The Last Nail by Ron Paul

Congressman Ron Paul delivered a five-minute speech on the floor of the House of Representatives May 25, a short speech that may sound to the uninformed like one wild statement after another. In his speech, Dr. Paul (he's an obstetrician) made a number of charges that the executive branch of government has established a virtual dictatorship with the willing assistance of Congress and many Americans who fear for their "security." But Congressman Paul is complaining about the erosion of constitutional protections that have already happened.



The Last Nail

by Congressman Ron Paul

Congress turns on President Obama: Invokes War Powers Resolution

Cannot take democracy to Libya without safeguarding democracy at home

Monday, in a 248 to 163 vote, the US House of Representatives turned on President Obama by invoking the War Powers Resolution to prohibit funding U.S. military operations in Libya. The House adopted an amendment to a military appropriations bill to end what some Congressional leaders have called Obama's dictatorship and behaving like a king.
Congressional leaders have expressed dissatisfaction at U.S. President Barack Obama's decision to begin and to continue a war on Libya without congressional authorization, a serious violation.

According to U.S. law, the president must seek congressional authorisation to send US troops into combat. He failed to do that and is, therefore, in violation of the War Powers Act and the U.S. Constitution. (See embedded Press TV Youtube video on page left.)

 

Under U.S. law, the resident must also withdraw forces within 60 days if Congress did not authorize the military action.

 

Al Jazeera reported Tuesday that the military appropriations amendment, introduced by Democratic representative Brad Sherman (D - CA) invokes the War Powers Resolution, the 1973 law limiting presidential powers on sending troops into combat zones abroad without Congressional consent. 

 

Sherman's text states, "none of the funds made available by this act may be used in contravention of the War Powers Act."

 

Politicians must now approve the appropriations bill as a whole and the Senate needs to approve the measure.

Continue reading here.

Gaddafi impeded U.S. oil interests before the war (coincidence?)

When the war in Libya began, the U.S. government convinced a large number of war supporters that we were there to achieve the very limited goal of creating a no-fly zone in Benghazi to protect civilians from air attacks, while President Obama specifically vowed that "broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake."  This no-fly zone was created in the first week, yet now, almost three months later, the war drags on without any end in sight, and NATO is no longer even hiding what has long been obvious: that its real goal is exactly the one Obama vowed would not be pursued -- regime change through the use of military force.  We're in Libya to forcibly remove Gaddafi from power and replace him with a regime that we like better, i.e., one that is more accommodating to the interests of the West.  That's not even a debatable proposition at this point.
What I suppose is debatable, in the most generous sense of that term, is our motive in doing this.  Why -- at a time when American political leaders feel compelled to advocate politically radioactive budget cuts to reduce the deficit and when polls show Americans solidly and increasingly opposed to the war -- would the U.S. Government continue to spend huge sums of money to fight this war?  Why is President Obama willing to endure self-evidently valid accusations -- even from his own Party -- that he's fighting an illegal war by brazenly flouting the requirements for Congressional approval?  Why would Defense Secretary Gates risk fissures by so angrily and publicly chiding NATO allies for failing to build more Freedom Bombs to devote to the war?  And why would we, to use the President's phrase, "stand idly by" while numerous other regimes -- including our close allies in Bahrain and Yemen and the one in Syria -- engage in attacks on their own people at least as heinous as those threatened by Gaddafi, yet be so devoted to targeting the Libyan leader?
Whatever the answers to those mysteries, no responsible or Serious person, by definition, would suggest that any of this  -- from today's Washington Post -- has anything to do with it:

The relationship between Gaddafi and the U.S. oil industry as a whole was odd. In 2004, President George W. Bush unexpectedly lifted economic sanctions on Libya in return for its renunciation of nuclear weapons and terrorism. There was a burst of optimism among American oil executives eager to return to the Libyan oil fields they had been forced to abandon two decades earlier. . . .
Yet even before armed conflict drove the U.S. companies out of Libya this year, their relations with Gaddafi had soured. The Libyan leader demanded tough contract terms. He sought big bonus payments up front. Moreover, upset that he was not getting more U.S. government respect and recognition for his earlier concessions, he pressured the oil companies to influence U.S. policies. . . .
When Gaddafi made his deal with Bush in 2004, he had hoped that returning foreign oil companies would help boost Libya’s output . . . The U.S. government also encouraged American oil companies to go back to Libya. . . .
The companies needed little encouragement. Libya has some of the biggest and most proven oil reserves -- 43.6 billion barrels -- outside Saudi Arabia, and some of the best drilling prospects. . . . Throughout this time, oil prices kept rising, whetting the appetite for greater supplies of Libya's unusually "sweet" and "light," or high-quality, crude oil.
By the time Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited in 2008, U.S. joint ventures accounted for 510,000 of Libya's 1.7 million barrels a day of production, a State Department cable said. . . .
But all was not well. By November 2007, a State Department cable noted "growing evidence of Libyan resource nationalism." It noted that in his 2006 speech marking the founding of his regime, Gaddafi said: "Oil companies are controlled by foreigners who have made millions from them. Now, Libyans must take their place to profit from this money." His son made similar remarks in 2007.
Oil companies had been forced to give their local subsidiaries Libyan names, the cable said. . . .

The entire article is worth reading, as it details how Gaddafi has progressively impeded the interests of U.S. and Western oil companies by demanding a greater share of profits and other concessions, to the point where some of those corporations were deciding that it may no longer be profitable or worthwhile to drill for oil there.  But now, in a pure coincidence, there is hope on the horizon for these Western oil companies, thanks to the war profoundly humanitarian action being waged by the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner and his nation's closest Western allies:

But Libya's oil production has foundered, sagging to about 1.5 million barrels a day by early this year before unrest broke out. The big oil companies, several of which had drilled dry holes, felt that Libya was not making the best exploration prospects available. One major company privately said that it was on the verge of a discovery but that unrest cut short the project.
With the country torn by fighting, the big international oil companies are treading carefully, unwilling to throw their lot behind Gaddafi or the rebel coalition.
Yet when representatives of the rebel coalition in Benghazi spoke to the U.S.-Libya Business Council in Washington four weeks ago, representatives from ConocoPhillips and other oil firms attended, according to Richard Mintz, a public relations expert at the Harbour Group, which represents the Benghazi coalition. In another meeting in Washington, Ali Tarhouni, the lead economic policymaker in Benghazi, said oil contracts would be honored, Mintz said.
"Now you can figure out who’s going to win, and the name is not Gaddafi," Saleri said. "Certain things about the mosaic are taking shape. The Western companies are positioning themselves."
"Five years from now," he added, "Libyan production is going to be higher than right now and investments are going to come in."

Read the entire article here.

We no longer have freedom; there is only the appearance of freedom.

By Chris Hedges
In Franz Kafka’s short story “Before the Law” a tireless supplicant spends his life praying for admittance into the courts of justice. He sits outside the law court for days, months and years. He makes many attempts to be admitted. He sacrifices everything he owns to sway or bribe the stern doorkeeper. He ages, grows feeble and finally childish. He is told as he nears death that the entrance was constructed solely for him and it will now be closed.
Justice has become as unattainable for Muslim activists in the United States as it was for Kafka’s frustrated petitioner. The draconian legal mechanisms that condemn Muslim Americans who speak out publicly about the outrages we commit in the Middle East have left many, including Syed Fahad Hashmi, wasting away in supermax prisons. These citizens posed no security threat. But they dared to speak a truth about the sordid conduct of our nation that the state found unpalatable. And in the bipartisan war on terror, waged by Republicans and Democrats, this ugly truth in America is branded seditious.

The best the U.S. government could offer as evidence of Fahad’s crimes was that an acquaintance who stayed in his apartment with him while he was a graduate student in London had raincoats, ponchos and waterproof socks in luggage at the apartment and that the acquaintance eventually delivered these to al-Qaida. But I doubt the government is overly concerned with a suitcase full of waterproof socks taken to Pakistan. The reason Fahad Hashmi was targeted was because, like the Palestinian activist Dr. Sami Al-Arian, he was fearless and zealous in his defense of those being bombed, shot, terrorized and killed throughout the Muslim world while he was a student at Brooklyn College. Fahad was deeply religious, and some of his views, including his praise of the Afghan resistance, were to me unpalatable, but he had a right to express these sentiments. More important, he had a right to expect freedom from persecution and imprisonment because of his opinions. Facing the possibility of a 70-year sentence in prison and having already spent four years in jail, much of it in solitary confinement, he accepted a plea bargain on one count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism.
It has been a year since his 15-year sentence was pronounced in a New York courtroom. He is now held in Guantanamo-like conditions in the supermax ADX [Administrative Maximum] facility in Florence, Colo. He is isolated in a small cell for 22 to 23 hours a day. He has only extremely limited contact with his mother, father and brother, often going weeks without any communication. Between his transfer to Florence last August and this March he was permitted only one phone call. The rule of law in America, especially if you are Muslim, fits Kafka’s grim parody. The tyranny we impose on those held in Guantanamo, Bagram and the secret CIA “black sites” we impose on ourselves. This is and always has been the disease of empire. Empire imports the crude and brutal tools of control and violence back to the homeland. It creates internal as well as external colonies.
Read entire article here:

America can no longer afford the blood and treasure required to fight pointless wars in perpetuity

 The jockeying for position on troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and Iraq continues. Recently, departing Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the U.S. military have tried to box the Obama administration into leaving as many troops in Afghanistan as possible. Gates argued that a rapid withdrawal would threaten the gains accrued from the surge of 30,000 troops. Gates opined, “I would try to maximize my combat capability as long as this process goes on—I think that’s a no-brainer.” He has argued for a modest withdrawal, which other sources have pegged at between 3,000 and 5,000 troops; in other words, only a token pullout to fulfill President Obama’s pledge to begin withdrawing troops this summer.
Pushing back are Vice President Joe Biden and the White House staff, including National Security Adviser Tom Donilon. Biden and Donilon were initially skeptical of the troop surge and are pushing for a more rapid withdrawal. Biden backs a speedier pullout but wants to keep a smaller force to perform counterterrorism missions and train the Afghan military.

 It is true that U.S. “gains” from the surge in Helmand and Kandahar provinces in southern Afghanistan are likely to be ephemeral unless American forces remain. In guerrilla wars, the foreign occupier’s superior technology and firepower can usually clear areas of less well-equipped insurgents. The problem is holding the territory after the foreign occupier’s forces have moved on. That would normally be done by Afghan forces, which are expanding but have 30 percent desertion per year, have only a 10 percent literacy rate among recruits, and are thoroughly corrupt (like the rest of the U.S.-backed client Afghan government). Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, in charge of training Afghan troops, however, prefers to look on the bright side; he argues that Afghan forces are improving because they must now be certified to be competent in using their weapons before joining the force, which wasn’t a requirement before. Surely, American troops that have to go into battle with these ragtag Afghans are ecstatic about this development.
More important, the Taliban has just moved to other parts of Afghanistan and is now attacking in the east, north, and west of Afghanistan. Since the U.S. has too few troops to conduct a counterinsurgency strategy in all parts of the country and the Afghan forces are too incompetent to fill the gaps, the wishful gains that the U.S. military sees in Afghanistan are largely illusory, as yet another prime fighting season begins. In the early 1980s, the U.S. encouraged a similar nationwide counterinsurgency strategy by the Salvadoran military, which also had too few troops to police the entire nation. The strategy failed because the insurgents just moved to areas that had fewer government troops. Baseball great Yogi Berra would say that Afghanistan is “déjà vu all over again.”
Read entire article here.

Must watch film about the corrupt medical establishments suppressed cure for cancer

This film is free to watch June 11th through June 13th.  It is a stunning accusation of the medical industrial complex, and will blow you away.  Watch quickly HERE

Robert Scheer: The Bernanke Scandal: Full-Frontal Cluelessness

"Ben Bernanke claimed that the relief that the Fed provided to the bankers by buying up more than $1.2 trillion of the toxic mortgages those bankers had created “has been accomplished, I should note, at no net cost to the federal budget or to the U.S. taxpayer.”

This is the Big Lie technique at work, employed by a huge banking lobby that stresses the direct cost of the TARP program while ignoring other programs that will not be paid back, as well as the additional cost of $5 trillion to the national debt that a proper Fed policy could have avoided.

The record is by now indelibly clear that the economic approaches pursued by George W. Bush and Barack Obama, with Bernanke playing a key role in both administrations, can be most accurately summarized as a policy of government of the bankers, by the bankers, and for the bankers."
Full article here.

The Big Business of Being Behind Bars in America

US: America's Private Gulag

by Ken Silverstein, Prison Legal News

What is the most profitable industry in America? Weapons, oil and computer technology all offer high rates of return, but there is probably no sector of the economy so abloom with money as the privately run prison industry.
Consider the growth of the Corrections Corporation of America, the industry leader whose stock price has climbed from $8 a share in 1992 to about $30 today and whose revenue rose by 81 per cent in 1995 alone. Investors in Wackenhut Corrections Corp. have enjoyed an average return of 18 per cent during the past five years and the company is rated by Forbes as one of the top 200 small businesses in the country. At Esmor, another big private prison contractor, revenues have soared from $4.6 million in 1990 to more than $25 million in 1995.
Ten years ago there were just five privately-run prisons in the country, housing a population of 2,000. Today nearly a score of private firms run more than 100 prisons with about 62,000 beds. That's still less than five per cent of the total market but the industry is expanding fast, with the number of private prison beds expected to grow to 360,000 during the next decade.
The exhilaration among leaders and observers of the private prison sector was cheerfully summed up by a headline in USA Today: "Everybody's doin' the jailhouse stock". An equally upbeat mood imbued a conference on private prisons held last December at the Four Seasons Resort in Dallas. The brochure for the conference, organized by the World Research Group, a New York-based investment firm, called the corporate takeover of correctional facilities the "newest trend in the area of privatizing previously government-run programs... While arrests and convictions are steadily on the rise, profits are to be made -- profits from crime. Get in on the ground floor of this booming industry now!"
A hundred years ago private prisons were a familiar feature of American life, with disastrous consequences. Prisoners were farmed out as slave labor. They were routinely beaten and abused, fed slop and kept in horribly overcrowded cells. Conditions were so wretched that by the end of the nineteenth century private prisons were outlawed in most states.
During the past decade, private prisons have made a comeback. Already 28 states have passed legislation making it legal for private contractors to run correctional facilities and many more states are expected to follow suit.
The reasons for the rapid expansion include the 1990's free-market ideological fervor, large budget deficits for the federal and state governments and the discovery and creation of vast new reserves of "raw materials" -- prisoners. The rate for most serious crimes has been dropping or stagnant for the past 15 years, but during the same period severe repeat offender provisions and a racist "get-tough" policy on drugs have helped push the US prison population up from 300,000 to around 1.5 million during the same period. This has produced a corresponding boom in prison construction and costs, with the federal government's annual expenditures in the area, now $17 billion. In California, passage of the infamous "three strikes" bill will result in the construction of an additional 20 prisons during the next few years.
The private prison business is most entrenched at the state level but is expanding into the federal prison system as well. Last year Attorney General Janet Reno announced that five of seven new federal prisons being built will be run by the private sector. Almost all of the prisons run by private firms are low or medium security, but the companies are trying to break into the high-security field. They have also begun taking charge of management at INS detention centers, boot camps for juvenile offenders and substance abuse programs.
Read the rest of the article here at CorpWatch.

U.S. Can't Justify Its Drug War Spending: New Reports

Name one government program that for 40 years has failed to achieve any of its goals, yet receives bigger and bigger budgets every year. If you said "the War on Drugs," you've been paying attention.

The Obama Administration is unable to show that the billions of dollar spent in the War On Drugs have significantly affected the flow of illicit substances into the United States, according to two government reports and outside experts.

The reports specifically criticize the government's growing use of U.S. contractors, which were paid more than $3 billion to train local prosecutors and police, help eradicate coca fields, and operate surveillance equipment in the battle against the expanding drug trade in Latin America over the past five years, reports Brian Bennett of the Los Angeles Times.

"We are wasting tax dollars and throwing money at a problem without even knowing what we are getting in return," said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), who chairs the Senate subcommittee that wrote one of the reports, which was released on Wednesday.

"I think we have wasted our money hugely," said Bruce Bagley, an expert in U.S. anti-narcotics efforts. "The effort has had corrosive effects on every country it has touched," said Bagley, who chairs international studies at the University of Miami at Coral Gables, Florida.

Predictably, Obama Administration officials deny reports that U.S. efforts have failed to reduce drug production and smuggling in Latin America.

White House officials claim the expanding U.S. anti-drug effort occupies a "growing portion" of time for President Obama's national security team, even though it doesn't get many Congressional hearings or headlines.

The majority of wasted American counter-narcotics dollars are awarded to five big corporations: DynCorp, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, ITT and ARINC, according to the report for the contracting oversight committee, part of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Counter-narcotics contract spending increased by 32 percent over the five-year period from $482 million in 2005 to $635 million in 2009. Falls Church, Va., based DynCorp got the biggest piece of the wasted pie, a whopping $1.1 billion.

Full article: here:

Free Book Downloads! National Academies Press Offers More Than 4,000 Titles

Are you hungry for knowledge? Well, if you’ve got a filet mignon appetite and a hamburger budget, then get in line as the National Academies Press is offering free PDF downloads of more than 4,000 titles from its exhaustive library. Click here.

To this day, Coca-Cola still imports coca leaves which are used to manufacture cocaine in the United States

If you believe what the mainstream media tells you, you probably believe it's illegal to import coca leaves into the United States and use them to manufacture cocaine. But that's not true!
If you're Coca-Cola, then you have special connections, and your suppliers are granted DEA immunity to actually import coca leaves (by the ton!) and process them for Coca-Cola, producing a byproduct of cocaine that's sold to another powerful corporation in St. Louis. In the USA today, this process produces over 300,000 grams of cocaine each year.
Don't believe me? I've got the whole story fully documented using public sources. This is the truth about Coca-Cola, coca leaves and the so-called "War on Drugs" in America. Read more here

CNN reveals Fukushima nuclear catastrophe "TWICE as bad" with "HOT particles reaching the USA" and now we "CAN'T RUN"

This is not political, per se, but it is interesting information about the ongoing crisis in Fukushima Japan.  What do you think?

Gaddafi defiant as NATO intensifies Tripoli strikes

Desperately trying to murder Gaddafi, refusing offers to have peace talks, murdering civilians loyal to their government, dropping depleted uranium bombs on civilian areas, terrifying the children of Libya. Mission accomplished!

A Libyan official said Tuesday night that the attacks killed 31 people and wounded dozens more, many of them security guards and “totally innocent civilians.”

‎"Did we cross the sea and attack you? Why this consistent bombing? Are you trying to force us into submission? You will not, we will never submit.” -- Gaddafi


Check out this Reuters article: NATO unleashed its heaviest bombing of the Libyan capital since air strikes began in March, but Muammar Gaddafi vowed to fight to the end

House Blocks Vote on Kucinich Libya Bill Over Fears It Might Pass

by Elspeth Reeve in The Atlantic


  House Republicans postponed a Wednesday vote on Rep. Dennis Kucinich's resolution to end U.S. involvement in the bombing of Libya because they were afraid it would pass. Speaker John Boehner thinks the legislation--which would take effect 15 days after it's adopted--would hurt the NATO mission to topple Muammar Qaddafi, Politico's John Bresnahan and Jonathan Allen report. Republican Dan Burton, a co-sponsor of the resolution, is urging an up-or-down vote on the resolution--sort of like Tuesday's vote on raising the debt limit, which GOP leaders held a vote on only because they were sure it would fail. (Likewise, last week Senate Democrats forced moderate Republican senators to vote on Rep. Paul Ryan's Medicare overhaul just to force moderate senators to vote on it. It failed, as expected.)
GOP leaders' official reason for pulling the measure is that they need to "compel more information and consultation" from the Obama administration. But with the Libya bombing dragging on for three months--and just extended for three more--a bipartisan group of legislators is growing tired of the intervention. The House GOP is working on alternatives to voting on the legislation, like maybe having the armed services committee write back-up proposals. But they're sort of in a bind, Politico reports:

Because the Kucinich proposal relates to the 1973 War Powers Act, it is considered privileged under House rules, meaning that Kucinich could force a floor vote even if Democratic and Republican leaders are opposed to doing so. The resolution 'ripens' next week, making it possible for Kucinich to bring about a vote when Congress returns from next week's recess.

The House GOP will have a special meeting Thursday to figure out what to do next, the Associated Press reports. One option is rescheduling the vote for sometime in the future, presumably when it looks more likely to be fail.

The Emperor Committed us to Another War

The War in Libya Growing More Illegal by the Day

by Glenn Greenwald

Published on Thursday, June 2, 2011 by Salon.com

To the extent that the War Powers Resolution (WPR) authorized President Obama to fight a war in Libya for 60 days without Congressional approval -- and, for reasons I described here, it did not -- that 60-day period expired 12 days ago.  Since that date, the war has been unquestionably illegal even under the original justifications of Obama defenders, though I realize that objecting to "illegal wars" -- or wars generally -- is so very 2005.  After making clear that they intended to contrive "some plausible theory" to justify this illegal war, the White House finally settled on the claim that the war in Libya -- despite featuring substantial U.S. military action with the goal of destroying a foreign army and removing that nation's leader -- is too small and limited to be a real "war" under the Constitution and the WPR. 

Even the White House seemed to recognize the absurdity of that excuse -- the WRP explicitly applies "in any case in which United States Armed Forces are introduced (1) into hostilities" -- and the President thus subsequently requested a Resolution from Congress approving the war.  That authorization, however, never came, and now it seems that Congress is closer to doing the opposite: approving a bipartisan bill opposing the war:

On Wednesday, 74 days after U.S. forces joined the military operation in Libya, President Obama seemed to run out of goodwill on Capitol Hill.

A group of both liberals and conservatives -- defying the leaders of both parties --- threw their support behind a bill to pull the U.S. military out of the Libya operation. That prospect led GOP leaders to shelve the bill before it came to a vote. . . .
On Wednesday, the bill at issue was far more drastic. Introduced by Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio), it would demand that Obama withdraw forces from the Libyan operation within 15 days. That would be a crippling loss for the NATO-led campaign, which relies heavily on U.S. air power.
The resolution looked, a week before, like a legislative long shot.
Then, on Wednesday, it wasn’t.
"There’s been disquiet for a long time," said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), one of those who supported it. "Republicans have been too eager to support some military ventures abroad. And this, I think, is perhaps a little more consistent with traditional conservatism."
Conservatives expressed support for the bill in a closed meeting, but GOP leaders put off the vote.

Waging a war for 74 days without Congressional approval is illegal enough.  Doing so when there is a growing bipartisan movement in Congress to compel an end to the war -- rather than approve it -- is even worse.  And note the individuals on whom Obama is now relying to protect him from this bipartisan effort to put an end to his illegal war:  "GOP House leaders" -- John Boehner and Eric Cantor, who refused to allow the bill to come up for a vote despite ample support among conservative members of their caucus as well as numerous liberal House members.  Can we hear more now about how the two parties are so radically different that bipartisan cooperation is impossible?  The Emperor has decreed that we will fight this war, and thus we will -- that seems to be the prevailing mindset. 

I think the term thieves is accurate

Geithner and Goldman, Thick as Thieves

By Robert Scheer

What was Timothy Geithner thinking back in 2008 when, as president of the New York Fed, he decided to give Goldman Sachs a $30 billion interest-free loan as part of an $80 billion secret float to favored banks? The sordid details of that program were finally made public this week in response to a court order for a Freedom of Information Act release, thanks to a Bloomberg News lawsuit. Sorry, my bad: It wasn’t an interest-free loan; make that .01 percent that Goldman paid to borrow taxpayer money when ordinary folks who missed a few credit card payments in order to finance their mortgages were being slapped with interest rates of more than 25 percent.

One wonders if Barack Obama was fully aware of Geithner’s deceitful performance at the New York Fed when he appointed him treasury secretary in the incoming administration. The president was probably ignorant of this particular giveaway, as were key members of Congress. “I wasn’t aware of this program until now,” Barney Frank, D-Mass., who at the time chaired the House Financial Services Committee, admitted in referring to Geithner’s “single-tranche open-market operations” program. And there was no language in the Dodd-Frank law supposedly reining in the banks that compelled the Fed to reveal the existence of this program.

It was merely one small part of that reckless policy of throwing mad money at the banks while ignoring the plight of homeowners whom the banks had swindled, a plan pursued by both the Bush and the Obama administrations that set the stage for the current slide into a double-dip recession. On Tuesday it was reported that home values have continued an eight-month decline back to their lowest point since the recession began. With housing in deep trouble there can be no rebound of consumer confidence or job creation, and the first-quarter growth rate was an anemic 1.8 percent even as Wall Street profits and bonuses flourished. Wages are stagnant, unemployment claims have recently risen and, as The Wall Street Journal headlined on Tuesday, “Economists Downgrade Prospects for Growth.” That same edition of the Journal reported that 44.6 million Americans now survive on food stamps, an 11 percent increase in that misery index over the past year, while Geithner’s friends at Goldman are doing quite well.

Actually, Goldman wasn’t even a bank and was therefore ineligible for those massive government handouts until Geithner helped gain approval for the instant conversion of Goldman from an investment house to a commercial bank. Goldman was granted that status, and with it access to the Fed’s lending, soon after the privilege had been denied to the fellow investment bank Lehman Brothers (the $30 billion mentioned above was in addition to the $43.5 billion Goldman borrowed from other Fed programs).  Although Lehman was allowed to go belly up, Geithner engineered the massive bailout of AIG, a move that turned out to be a cover for passing money to AIG’s clients, including the aforementioned Goldman Sachs. The man’s intentions were clear, even if all the secret details were not, when Obama picked him to be his point man in salvaging an economy that Geithner had done much to wreck.

Geithner’s priorities were all too obvious from his days in the Clinton administration’s Treasury Department when he worked first under former Goldman honcho Robert Rubin and then Lawrence Summers, who took six-figure speaking fees from Goldman and other banks while he was an adviser to candidate Obama. It was the recommendation of Rubin and Summers that landed Geithner the job as president of the New York Fed, where he faithfully followed the policy lead of Goldman-CEO-turned-Treasury-Secretary Henry Paulson.

Read the full article here,

Worse Than a Third Bush Term?

"Obama has not just stayed the course, he has stepped on the gas. He has vastly expanded the war in Afghanistan, upped the violence in Pakistan, continued the Bush path on Iraq, bombed Yemen and Somalia, and started a new war with Libya. On the civil liberties and human rights fronts, he has invoked the Espionage Act more than all earlier presidents combined, persecuted whistleblowers, covered up torturers, and abused habeas corpus and the Fourth Amendment as much as Bush. And surely bin Laden could have been found without these monstrous policies."

Read the rest here.

NATO Says Attacks on Afghan Houses 'Necessary,' Will Continue

I guess we're going to have to start saying that Karzai is crazy again to cover up our slaughter of innocent children.
"A NATO spokesperson says attacks on houses in Afghanistan are necessary and will continue, despite Afghan President Hamid Karzai's assertion that he will no longer permit them to take place."
Full story: .commondreams.org/headline/2011/05/31-4

America is not, and never was a democracy

And that is a good thing. Check out the informative video on this site:

Maniac World