he understands:
1. The financial problems of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,
2. The mission of Fannie and Freddie,
3. The Community Reinvestment Act,
4. The greater mortgage crisis.
To refute the lie, we need to address these issues one at a time.
What does the video have to do with Fannie Mae's collapse? Nothing.
The best way to understand what happened is to start off with an understanding of when things happened. Therein lies the bait-and-switch. The financial problems at Fannie Mae began after these Congressional hearings, which were conducted a few weeks before the November 2004 elections. Fannie Mae's troubles were caused by Daniel Mudd, who reversed the policies of his predecessor, Franklin Raines, when he became CEO in December 2004. The New York Times laid it out very clearly:
"[B]y the time Mr. Mudd became Fannie's chief executive in 2004, his company was under siege. Competitors were snatching lucrative parts of its business. Congress was demanding that Mr. Mudd help steer more loans to low-income borrowers. Lenders were threatening to sell directly to Wall Street unless Fannie bought a bigger chunk of their riskiest loans.
"So Mr. Mudd made a fateful choice. Disregarding warnings from his managers that lenders were making too many loans that would never be repaid, he steered Fannie into more treacherous corners of the mortgage market, according to executives.
[...]
"Between 2005 and 2008, Fannie purchased or guaranteed at least $270 billion in loans to risky borrowers -- more than three times as much as in all its earlier years combined, according to company filings and industry data."
Democrats Supported Regulatory Oversight But Objected to a White House Power Grab
So if the October 2004 hearings did not address concerns associated with Fannie's risky mortgages, what was everyone talking about? Something quite different, though an ignoramus like George Will could easily conflate the two concepts. An Administration report had skewered Fannie for engaging in some dodgy accounting practices - relating to timing differences over the recognition of income - which had a slight impact on its overall financial metrics. Fannie and its management deserved to be criticized and increased regulatory oversight was absolutely appropriate. But what the House Democrats in the video were objecting to was the Administration's level of overkill. From how they saw things, the Bush Administration was using the pretext of regulatory oversight to accomplish a power grab that would compromise the mission of Fannie Mae. Here's what Barney Frank said at the time:
"I believe we were well on the way, the chairman and I and the staffs, to putting together a bill that would have enhanced the regulator and could have passed. What stopped progress on a new bill was the Bush administration's determination to go beyond safety and soundness and into provisions that would have restricted the housing function.
"To the extent that people played games [with accounting rules] to get bonuses, I'm outraged. People making that much money, let me put it this way, at the level of compensation of the top officers of Fannie Mae, they should get bonuses if they rush into a burning building a rescue a kid, maybe a cat, but not for doing their job. I think it is unseemly of them to be getting bonuses in the first place for doing what they're getting paid very well to do.
[...]
"To the extent that there was manipulation, that is very wrong and should be penalized. But I've seen nothing in here that suggests that the safety and soundness are at issue, and I think it serves us badly to raise safety and soundness as a kind of a general shibboleth, when it does not seem to be the issue."
Banks Governed by The Community Reinvestment Act Were Not The Ones Who Caused the Subprime Market to Expand
Daniel Gross in Slate attacks a lot of the same mythology discussed herein, focusing specifically on phony claims pertaining to the Community Reinvestment Act, which has been around for 30 years and never affected the soundness of the mortgage markets. The CRA never suggested that anyone compromise credit standards and it didn't apply to the mortgage lenders or investment banks who were pumping up subprime mortgages.
Hank Paulson: The mortgage crisis was caused by events that began during the run up to the 2004 election and ended soon after the Democrats took Congress in early 2007.
Again, to understand what happened, begin with understanding when things happened. In this regard, there's no secret. Everyone in financial services knows when and how things happened. Hank Paulson's report to the President reflected the common knowledge expressed by Treasury, the Fed, the SEC and the CFTC:
"The turmoil in financial markets clearly was triggered by a dramatic weakening of underwriting standards for US. subprime mortgages, beginning in late 2004 and extending into early 2007. "[Italics in original text.]
We see this in all the numbers. According to a survey by the New York Fed, about 77% of subprime mortgages and 85% of Alt-A mortgages were issued after 2004. What happened in 2004? Subprime mortgage securitizations were able to take off because, as Bloomberg reported, in August 2004 Moody's and Standard and Poor's loosened their standards for rating mortgage backed securities, which had traded in a highly liquid market for almost 20 years. The impact of the rating agencies' practices cannot be overstated. To date, banks have recognized about $500 billion in losses on subprime mortgages, the lion's share of which were packaged in securities originally rated AAA, i.e. presumed to always be salable at close to par.
In 2004 short term interest rates, reduced by Alan Greenspan to stimulate the economy going in to the election cycle, reached their lowest point, enabling certain buyers to get variable rate mortgages at teaser rates of 3% for the first two years.
Nowhere in Paulson's report will you find anything that suggests that the financial crisis was triggered by, as George Will put it, regulation that compelling lending to "non-productive borrowers" or by Fannie or Freddie, which had been around for decades, "rigging the housing market."
As a final aside, you may remember this little gem from the McCain campaign. It's an ad that claims Obama relied on economic advice from Franklin Raines, which wasn't actually true. What do you think McCain was getting at?
Friday, October 10, 2008
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Paul Craig Roberts expose of DEREGULATION leading to ECONOMIC CRISIS... Roberts DEFENDS REAGAN, points to CLINTON Admin. COMPLICITY in Wall St greed
Video supports author Paul Craig Roberts' contention that DEREGULATION was at the core of the US economic, credit, and banking crisis. Roberts make the explicit claim that the Republican "DEREGULATION!" mania came LONG AFTER President Reagan had left office, and when Republicans like PHIL GRAMM, JOHN McCAIN, DICK ARMEY, and Dick Cheney steered the Republican Party AWAY from the course set by Reagan.
===================================
AN EXCELLENT commentary by former REPUBLICAN REAGAN ADMINISTRATION official PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS outlines and details how THE _DEREGULATION MANIA_, propelled by Wall Street GREED led DIRECTLY to the current CREDIT, BANKING, and MORTGAGE CRISIS,
the current economic crisis being an EXACT, CARBON-COPY REPLAY of the 1980s SAVINGS & LOAN crisis that led directly to the Bush-1 DEFICITS, which led directly to the BUSH-1 RECESSION, which led to Iraq War US Army combat veteran Timmy McVeigh - involuntarily discharged from the Army and UNABLE TO FIND EMPLOYMENT in up-state New York after the war - to start listening to RIGHT-WING HATE RADIO as he moved to the MILITIA/gun-nut subculture, before he plotted and executed the BOMBING of the Oklahoma City government building with murderous results.
THOSE are the STAKES of THIS ECONOMIC CRISIS.
THIS economic crisis is a DIRECT RESULT of WALL Street bankers and brokers getting paid inflated commissions, from mortgage loans hyping INFLATED and OVER-VALUED property values. The "sub-prime" mortgage crisis is actually A SMALL PART of the "good" QUALIFYING home loans THAT WENT BUST - WASHINGTON MUTUAL _DID NOT_ write many "sub-prime" mortgages before it went into virtual bankruptcy and was taken over by the government.
====================================
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20955.htm
I remember when the deregulation of the financial sector began. One of the first inroads was the legislation, written by bankers, to permit national branch banking. George Champion, former chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, testified against it. In columns I argued that national branch banking would focus banks away from local business needs.
The deregulation of the financial sector was achieved by the Democratic Clinton Administration and by the current Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, with the acquiescence of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Paulson bailout saves his firm, Goldman Sachs. The Paulson bailout transfers the troubled financial instruments that the financial sector created from the books of the financial sector to the books of the taxpayers at the US Treasury.
This is all the bailout does. It rescues the guilty.
The Paulson bailout does not address the problem, which is the defaulting home mortgages.
The defaults will continue, because the economy is sinking into recession. Homeowners are losing their jobs, and homeowners are being hit with rising mortgage payments resulting from adjustable rate mortgages and escalator interest rate clauses in their mortgages that make homeowners unable to service their debt.
Shifting the troubled assets from the financial sectors’ books to the taxpayers’ books absolves the people who caused the problem from responsibility. As the economy declines and mortgage default rates rise, the US Treasury and the American taxpayers could end up with a $700 billion loss.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Excellent Opposition to the PELOSI-Bush-PAULSON Millionaires' BAILOUT BILL...
Below we will post some quick links in opposition to the PELOSI-Bush-PAULSON US Taxpayer financed BAILOUT of WALL ST. MILLIONAIRES bill.
The premise behind this bailout is simplicity itself: Wall Street (and its lobbyists and hired media whores, which is to say 90% of the US media) CRYING AT THE TOP of their voices,
"IF YOU DON'T GIVE US A TRILLION DOLLARS TODAY, WE WON'T LEND YOU A DIME TOMMORROW!"
This is of course PATENTLY ABSURD.
#1. Senator Bernie Sanders opposes the PELOSI-Paulson GIVE-AWAY bill...
#2. Rep. Marcy Kaptur opposes the Peloi-Paulson GIVE-AWAY BILL..
#3. Rep. DeFazio OPPOSES the Pelosi-Paulson give-away bill...
#4. Rep. Dennis Kucinich opposes the Paulson-PELOSI BAILOUT bill...
#5. Lou Dobbs was even more outspoken Weds. night in opposition to the Pelosi-Paulson Bailout bill than his guests Rep. Kaptur and DeFazio were.... http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/09/30/ldt.kaptur.defazio.intv.cnn
Speaker Pelosi IS REWARDING FAILURE and CORRUPTION at the expense of the very citizens who have been steered in to predatory loans, over-hyped refinancing, inflated property values, and soaring gas and energy prices, from those very Wall St. banks, brokers, and energy traders!
WHILE Wall St. and it's media whores like to trumpet "SUB-PRIME MORTGAGES!" as the cause of this crisis, that is simply NOT true: WaMu did not write many "subprime" mortgages, if any: MANY of WaMu's FORECLOSURES are LUXURY HOMES in GATED COMMUNITIES by people who PUT 10% DOWN, and had good jobs and incomes at the time. Homebuyers in a RISING MARKET thought that they were _insured_ against a credit nightmare, because if they lost their jobs or incomes, they could always sell the home in a rising market. IT WAS WHEN THE WHOLE MARKET turned, that some people became UPSIDE DOWN for hundreds of thousands of dollars on the value of their loans, and other people simply lost jobs or had income-killing medical crisis.
Wouldn't a BETTER _CREDIT RESTORATION PLAN_ be TO FIND THOSE BANKS AND LOAN companies THAT DID _NOT_ FAIL in the over-hyped markets - and guarantee them BILLION DOLLAR LINES OF government CREDIT so they could take up where the FAILED banks & lenders left off?
Institutions like LOCAL CO-OPS and CREDIT UNIONS ?
No, clearly NANCY PELOSI, the DEMOCRATIC "leaders" in the House and Senate, the American media, and the Republican Party are IN IN BED WITH the Wall St. Banking lords who are SO QUICK TO BRAG ABOUT THEIR PROFITS one year - and BEG, PLEAD, CAJOLE, and DEMAND BAILOUTS the next!
Goldman Sachs infamous, wallow in bonus billions, WHILE thousands of American homeowners are BEING EVICTED FROM THEIR HOMES! The $16 BILLION BONUS GREED CHRISTMAS of Dec. 2006 - http://abcnews.go.com/Business/FunMoney/story?id=2723990
Media Whores all but CENSOR REAL ECONOMIC DEBATE from coverage of the bailout plan. This follows the WHORE media's FAVORITE THEME - THE HORSE RACE! The "he said, she said" politics of a debate or bill... WITHOUT HARD ANALYSIS of the economics behind theat bill, in this case bailout.
As Josh Silver reports at HuffingtonPost.com -
"The American people are getting virtually no hard economic analysis about what the bailout would achieve or what the range of options are.
to the International Monetary Fund after studying 42 banking crises over the past 37 years. Their conclusion: Bailouts often do not work, they often result in more bad practices, and they distort economies by transferring wealth from taxpayers to bankers and their customers.
Why hasn't economist Dean Baker been invited onto a single television program in the past week? He is one of the guys who actually predicted the current crisis." >>
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/09/29/why_bail/
Baker simply posits that IF the NIGHTMARE presented by Pres. Bush and his Secretary of Goldman Sachs came to pass - IF there were an entire banking meltdown - then the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT would step in and restore the banks - AS IT JUST DID in the case of depositers making a run on WaMu and BREAKING that bank.
Speaker Pelosi leaves Vote Integrity whistleblowers - out to hang.
RawStory.com posts a credible report by Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane detailing YET MORE confirmation that DIEBOLD vote counting machines were used to ALTER THE TOTAL VOTE COUNT of several critical elections in 2002 and 2004. There are already dozens of stories which suggest that incumbent Georgia Senator Max Cleland - Democrat and Vietnam War triple-amputee - was ROBBED of his legitimate re-election vote majority, by HACKING of Deibold computerized voting machines and other methods. Both pre-election polls, and (post-election) exit polls had Senator Cleland winning the majority; but the official vote count had Cleland LOSING his election by the same margin that the exit polls indicated that he had won it.
That is, a high probability exists that vote-counting machines "FLIPPED" votes from the winning candidate to the losing candidate, STEALING votes from the popular vote winner, and thereby STEALING THE VOTES of thousands of Georgians who were opposed to the Republican candidate who actually lost the election, but won the office.
IN TWO YEARS AS SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE, SPEAKER PELOSI has IGNORED those persisent reports - INCLUDING SIGNED AFFADAVITS BY WHISTLEBLOWERS - that America's election process more closely resembles voting in a dictator regime, than the pride of "FREEDOM" and "liberty" that Americans have taken as their birth-right.
THE ONLY THING Speaker Pelosi is qualified to do, is GIVE BILLIONS OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS to the very financial ROBBER BARONS who REPEATED in the past 4 years, the ENRON ACCOUNING FRAUD of the 2002 years; and to LEGITIMIZE and WHITEWASH the criminal abuses of power of the Bush administration.
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2008/Cybersecurity_expert_raises_allegations_of_2004_0717.html
That is, a high probability exists that vote-counting machines "FLIPPED" votes from the winning candidate to the losing candidate, STEALING votes from the popular vote winner, and thereby STEALING THE VOTES of thousands of Georgians who were opposed to the Republican candidate who actually lost the election, but won the office.
IN TWO YEARS AS SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE, SPEAKER PELOSI has IGNORED those persisent reports - INCLUDING SIGNED AFFADAVITS BY WHISTLEBLOWERS - that America's election process more closely resembles voting in a dictator regime, than the pride of "FREEDOM" and "liberty" that Americans have taken as their birth-right.
THE ONLY THING Speaker Pelosi is qualified to do, is GIVE BILLIONS OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS to the very financial ROBBER BARONS who REPEATED in the past 4 years, the ENRON ACCOUNING FRAUD of the 2002 years; and to LEGITIMIZE and WHITEWASH the criminal abuses of power of the Bush administration.
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2008/Cybersecurity_expert_raises_allegations_of_2004_0717.html
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Harry Reid PATS HIMSELF ON THE BACK.. for COURAGEOUSLY GIVING AWAY _our_ Money...
Harry Reid is now qualified to guard a hen house, not with a double-barreled shotgun, two rolls of chicken wire, and good guard dog to help him.
He is this evening patting himself on the back for "COURAGEOUSLY" GIVING AWAY nearly a trillion dollars of money that isn't even his - Giving Away nearly A TRILLION DOLLARS of TAXPAYER MONEY!
AND THE WORST PART, the MOST DESPICABLE PART of Harry Reid's pathetic 'leadership' of the Democrat Senate, is not only can Reid NOT BEGIN TO ACCOUNT for the BILLIONS OF DOLLARS that have VANISHED from the US financial system... but Reid CAN'T EVEN GET THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION TO ADMIT THAT THEY HAVE SQUANDERED the nation's treasury these past 8 years, Senate Majority "Leader" CAN'T EVEN GET HENRY PAULSON to acknowledge that he has BEEN CLUELESS these past 2 years while heading the Dept. of Treasury.
He is this evening patting himself on the back for "COURAGEOUSLY" GIVING AWAY nearly a trillion dollars of money that isn't even his - Giving Away nearly A TRILLION DOLLARS of TAXPAYER MONEY!
AND THE WORST PART, the MOST DESPICABLE PART of Harry Reid's pathetic 'leadership' of the Democrat Senate, is not only can Reid NOT BEGIN TO ACCOUNT for the BILLIONS OF DOLLARS that have VANISHED from the US financial system... but Reid CAN'T EVEN GET THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION TO ADMIT THAT THEY HAVE SQUANDERED the nation's treasury these past 8 years, Senate Majority "Leader" CAN'T EVEN GET HENRY PAULSON to acknowledge that he has BEEN CLUELESS these past 2 years while heading the Dept. of Treasury.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
NANCY PELOSI, HAND IN YOUR GAVEL! "Neo-Con Nancy" is now "PANICKY NANCY"!!
"PANICKY-Nancy", formerly "NEO-CON WAR-MONGER Nancy" (see second video below) was just yesterday STAMPEDED into trying to GIVE GEORGE W. BUSH's Treasury Secretary (Hank Paulson, the man at the very CENTER of America's economic MELTDOWN these past 2 years, and a $432-million net-worth FLIM-FLAM artist as CEO of Wall Street's largets investment bank for 7 years before that) A BLANK CHECK for... for... for $700 billion dollars,
SEVEN_HUNDRED_BILLION DOLLARS of US taxpayer money,
to be ADMINISTERED by Mr. Paulson, President Bush's very crony SECRETARY of the LOOTED TREASURY and FAILED ECONOMY!
FOR SHAME, NANCY! IF _PANIC_ and being the world's #1 WAR FUNDER are your main claims to fame... PLEASE, on behalf of MILLIONS of Democratic voters WHO WANT AN OPPOSTION PARTY, PLEASE HAND IN YOUR GAVEL before you DISGRACE it any more!
A tale of two videos: In the first, REPRESENTATIVE MARCY KAPTUR, D-Ohio, explains the BARE FACTS of the CRIMINAL ROBBERY of Wall Street by ROBBER BARONS these past 8 years. SINCE Pizzo, Muolo, and Fricker wrote their seminal book, "INSIDE JOB: THE LOOTING OF AMERICA's Savings & Loans" back in 1989,
http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Job-Looting-Americas-Savings/dp/0070502307
and since Michael Waldman wrote "WHO ROBBED AMERICA? A Citizens Guide to the SAVINGS & LOAN SCANDAL" http://www.antiqbook.com/boox/end/BOOKS077239I.shtml
back in 1990, THERE IS NO EXCUSE for Democrat Party "leaders" TO PLAY IGNORANT, CLUELESS, and HELPLESS when the Bush-Cheney administration REPEATED _EVERY_ dirty, low-down, insider, ENRON-ACCOUNTING TRICK of the previous S&L CREDIT CRISIS.
Which is EXACTLY WHAT _WHINNY_ Nancy Pelosi, ostensibly Speaker of the House, does, as this you-tube video (below) captures! AFTER LECTURING Republicans on how the BUSH ADMINISTRATION and REPUBLICAN PARTY have brought America's ECONOMY TO THE BRINK OF DISASTER, Speaker Pelosi turns on a dime to her House Democratic Congress-men and women... and asks them to WRITE A BLANK CHECK to Mr. Bush's OWN CABINET CRONY, Treasury Secretary Paulson, who NOT ONLY OVERSAW THE ECONOMIC CRISIS UNFOLDING for the past 2 years as Treasury Secretary, but as investment banking Chief of Goldman Sachs (only THE BIGGEST investment banker on Wall St., which is to say the world), PAULSON was at the very center of EXACTLY the aggressive, hyped, over-inflated, bloated accounts and SECURITIZED, DERIVITIVE laden flim-flam portfolios.
SEVEN_HUNDRED_BILLION DOLLARS of US taxpayer money,
to be ADMINISTERED by Mr. Paulson, President Bush's very crony SECRETARY of the LOOTED TREASURY and FAILED ECONOMY!
FOR SHAME, NANCY! IF _PANIC_ and being the world's #1 WAR FUNDER are your main claims to fame... PLEASE, on behalf of MILLIONS of Democratic voters WHO WANT AN OPPOSTION PARTY, PLEASE HAND IN YOUR GAVEL before you DISGRACE it any more!
A tale of two videos: In the first, REPRESENTATIVE MARCY KAPTUR, D-Ohio, explains the BARE FACTS of the CRIMINAL ROBBERY of Wall Street by ROBBER BARONS these past 8 years. SINCE Pizzo, Muolo, and Fricker wrote their seminal book, "INSIDE JOB: THE LOOTING OF AMERICA's Savings & Loans" back in 1989,
http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Job-Looting-Americas-Savings/dp/0070502307
and since Michael Waldman wrote "WHO ROBBED AMERICA? A Citizens Guide to the SAVINGS & LOAN SCANDAL" http://www.antiqbook.com/boox/end/BOOKS077239I.shtml
back in 1990, THERE IS NO EXCUSE for Democrat Party "leaders" TO PLAY IGNORANT, CLUELESS, and HELPLESS when the Bush-Cheney administration REPEATED _EVERY_ dirty, low-down, insider, ENRON-ACCOUNTING TRICK of the previous S&L CREDIT CRISIS.
Which is EXACTLY WHAT _WHINNY_ Nancy Pelosi, ostensibly Speaker of the House, does, as this you-tube video (below) captures! AFTER LECTURING Republicans on how the BUSH ADMINISTRATION and REPUBLICAN PARTY have brought America's ECONOMY TO THE BRINK OF DISASTER, Speaker Pelosi turns on a dime to her House Democratic Congress-men and women... and asks them to WRITE A BLANK CHECK to Mr. Bush's OWN CABINET CRONY, Treasury Secretary Paulson, who NOT ONLY OVERSAW THE ECONOMIC CRISIS UNFOLDING for the past 2 years as Treasury Secretary, but as investment banking Chief of Goldman Sachs (only THE BIGGEST investment banker on Wall St., which is to say the world), PAULSON was at the very center of EXACTLY the aggressive, hyped, over-inflated, bloated accounts and SECURITIZED, DERIVITIVE laden flim-flam portfolios.
BAILOUTS? WHO NEEDS BAILOUTS! Bernake JUST WRITES a $630 BILLION check for Paulson's Treasury to print out...!
HOW pathetic and clueless is our Congress and the American public? (By now it is established beyond doubt that America's media is nothing but court courtiers, bimbos, sychophants, and professional liars.)
Well, while all the media attention was on Treasury Secretary Paulson (formerly chief of Goldman Sachs, recently Wall Street's biggest investment banking house) BEGGING Speaker of Congress Nancy Pelosi for a three-quarter TRILLION dollar BAILOUT of Paulson's crony buddies and bankers in Wall St. banking houses....
.... while all the attention was on Paulson and Pelosi, Fed. Chairman Ben Bernake merely __CREATED $630 BILLION__ in new dollars OUT OF THIN AIR, no muss, fuss, or drama, just dozens of ones & zeros on the Fed's balance sheet in overseas central banks.
HAD the Paulson/Congress Wall St. bailout gone through, yesterday would actually have seen TWO TRILLION DOLLARS of taxpayer-backed money flowing through Wall St. in the coming weeks.
Well - they got their $630 BILLION installment with no muss or fuss... so, there will be about ZERO chance that Congress will stop the SECOND INSTALLMENT GOING THROUGH, once Wall Street and their media minios TWISTS A FEW MORE ARMS OFF in the coming weeks.
===============================================
Fed Pumps Further $630 Billion Into Financial System (Update3)
By Scott Lanman and Craig Torres
Sept. 29, 2008
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a9MTZEgukPLY&refer=home
Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve will pump an additional $630 billion into the global financial system, flooding banks with cash to alleviate the worst banking crisis since the Great Depression.
The Fed increased its existing currency swaps with foreign central banks by $330 billion to $620 billion to make more dollars available worldwide. The Term Auction Facility, the Fed's emergency loan program, will expand by $300 billion to $450 billion. The European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan are among the participating authorities.
The Fed's expansion of liquidity, the biggest since credit markets seized up last year, came hours before the U.S. House of Representatives rejected a $700 billion bailout for the financial industry
Well, while all the media attention was on Treasury Secretary Paulson (formerly chief of Goldman Sachs, recently Wall Street's biggest investment banking house) BEGGING Speaker of Congress Nancy Pelosi for a three-quarter TRILLION dollar BAILOUT of Paulson's crony buddies and bankers in Wall St. banking houses....
.... while all the attention was on Paulson and Pelosi, Fed. Chairman Ben Bernake merely __CREATED $630 BILLION__ in new dollars OUT OF THIN AIR, no muss, fuss, or drama, just dozens of ones & zeros on the Fed's balance sheet in overseas central banks.
HAD the Paulson/Congress Wall St. bailout gone through, yesterday would actually have seen TWO TRILLION DOLLARS of taxpayer-backed money flowing through Wall St. in the coming weeks.
Well - they got their $630 BILLION installment with no muss or fuss... so, there will be about ZERO chance that Congress will stop the SECOND INSTALLMENT GOING THROUGH, once Wall Street and their media minios TWISTS A FEW MORE ARMS OFF in the coming weeks.
===============================================
Fed Pumps Further $630 Billion Into Financial System (Update3)
By Scott Lanman and Craig Torres
Sept. 29, 2008
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a9MTZEgukPLY&refer=home
Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve will pump an additional $630 billion into the global financial system, flooding banks with cash to alleviate the worst banking crisis since the Great Depression.
The Fed increased its existing currency swaps with foreign central banks by $330 billion to $620 billion to make more dollars available worldwide. The Term Auction Facility, the Fed's emergency loan program, will expand by $300 billion to $450 billion. The European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan are among the participating authorities.
The Fed's expansion of liquidity, the biggest since credit markets seized up last year, came hours before the U.S. House of Representatives rejected a $700 billion bailout for the financial industry
Monday, September 29, 2008
Wall St. lining up to get paws on BAILOUT LOOT - searching high & low to dump BAD DEBTS on Congress...
Big Financiers Start Lobbying for Wider Aid
By JENNY ANDERSON, VIKAS BAJAJ and LESLIE WAYNE
Published: September 21, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/business/22lobby.html
Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it.
Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages.
At the same time, investment firms were jockeying to oversee all the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books of financial institutions, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees.
Nobody wants to be left out of Treasury’s proposal to buy up bad assets of financial institutions.
By JENNY ANDERSON, VIKAS BAJAJ and LESLIE WAYNE
Published: September 21, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/business/22lobby.html
Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it.
Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages.
At the same time, investment firms were jockeying to oversee all the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books of financial institutions, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees.
Nobody wants to be left out of Treasury’s proposal to buy up bad assets of financial institutions.
Rep. Lynne Woolsey: President Bush and Treasury Secretary Paulson "HAVE BEEN WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING" BRAVO!, Rep. Woolsey...
We apologize here at DemNationUSA that we are back in the stone-age, and can not yet capture C-SPAN video and post it here on our web pages...
but we did catch THE bottom line of this American economic crisis, as spoken by California Rep. Lynn Woolsey, who just said live on C-SPAN, Monday Morning at 10 am,
"PRESIDENT BUSH and SECRETARY PAULSON HAVE BEEN WRONG about EVERYTHING."
To which we here at DemNationUSA might add, "and so too have Mr. Paulson's friends in the Banking and Credit industry - at Bear Stearns, at Lehman Brothers; at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, at AIG, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Chase and all throughout Wall St. and the financial markets - these "EXPERTS" HAVE BEEN WRONG ABOUT EVERY TURN, ABOUT EVERYTHING.
Their notion that "WEALTHY INVESTORS will INVEST IN THOSE PROJECTS THAT BEST IMPROVE America" is sheer absurdity. America desperately needs a HIGH SPEED RAIL LINK between Boston, New York, Philladelphia, Baltimore, and Washington DC. As it now stands, a flight from New York to Washington involves a bus, taxi, or subway ride to the airport; a long wait in a security line; then of course there is the GAS-GUZZLING flight itself, and finally there is the ride from the airport back to the destination city. WHY can't commuters bypass three of those steps, and simply go downtown to a high-speed rail hub, and catch ONE train to the destination city? At a distance of 204 miles, the NY-DC commute is THE IDEAL CANDIDATE for a HIGH SPEED RAIL LINK, but while Japan and Europe have high-speed rail lines that have been in operation for at least a decade, America - LABORING UNDER THE YOKE of "free market enterprise" Right-Wing dogma - CONTINUES TO OVERLOAD AIR ROUTES in this busy corridor... and continues to pour millions of gallons of fuel out of jet engine exhaust pipes moving no more than 200 odd passengers per flight.
This bailout bill as Speaker Pelosi "negotiated" with Treasury Secretary Paulson GIVES THE BUSH WHITE HOUSE ALMOST EVERYTHING THEY ASKED FOR - BILLIONS of NEW taxpayer DEBT, on top of the $11 TRILLION Dollars in EXISTING national deficits, most of them run up in the past 8 years by the Bush - Paulson - Cheney administration's oversight of the American economy!
but we did catch THE bottom line of this American economic crisis, as spoken by California Rep. Lynn Woolsey, who just said live on C-SPAN, Monday Morning at 10 am,
"PRESIDENT BUSH and SECRETARY PAULSON HAVE BEEN WRONG about EVERYTHING."
To which we here at DemNationUSA might add, "and so too have Mr. Paulson's friends in the Banking and Credit industry - at Bear Stearns, at Lehman Brothers; at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, at AIG, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Chase and all throughout Wall St. and the financial markets - these "EXPERTS" HAVE BEEN WRONG ABOUT EVERY TURN, ABOUT EVERYTHING.
Their notion that "WEALTHY INVESTORS will INVEST IN THOSE PROJECTS THAT BEST IMPROVE America" is sheer absurdity. America desperately needs a HIGH SPEED RAIL LINK between Boston, New York, Philladelphia, Baltimore, and Washington DC. As it now stands, a flight from New York to Washington involves a bus, taxi, or subway ride to the airport; a long wait in a security line; then of course there is the GAS-GUZZLING flight itself, and finally there is the ride from the airport back to the destination city. WHY can't commuters bypass three of those steps, and simply go downtown to a high-speed rail hub, and catch ONE train to the destination city? At a distance of 204 miles, the NY-DC commute is THE IDEAL CANDIDATE for a HIGH SPEED RAIL LINK, but while Japan and Europe have high-speed rail lines that have been in operation for at least a decade, America - LABORING UNDER THE YOKE of "free market enterprise" Right-Wing dogma - CONTINUES TO OVERLOAD AIR ROUTES in this busy corridor... and continues to pour millions of gallons of fuel out of jet engine exhaust pipes moving no more than 200 odd passengers per flight.
This bailout bill as Speaker Pelosi "negotiated" with Treasury Secretary Paulson GIVES THE BUSH WHITE HOUSE ALMOST EVERYTHING THEY ASKED FOR - BILLIONS of NEW taxpayer DEBT, on top of the $11 TRILLION Dollars in EXISTING national deficits, most of them run up in the past 8 years by the Bush - Paulson - Cheney administration's oversight of the American economy!
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Treasury Sec. Paulson reportedly "begged on his knees" for Pelosi to grant $700 BILLION taxpayer bailout of Paulson's Goldman Sachs cronies & Wall St
DESPITE the melodrama, SPEAKER of the House NANCY PELOSI is TOTALLY INCOMPETENT at PUTTING THE BLAME for AMERICA's $11 trillion ELEVEN TRILLION DOLLARS of DEFICITS squarely where it belongs: at the desk of the President GEORGE W. BUSH and Vice President DICK CHENEY administration!
Treasury Sec. Paulson reportedly "begged on his knees" for Speaker of House Nancy Pelosi to grant the Treasury's request for a $700 BILLION _taxpayer bailout_ of Paulson's Goldman Sachs cronies, his many other Wall St. buddies, and, quite possibly, the entire American economy.... all of which have been led to the brink of TOTAL DISASTER after 8 years, EIGHT LONG YEARS of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush's INSANE ECONOMIC POLICY of __MAKING AMERICA MORE DEPENDENT - now 100% DEPENDENT! - on FOREIGN OIL and FOREIGN CREDIT__.
NANCY PELOSI, Friday, Sep. 26, 2008. House Speaker Pelosi referring to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who reportedly got down on his knees to beg Pelosi to help speed along the government bailout package
"If money isn't loosened up, this sucker could go down."
President GEORGE W. BUSH,
expressing dismay as he watched negotiations over the $700 billion bailout package fall apart
Treasury Sec. Paulson reportedly "begged on his knees" for Speaker of House Nancy Pelosi to grant the Treasury's request for a $700 BILLION _taxpayer bailout_ of Paulson's Goldman Sachs cronies, his many other Wall St. buddies, and, quite possibly, the entire American economy.... all of which have been led to the brink of TOTAL DISASTER after 8 years, EIGHT LONG YEARS of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush's INSANE ECONOMIC POLICY of __MAKING AMERICA MORE DEPENDENT - now 100% DEPENDENT! - on FOREIGN OIL and FOREIGN CREDIT__.
"I didn't know you were Catholic."
NANCY PELOSI, Friday, Sep. 26, 2008. House Speaker Pelosi referring to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who reportedly got down on his knees to beg Pelosi to help speed along the government bailout package
"If money isn't loosened up, this sucker could go down."
President GEORGE W. BUSH,
expressing dismay as he watched negotiations over the $700 billion bailout package fall apart
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Pelosi, Reid, Dodd, DC Democrats CAPITULATE to HANK PAULSON - the Treasury Secretary & former Goldman Sachs CEO WHO GOT US IN THIS MESS!
NEW! - LA Times columnist Rosa Brooks REMINDS us that... FOUR out of the FIVE KEATING 5 Senators WERE DEMOCRATS!
YET AGAIN, the DC Democrats prove that they are abject slaves and servants to the nation's corporate media, which corporate media is of course directed and controlled by the Republican administration doling out BILLIONS of US taxpayer dollars to their friends and cronies in corporate America... and coming down like a ton of bricks on those who oppose the radical right Republican coporate kleptocracy agenda.
THE FIRST THING the DC Democrats SHOULD have asked is,
Instead, the DC DEMOCRATS - just about EVERY ONE besides Dennis Kucinich - are STANDING IN LINE TO KISS Secretary Paulson's keister, and HAND HIM BILLIONS upon BILLIONS upon BILLIONS of US Taxpayer dollars - with ONLY THE THINEST VENEER of "oversight" and accountability... but how far can even _extensive_ oversight go, WHEN YOU HAND A WALL St. EXECUTIVE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to do with as he sees fit???
====================================
DEMOCRATS CAVE IN AGAIN:
'Fundamental Agreement' Made On Bailout Package by Democrats in Congress
Sen. Chris Dodd did not provide details on the major areas of contention that have been under negotiation.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Congressional members responsible for crafting the $700 billion Wall Street bailout said Thursday they reached agreement on principles of the rescue. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, said the bailout package would be presented to Treasury Department officials and party caucuses to "go over these principles which we've agreed on among ourselves."
While saying Democratic and Republican leaders "reached a fundamental agreement" on principles, Dodd would not reveal the details during a news conference after a bicameral, bipartisan meeting.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-brooks25-2008sep25,0,5467109.column
<<....Keating went to prison, and McCain's Senate career almost ended. Together with the rest of the so-called Keating Five -- Sens. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), John Glenn (D-Ohio), Don Riegle (D-Mich.) and Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.), all of whom had also accepted large donations from Keating and intervened on his behalf -- McCain was investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee and ultimately reprimanded for "poor judgment." >>
YET AGAIN, the DC Democrats prove that they are abject slaves and servants to the nation's corporate media, which corporate media is of course directed and controlled by the Republican administration doling out BILLIONS of US taxpayer dollars to their friends and cronies in corporate America... and coming down like a ton of bricks on those who oppose the radical right Republican coporate kleptocracy agenda.
THE FIRST THING the DC Democrats SHOULD have asked is,
"IF Treasury Secretary Paulson, and the executives of Goldman Sachs, and
and
the other executives of Wall St. INVESTMENT BANKING (i..e. legalized gambling)
houses ARE SO EXPERT, WHY did they NOT FORSEE THIS CRISIS COMING YEARS AGO?"
"...why did they not do ANYTHING until now to forestall or reduce the disastrous impact of this Credit Crisis?"
Instead, the DC DEMOCRATS - just about EVERY ONE besides Dennis Kucinich - are STANDING IN LINE TO KISS Secretary Paulson's keister, and HAND HIM BILLIONS upon BILLIONS upon BILLIONS of US Taxpayer dollars - with ONLY THE THINEST VENEER of "oversight" and accountability... but how far can even _extensive_ oversight go, WHEN YOU HAND A WALL St. EXECUTIVE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to do with as he sees fit???
====================================
DEMOCRATS CAVE IN AGAIN:
'Fundamental Agreement' Made On Bailout Package by Democrats in Congress
Sen. Chris Dodd did not provide details on the major areas of contention that have been under negotiation.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Congressional members responsible for crafting the $700 billion Wall Street bailout said Thursday they reached agreement on principles of the rescue. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, said the bailout package would be presented to Treasury Department officials and party caucuses to "go over these principles which we've agreed on among ourselves."
While saying Democratic and Republican leaders "reached a fundamental agreement" on principles, Dodd would not reveal the details during a news conference after a bicameral, bipartisan meeting.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
The Paulson (SecTreasury, former Goldman-Sachs) BAILOUT PLAN includes BILLIONS for WORTHLESS assets, NO provisions for John & Jane taxpayer....
FINANCIAL MELTDOWN/Bailouts: CALLING PAULSON's BLUFF
The AIG/Wall St. financials BAILOUT plan, as conceived and put forward by former Goldman-Sachs trader and current US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, includes BILLIONS of US taxpayer dollars to buy WORTHLESS stocks out of the accounts of Wall St. brokers and traders.... SOCIALIZED BAILOUTS for the "Big Boys' (multi-millionaires) of Wall St. and worldwide financial markets, with NO protections for US taxpayers, much less distressed home owners who see life savings vanish in market DEVALUATION and economic distress.
Calling Paulson's Bluff
Robert Kuttner
Posted September 21, 2008
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/calling-paulsons-bluff_b_128075.html
Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson spent the past two weeks playing a game of chicken with firms like Lehman Brothers and A.I.G. Now he is playing even higher-stakes chicken with Congress and the economy.
Paulson's storyline is that the credit markets are frozen, and unless Congress passes a "clean bill" -- his way -- disaster lies ahead. He spent a busy Sunday morning on the talk shows ducking questions on what would happen if Congress didn't act -- and what might still happen if it did.
One senior Congressional Democrat told me, "They have a gun to our heads." Paulson behaved as if he held all the cards, but in fact the Democrats have a lot of cards, too. The question is whether they have the nerve to challenge major flaws in Paulson's plan as a condition of enacting it.
Paulson also faces serious defections in Republican ranks, with several key senators and congressmen resisting a bailout of this scale. Sen. Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, speaking on CBS's Face the Nation, flatly blamed the crisis on greed and deregulation, and questioned the terms of Paulson's plan.
Paulson's bill would give him carte blanche to spend up to $700 billion over the next 24 months to buy toxic securities from financial firms. This presumably would "unclog" capital markets, the financial economy would begin functioning normally again, and then the government would recoup what it could.
The plan is outrageous on several levels. It demands nothing from these firms in return. It holds the Treasury Secretary accountable to no one. And it extends the most generous terms to Wall Street while offering nothing to Main Street.
House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, speaking Sunday morning on "Face the Nation," gave the flavor of what Democrats will demand, if they hang tough: An economic stimulus to go with the Wall Street bailout; more refinancing help for borrowers; and some limits on windfall gains to corporate executives. These provisions would improve the bill, and Democrats would win either way: if they were included, more help would be on the way to working families. If they lost, and the bill passed without these provisions, it would make crystal clear the difference between the parties.
Ideally, the Democrats should go even further.
The bailout bill should be explicitly tied to a commitment to re-regulate all types of financial institutions. The bill's authority should expire after six months, so that when the next Congress re-authorizes any bailout authority it would be combined with tough comprehensive regulation.
Any private company that sells assets to the Treasury should be subjected to stringent limits on executive windfalls.
The government should get an equity position in the firms it helps, proportional to the help that it gives.
Treasury should be authorized and directed to take controlling interest in some firms, and take over their management, if of course that provides the greatest potential savings to taxpayers. For example, when an FDIC-insured bank goes broke, the FDIC either merges it into a healthy bank, or takes it over and runs it for a time while it pays off depositors, to make sure that it is run properly. It does not just bail out the incumbent management that created, and profited from, the mess.
There should be a recapture provision, so that if firms end up profiting from this bailout, the government gets its money back.
Part of the $700 billion should be for mortgage refinancing, and authority for cities and towns to acquire foreclosed properties and put buyers and renters back in them.
The package should include at least $200 billion of new economic stimulus, in the form of aid to states, cities, and towns, for infrastructure rebuilding, more generous unemployment and retraining benefits, and green investment.
The Democratic leadership should force Republicans to take votes on provisions like these. The early signs were that they would be pushing hard for a two or three.
Yesterday, a key lobbyist for the financial services roundtable, Scott Talbott, warned, "We're opposed to adding provisions that will affect [or] undermine the deal substantively," The Roundtable's members are banks, securities firms and insurance companies, the prime beneficiaries of Paulson's proposed bailout. He warned that any effort to attach other provisions would be a deal breaker.
But excuse me, it is the financial industry that is coming hat-in-hand to the government, not vice versa. The industry has no leverage here, except to the extent that Congress lets itself be intimidated. Paulson is insisting on a "clean" bill, but as Barney Frank put it, helping Main Street as well as Wall street does not dirty the bill.
The two precedents for large scale bailouts, Franklin Roosevelt's Reconstruction Finance Corporation, and the Resolution Trust Corporation of the 1980s, gave government much more authority over the firms that it bailed out.
Paulson is playing this more as the investment banker that he used to be, than as a steward of the public interest. This is a dubious deal, with all the gain going to Wall Street and all the risk going to taxpayers. Congress should not be intimated by his threats to hold his breath and turn blue of he doesn't get his way.
---Robert Kuttner, co-editor of The American Prospect and Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos, has just published Obama's Challenge: America's Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency (Chelsea Green). He is blogging daily about the election and the economic crisis at http://www.obamaschallenge.com%3ewww.obamaschallenge.com/.
stumble digg reddit del.ico.us news trust
huffington_post:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/calling-paulsons-bluff_b_128075.html
mixx.com
The AIG/Wall St. financials BAILOUT plan, as conceived and put forward by former Goldman-Sachs trader and current US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, includes BILLIONS of US taxpayer dollars to buy WORTHLESS stocks out of the accounts of Wall St. brokers and traders.... SOCIALIZED BAILOUTS for the "Big Boys' (multi-millionaires) of Wall St. and worldwide financial markets, with NO protections for US taxpayers, much less distressed home owners who see life savings vanish in market DEVALUATION and economic distress.
Calling Paulson's Bluff
Robert Kuttner
Posted September 21, 2008
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/calling-paulsons-bluff_b_128075.html
Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson spent the past two weeks playing a game of chicken with firms like Lehman Brothers and A.I.G. Now he is playing even higher-stakes chicken with Congress and the economy.
Paulson's storyline is that the credit markets are frozen, and unless Congress passes a "clean bill" -- his way -- disaster lies ahead. He spent a busy Sunday morning on the talk shows ducking questions on what would happen if Congress didn't act -- and what might still happen if it did.
One senior Congressional Democrat told me, "They have a gun to our heads." Paulson behaved as if he held all the cards, but in fact the Democrats have a lot of cards, too. The question is whether they have the nerve to challenge major flaws in Paulson's plan as a condition of enacting it.
Paulson also faces serious defections in Republican ranks, with several key senators and congressmen resisting a bailout of this scale. Sen. Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, speaking on CBS's Face the Nation, flatly blamed the crisis on greed and deregulation, and questioned the terms of Paulson's plan.
Paulson's bill would give him carte blanche to spend up to $700 billion over the next 24 months to buy toxic securities from financial firms. This presumably would "unclog" capital markets, the financial economy would begin functioning normally again, and then the government would recoup what it could.
The plan is outrageous on several levels. It demands nothing from these firms in return. It holds the Treasury Secretary accountable to no one. And it extends the most generous terms to Wall Street while offering nothing to Main Street.
House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, speaking Sunday morning on "Face the Nation," gave the flavor of what Democrats will demand, if they hang tough: An economic stimulus to go with the Wall Street bailout; more refinancing help for borrowers; and some limits on windfall gains to corporate executives. These provisions would improve the bill, and Democrats would win either way: if they were included, more help would be on the way to working families. If they lost, and the bill passed without these provisions, it would make crystal clear the difference between the parties.
Ideally, the Democrats should go even further.
The bailout bill should be explicitly tied to a commitment to re-regulate all types of financial institutions. The bill's authority should expire after six months, so that when the next Congress re-authorizes any bailout authority it would be combined with tough comprehensive regulation.
Any private company that sells assets to the Treasury should be subjected to stringent limits on executive windfalls.
The government should get an equity position in the firms it helps, proportional to the help that it gives.
Treasury should be authorized and directed to take controlling interest in some firms, and take over their management, if of course that provides the greatest potential savings to taxpayers. For example, when an FDIC-insured bank goes broke, the FDIC either merges it into a healthy bank, or takes it over and runs it for a time while it pays off depositors, to make sure that it is run properly. It does not just bail out the incumbent management that created, and profited from, the mess.
There should be a recapture provision, so that if firms end up profiting from this bailout, the government gets its money back.
Part of the $700 billion should be for mortgage refinancing, and authority for cities and towns to acquire foreclosed properties and put buyers and renters back in them.
The package should include at least $200 billion of new economic stimulus, in the form of aid to states, cities, and towns, for infrastructure rebuilding, more generous unemployment and retraining benefits, and green investment.
The Democratic leadership should force Republicans to take votes on provisions like these. The early signs were that they would be pushing hard for a two or three.
Yesterday, a key lobbyist for the financial services roundtable, Scott Talbott, warned, "We're opposed to adding provisions that will affect [or] undermine the deal substantively," The Roundtable's members are banks, securities firms and insurance companies, the prime beneficiaries of Paulson's proposed bailout. He warned that any effort to attach other provisions would be a deal breaker.
But excuse me, it is the financial industry that is coming hat-in-hand to the government, not vice versa. The industry has no leverage here, except to the extent that Congress lets itself be intimidated. Paulson is insisting on a "clean" bill, but as Barney Frank put it, helping Main Street as well as Wall street does not dirty the bill.
The two precedents for large scale bailouts, Franklin Roosevelt's Reconstruction Finance Corporation, and the Resolution Trust Corporation of the 1980s, gave government much more authority over the firms that it bailed out.
Paulson is playing this more as the investment banker that he used to be, than as a steward of the public interest. This is a dubious deal, with all the gain going to Wall Street and all the risk going to taxpayers. Congress should not be intimated by his threats to hold his breath and turn blue of he doesn't get his way.
---Robert Kuttner, co-editor of The American Prospect and Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos, has just published Obama's Challenge: America's Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency (Chelsea Green). He is blogging daily about the election and the economic crisis at http://www.obamaschallenge.com%3ewww.obamaschallenge.com/.
stumble digg reddit del.ico.us news trust
huffington_post:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/calling-paulsons-bluff_b_128075.html
mixx.com
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
SOCIALISM - US govt. 80% buyout - SAVES AIG, prevents ALL of WALL St. FROM CRASHING, WSJ cheers...
Well, the impossible, yet inevitable, has finally happened: The WALL Street JOURNAL, High Holy of Holies of Right-Wing "free market" "private capitalism" dogma and reactionary Republican PROPAGANDA, actually CHEERS as the US GOVERNMENT STEPS IN, to buy-out an _80% stake_ in AIG Insurance company, the world's largest business insurer.
THIS _SOCIALISM, GOVERNMENT-BUYOUT, comes of course, just one week after the PREVIOUS HUGE GOVERNMENT BUYOUT/BAILOUT, the FANNIE-Mae/Freddie-Mac takeover, reported in our previous post, below.
Remember, just two Christmas seasons ago, GOLDMAN SACHS executives WERE CROWING that G-S was distributing several BILLION DOLLARS in BONUSES.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/FunMoney/story?id=2723990
Yet today, Wall St. Supermen/Wizards Goldman-Sachs... and ALL the other banks and brokers - are sitting on the sidelines, HOPING and PRAYING for fed, GOVERNMENT BAILOUTS, buyouts, and SOCIALISM TAKEOVERS, to prop up the last rotting remnants of an entire decade of Bush-Cheney-GOP rampant greed and crony corruption on Wall Street, masking as "free market capitalism."
Speaking of, here are some of GORDON GEKKO's infamous quotes "GREED IS GOOD!" quotes,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094291/quotes
from the 1987 movie "Wall St." which movie portrayed the previous BUSH (1) ECONOMIC CRISIS, and "Bluestar Airlines" of the movie was based on Bush Sr. ALLOWING Texas Air Chairman FRANK LORENZO to do a monster LEVEREGED BUY-OUT of EASTERN AIRLINES, which company (Eastern) Lorenzo proceded to BLEED DRY from the inside out. When Eastern could no longer fight off bankruptcy, and finally declared bankruptcy, most Eastern working family who owned homes in the South Florida market had to put their homes up for sale that very week - leading to the Bush-1 SAVINGS & LOAN mortgage crisis KILLING the FLORIDA REAL ESTATE economy, which up until then had been resilient against the Bush-1 Recession.
SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE: The BUSH-2 RECESSION and Market tumble (and would-be COLLAPSE, were it not for GOVERNMENT SOCIALISM), is an IDENTICAL REPEAT of the BUSH-1 Savings & Loan Crisis, Bush-1 DEFICITS, Bush-1 RECESSION, and the need for US taxpayers, via the federal government, to STEP IN and BAIL OUT Bush CRONIES.
==========================================
Reuters) - The Federal Reserve will provide a roughly $85 billion bridge loan to AIG (AIG.N) and take a nearly 80 percent stake in the company, according to a source briefed on the matter.
CNBC earlier reported the bridge loan would be secured and that shareholders would be severely diluted by the bailout.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and others were involved in the talks, CNBC said, adding that the bailout plan being negotiated "isn't a conservatorship."
------------------------------------------------------------
SEPTEMBER 16, 2008
U.S. to Take Over AIG in $85 Billion Bailout; Central Banks Inject Cash as Credit Dries Up
Emergency Loan Effectively Gives Government Control of Insurer; Historic Move Would Cap 10 Days That Reshaped U.S. Finance
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122156561931242905.html
THIS _SOCIALISM, GOVERNMENT-BUYOUT, comes of course, just one week after the PREVIOUS HUGE GOVERNMENT BUYOUT/BAILOUT, the FANNIE-Mae/Freddie-Mac takeover, reported in our previous post, below.
Remember, just two Christmas seasons ago, GOLDMAN SACHS executives WERE CROWING that G-S was distributing several BILLION DOLLARS in BONUSES.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/FunMoney/story?id=2723990
Yet today, Wall St. Supermen/Wizards Goldman-Sachs... and ALL the other banks and brokers - are sitting on the sidelines, HOPING and PRAYING for fed, GOVERNMENT BAILOUTS, buyouts, and SOCIALISM TAKEOVERS, to prop up the last rotting remnants of an entire decade of Bush-Cheney-GOP rampant greed and crony corruption on Wall Street, masking as "free market capitalism."
Speaking of, here are some of GORDON GEKKO's infamous quotes "GREED IS GOOD!" quotes,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094291/quotes
from the 1987 movie "Wall St." which movie portrayed the previous BUSH (1) ECONOMIC CRISIS, and "Bluestar Airlines" of the movie was based on Bush Sr. ALLOWING Texas Air Chairman FRANK LORENZO to do a monster LEVEREGED BUY-OUT of EASTERN AIRLINES, which company (Eastern) Lorenzo proceded to BLEED DRY from the inside out. When Eastern could no longer fight off bankruptcy, and finally declared bankruptcy, most Eastern working family who owned homes in the South Florida market had to put their homes up for sale that very week - leading to the Bush-1 SAVINGS & LOAN mortgage crisis KILLING the FLORIDA REAL ESTATE economy, which up until then had been resilient against the Bush-1 Recession.
SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE: The BUSH-2 RECESSION and Market tumble (and would-be COLLAPSE, were it not for GOVERNMENT SOCIALISM), is an IDENTICAL REPEAT of the BUSH-1 Savings & Loan Crisis, Bush-1 DEFICITS, Bush-1 RECESSION, and the need for US taxpayers, via the federal government, to STEP IN and BAIL OUT Bush CRONIES.
And, then as now, DC Democrats are either IN ON THE TAKE (Dem. Senator John Glenn was, along with Senator John McCain, one of the "Keating Five" senators providing Keating with political "PROTECTION" in DC in exchange for huge campaign donations), or TOO STUPID, COWED, or corrupted to know what is going on, much less DEMAND MEDIA ATTENTION be paid to the need for SOCIALIZED TAX-PAYER BAILOUTS to SAVE the US economy.
==========================================
Reuters) - The Federal Reserve will provide a roughly $85 billion bridge loan to AIG (AIG.N) and take a nearly 80 percent stake in the company, according to a source briefed on the matter.
CNBC earlier reported the bridge loan would be secured and that shareholders would be severely diluted by the bailout.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and others were involved in the talks, CNBC said, adding that the bailout plan being negotiated "isn't a conservatorship."
------------------------------------------------------------
SEPTEMBER 16, 2008
U.S. to Take Over AIG in $85 Billion Bailout; Central Banks Inject Cash as Credit Dries Up
Emergency Loan Effectively Gives Government Control of Insurer; Historic Move Would Cap 10 Days That Reshaped U.S. Finance
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122156561931242905.html
Sunday, September 7, 2008
MORE government BAILOUTS - Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac - Stupid Pelosi Dems DON'T EVEN TRY to keep track....
YET MORE PROOF
that the Cheney-
http://news.yahoo.com/story/ap/mortgage_giants_crisis
Bush ECONOMY is A DISASTER...
and STILL the STUPID, COWERING, Bought-off, WARMONGERING, AIPAC (Israel-first) infested "Democrat" "Leadership" CAN'T EVEN KEEP COUNT!
Of ALL the businesses, banks, brokerage houses, can companies that have GONE BANKRUPT in the BUSH-2 RECESSION, and now REQUIRE huge GOVERNMENT BAILOUTS.
We repeat... the ONLY reason that Pelosi, Hoyer, Reid, Rockefeller, Feinstein, & crew DC Deocrats are in power is because
a.) like JOE LIEBERMAN they PRETENDED to offer an OPPOSITION party; and
b.) because the steady stream of REPUBLICAN CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS, by the very last vestiges of an independent, non-partisan Justice Department, disgusted American voters.
Since then, the cowering Speaker Pelosi has ALLOWED Bush, Rove, Cheney, Mukasey, & co. to MAKE THE Dept. of Justice EVEN MORE BIPARTISAN and CORRUPTED, as Cowardly Pelosi ALLOWS KARL ROVE, Harriet Miers, and former Bush Chief-of-staff Josh Bolton to IGNORE Congressional subpoenas.
This election is far from over, and while SARAH PALIN and Republicans can COW the ENTIRE STATE OF ALSAKA from investigating her partisan firing of state officials (and CENSORING the local Wasilla library of books), NANCY PELOSI CAN NOT even enforce congressional subpoenas!
- ANOTHER massive failure in the American economy in the Bush-2 Recession:
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5h0UnBlC_4jFvwbQeEH9sVsyGVQGQ
- and Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the Democrat "leadership" PRETEND NOT TO NOTICE Dick Cheney handing out BILLION-DOLLAR "humanitarian aid" (WARMONGERING bribes) in East Europe and Central Asia!
=========================================================
Right-Wing Republican/Cowardly Democrat IRONY ALERT: Just 2 months ago, Paulson PLEDGED "NO BAILOUT!" for Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.
It is NOT like the OPPOSITION PARTY would be able to contrast the Bush administration's FLIP-FLOP on this SOCIALIZED BAILOUT, or the Republican Party's on-going economic destruction....
Paulson: No Bailout For Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
stumble digg reddit del.ico.us news trust
huffington_post:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/11/paulson-no-bailout-for-fa_n_112136.html
mixx.com
TIM PARADIS July 11, 2008 10:52 PM EST
that the Cheney-
http://news.yahoo.com/story/ap/mortgage_giants_crisis
Bush ECONOMY is A DISASTER...and STILL the STUPID, COWERING, Bought-off, WARMONGERING, AIPAC (Israel-first) infested "Democrat" "Leadership" CAN'T EVEN KEEP COUNT!
Of ALL the businesses, banks, brokerage houses, can companies that have GONE BANKRUPT in the BUSH-2 RECESSION, and now REQUIRE huge GOVERNMENT BAILOUTS.
We repeat... the ONLY reason that Pelosi, Hoyer, Reid, Rockefeller, Feinstein, & crew DC Deocrats are in power is because
a.) like JOE LIEBERMAN they PRETENDED to offer an OPPOSITION party; and
b.) because the steady stream of REPUBLICAN CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS, by the very last vestiges of an independent, non-partisan Justice Department, disgusted American voters.
Since then, the cowering Speaker Pelosi has ALLOWED Bush, Rove, Cheney, Mukasey, & co. to MAKE THE Dept. of Justice EVEN MORE BIPARTISAN and CORRUPTED, as Cowardly Pelosi ALLOWS KARL ROVE, Harriet Miers, and former Bush Chief-of-staff Josh Bolton to IGNORE Congressional subpoenas.
This election is far from over, and while SARAH PALIN and Republicans can COW the ENTIRE STATE OF ALSAKA from investigating her partisan firing of state officials (and CENSORING the local Wasilla library of books), NANCY PELOSI CAN NOT even enforce congressional subpoenas!
- ANOTHER massive failure in the American economy in the Bush-2 Recession:
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5h0UnBlC_4jFvwbQeEH9sVsyGVQGQ
- and Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the Democrat "leadership" PRETEND NOT TO NOTICE Dick Cheney handing out BILLION-DOLLAR "humanitarian aid" (WARMONGERING bribes) in East Europe and Central Asia!
=========================================================
Right-Wing Republican/Cowardly Democrat IRONY ALERT: Just 2 months ago, Paulson PLEDGED "NO BAILOUT!" for Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.
It is NOT like the OPPOSITION PARTY would be able to contrast the Bush administration's FLIP-FLOP on this SOCIALIZED BAILOUT, or the Republican Party's on-going economic destruction....
Paulson: No Bailout For Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
stumble digg reddit del.ico.us news trust
huffington_post:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/11/paulson-no-bailout-for-fa_n_112136.html
mixx.com
TIM PARADIS July 11, 2008 10:52 PM EST
Friday, September 5, 2008
Cowardly Nancy Pelosi PRETENDS NOT TO NOTICE that Dick Cheney, America's War-Lusting Insane Kaiser, is off PROMOTING WARS on Russia's borders...
NANCY PELOSI's WAR - under direction of Dick Cheney White House, 2,000 Georgians, South Ossetians, and Russians are now dead, after Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili unleashed his US & Israel armed, trained, and financed army on an INVASION of South Ossetia, triggering a massive Russian army counter-attack in to Georgia in response.
TERRORISM CHARGES filed against anti-war protesters at Republican convention, Minneapolis Sept. 3 2008...
"PRE-EMPTIVE arrests" by Minneapolis police against "suspected protesters" - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/30/us/politics/30arrests.html
America is now FOLLOWING the example of Georgia's America-Israel supplied army, special forces, and police under President Mikhail Saakashvili:
#1. ARREST opposition leaders in advance of protests;
#2. clear the streets by massive, violent police force of any semblence of protest;
#3. charge protesters with TREASON and/or TERRORISM.
#4. start wars
#5. repeat process
That was then, this is now: In GIVING Vice President Dick Cheney a FREE PASS to FOMENT WARS in nations that were Republics of the former Soviet Union, nominal "leader" of Congress Nancy Pelosi IS FAR MORE OF A WAR-HAWK than President Reagan was, who, upon signing the INF treaty with Gorbachev in 1989, actually DESTROYED entire catagories of US offensive nuclear weapons.
By comparison, Vice President Cheney seeks to ring the Soviet Union with US military bases armed with (potenially) nuclear armed cruise-missiles and even hair-trigger ABM's (anti-ballistic-missile missiles, i.e. interceptor missiles), which can presumably be given ballistic warhead tragectories themselves, and could certainly be armed with nuclear warheads to create electro-magnetic "pulse" disruption detonations, which detonations could wipe out a nation's entire communications systems in a matter of a few short minutes.
The Republicans death-grip on America's media continues unabated, at the Republican convention NO MENTION IS MADE of the Iraq war... WHILE Dick Cheney goes on a tour of the nations around Russia, Cheney trying to foment pro-war dictatorships in those countries in order to encircle Russia with a ring of American steel, weapons, and militarized governments, and to try to gain US hegemony on Central Asia and East European oil supplies and oil routes.
They ought to just call the Georgia-South Ossetia invasion (and subsequent Russian counter-invasion of Georgia) THE NANCY PELOSI WAR, because since the "Democratic" "leader" of Congress REFUSES TO HOLD Karl Rove in CRIMINAL CONTEMPT of duly legal congressional subpoenas, or hold hearings on the Vice President's role in war-profiteering, torture, surveillance, and other "war on terror" issues, BOTH Rove and Cheney (and Condi Rice and McCain advisor/Georgia lobbyist Randy Scheuneman) were able to go to Georgia (before and after the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia), to PROP UP the pro-American dictator there, Mikhail Saakashvili, with ONE BILLION DOLLARS of NO OVERSIGHT US taxpayer funding of Georgia's hyper-nationalistic, militant regime which has used "TREASON" prosecutions to quash anti-government protests.
(note: Use of hyper-nationalism, militarism, and fomenting hatred of foreign and internal enemies, was the core of Adolf Hitler's Nazi party rise to power in Germany in the early 1930s.)
Here in America, "TERRORISM!" charges are also being filed against AMERICAN protesters in Minneapolis who are trying to protest the CENSORSHIP of even mention of the Iraq war at the Republican convention.
NANCY PELOSI is presiding over the DEMISE of American democracy, because she has put donations from the AIPAC lobby and War lobby, and fear of (right-wing) media moguls, OVER her Constitutional oath and duties to defend the US Constitution, which among other "quaint" notions, holds that Congress, not the executive office, holds the sole power to declare war and, presumably, to start wars and fund war alliances.
Some of the thousands of wounded from NANCY PELOSI's WAR - the war she ALLOWED Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, McCain advisor/Georgia lobbyist Randy Scheuneman, and the AIPAC lobby to foment...
============================
TERRORISM CHARGES filed against AMERICAN Anti-War protesters, in alleged plot to disrupt GOP convention
By P.J. Huffstutter, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 4, 2008
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-terror4-2008sep04,0,7911659.story
Eight suspects are accused of planning violent acts to block Republican delegates.
ST. PAUL, MINN. -- As clashes between police and protesters subsided outside the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, county prosecutors charged eight people with conspiring to cause a riot as part of a terrorist act.
The eight suspects were arrested in connection with raids of homes in the Twin Cities that were conducted by the Ramsey County Sheriff's Department before the convention began.
The charges are highly unusual because of the terrorism aspect. Ramsey County Atty. Susan Gaertner said she could recall no such case in her 24 years with the prosecutor's office.
"This was the most serious charge that we found that was supported by the evidence," she said. "The terrorism aspect is appropriate. This is not your average criminal charge, but this was not your average crime."
If convicted, the suspects could each face up to five years in jail, a $10,000 fine, or both.
Bruce Nestor, president of the Minnesota chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, which is representing several of the suspects, called the charges ridiculous.
The accusations are "an effort to equate publicly stated plans to blockade traffic and disrupt the RNC as being the same as acts of terrorism," Nestor said in a statement.
Seven of the eight arrested are being held at Ramsey County Jail on $75,000 bond: Max Jacob Specktor, 19; Erik Charles Oseland, 21; Eryn Chase Trimmer, 23; Luce Guillen-Givins, 24; Nathanael David Secor, 26; Robert Joseph Czernik, 32; and Garrett Scott Fitzgerald, 25. Fitzgerald is from Kasota, Minn.; the others are from Minneapolis.
Monica Rachel Bicking, 23, also of Minneapolis, was released earlier in the week, pending further investigation. A warrant was issued Wednesday for her arrest.
According to the complaint filed in Ramsey County District Court, the eight suspects are leading members of the RNC Welcoming Committee, a self-described anarchist coalition. For at least two years, the group mapped out violent methods to disrupt the convention and prevent delegates from entering the Xcel Energy Center in downtown St. Paul, according to the filing. The group allegedly had considered barricading bridges, spraying delegates with urine and possibly kidnapping delegates.
The arrests follow a nearly yearlong investigation by the sheriff's office and federal law enforcement agencies. An undercover investigator and informants were used to monitor the group, according to court documents. The inquiry found that the group had connected with sympathetic factions in dozens of cities to recruit volunteers and raise funds, according to the documents.
TERRORISM CHARGES filed against anti-war protesters at Republican convention, Minneapolis Sept. 3 2008...
"PRE-EMPTIVE arrests" by Minneapolis police against "suspected protesters" - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/30/us/politics/30arrests.html
America is now FOLLOWING the example of Georgia's America-Israel supplied army, special forces, and police under President Mikhail Saakashvili:
#1. ARREST opposition leaders in advance of protests;
#2. clear the streets by massive, violent police force of any semblence of protest;
#3. charge protesters with TREASON and/or TERRORISM.
#4. start wars
#5. repeat process
That was then, this is now: In GIVING Vice President Dick Cheney a FREE PASS to FOMENT WARS in nations that were Republics of the former Soviet Union, nominal "leader" of Congress Nancy Pelosi IS FAR MORE OF A WAR-HAWK than President Reagan was, who, upon signing the INF treaty with Gorbachev in 1989, actually DESTROYED entire catagories of US offensive nuclear weapons.
By comparison, Vice President Cheney seeks to ring the Soviet Union with US military bases armed with (potenially) nuclear armed cruise-missiles and even hair-trigger ABM's (anti-ballistic-missile missiles, i.e. interceptor missiles), which can presumably be given ballistic warhead tragectories themselves, and could certainly be armed with nuclear warheads to create electro-magnetic "pulse" disruption detonations, which detonations could wipe out a nation's entire communications systems in a matter of a few short minutes.
The Republicans death-grip on America's media continues unabated, at the Republican convention NO MENTION IS MADE of the Iraq war... WHILE Dick Cheney goes on a tour of the nations around Russia, Cheney trying to foment pro-war dictatorships in those countries in order to encircle Russia with a ring of American steel, weapons, and militarized governments, and to try to gain US hegemony on Central Asia and East European oil supplies and oil routes.
They ought to just call the Georgia-South Ossetia invasion (and subsequent Russian counter-invasion of Georgia) THE NANCY PELOSI WAR, because since the "Democratic" "leader" of Congress REFUSES TO HOLD Karl Rove in CRIMINAL CONTEMPT of duly legal congressional subpoenas, or hold hearings on the Vice President's role in war-profiteering, torture, surveillance, and other "war on terror" issues, BOTH Rove and Cheney (and Condi Rice and McCain advisor/Georgia lobbyist Randy Scheuneman) were able to go to Georgia (before and after the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia), to PROP UP the pro-American dictator there, Mikhail Saakashvili, with ONE BILLION DOLLARS of NO OVERSIGHT US taxpayer funding of Georgia's hyper-nationalistic, militant regime which has used "TREASON" prosecutions to quash anti-government protests.
(note: Use of hyper-nationalism, militarism, and fomenting hatred of foreign and internal enemies, was the core of Adolf Hitler's Nazi party rise to power in Germany in the early 1930s.)
Here in America, "TERRORISM!" charges are also being filed against AMERICAN protesters in Minneapolis who are trying to protest the CENSORSHIP of even mention of the Iraq war at the Republican convention.
NANCY PELOSI is presiding over the DEMISE of American democracy, because she has put donations from the AIPAC lobby and War lobby, and fear of (right-wing) media moguls, OVER her Constitutional oath and duties to defend the US Constitution, which among other "quaint" notions, holds that Congress, not the executive office, holds the sole power to declare war and, presumably, to start wars and fund war alliances.
Some of the thousands of wounded from NANCY PELOSI's WAR - the war she ALLOWED Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, McCain advisor/Georgia lobbyist Randy Scheuneman, and the AIPAC lobby to foment...
============================
TERRORISM CHARGES filed against AMERICAN Anti-War protesters, in alleged plot to disrupt GOP convention
By P.J. Huffstutter, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 4, 2008
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-terror4-2008sep04,0,7911659.story
Eight suspects are accused of planning violent acts to block Republican delegates.
ST. PAUL, MINN. -- As clashes between police and protesters subsided outside the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, county prosecutors charged eight people with conspiring to cause a riot as part of a terrorist act.
The eight suspects were arrested in connection with raids of homes in the Twin Cities that were conducted by the Ramsey County Sheriff's Department before the convention began.
The charges are highly unusual because of the terrorism aspect. Ramsey County Atty. Susan Gaertner said she could recall no such case in her 24 years with the prosecutor's office.
"This was the most serious charge that we found that was supported by the evidence," she said. "The terrorism aspect is appropriate. This is not your average criminal charge, but this was not your average crime."
If convicted, the suspects could each face up to five years in jail, a $10,000 fine, or both.
Bruce Nestor, president of the Minnesota chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, which is representing several of the suspects, called the charges ridiculous.
The accusations are "an effort to equate publicly stated plans to blockade traffic and disrupt the RNC as being the same as acts of terrorism," Nestor said in a statement.
Seven of the eight arrested are being held at Ramsey County Jail on $75,000 bond: Max Jacob Specktor, 19; Erik Charles Oseland, 21; Eryn Chase Trimmer, 23; Luce Guillen-Givins, 24; Nathanael David Secor, 26; Robert Joseph Czernik, 32; and Garrett Scott Fitzgerald, 25. Fitzgerald is from Kasota, Minn.; the others are from Minneapolis.
Monica Rachel Bicking, 23, also of Minneapolis, was released earlier in the week, pending further investigation. A warrant was issued Wednesday for her arrest.
According to the complaint filed in Ramsey County District Court, the eight suspects are leading members of the RNC Welcoming Committee, a self-described anarchist coalition. For at least two years, the group mapped out violent methods to disrupt the convention and prevent delegates from entering the Xcel Energy Center in downtown St. Paul, according to the filing. The group allegedly had considered barricading bridges, spraying delegates with urine and possibly kidnapping delegates.
The arrests follow a nearly yearlong investigation by the sheriff's office and federal law enforcement agencies. An undercover investigator and informants were used to monitor the group, according to court documents. The inquiry found that the group had connected with sympathetic factions in dozens of cities to recruit volunteers and raise funds, according to the documents.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)