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  1. <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><rss xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:openSearch="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/" xmlns:blogger="http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008" xmlns:georss="http://www.georss.org/georss" xmlns:gd="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005" xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0" version="2.0"><channel><atom:id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4091982005581439079</atom:id><lastBuildDate>Fri, 28 Feb 2020 22:20:33 +0000</lastBuildDate><category>Obama</category><category>Amanda Marcotte</category><category>Bank of America</category><category>Big Oil</category><category>Black Woman Criticizes Obama</category><category>Citigroup</category><category>Cook County Sheriff</category><category>Corrupt Prosecutors</category><category>Julian Assange</category><category>Michael Moore</category><category>MoveOn</category><category>Murdoch-cracy</category><category>Naomi Wolf</category><category>Obama Misleading Speech</category><category>Obama State of Union Speech</category><category>Obama to Bush Morph</category><category>Peter Orszag</category><category>Rezko</category><category>Rupert Murdoch</category><category>SICKO</category><category>State of The Union Without Credibility</category><category>Steve Jobs</category><category>The Daily</category><category>Tibet in Song</category><category>Tom Dart</category><category>Wendell Potter</category><category>egypt</category><category>illegal foreclosures</category><category>iran</category><category>political corruption</category><category>predatory lending</category><category>student loan debt</category><title>The Potomac Watch</title><description>Observations on Issues, Events, and Personalities Relevant to Contemporary American Economic and Political Culture</description><link>http://thepotomacwatch.blogspot.com/</link><managingEditor>noreply@blogger.com (Michael Neff)</managingEditor><generator>Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>23</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>25</openSearch:itemsPerPage><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4091982005581439079.post-2439691326795889435</guid><pubDate>Wed, 05 Oct 2011 01:13:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2011-10-04T18:13:43.425-07:00</atom:updated><title>Occupy Together - Finally, The Revolution&#39;s First Steps</title><description> &lt;h1&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.occupytogether.org/2011/09/26/nobody-can-predict-the-moment-of-revolution-occupy-wall-street/&quot; rel=&quot;bookmark&quot; title=&quot;Permanent Link to Nobody Can Predict The Moment Of Revolution ( Occupy Wall Street )&quot;&gt;Nobody Can Predict The Moment Of Revolution ( Occupy Wall Street )&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h1&gt;  &lt;iframe title=&quot;YouTube video player&quot; class=&quot;youtube-player&quot; type=&quot;text/html&quot; width=&quot;577&quot; height=&quot;344&quot; src=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/embed/4SUdPe-X7b4&quot; frameborder=&quot;0&quot; allowFullScreen=&quot;true&quot;&gt; &lt;/iframe&gt; &lt;p&gt;A really great video from Occupy Wall Street.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;iframe title=&quot;YouTube video player&quot; class=&quot;youtube-player&quot; type=&quot;text/html&quot; width=&quot;577&quot; height=&quot;344&quot; src=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/embed/OwWInp75ua0&quot; frameborder=&quot;0&quot; allowFullScreen=&quot;true&quot;&gt; &lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;blogger-post-footer&quot;&gt;________________________________________&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://thepotomacwatch.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-together-finally-revolutions.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Michael Neff)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://img.youtube.com/vi/4SUdPe-X7b4/default.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4091982005581439079.post-3887050399373442313</guid><pubDate>Sun, 15 May 2011 23:29:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2011-05-15T16:29:57.091-07:00</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Big Oil</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">political corruption</category><title>The Oil Industry And Congress: Beyond Greed, Beyond Belief, Beyond Redemption</title><description>&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OX3Tyz7q2yE/TdBh2NEMJBI/AAAAAAAAAFc/0GcPsiXytbs/s1600/bigoil.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; src=&quot;http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OX3Tyz7q2yE/TdBh2NEMJBI/AAAAAAAAAFc/0GcPsiXytbs/s1600/bigoil.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;A must reprint from &lt;a href=&quot;http://themoderatevoice.com/109603/the-oil-industry-and-congress-beyond-greed-beyond-belief-beyond-redemption/&quot;&gt;The Moderate Voice&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The largest oil companies made $35 billion in profits in the first quarter of this year. They are on track to make a record $140 billion over the entire year. Their industry, the oil industry, receives special tax breaks of $2.1 billion a year.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In testimony before Congress this week, top executives of the largest oil companies were chided by some senators. They were told that were their industry’s tax breaks taken away, $2 billion a year less would have to be cut from health and other programs for the poor, the sick, the needy. This would still leave $138 billion in profits this year the industry might use to carry out its energy-boosting operations.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The response of these top executives? Their industry gets fewer tax breaks than some others, they said. And presumably, this being so, they should have more as a matter of equity.&lt;div class=&quot;blogger-post-footer&quot;&gt;________________________________________&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://thepotomacwatch.blogspot.com/2011/05/oil-industry-and-congress-beyond-greed.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Michael Neff)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OX3Tyz7q2yE/TdBh2NEMJBI/AAAAAAAAAFc/0GcPsiXytbs/s72-c/bigoil.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4091982005581439079.post-3376879615870750713</guid><pubDate>Sat, 12 Feb 2011 14:39:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2011-05-15T16:00:21.021-07:00</atom:updated><title>The USS Sisyphus</title><description>&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DR-hK-iUnPA/TdBa7BG5DKI/AAAAAAAAAFU/jO4ohDGWl3k/s1600/sisyphus.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; src=&quot;http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DR-hK-iUnPA/TdBa7BG5DKI/AAAAAAAAAFU/jO4ohDGWl3k/s1600/sisyphus.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Today’s US aircraft carriers are floating jobs programs, first in their construction and then for the young sailors who man them (because the only other job in town is McDonalds, really no job at all.) and to enrich the war profiteers--for which China helpfully picks up the tab using Uncle Sam as its purchasing agent. Programmers call this circular logic an infinite loop. In economics, common sense ultimately intrudes on infinity and tulip prices return to some level of sanity.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The reason China picks up the tab is because the Chinese Communist Party sees no choice. It must purchase US Government bonds (the only investment sinkhole with sufficient scale and capacity i.e. theoretically bottomless) or else repatriate its export profits which would send the yuan skyrocketing. A too-rich currency would make Chinese exports noncompetitive overnight, shutter thousands of factories and all but ensure the demise of the CCP as millions of peasants found themselves with nothing to do all day. People must be kept busy. More than that, people must also be made to believe that they are being kept busy for a meaningful reason, that their lives are authentically productive, even when they’re not. This holds true for both sides of the Pacific.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The ‘metrics of meaning’ are wildly askew. The value system is bankrupt. Just as this Chinese wall of money caused nine million ‘surplus homes’ to be built in America during the last business cycle, it has helped bankroll a US military that spends more on itself than the next ten nations combined.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Potemkin Villages and aircraft carriers have become stalking horses for financial Ponzi schemes. The traditional utility of building a home for shelter was discarded long ago. The traditional utility of floating an aircraft carrier has been similarly marginalized. Huge chunks of US and Chinese GDP exist today because the alternative (doing nothing) would be socially catastrophic.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is only one way out. We must find—or start--a war of sufficient scale to supply meaning to the sailors, sink a few carriers, raze a few Persian, Syrian and Egyptian cities. If we can knock down enough brick-and-mortar structures (preferably &#39;over there&#39;), expend some bullets, we can get back to good honest labor. Only a ruinous world war followed by a Middle East Marshall Plan can save us. Mubarak and Ahmadinejad are thus the men of the hour. The planet’s economic well-being depends on their continued sabre-rattling. Here’s hoping they don’t screw it up.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A world that cannot destroy nations so that it can rebuild nations is no world to leave behind for our children.&lt;div class=&quot;blogger-post-footer&quot;&gt;________________________________________&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://thepotomacwatch.blogspot.com/2011/02/todays-us-aircraft-carriers-are.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Norman Ball)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DR-hK-iUnPA/TdBa7BG5DKI/AAAAAAAAAFU/jO4ohDGWl3k/s72-c/sisyphus.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4091982005581439079.post-5082355652518059446</guid><pubDate>Fri, 04 Feb 2011 17:06:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2011-05-15T16:02:24.824-07:00</atom:updated><title>The Kill Democracy Switch</title><description>&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jjqk0vN_Veg/TdBbavxyCiI/AAAAAAAAAFY/tKNWYrWQcjo/s1600/brokaw.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; src=&quot;http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jjqk0vN_Veg/TdBbavxyCiI/AAAAAAAAAFY/tKNWYrWQcjo/s1600/brokaw.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;The media control apparatus, really an appendage of the power-elite, is in conniptions over the ‘resumption of journalism’ as practiced, in venerable fashion, by Wiki-leaks. Upton Sinclair would be proud; Walter Cronkite, not so much. There was a time when journalism, the real kind, was dangerous and subversive, when its titular heads didn’t schmooze like Tom Brokaw at Manhattan soirees. Rubbing elbows with the elite used to be a sign of fifth estate capitulation until of course GE and News Corp took the helm.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The corporatists are aghast. Why amass all that media influence, they ask themselves, when a guy with an in-box set up for whistle-blowers, malcontents and soldiers of conscience can turn the whole pyramid upside-down? Assange doesn’t even get invited to Davos. Who the hell does he think he is? The corporate media shills have looked positively ridiculous besides the muckraking fervor of Wiki-leaks. Every time I hear NBC’s Brian Williams refer to himself as a journalist, I want to throw a Styrofoam brick at my GE theatre screen.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Tunisia down, Egypt in tatters, Yemen and Jordan rumbling; where will it end? Gads, real democracy perhaps and not the State Department’s orgy of sound-bites that has propelled shuttle-diplomats since Kissinger onwards--as they simultaneously gave comfort to scores of fascist thugs. Make no mistake. Democracy strikes terror into the hearts of all leaders—no less the ones who straddle ostensible democratic ‘free’ nations. The preservation of power prefers stability (stasis) to throw-the-bums-out proletarian indignation. Stasis is enforced by enshrining seven-figure nonentities like…Katie Couric.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It’s no coincidence Senator Lieberman is all over the news again selling his Internet kill switch. After all, ‘homeland security’ depends on it. The Internet is an anarchic bedevilment, the worst development since Che Guevera--before he became expropriated onto Wal-mart T-shirts and reduced to the moral suasion of an ironed-on Mickey Mouse. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Give these assholes a kill switch and you’ll have your last Egypt-problem. They’ll use it every time a transcendent figure arrives on the scene. Assange is a latter-day Robin Hood, stealing explosive information from the powerful and delivering it, unfiltered, to the masses.  He sidesteps GE’s Brian Williams and claims exactly zero friends in high places. GE is hopping mad. This makes him &lt;i&gt;We, The People’s &lt;/i&gt;very best friend.&lt;div class=&quot;blogger-post-footer&quot;&gt;________________________________________&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://thepotomacwatch.blogspot.com/2011/02/kill-democracy-switch.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Norman Ball)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jjqk0vN_Veg/TdBbavxyCiI/AAAAAAAAAFY/tKNWYrWQcjo/s72-c/brokaw.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4091982005581439079.post-4903515475435010009</guid><pubDate>Sun, 30 Jan 2011 16:24:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2011-01-30T17:53:49.047-08:00</atom:updated><title>Globalization&#39;s Problems Answered On The Streets?</title><description>&lt;a href=&quot;http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aX3KEl8UGL8/TUWh282u4xI/AAAAAAAAABM/8O9g6EEkNeo/s1600/imagesCAHDKGCV.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img style=&quot;MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 180px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 136px; CURSOR: hand&quot; id=&quot;BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568034479734186770&quot; border=&quot;0&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; src=&quot;http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aX3KEl8UGL8/TUWh282u4xI/AAAAAAAAABM/8O9g6EEkNeo/s320/imagesCAHDKGCV.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; With recent events in the Middle-East, following closely the rioting and/or protests seen in Greece, Italy, France and Ireland, one can&#39;t but wonder if the globalization machine is coming undone. What has been lost among the powerful is a fundamental disconnect from the lessons learned over the last 100 years that were supposedly resolved by the World Wars, the end of the Cold War and the apparent victory of free market capitalism and globalization. But global capitalism, divorced from basic fairness and equality, is not always the friend of the bottom 99%, as has been well demonstrated in the realities of the recent economic collapse. As a result, the dark underbelly of globalization was exposed and we are back to the same issues that launched us into global upheaval in the 1930&#39;s.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What is at issue with globalization? Primarily it has to do with basic equality and justice - ideas well understood by our founding fathers, but seemingly lost on our current batch of political and business leaders. If human beings, whether Greek, Egyptian, Tunisian, Italian, Irish or even American, are continually exposed to a system that promotes the well-being of a top tier elite, while ignoring the basic human dignity and needs of the majority of humanity, there will simply be more and more revolt. The powerful seem genetically incapable of realizing this basic reality and seeing the connection (for example) between inflated food prices in Egypt, riots in Greece, and a global financial system run amok. Our current conundrum is that we seem unable to create institutions that protect justice and equality on a global level, which is what we need now. While some may think &#39;global governance&#39; is a bad thing, as long as you have global capitalism you better have some global mechanism for the people to vent their grievances and protect their interests. While obviously true of tyrannies as seen in Egypt, it is also true of our Western &#39;democracies&#39; that seem pathologically incapable of listening to and understanding the needs of the people at large as they cater to the needs of business and finance. Lacking any sort of true global governance that represents the general welfare, people are organizing on the Internet and using Twitter and F&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_0&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;acebook&lt;/span&gt; as tools of social change.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In the West, we have been led to believe that our democracies and free market system allow for upward mobility and the chance that we can - as a small subset of us have demonstrated - become part of the elite (or certainly at least part of the Middle Class) if we worked hard enough and played by the rules. What has happened is that the status &lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_1&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;quo&lt;/span&gt; social contract is being stressed and people as a whole are beginning to realize they are getting the short end of the globalization stick as the Middle Class is systematically looted by a Wall Street seemingly divorced from any basic notion of ethics. Moreover, our governments are willing to bail out this fraud-laced system with trillions, but unwilling to expend the same energy to bail out the people (which could, believe it or not, be done).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But the most hard hit are the young. Unemployed, faced with limited opportunities, seeing only a bleak future, and (in this country) loaded down with student debt, they want to make change happen in a way that goes beyond what Mr. Obama realizes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;According to a recent post by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zerohedge.com/article/global-revolution-accelerating-mike-krieger-explains&quot;&gt;Max &lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_2&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;Krieger&lt;/span&gt; of &lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_3&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;KAM&lt;/span&gt; LP comments on Zero Hedge&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;span style=&quot;font-size:0;&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;My generation is coming into its own and we don’t buy the bull shit of our parents’ generation. We don’t believe in Democrat or Republican. We don’t believe in the system itself. We will be the ones making the decisions going forward. We will default on the astronomic promises our parents made to themselves. We will create an entirely new monetary and financial system. Real free-market capitalism will flourish, not this socialism for the rich garbage Obama loves so much&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Leaders had better start listening to the likes of Max &lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_4&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;Krieger&lt;/span&gt; or they may find themselves confronting him, and others, on the streets. While they may feel that Homeland Security and Fusion Centers give them safety from such things, if enough people rise up, even the most formidable armies and security apparatus don&#39;t stand a chance. In my view, the opinions expressed by &lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_5&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;Krieger&lt;/span&gt; could lead to devolution if people do not learn to cooperate and overcome the divide-and-conquer reality that the financial elites have used to game the system so far. We don&#39;t need another dark age; we need enlightened, democratic world cooperation and governance that is people based, not fear based. Perhaps the Internet itself could be the springboard and template for such a global governance, one that is free from the centralized control so feared by many.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div&gt;The fact is that much our fiat wealth is really, at the end of the day, a bunch of ones-and-zeroes on computers. Because of this, our elites may wake up to the harsh reality that all the speculative gaming in the world won&#39;t protect them from some very upset young people, who at some point might just want to re-do the whole damn system from the ground up and simply reboot the global hard drive. We may, in fact, have reached that point already.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;blogger-post-footer&quot;&gt;________________________________________&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://thepotomacwatch.blogspot.com/2011/01/globalizations-ills-answered-on-streets.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (D.R. Thompson)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_aX3KEl8UGL8/TUWh282u4xI/AAAAAAAAABM/8O9g6EEkNeo/s72-c/imagesCAHDKGCV.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4091982005581439079.post-4242461711200487353</guid><pubDate>Sat, 29 Jan 2011 17:46:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2011-01-29T12:24:56.546-08:00</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">egypt</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">iran</category><title>The Madness of Repetition</title><description>&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TUR3Q7riQDI/AAAAAAAAAE4/gxPOIPy58To/s1600/freedom.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; src=&quot;http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TUR3Q7riQDI/AAAAAAAAAE4/gxPOIPy58To/s1600/freedom.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://http//www.forbes.com/2011/01/29/egypt-protest-economy-opinions-contributors-shadi-hamid.html&quot;&gt;http://www.forbes.com/2011/01/29/egypt-protest-economy-opinions-contributors-shadi-hamid.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A sudden outbreak of worldwide democracy would have the US experiencing regional outcomes and dynamics that would displease it. How eager is America for world democracy? Is democracy-talk a fundamental hypocrisy that promises to ensnare the US in moral duplicity &lt;i&gt;ad infinitum&lt;/i&gt;?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;History repeats itself with dismal regularity, sometimes not even waiting a generation to revisit certain grim chapters. Oh well. Those who lack attention spans are doomed to repeat Monday&#39;s mistakes on Thursday.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The parallels between Egypt &#39;11 and Iran &#39;79 are striking. America embraces a corrupt unpopular regime all for the &#39;greater good&#39; of ensuring regional stability. Yet whenever the lesser evil is comforted, it invariably outgrows the American petrie dish. Corrupt dictators, under cover of massive US aid, torture and suppress their own citizenry only to earn the US a future (and frankly well-earned) enemy, usually of fundamentalist cast. We have become international experts on laying the foundations and pretexts for our own future sworn enemies. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&#39;s time to retire American hubris on the world stage. Let&#39;s call back the diplomats and military bases and just let the world be the world for awhile. Perhaps the world will surprise us. Perhaps Wikileaks will fundamentally reorder things with its arsenal of explosive information as opposed to the timeworn arsenals of exploding IED&#39;s. Instead of rebuilding Iraqi schools and traipsing impassable Afghan terrain, how about fixing some American bridges and sending a few homegrown kids--not to McDonald&#39;s or to the Military Industrial Complex (their two predominant choices)-- but to engineering and medical school?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The Powerful enjoy nothing better than to order tanks and aircraft carriers here and there in a real-life, high-stakes game of Risk. After all Power loves to exercise itself. No doubt it is quite exhilarating. But can America afford this self-indulgent power-wielding any longer--either economically, morally or spiritually?&lt;div class=&quot;blogger-post-footer&quot;&gt;________________________________________&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://thepotomacwatch.blogspot.com/2011/01/madness-of-repetition.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Norman Ball)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TUR3Q7riQDI/AAAAAAAAAE4/gxPOIPy58To/s72-c/freedom.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4091982005581439079.post-2821397890020445003</guid><pubDate>Fri, 28 Jan 2011 22:49:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2011-01-29T12:10:40.549-08:00</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Obama Misleading Speech</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Obama State of Union Speech</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">State of The Union Without Credibility</category><title>Obama&#39;s State of The Union : A Speech Misleading, Without Credibility, and Just Plain Ridiculous</title><description>&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TURXGvoh1_I/AAAAAAAAAE0/O4Js9VdxzHM/s1600/obama2.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; src=&quot;http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TURXGvoh1_I/AAAAAAAAAE0/O4Js9VdxzHM/s1600/obama2.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;After squirming and jaw-dropping my way through the 2011 Obama state-of-the-U, I have a few comments here I&#39;d like to share on this landmark event chocked full of weasel-worded sound and fury.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As a whole, it was a re-election speech that crossed Reagan-like rhetoric with Kennedy, and as such, riddled throughout with distractions of memorable creation, e.g, &lt;i&gt;The future is ours to win&lt;/i&gt;&amp;nbsp;and &lt;i&gt;This is our generation’s Sputnik moment&lt;/i&gt;. Yes, quite &lt;i&gt;stirring &lt;/i&gt;in more ways than one, but as an American fed up with business as usual, I resent them. I resented them as far back as the Reagan years, and I resent them even more now. In this era of declining democracy and the rise of ruling plutonomy, in this era of the Wall Street looting of the American treasury while Haliburton and other warhawk corporations grow ever more obese at the wallet trough, I want straight talk and solutions, not Kennedy-esque prose petals strewn at my feet for the purpose of making me swoon into a re-election booth to cast a ballot for Obama.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Below are some of my favorite speech snippets interspersed with quotes from the brilliant and careful analysis of the speech by &lt;a href=&quot;http://factcheck.org/2011/01/factchecking-obamas-address/&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;FactCheck.Org&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;i&gt;We need to take responsibility for our deficit and reform our government.&lt;/i&gt; &amp;nbsp;Yes, that is exactly what President Obama has been doing since the beginning, right? &amp;nbsp;It must be why he appoints well-known corporate lobbyists and Wall Street bank personnel in positions of power. &amp;nbsp;It must be why he agreed to tax cuts for the wealthy because as everyone knows that will help end the deficit. &amp;nbsp;It must be why he ignores billions of American dollars wasted and stolen in Afghanistan and Iraq. And now, according to this speech, he wants a high-speed rail system for America. It must be because he knows this will help the deficit and reform government by speeding more officials to Washington to work out a &lt;i&gt;high-speed solution&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As the speech developed, Obama made much of his RACE TO THE TOP education initiative, touting it as a great step forward in reforming education nationwide, the best damn thing since the New Deal, but according to FC.Org&#39;s interviews with several nonpartisan education experts like this one:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;span class=&quot;Apple-style-span&quot; style=&quot;font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: x-small;&quot;&gt;Grover “Russ” Whitehurst, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, agreed. &quot;You have to have some anchor for a statement like that. He [Obama] didn’t give one. Education reforms have to be tied to some measure of academic achievement and here we don’t have that. &lt;b&gt;We have a bunch of states promising to do things.&lt;/b&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;A bunch of states promising to do things ...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Next, I marveled at the ready return to old and violated campaign promises, as if this were a re-election speech  (which it was). &amp;nbsp;Now, the Big O is firmly against the upper percent of wealthy Americans  getting tax breaks ( &lt;i&gt;And if we truly care about our deficit, we simply can’t afford a  permanent extension of the tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of  Americans.  Before we take money away from our schools or  scholarships away from our students, we should ask millionaires to give  up their tax break&lt;/i&gt;.), and of course, he WILL veto bills with earmarks. Yes, that is what he&#39;s been saying for years! &amp;nbsp;But tell me, what human  being with any sense can hear this drivel and believe it after he&#39;s  contradicted himself on both these issues when he could have done the  right thing?&amp;nbsp; His MO is to do the opposite and then pretend his hands were  tied, and of course, the acts of hypocrisy are always in the best interest of  the country. &amp;nbsp;Quiz: what other presidents did he copy this tactic from? Carter? Reagan? Bush? All of the above? &amp;nbsp; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And further: &lt;i&gt;... our government has provided cutting-edge scientists and inventors with  the support that they need.  That’s what planted the seeds for the  Internet&lt;/i&gt;. &amp;nbsp;This is misleading.&lt;b&gt; It makes it sound to many who don&#39;t know any better that someone came up with &quot;the Internet proposal&quot; and petitioned the American government for seed money. That was not the case.&lt;/b&gt; The Internet World Wide Web as we know it evolved slowly from the efforts of European scientists, and American entrepreneurs at places like Netscape, not from any incredible act of prescience on the part of U.S. government bureaucrats or officials.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;During a break between continuous explosions of Democrat applause Obama said he wants to end American&#39;s dependence on biofuels, then adds: &lt;i&gt;And to help pay for it, I’m asking Congress to eliminate the billions in  taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies.  (Applause.)  I  don’t know if — I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but they’re doing just  fine on their own.  (Laughter.)  So instead of subsidizing yesterday’s  energy, let’s invest in tomorrow’s.&lt;/i&gt;&quot;&amp;nbsp; Who is he kidding?&amp;nbsp; He is THE PRESIDENT and as such has tremendous influence over how money is spent in the federal budget, I mean, doesn&#39;t he?&amp;nbsp; Must we name the ways?&amp;nbsp; &lt;b&gt;Why doesn&#39;t he take responsibility also instead of behaving as if the responsibility belongs solely to Congress?&amp;nbsp; Is he aware that oil corps directly lobby his own Office of Management and Budget which has responsibility for managing federal money?&lt;/b&gt;&amp;nbsp; Does he know that?&amp;nbsp; He should have said something like, &quot;I am going to propose a cut of $$$ in the federal budget to end oil subsidies, and I want Congress to get on board with this.&quot; But no. He avoids all responsibility.&amp;nbsp; If Congress fails to act, it&#39;s not his fault, and the billions continue to flow while he stands by helpless to act. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And btw, more on his &quot;energy plan&quot; from FC.Org:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;span class=&quot;Apple-style-span&quot; style=&quot;font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: x-small;&quot;&gt;The president set a goal of obtaining 80 percent of our electricity from renewable sources,&amp;nbsp;plus nuclear, natural gas and &quot;clean&quot; coal, by 2035. That’ll take some work, but with three nonrenewable sources in the mix, the goal isn’t unreachable.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;The goal isn&#39;t reachable ...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And now, one of my favs. According to O, America is lagging behind in Internet access! &amp;nbsp;Especially when compared to South Korea. And that MUST be fixed! &amp;nbsp;Well, even if true, SK is a tiny place, America huge. Does Obama intend to use government funds to extend Internet access in America when private business has been doing a much better job than the U.S. government could ever do? Who is he kidding with this one? Besides, corporations like Comcast would lobby millions to prevent the government from providing free or low cost net access to the public, i.e., unless the government subsidized Comcast, or others, at a grossly inflated cost, and there are no plans to do anything like that.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Just more Obama air heated to re-election temperature.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;i&gt;Within 25 years, our goal is to give 80 percent of Americans access to  high-speed rail.  (Applause.)  This could allow you to go places in half  the time it takes to travel by car.  For some trips, it will be faster  than flying –- without the pat-down.  (Laughter and applause.)  As we  speak, routes in California and the Midwest are already underway.&lt;/i&gt;&quot; Huh?&amp;nbsp; This one was a jaw drop, and even a laugh.&amp;nbsp; Obama noted he wants HIGH SPEED RAIL to be available to Americans. You mean, like the way it is in Europe?&amp;nbsp; Is he saying that &quot;our goal&quot; will be to spend the trillions in funding necessary (he allocated $35 billion just for medical records) to bring new high-speed rail systems to this 80% of America?&amp;nbsp; Even if we were not running massive deficits, this would still be foolish.&amp;nbsp; It&#39;s been floundering in California for the longest time, much less in the rest of the country. So where is the plan?&amp;nbsp; What is the specific plan to fulfill &quot;our goal&quot;?&amp;nbsp; Will Obama have to worry if it doesn&#39;t work out 25 years from now? &amp;nbsp;More from FC.Org:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;span class=&quot;Apple-style-span&quot; style=&quot;font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: x-small;&quot;&gt;It’s true that routes in&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.turnto23.com/news/26545527/detail.html&quot;&gt;California&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;and&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.idothsr.org/2010_const/&quot;&gt;Illinois&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;are underway, but the U.S. has a long way to go before 80 percent of Americans have access to high-speed rail. Right now, there’s&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fra.dot.gov/Downloads/RRdev/hsrspfacts.pdf&quot;&gt;only one high-speed line operating&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;in the country: the Acela line between Boston, New York and Washington. The expansion Obama wants requires the cooperation of Congress and the states ...&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;And I can tell you, the Acela line is far from &quot;high speed&quot; esp since it&#39;s only 20 minutes avg faster than the regular rail between NYC and D.C. (plus it&#39;s uncomfortable!).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;i&gt;These steps we’ve taken over the last two years may have broken the  back of this recession, but to win the future, we’ll need to take on  challenges that have been decades in the making.&lt;/i&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;May have, or may not have? Did it or didn&#39;t it? O is covering his A on this one with the &quot;may have&quot; ... He insinuates here that the hundreds of billions in &quot;stimulus&quot; (except of course for $35 billion for medical records, etc.) he authorized helped to end the recession. Or has it ended at all?&amp;nbsp; &lt;b&gt;As Robert Reich recently pointed out, the recession is as bad as ever for huge parts of this country, the &quot;ending&quot; of it more of delusion than a reality&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;More weasel-wording added to the momentum of the speech to give the appearance of being on top of the issues but without actually taking responsibility or stating a plan for solving the problem: &amp;nbsp;&lt;i&gt;And over the next 10 years, with so many baby boomers retiring from our  classrooms, we want to prepare 100,000 new teachers in the fields of  science and technology and engineering and math.  (Applause.)&lt;/i&gt;&quot;&amp;nbsp; We &quot;want to&quot;?&amp;nbsp; Who is &quot;we&quot; anyway?&amp;nbsp; The Dept of Education?&amp;nbsp; The White House staff?&amp;nbsp; Who exactly?&amp;nbsp; Because someone somewhere &quot;wants&quot; to do something about it doesn&#39;t mean anyone ever will. &amp;nbsp;If Obama worries or cares about a lack of qualified teachers, why not talk about, for example, getting more of the TARP money back to fund the creation of this new pool of teachers?&amp;nbsp; How about ending the massive suck of American treasury down the furnace stacks of Afghanistan and Iraq? &amp;nbsp;How about canceling the placement of useless anti-ballistic missiles? How about canceling the Pentagon&#39;s drone attack program? ... OR, something really radical, how about going after specific and extremely wasteful Democrat pork projects that could be axed to fund these teachers, and perhaps even smaller classrooms, and maybe more schools?&amp;nbsp; How about it?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Won&#39;t he get his chance when the earmarks roll around again? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And finally, an attempt to bravely restore our fear of al Qaeda cells lurking to attack Americans and the image of Obama holding hands with the American government to keep us all safe.&amp;nbsp; Right out of the Bush playbook.&amp;nbsp; Will it ever get old?&amp;nbsp; &lt;b&gt;Will the message of fear packaged so cleverly and delivered so brilliantly always get the results it intends? &amp;nbsp;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;i&gt;Of course, as we speak, al Qaeda and their affiliates continue to plan  attacks against us.  Thanks to our intelligence and law enforcement  professionals, we’re disrupting plots and securing our cities and skies.   And as extremists try to inspire acts of violence within our borders,  we are responding with the strength of our communities&lt;/i&gt; ...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As Keith O. said to us, &quot;Goodnight, and good luck.&quot;&lt;div class=&quot;blogger-post-footer&quot;&gt;________________________________________&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://thepotomacwatch.blogspot.com/2011/01/obamas-state-of-union-filled-with.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Michael Neff)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TURXGvoh1_I/AAAAAAAAAE0/O4Js9VdxzHM/s72-c/obama2.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4091982005581439079.post-8914105207825281569</guid><pubDate>Thu, 06 Jan 2011 00:43:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2011-01-18T17:11:53.342-08:00</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Citigroup</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Peter Orszag</category><title>Power Increases Hypocrisy : Peter Orszag, NAFTA Daley, Olbermann Gets Balls</title><description>&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TSULYShrYQI/AAAAAAAAAEk/1_-DzhpVGig/s1600/power.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; height=&quot;200&quot; src=&quot;http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TSULYShrYQI/AAAAAAAAAEk/1_-DzhpVGig/s200/power.jpg&quot; width=&quot;186&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;color: #990000;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;Does Power Increase Hypocrisy and Immorality? Ask Peter Orszag.&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A great study from &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/galinsky/Power%20Hypocrisy%20Psych%20Science%20in%20press.pdf&quot;&gt;Northwestern&lt;/a&gt; proves human beings in positions of power tend more often than not to judge others far more harshly than they judge themselves for the same behavior. And much more. Worth a read. Recommend to the Obama White House and his lobbyist appointees at the Pentagon.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;More comments by&lt;a href=&quot;http://danariely.com/2010/04/25/power-and-moral-hypocrisy/&quot;&gt; Dan Ariely&lt;/a&gt; also.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And where can we find a better example of&amp;nbsp;the powerful being morally soft&amp;nbsp;when it comes to&amp;nbsp;their own behavior&amp;nbsp;than the recent departure of Obama&#39;s budget chief, the two-year director of OMB, Peter Orszag, for &lt;a href=&quot;http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/09/news/companies/citi_orszag/index.htm&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;the banking lobbying ground&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt; of Citigroup? &amp;nbsp;What&#39;s the big deal you ask? &amp;nbsp;What is the relevance to this headline? &amp;nbsp;Read this Obama Executive Order for starters: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Ethics-Commitments-By-Executive-Branch-Personnel/&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;HERE IT IS&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Please pay special attention to the paragraph which states:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;i&gt;Revolving Door Ban&amp;nbsp;-- All Appointees Entering Government.&amp;nbsp; I will not for a period of 2&amp;nbsp;years from the date of my appointment participate in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to my former employer or former clients, including regulations and contracts&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;legacy-para&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TSi9Dk1HgYI/AAAAAAAAAEo/X9EnQWPzUTE/s1600/orszag.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; src=&quot;http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TSi9Dk1HgYI/AAAAAAAAAEo/X9EnQWPzUTE/s1600/orszag.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Please note however that Obama did not actually forbid his appointees from going right from his office into the corporate lobbying world. &amp;nbsp;The EO was nothing but an empty &quot;ethics pledge&quot;. &amp;nbsp;Peter Orszag, when confronted with an enormous paycheck, considerable power, and the ability to leave the Obama ship asap, immediately tossed aside the &quot;pledge&quot; ... well, of course he did!&amp;nbsp; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Let&#39;s not forget that &lt;b&gt;Citigroup was a recipient of tens of billions of TARP money courtesy of the federal government.&lt;/b&gt;&amp;nbsp; Reports have it that&amp;nbsp;our high rolling&amp;nbsp;gov guys&amp;nbsp;recently sold its Citigroup shares for a profit. Did the framers of the American government have it in mind that corporate appointees (in the guise of federal&amp;nbsp;officials) and sitting presidents be directly involved with buying and selling stocks of powerful banking corporations?&amp;nbsp;Also, as this &lt;a href=&quot;http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2010/12/07/treasury-near-10-billion-citi-windfall/?iid=EL&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;article makes clear&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, the financial dealings between Citigroup and the Treasury Department are not finished.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Should any of these facts make sensible Americans nervous?&amp;nbsp; Angry?&amp;nbsp; Or at least provide the ability to see major conflicts of interest?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;legacy-para&quot;&gt;__________&amp;nbsp; &lt;br /&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;div style=&quot;color: #990000;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;Obama up In The Polls in January, 2011&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As 2011 pushes forward with more broken Obama promises, stepped up drone assassinations, Gitmo ongoings, fresh and useless war in Afghanistan, tax breaks for the mega wealthy, persecution of medical marijuana sellers in California, increased prosecution of government whistleblowers, etc., etc., we have a quote for all those Americans who think Obama is doing a great job now:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;i&gt;A fool can always find an even bigger fool to admire him.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; - Boileau.&lt;/div&gt;__________&amp;nbsp; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b style=&quot;color: #990000;&quot;&gt;Corporate Banker and Former NAFTA Cheerleader to Run White House&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TSUJcH5NUcI/AAAAAAAAAEg/BFid2wI5sAI/s1600/daley.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; src=&quot;http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TSUJcH5NUcI/AAAAAAAAAEg/BFid2wI5sAI/s1600/daley.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Don&#39;t you just love the parade of corporate sociopaths in the Obama &quot;Audacity-of-Hope&quot; administration? A little bio on William Daley (this is from the J.P. Morgan/Chase website), the guy Obama now wants to put in charge of the White House:&amp;nbsp; William M. Daley serves as Senior Executive of Midwest Region (will he quit to be Chief of Staff?) and has been Chairman of Midwest Region of J.P. Morgan Chase &amp;amp; Co. since May 2004 and serves on its Executive Committee and its International Advisory Council (is he saving a seat for Obama after he ruins the nation as President?). Mr. Daley joined J.P. Morgan Chase &amp;amp; Co., after serving as the President of SBC Communications Inc. from December 2001 to May 2004.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;He also serves as Director at Local Initiatives Support Corporation since January 2007. Previously, he served as U.S.&lt;span id=&quot;dots&quot; style=&quot;display: none;&quot;&gt; ...&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;hidden&quot; style=&quot;display: inline;&quot;&gt; Secretary of commerce under President Clinton from January 1997 to July 2000. As special counsel to President Clinton in 1993, he coordinated the successful campaign to pass the North American Free Trade Agreement ... KEYWORDS: NAFTA, COMMERCE, BIG BANKS.&amp;nbsp; We all know that NAFTA was probably Bill Clinton&#39;s biggest lie.&amp;nbsp; It&#39;s no wonder that once again, corporate America has wedged in William Daley to steer the course for Obama.&amp;nbsp; Hasn&#39;t he done so well in the past? Shouldn&#39;t we as Americans have confidence in Obama&#39;s choice now that Larry is gone?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;hidden&quot; style=&quot;display: inline;&quot;&gt;___________&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;color: #990000;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;color: #990000;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;hidden&quot; style=&quot;display: inline;&quot;&gt;Keith Olberman Finally Gets Some Balls re Obama &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;object height=&quot;344&quot; width=&quot;425&quot;&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;movie&quot; value=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/HW3a704cZlc?fs=1&amp;amp;hl=en_US&amp;amp;color1=0x3a3a3a&amp;amp;color2=0x999999&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowFullScreen&quot; value=&quot;true&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowscriptaccess&quot; value=&quot;always&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;embed src=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/HW3a704cZlc?fs=1&amp;amp;hl=en_US&amp;amp;color1=0x3a3a3a&amp;amp;color2=0x999999&quot; type=&quot;application/x-shockwave-flash&quot; allowscriptaccess=&quot;always&quot; allowfullscreen=&quot;true&quot; width=&quot;425&quot; height=&quot;344&quot;&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt; &lt;/center&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;blogger-post-footer&quot;&gt;________________________________________&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://thepotomacwatch.blogspot.com/2011/01/power-increases-hypocrisy-nafta-daley.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Michael Neff)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TSULYShrYQI/AAAAAAAAAEk/1_-DzhpVGig/s72-c/power.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4091982005581439079.post-1999659261061209905</guid><pubDate>Wed, 05 Jan 2011 17:10:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2011-01-05T09:40:27.917-08:00</atom:updated><title>Journalistic MIA&#39;s</title><description>The Greenslade Blog posts an oh-so-tame examination on why American journalists have been MIA on the Wikileaks affair. With all due respect, it pays to remember Occam&#39;s razor: the simplest hypothesis is the most feasible one.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/jan/05/wikileaks-us-press-publishing&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;American journalists are not in fact journalists but rather career employees of corporate entities who have coopted the term &#39;journalism&#39; for profit-making purposes. Meanwhile the silence from all the &#39;traditional news outlets&#39; has been deafening. Another operable law? When they&#39;re silent, more often than not we&#39;re the lambs, and the slaughter looms just ahead. What&#39;s on the chopping block is internet openness. The Internet is a thorn in the side of the powerful. You can be assured they are waiting for a galvanizing event to curtail its anarchic features. Witness how quickly the FCC came out with its new Internet censorship policies. All that was on a shelf. Assange merely furnished the pretext to open that particular can of whup-ass.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Assange is a journalist of the first order. He is a truth seeker and he does his job at risk of great personal harm, just like journalists of old.&lt;div class=&quot;blogger-post-footer&quot;&gt;________________________________________&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://thepotomacwatch.blogspot.com/2011/01/journalistic-mias.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Norman Ball)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4091982005581439079.post-8297229144353274464</guid><pubDate>Sat, 01 Jan 2011 01:59:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2010-12-31T17:59:06.805-08:00</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Black Woman Criticizes Obama</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Obama</category><title>Black Woman Shreds Obama With The Truth - No More Town Halls for Him?</title><description>&lt;center&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;object width=&quot;560&quot; height=&quot;340&quot;&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;movie&quot; value=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/oCN-AirxKWg?fs=1&amp;amp;hl=en_US&amp;amp;color1=0x3a3a3a&amp;amp;color2=0x999999&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowFullScreen&quot; value=&quot;true&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowscriptaccess&quot; value=&quot;always&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;embed src=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/oCN-AirxKWg?fs=1&amp;amp;hl=en_US&amp;amp;color1=0x3a3a3a&amp;amp;color2=0x999999&quot; type=&quot;application/x-shockwave-flash&quot; allowscriptaccess=&quot;always&quot; allowfullscreen=&quot;true&quot; width=&quot;560&quot; height=&quot;340&quot;&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;  &lt;/center&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;blogger-post-footer&quot;&gt;________________________________________&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://thepotomacwatch.blogspot.com/2010/12/black-woman-shreds-obama-with-truth-no.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Michael Neff)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4091982005581439079.post-2781580818388307820</guid><pubDate>Thu, 23 Dec 2010 02:01:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2010-12-22T18:01:04.737-08:00</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Amanda Marcotte</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Julian Assange</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Naomi Wolf</category><title>The Perils of Charging Rape - The Amanda Marcotte Noise Machine Once Again Acts as Judge and Jury</title><description>&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TRKsxtWeaoI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/L_Uts_3UPYc/s1600/marcotte.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; src=&quot;http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TRKsxtWeaoI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/L_Uts_3UPYc/s1600/marcotte.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;h2 class=&quot;title&quot; style=&quot;font-family: &amp;quot;Trebuchet MS&amp;quot;,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: small;&quot;&gt;Amanda Marcotte, while vigorously smearing anyone, male or female, feminist or non-feminist, who dares question the validity of sexual assault charges against Julian Assange (because maybe this circumstance for Marcotte is really about &lt;i&gt;power&lt;/i&gt;, not truth?) believes the two women accusing Julian Assange of sexual assault be taken seriously based on their allegations alone, regardless of all circumstances and repeated denials by Assange.&amp;nbsp; She has no choice, for no evidence exists other than the substance of the allegations. No video footage depicts a monstrous Assange allegedly holding down one of the women to prevent her from &quot;reaching for a condom&quot; (obviously, this was not rape), nor is there footage of Assange allegedly rubbing &quot;up against her with his pants off&quot; (again, not rape).&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;h2 class=&quot;title&quot; style=&quot;font-family: &amp;quot;Trebuchet MS&amp;quot;,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: small;&quot;&gt;In Marcotte&#39;s own words from her &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.slate.com/id/2278906/&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; in &lt;i&gt;Slate&lt;/i&gt;:&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;blockquote style=&quot;font-family: &amp;quot;Trebuchet MS&amp;quot;,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;&lt;h2 class=&quot;title&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: small;&quot;&gt;... the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange-sweden&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Guardian &lt;/em&gt;obtained the depositions&lt;/a&gt;  taken by Swedish police from the alleged victims. In these documents,  one of the women alleges that Assange behaved threateningly with her and  held her down to prevent her from reaching for a condom. He did end up  wearing one, but she thinks he ripped it and deliberately ejaculated  inside her. He also later rubbed up against her with his pants off, she  says, against her will. The other alleged victim claims that she  struggled with Assange over the condom all night, had consensual sex  with him when he finally put it on, and then woke up later in the night  to find Assange having sex with her, without her consent and without a  condom.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;h2 class=&quot;title&quot; style=&quot;font-family: &amp;quot;Trebuchet MS&amp;quot;,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: small;&quot;&gt;Okay, but for the sake of argument in this case, why can&#39;t Julian Assange&#39;s version of events also be taken at face value? Why the big gender divide? Is Amanda Marcotte telling us that only men lie?&amp;nbsp; That anyone of the right gender who makes these kind of allegations &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: small;&quot;&gt;&lt;i style=&quot;font-weight: normal;&quot;&gt;must&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: small;&quot;&gt; be telling the truth regardless of circumstances, and that anyone of the wrong gender who denies such allegations must be guilty? Well, let&#39;s take a look at another Amanda Marcotte shoot-from-the-hip acted out by her not so long ago, one involving the lacrosse players at Duke University, who btw were falsely accused of gang rape by one Crystal Gale Mangum (btw, recently arrested for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/02/18/2010-02-18_crystal_gail_mangum_stripper_in_duke_lacrosse_rape_case_charged_with_arson_and_a.html&quot;&gt;attempted murder&lt;/a&gt;).&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;h2 class=&quot;title&quot; style=&quot;font-family: &amp;quot;Trebuchet MS&amp;quot;,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: small;&quot;&gt;Here is one of Marcotte&#39;s choice comments (&lt;a href=&quot;http://letters.salon.com/news/feature/2007/02/16/marcotte/permalink/821f26ae141f359f9607ff89284c90e2.html&quot;&gt;noted at Salon.com&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;blockquote style=&quot;font-family: &amp;quot;Trebuchet MS&amp;quot;,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;&lt;h2 class=&quot;title&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: small;&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;In the meantime, I’ve been sort of casually listening to CNN blaring throughout the waiting area and good fucking god is that channel pure evil. For awhile, I had to listen to how the poor dear lacrosse players at Duke are being persecuted just because they held someone down and fucked her against her will—not rape, of course, because the charges have been thrown out.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: small;&quot;&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;h2 class=&quot;title&quot; style=&quot;font-family: &amp;quot;Trebuchet MS&amp;quot;,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: small;&quot;&gt;Marcotte had determined that CNN was &quot;pure evil&quot; because they reported the truth about the false accusations and prosecution in the Duke rape case, namely that Crystal Gale Mangum had been lying all along (quite theatrically) and that prosecutor Nifong had conspired with the local DNA lab to hide the real evidence that proved the lacrosse players were telling the truth.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;h2 class=&quot;title&quot; style=&quot;font-family: &amp;quot;Trebuchet MS&amp;quot;,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: small;&quot;&gt;The point is, regardless of circumstances, anyone who dares questions sexual assault allegations is quickly attacked by Marcotte, even a feminist as popular as Naomi Wolf (see Marcotte&#39;s piece in &lt;i&gt;Slate&lt;/i&gt;) who recently wrote scathingly of the Assange affair in the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/interpol-the-worlds-datin_b_793033.html&quot;&gt;Huffington Post&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;h2 class=&quot;title&quot; style=&quot;font-family: &amp;quot;Trebuchet MS&amp;quot;,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: small;&quot;&gt;I see that Julian Assange is accused of having consensual sex with two  women, in one case using a condom that broke. I understand, from the&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336291/Wikileaks-Julian-Assanges-2-night-stands-spark-worldwide-hunt.html?ito=feeds-newsxml&quot; target=&quot;_hplink&quot;&gt; alleged victims&#39; complaints to the media&lt;/a&gt;,  that Assange is also accused of texting and tweeting in the taxi on the  way to one of the women&#39;s apartments while on a date, and, disgustingly  enough, &#39;reading stories about himself online&#39; in the cab.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;h2 class=&quot;title&quot; style=&quot;font-family: &amp;quot;Trebuchet MS&amp;quot;,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: small;&quot;&gt;And on a slight tangent, did Amanda Marcotte actually write a book entitled, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.com/Get-Opinionated-Progressives-Finding-Taking/dp/1580053025&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Get Opinionated&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;?&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;h2 class=&quot;title&quot; style=&quot;font-family: &amp;quot;Trebuchet MS&amp;quot;,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: small;&quot;&gt;Make sure you read both the customer reviews.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;h2 class=&quot;title&quot; style=&quot;font-family: &amp;quot;Trebuchet MS&amp;quot;,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;h2 class=&quot;title&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: small;&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;blogger-post-footer&quot;&gt;________________________________________&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://thepotomacwatch.blogspot.com/2010/12/perils-of-charging-rape-amanda-marcotte.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Michael Neff)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TRKsxtWeaoI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/L_Uts_3UPYc/s72-c/marcotte.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>1</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4091982005581439079.post-2650424968851714813</guid><pubDate>Thu, 16 Dec 2010 22:32:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2010-12-16T14:32:48.131-08:00</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Corrupt Prosecutors</category><title>It Takes a Great Prosecutor to Convict an Innocent Man</title><description>&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TQqTd2ClzcI/AAAAAAAAAEM/nIjaKLDxQkc/s1600/dukelacross.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; src=&quot;http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TQqTd2ClzcI/AAAAAAAAAEM/nIjaKLDxQkc/s1600/dukelacross.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;In case anyone believes tales of corrupt prosecutors are just media myth, think again. Based on recent studies of misconduct of American prosecutors at all levels, and the numbers of innocent people they&#39;ve sent to prison, one begins to realize a form of social Darwinism at work, one that rewards the most ruthless of attorneys willing to exercise as much Machiavellian sociopathic power as they believe necessary in order to make a name for themselves. Many of them have political ambitions, like the infamous Nifong of Duke Rape Case fame, and Martha Cokely of Massachusetts, a woman who made her name convicting innocent people based on repressed memory &quot;evidence&quot; that would appear laughable to any rational person.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Below are links that are a must read on this disturbing trend.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2010/10/corruption_common_among_us_att.php&quot;&gt;Corruption Common Among U.S. Prosecutors&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;A 2009 brief filed by the Cato Institute, the American Civil Liberties  Union, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys in the  U.S. Supreme Court case Pottawattamie v. McGhee noted that studies of  wrongful convictions in California, New York, and Chicago all found that  though prosecutorial misconduct contributed to a sizable majority of  cases that sent innocent people to prison in those states, the  misbehaving prosecutors were rarely if ever sanctioned.&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.southerninjustice.com/&quot;&gt;Southern Injustice&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;Rather, the more important question that must be considered is whether  our judicial system itself, if and when confronted with a capital case  that does present a compelling question of innocence, supported  by  substantial evidence, is capable of and &lt;i&gt;willing to protect &lt;/i&gt;the innocent from being executed? Or are today’s politically influenced Courts now &lt;i&gt;deliberately obstructing &lt;/i&gt;legitimate claims of innocence, even willing &lt;i&gt;to sacrifice the innocent&lt;/i&gt; in an insidious attempt to conceal a virtual epidemic of injustice in America?&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.innocenceproject.org/understand/Government-Misconduct.php&quot;&gt;Innocent Project on &quot;Government Corruption&quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;Some wrongful convictions are caused by honest mistakes.&amp;nbsp; But in far too  many cases, the very people who are responsible for ensuring truth and  justice – law enforcement officials and prosecutors – lose sight of  these obligations and instead focus solely on securing convictions.&amp;nbsp; The  cases of wrongful convictions uncovered by DNA testing are filled with  evidence of negligence, fraud or misconduct by prosecutors or police  departments.&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_care_sex_abuse_hysteria&quot;&gt;The Role of&amp;nbsp; Corrupt Prosecutors in Sex Abuse Hysteria Cases&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;In 1995 a critical series of articles in the &lt;a class=&quot;mw-redirect&quot; href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_Journal&quot; title=&quot;Wall Street Journal&quot;&gt;Wall Street Journal&lt;/a&gt; by &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Rabinowitz&quot; title=&quot;Dorothy Rabinowitz&quot;&gt;Dorothy Rabinowitz&lt;/a&gt;  alleged that the convictions relied entirely on testimony from the  children that had been coerced by dubious interrogation techniques, with  no corroborating evidence&lt;sup class=&quot;reference&quot; id=&quot;cite_ref-darkness_12-0&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_care_sex_abuse_hysteria#cite_note-darkness-12&quot;&gt;[13]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;sup class=&quot;reference&quot; id=&quot;cite_ref-darknessII_13-0&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_care_sex_abuse_hysteria#cite_note-darknessII-13&quot;&gt;[14]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;  The chief prosecutor of both of the Amirault cases responded to the  articles with statements that &quot;the children testified to being  photographed and molested by acts that included penetration by objects&quot;  and &quot;the implication ... that the children&#39;s allegations of abuse were  tainted by improper interviewing is groundless and not true.&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;sup class=&quot;reference&quot; id=&quot;cite_ref-14&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_care_sex_abuse_hysteria#cite_note-14&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: large;&quot;&gt;&lt;sup class=&quot;reference&quot; id=&quot;cite_ref-14&quot;&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://draft.blogger.com/goog_1162578017&quot;&gt;&lt;sup class=&quot;reference&quot; id=&quot;cite_ref-14&quot;&gt;The Right Not to Be Framed?&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;THERE IS NO Freestanding Constitutional &#39;Right Not To Be Framed.&#39; &quot; So  states a brief filed by Iowa prosecutors hoping to persuade the Supreme  Court to dismiss a lawsuit against them for allegedly fabricating  evidence that led to the 25-year incarceration of two innocent men. &quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/12/hbc-90004009&quot;&gt;Corrupt Prosecutors in Texas and Alabama&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;his week Bennett is back with the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bennettlawfirm.typepad.com/badprosecutors/&quot;&gt;“Ten Worst Prosecutors of 2008.”&lt;/a&gt;  The list will have few surprises for regular readers of &lt;i&gt;No Comment.&lt;/i&gt;  Leading the list for the second year running is former attorney general &lt;b&gt;Alberto Gonzales&lt;/b&gt;,  the man who, doing the bidding of Karl Rove, introduced new standards  of ineptitude, dishonesty and political corruption to the U.S.  Department of Justice&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.november.org/stayinfo/breaking08/Colombs.html&quot;&gt;Guilty Before Proven Innocent&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;But in the ensuing months, the government&#39;s case unraveled,       exposing some unsettling truths about the way jailhouse informants       are used in America&#39;s courtrooms. In December 2006, all charges       against the family were dismissed. The federal judge who presided       over the trial was so upset about what happened in his courtroom       that he has since taken the rare step of speaking out about it       publicly.&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/01/AR2009110101950.html&quot;&gt; &lt;/a&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;blogger-post-footer&quot;&gt;________________________________________&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://thepotomacwatch.blogspot.com/2010/12/it-takes-great-prosecutor-to-convict.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Michael Neff)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TQqTd2ClzcI/AAAAAAAAAEM/nIjaKLDxQkc/s72-c/dukelacross.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>2</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4091982005581439079.post-550063286434270239</guid><pubDate>Sun, 12 Dec 2010 19:44:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2010-12-27T14:59:17.516-08:00</atom:updated><title>Summing Up The Economic and Political Situation in a Few Paragraphs</title><description>&lt;div align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;div face=&quot;&#39;Trebuchet MS&#39;, sans-serif, font-size:small&quot;&gt;&lt;a style=&quot;MARGIN-BOTTOM: 1em; FLOAT: left; CLEAR: left; MARGIN-RIGHT: 1em&quot; href=&quot;http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aX3KEl8UGL8/TQUnUHFysZI/AAAAAAAAABA/h_bQ0vknvys/s1600/wealth_piechart.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot;&gt;&lt;img style=&quot;TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN-TOP: 0px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px&quot; id=&quot;BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5549885342258213266&quot; border=&quot;0&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; src=&quot;http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aX3KEl8UGL8/TQUnUHFysZI/AAAAAAAAABA/h_bQ0vknvys/s320/wealth_piechart.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-family:trebuchet ms;&quot;&gt;I’ll try to sum up the current economic and political situation in a few paragraphs, because the trends are becoming on one hand obvious, but on the other hand obfuscated by mainstream media. The facts are there, we just need to wake up to them.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Since the 1970’s, after the end of the &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_0&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_0&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_0&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_0&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;Bretton&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; woods&lt;/a&gt; financial era (AKA, gold-backed dollar system) there has been an accelerating decline of the Middle Class in this country and others. The graph on the left shows the discrepancy between rich and poor in the US as of 2007, a trend which has only accelerated since the financial collapse of 2008 (Source: &#39;Ponds and Streams: Wealth and Income in the U.S., 1989 to 2007&#39;).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-family:trebuchet ms;&quot;&gt;CNN sums up the current situation as follows:&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div  style=&quot;font-family:&#39;Trebuchet MS&#39;, sans-serif;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-family:Verdana;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-family:verdana;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-family:&#39;Trebuchet MS&#39;;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;The richest 1% of U.S. Households had a net worth 225 times greater than that of the average American household in 2009, according to analysis conducted by the Economics Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. That&#39;s up from the previous record of 190 times greater, which was set in 2004.&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-family:trebuchet ms;&quot;&gt;Why has this &lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_1&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-corrected&quot;&gt;inequality&lt;/span&gt; happened? In addition to the standard response that we&#39;ve &#39;shipped all of our jobs overseas&#39;, this shift has also happened to a large extent because the productivity gains made in our modern economies have seen the fruits of those gains disproportionately shifted to the upper 10% of society, to the detriment of the lower 90%. To put it another way, Americans should be making more money for their labor relative to the productivity gains we’&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_2&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_1&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_1&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_1&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;ve&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; seen in the past 30 years. According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Reich&quot;&gt;Robert Reich&lt;/a&gt; in his book &lt;i&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_3&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_2&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_2&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_2&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;Supercapitalism&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;:&lt;/i&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;i  style=&quot;font-family:&#39;Trebuchet MS&#39;,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;i&gt;&quot;America is far more productive than it was 20 or 30 years ago, but most people haven&#39;t shared much in the bounty. Had median household income continued to grow at the same rate productivity grew over the last thirty years, the typical household would have earned $20,000 more in 2006 than it actually did.&quot; &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-family:&#39;Trebuchet MS&#39;,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;&lt;div align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;None of this has happened in a vacuum. Government policies dating back to Jimmy Carter have evolved what &lt;em&gt;Foreign Affairs&lt;/em&gt; magazine called a &#39;winner take all&#39; economy that has &lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_3&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-corrected&quot;&gt;weakened&lt;/span&gt; labor organizations, allowed the elite to profit from the &lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_4&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;mis&lt;/span&gt;-use of de-regulation and technology, and promoted a slow drift away from the gains made by labor under 1930&#39;s and 1960&#39;s New Deal and Great Society legislation. Not that those policies were perfect; but certainly compared to what we have now, with income inequality in the US approaching that of a 3rd world nation, we need to rethink what we have lost. This policy drift was, according to &lt;em&gt;Foreign Affairs&lt;/em&gt;, a very deliberate and well-funded effort by wealthy and conservative forces to turn back the clock. The results are now bearing fruit.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In addition to issues with labor displacement, productivity and bad policy, speculative finance capitalism (newly unleashed by de-regulation of the last 10 years) allows the creation of bubbles that serve to shift enormous amounts of wealth to a small percentage, while the bulk of others are left holding the speculative bag. Moreover, there is overwhelming evidence that the ‘primary dealers’ on Wall Street are improperly gaming the system to the detriment of many.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;The challenge is this: how do we distribute wealth in a just and fair way so that the productive gains made by society are distributed fairly across society? And how do we do so in a way that &lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_4&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_3&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_3&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_5&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;doesn&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;’t undermine our belief in liberty and democracy?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;First, we must look at the idea of Economic Justice, which is separate and distinct from socialism – a word so many use to describe any policy aimed at distributing wealth.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;According to the late &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortimer_J._Adler&quot;&gt;Mortimer J. Adler&lt;/a&gt;, justice is part of the three pillars of any democratic society that includes justice, liberty, and equality. In our society, liberty – and more precisely a libertarian ideal of liberty – has taken precedence over equality and justice. In reality, according to Adler, all three ideas buttress and are necessary for the others to survive.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The liberties that we have remaining are due to the fact that the upper 1% still needs liberty to do what they need to do to exploit the lower 99%. But on analysis, liberty taken to its extreme is, according to Adler, not liberty but license. License arises when liberty is used to exploit others in a way that is neither equitable nor just.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;In Europe, they are (as of December, 2010) rioting in Greece, all fueled by questions regarding fundamental justice and fairness arising from the financial crisis. Greeks feel that the &lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_4&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_4&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_6&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;EU&#39;s&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; economic bailouts of the banks have come with austerity measures that unjustly punish people at large, while banks are provided ample funds and support by the European Central Bank. To the Greeks, and more and more Europeans, the question of Economic Justice is very much on their minds. It is no small irony that the country where democracy was founded (Greece) should suffer inordinately under the boot of finance &lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_5&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-corrected&quot;&gt;capitalism&lt;/span&gt;, and that Greece may be where democracy rises yet again.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;The timing couldn&#39;t be better. The rise of authoritarian capitalism in China as a model for the future, and (some would argue) the corollary rise of Homeland Security in this country, are aimed at dismantling the pillar of liberty that the upper 1% see as the final roadblock to financial utopia. In other words, at some point in the future, the top 1% will literally “buy” liberty within the global economy, while the rest of us either have no liberties (outside of the &#39;liberty&#39; to consume), or will see those liberties erode. We cannot let this happen.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;What is the answer? The answer is simple. We must re-introduce the ideas of equality and justice into our economic sphere. This can happen in a number of ways, to be sure -- some incremental, some radical. And while incremental (some would say &#39;band aid&#39;) solutions are proposed in Congress every day, we will eventually most likely need radical shifts in our economic structures over the long term. This is because we have let the situation devolve to such an extent that merely raising taxes on the wealthy, along with other incremental solutions, will likely not get us where we need to go. Moreover, these incremental solutions usually saddle most of with a burden that should be equally distributed among all.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;Many on the more intelligent financial blogs, including &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.zerohedge.com/&quot;&gt;Zero Hedge&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://seekingalpha.com/&quot;&gt;Seeking Alpha&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://maxkeiser.com/&quot;&gt;Max &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_5&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;  style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_6&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_5&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://maxkeiser.com/&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_7&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;Keiser&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt; and others, can lead the way toward a more equitable financial situation, but in my opinion the majority of those blogs, while brilliant at analyzing the fundamental problems, generally do not put forward workable solutions. Any solutions so far have been more rage-based actions and lashing out (the ‘crash JP Morgan’ campaign is an example). While crashing J.P. Morgan may provide some emotional release, it &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_6&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;  style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_7&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_6&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_8&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;doesn&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;’t solve our long term problems, and may just indeed cause more suffering.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;At the core of our financial problems is the nature of money and money creation, and understanding the difference between debt financing (traditionally seen as non-inflationary) and ‘quantitative easing’ (AKA ‘printing money’, seen ultimately as inflationary). Given our high rates of productivity, quantitative easing can help our short term financial situation, and certainly that of the investor class, without being excessively inflationary in terms of the CPI (although the policy&#39;s impact on asset bubbles and &#39;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biflation&quot;&gt;bi-&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_9&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;flation&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&#39; is another story).&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;But even if we ‘solve’ our national financial situation through short term quantitative easing, we may do so at the expense of others, and merely export the problems. For example, US quantitative easing may actually cause higher bouts of inflation not so much in the US, but in Asia – specifically China. While in ‘currency wars’ it may all be well and good for &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Bernanke&quot;&gt;Ben &lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_7&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;  style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_8&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_7&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_10&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;Bernanke&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt; if China’s inflation gets out of hand, it could also lead to a destabilizing world situation that could eventually devolve into open conflict.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A commentator in &lt;/span&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:100%;&quot;&gt;Naked Capitalism&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:100%;&quot;&gt; put it this way:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:100%;&quot;&gt;&quot;It seems like we&#39;ve come full circle back to where we were in the latter part of the 19&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_11&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;th&lt;/span&gt; Century. We did not learn, or we&#39;ve completely forgotten, the lessons of the lessons of the events of the first half of the 20&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_12&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;th&lt;/span&gt; Century taught us.&quot;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:100%;&quot;&gt;And where those events eventually led were to global conflict and World War II.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;But rather than war, what we need is global currency cooperation, and probably a world reserve or trade currency (with its value linked to gold) that all others are indexed against. Economists such as &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stiglitz&quot;&gt;Joseph &lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_8&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;  style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_9&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_8&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stiglitz&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_13&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;Stiglitz&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt; have in fact supported such an idea. Once such a new reserve currency was established, &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_9&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-corrected&quot;  style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;participating&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt; currencies could be revalued &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_10&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;  style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_10&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_9&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_14&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;vis&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;-à-&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_11&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;  style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_11&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_10&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;&lt;span id=&quot;SPELLING_ERROR_15&quot; class=&quot;blsp-spelling-error&quot;&gt;vis&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt; the new world currency. The criteria for such a re-valuation could be scientific; i.e., what are the wage advances that labor should have seen in the last 30 years due to productivity gains? Based on this criteria, wages and income moving forward would be valued in the new currency, allowing old currency debts to be wiped out quickly. In addition, debt jubilees would allow for many of the world’s debts to be absolved. The world currency would be administered in a transparent, democratic way and under a charter that demands it to promote the general welfare, not protect the interests of the few.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;The danger of any new world currency and associated world central bank would be that it would remain under control of the current banking oligarchs. Believe me, the need for a new world currency has I&#39;m sure been heatedly discussed in the back rooms of conferences and think tanks (and has probably been agreed upon as the general, consensus direction by the G20), but it must now be done so openly, and in a way that the common person understands the trade offs. To keep the global financial priesthood in place is not the way forward. We must all, in essence, become economically savvy – or at least enough of us to guide elections intelligently.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;In summary, we need to rework world finances so they align with democratic values, and do so in a cooperative way, because is it not rational to do otherwise. It is not rational for the top 1% to continue to hold the bottom 99% hostage because they are able to create effective propaganda that labels any attempt to introduce economic equality and justice as ‘socialistic’. Further, it is not rational because the wealthy will in fact be, over the long term, much better off if their wealth is correctly revalued down to reflect world productivity gains, and the wages of workers are correctly valued up to accurately reflect those same gains. In other words, the wealthy can continue to prosper in the new world financial system moving forward. Moreover, the promises made in the past of ‘increased leisure and abundance’ due to the miracles of technology will finally be had, and the wealthy will then rise with the rest of us, but all in tandem in a manner that reflects economic justice. Thus would the three democratic pillars of liberty, justice and equality be realized in the economic sphere. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size:small;&quot;&gt;We must all do what we can to educate ourselves and others that this is not only doable, but necessary for our survival. This, in combination with aggressive moves on the environmental front (to be put forward in another blog), can move us into this century without the wars, social strife, and mass internments that so many are beginning to see as inevitable if we suffer another major economic collapse. Once a world central bank is in place, it or other central banks could intelligently ‘quantitative ease’ in such a way as to develop a world economy that is sustainable environmentally, and hires millions to do the job of building the sustainable infrastructure of the future. While I’m not an economist, I offer these suggestions as one who has worked in the finance world and studied both the history of democracy and economics. In my mind, true liberty cannot exist without justice, and that includes justice in our economic system.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;blogger-post-footer&quot;&gt;________________________________________&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://thepotomacwatch.blogspot.com/2010/12/economic-justice.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (D.R. Thompson)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aX3KEl8UGL8/TQUnUHFysZI/AAAAAAAAABA/h_bQ0vknvys/s72-c/wealth_piechart.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4091982005581439079.post-6446531786226652611</guid><pubDate>Sun, 12 Dec 2010 15:23:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2010-12-12T07:31:25.530-08:00</atom:updated><title>Biflation - a Fresh Take on an Old Debate</title><description>Sometimes two things &lt;em&gt;are&lt;/em&gt; happening at once. Yes, it&#39;s a pain in the neck, complexity and all. Alas headlines are uni-directional...something to do with typesetting limitations. But our brains don&#39;t have to be!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In this NASD article I propose the bifurcating phenomenon that lies at the heart of today&#39;s macroeconomic confusion. We are suffering the simultaneous effects of inflation AND deflation. Whoda thunk it?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://community.nasdaq.com/News/2010-12/ten-investments-to-hedge-inflation.aspx?storyid=47974&quot;&gt;http://community.nasdaq.com/News/2010-12/ten-investments-to-hedge-inflation.aspx?storyid=47974&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;--N Ball&lt;div class=&quot;blogger-post-footer&quot;&gt;________________________________________&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://thepotomacwatch.blogspot.com/2010/12/biflation-fresh-take-on-old-debate.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Norman Ball)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4091982005581439079.post-2937064334138762460</guid><pubDate>Sun, 12 Dec 2010 15:19:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2010-12-12T07:22:59.631-08:00</atom:updated><title>All Fed Up</title><description>There it was last week, seemingly everywhere, and in lurid headlines too: The Fed lent trillions of dollars to numerous financial firms. The timing was exquisitely auspicious, for all the wrong reasons, coming in the same week two million Americans fell off unemployment insurance. It should be noted that no regular Americans were recipients of Fed largesse. Or if they were, it was a complete oversight, so send the money back right now Mr. and Mrs. Average Joe! But hold the phone. Verizon was a recipient too, as was the Big Mac Daddy of coronary bypass symptomology, McDonald’s.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here’s the Christian Science Monitor’s take:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/1201/Federal-Reserve-s-astounding-report-We-loaned-banks-trillions&quot;&gt;http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/1201/Federal-Reserve-s-astounding-report-We-loaned-banks-trillions&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Underscoring the fact that the Federal Reserve is the American adjunct of the international banking cartel, that is, neither particularly ‘Federal ‘nor ‘American’, it turns out $3.3 trillion went to overseas entities including the European Central Bank and the Bank of England. Your intrepid Potomac essayist was all over this last year in his essay ‘It’s Our Money and We’ll Lie If We Want To’. The essay is available in my new book ‘How Can We Make Your Power More Comfortable?’ (Del Sol Press, 2010)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Power-More-Comfortable/dp/193483212X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;s=books&amp;amp;qid=1292166836&amp;amp;sr=1-1&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Power-More-Comfortable/dp/193483212X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;s=books&amp;amp;qid=1292166836&amp;amp;sr=1-1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The good news is that Senator Ron Paul, no great friend of the Fed, will now head the Senate subcommittee charged with overseeing it. The Libertarian Senator is rather unambiguous in his feelings towards his new charge. The name of his 2009 book? End the Fed. Not a lot of wiggle room there Chairman Bernanke. Let’s see what Paul has in store.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;--N Ball&lt;div class=&quot;blogger-post-footer&quot;&gt;________________________________________&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://thepotomacwatch.blogspot.com/2010/12/all-fed-up.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Norman Ball)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4091982005581439079.post-2038398040935578085</guid><pubDate>Thu, 09 Dec 2010 03:28:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2010-12-08T19:28:49.609-08:00</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Obama</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Obama to Bush Morph</category><title>While Bush Grins, Obama Completes His Morph into OBUSHMA.</title><description>&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TP-kKYAWCBI/AAAAAAAAAEI/AmjaB9FMvIU/s1600/the-bush-obama-morph-25181-1232742805-26.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; src=&quot;http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TP-kKYAWCBI/AAAAAAAAAEI/AmjaB9FMvIU/s1600/the-bush-obama-morph-25181-1232742805-26.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;As early as March 10, the ACLU ran a full page advert in the Sunday &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/195877/aclu-ad-shows-obama-morphing-bush/daniel-foster&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;New York Times&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt; depicting Obama morphing into George Bush (see video below), vainly attempting to convince and pressure the Tony Rezko-raised &quot;Democrat&quot; from Chicago into allowing fair trials for Gitmo prisoners. Course, that never took place, but many of us feel the morph began even before that, at such point he publicly refused to even investigate the Bush era slackjaws for violating the law, outing CIA agents, and deliberately creating a fraudulent case for launching a ruinous war in Iraq. And now, at last, Obama&#39;s morph into Bush is truly complete (please note the photo on the left is deceptive for it depicts Obushma last March before the morph was concluded).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You may ask, so why is the morph now finished?&amp;nbsp; That deserves a good answer.&amp;nbsp; Let&#39;s be methodical:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&lt;li&gt;Just recently Obushma met in closed session with Republicans to hammer out over a trillion in tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy at a time of record deficits.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;He gave a follow-up speech pretending this action was in the interest of all Americans.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;To ease the clamoring mob of middle class he threw them a few scraps from the table, including an unwise Social Security break, thus further complicating the debt problem. &lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;While demonstrating his penchant for utter capitulation Obushma pretended to be tough and adopted the Bush-Cheney &quot;bring it on&quot; attitude.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Staring directly into the eye of America, he confidently spewed forth with a whopper so surreal that only die-hard lovers could believe it (much like someone having a face only a mother could love):&lt;i&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;i&gt;Take a tally.&amp;nbsp; Look at what I promised during the campaign.&amp;nbsp; There&#39;s not a single thing that I&#39;ve said that I would do that I have not either done or tried to so.&lt;/i&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;center&gt;  &lt;object height=&quot;250&quot; width=&quot;520&quot;&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;movie&quot; value=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/bApBoh-9EUw?fs=1&amp;amp;hl=en_US&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowFullScreen&quot; value=&quot;true&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowscriptaccess&quot; value=&quot;always&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;embed src=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/bApBoh-9EUw?fs=1&amp;amp;hl=en_US&quot; type=&quot;application/x-shockwave-flash&quot; allowscriptaccess=&quot;always&quot; allowfullscreen=&quot;true&quot; height=&quot;250&quot; width=&quot;520&quot;&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;hr /&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;blogger-post-footer&quot;&gt;________________________________________&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://thepotomacwatch.blogspot.com/2010/12/while-bush-grins-obama-completes-his.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Michael Neff)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TP-kKYAWCBI/AAAAAAAAAEI/AmjaB9FMvIU/s72-c/the-bush-obama-morph-25181-1232742805-26.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4091982005581439079.post-6461846855801184363</guid><pubDate>Mon, 06 Dec 2010 21:47:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2010-12-07T08:02:12.544-08:00</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">MoveOn</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Obama</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Rezko</category><title>At Last, MoveOn.Org Realizes Obama is Not The Heroic Figure They Have Enabled All Along</title><description>&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TP1XfVTdZbI/AAAAAAAAAEE/7jI8xXXXNAw/s1600/rezko.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; src=&quot;http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TP1XfVTdZbI/AAAAAAAAAEE/7jI8xXXXNAw/s1600/rezko.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;font-family: &amp;quot;Trebuchet MS&amp;quot;,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;No, it didn&#39;t start just yesterday, but MoveOn is finally beginning to understand that Obama is the failure and fraud many of us believed he was even last year when he, among other things, refused to prosecute the Bush criminals or even appoint his own commission to investigate the instigation of the Iraq war by the Bush regime, a war which has resulted in massive corruption, thousands of deaths, civilian carnage, and a bankrupt America--to name but a few of the lasting benefits.&amp;nbsp; Now the new headline at MoveOn:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;blockquote style=&quot;font-family: &amp;quot;Helvetica Neue&amp;quot;,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: large;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;MoveOn members have a message for President Obama: Say no to millionaire  bailouts and bring back the Obama of 2008—the smart, tough progressive  who inspired millions.&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;font-family: &amp;quot;Trebuchet MS&amp;quot;,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;Who are they talking about? Was he ever?&amp;nbsp; Doesn&#39;t this remind us of the naivety that inspired such a childish view of Obama in the first place: the &quot;smart tough progressive&quot; born of a famously corrupt Chicago political machine?&amp;nbsp; Though Obama was not raised from birth in the larval soup of hypocritical Chicago politics, he nevertheless embraced the aborning swarm as his own. In other words, he became a willing member of the club.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;font-family: &amp;quot;Trebuchet MS&amp;quot;,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;font-family: &amp;quot;Trebuchet MS&amp;quot;,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;As a young corporate attorney, Obama evolved himself to a social and political associate of one of Chicago&#39;s all time sleaze artists, &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.chicagobusiness.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=9999200022406&quot;&gt;Tony Rezko&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&amp;nbsp; Rezko was instrumental in helping Obama climb the rungs (see &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;q=obama+rezko+relationship&amp;amp;aq=f&amp;amp;aqi=&amp;amp;aql=&amp;amp;oq=&amp;amp;gs_rfai=&amp;amp;pbx=1&amp;amp;psj=1&amp;amp;fp=4824b41ba0d4cfd8&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;Google link&lt;/b&gt;s&lt;/a&gt; for an index of Obama/Rezko dealings and interaction), and he was a great fund raiser for Obama. Need we say more?&amp;nbsp; Do we have to detail their midnight plans and winks and brown bags exchanged under the table?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;font-family: &amp;quot;Trebuchet MS&amp;quot;,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;font-family: &amp;quot;Trebuchet MS&amp;quot;,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;Tony Rezko raised money for Obama, praised Obama, partied with Obama.&amp;nbsp; We don&#39;t know if they slept with each other, and we doubt that, but it wasn&#39;t necessary. Obama got from Rezko all he wanted and needed. He sold out long before the country ever knew he existed.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;font-family: &amp;quot;Trebuchet MS&amp;quot;,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;font-family: &amp;quot;Trebuchet MS&amp;quot;,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;Someone ask MoveOn.Org if they ever bothered to do the necessary homework in the first place.&amp;nbsp; How can such intelligent and passionate people be so foolish?&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;font-family: &amp;quot;Trebuchet MS&amp;quot;,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;font-family: &amp;quot;Trebuchet MS&amp;quot;,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;Is it because they want a hero?&amp;nbsp; Yes, we all do, but Chicago was never the place to look for one.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;font-family: &amp;quot;Trebuchet MS&amp;quot;,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;font-family: &amp;quot;Trebuchet MS&amp;quot;,sans-serif;&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;blogger-post-footer&quot;&gt;________________________________________&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://thepotomacwatch.blogspot.com/2010/12/at-last-moveonorg-realizes-obama-is-not.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Michael Neff)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TP1XfVTdZbI/AAAAAAAAAEE/7jI8xXXXNAw/s72-c/rezko.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4091982005581439079.post-4357268001432416986</guid><pubDate>Mon, 06 Dec 2010 18:46:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2010-12-07T12:32:27.270-08:00</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Obama</category><title>Fatalism and Optimism Kills - Americans Can&#39;t Get it Straight or Even Frame The Argument, or Can They?</title><description>According to history, Lincoln once said &quot;You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the  people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of  the time.&quot; But these days it appears that the powers competing to rule and rob America believe--assisted by the news media, as well as our own vast capacity for groundless optimism and boundless ignorance--that they can fool enough of the people enough of the time to get their way ... What &quot;way&quot; is that, you ask? Follow the money. Nothing less than a sustained, irreversible looting of the American wallet and Treasury, a criminal enterprise that not only lines their pockets, but props their arguments for phasing out &quot;entitlement programs&quot; like Social Security, Medicare, and so forth. As if they&#39;re not &quot;entitled&quot; to reap the daily benefits of the government they put into power?&amp;nbsp; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TP0rWs9SNVI/AAAAAAAAAEA/loWf2kXr0k4/s1600/obama.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; src=&quot;http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TP0rWs9SNVI/AAAAAAAAAEA/loWf2kXr0k4/s1600/obama.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;And who are these power reapers you ask? The obvious culprits. Go to &lt;a href=&quot;http://opensecrets.org/&quot;&gt;Open Secrets.Org&lt;/a&gt; and you&#39;ll see the list of the most vigorous and handsomely paid lobbyists and the registered corporate sociopaths they represent: Big Pharma, Health Insurance, the Pentagon War Machine, the Oil Gods, of course, and let&#39;s not forget WALL STREET--and a host of other players like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that bribes and dines &quot;lawmakers&quot; and future judges for all sorts of socially redeeming reasons. Can&#39;t you just see them all standing above a sleeping America, looming like vultures with knives and forks in their hands, while the Obama character at the far end, the one representing &quot;government&quot;, turns to them all and says, &quot;Dig in before she wakes up!&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;They&#39;ve got a plan, sure. A &lt;i&gt;conspiracy theory&lt;/i&gt; you ask? No, nothing so covert. You can&#39;t dismiss the truth with that ploy. Because it&#39;s all in the open, and it&#39;s real simple. It&#39;s all about greed, pure unadulterated, screw-the-pedestrians greed. No conspiracy needed, you see. Just manipulate the machinery of government on every level imaginable (from invasive Hill lobbyists to advisory committees in the agency trenches), spread disinformation in the media, get types like Pete Peterson to frame the arguments your way, and it&#39;s all real easy. We let them do it, every day, and those of us raging against the machine are converted to the crazy aunts in the attic, viewed as the &quot;conspiracy nuts&quot; or the &quot;crazy centrists&quot; or libertarians, or whatever convenient label of avoidance comes to mind for Americans who can&#39;t or won&#39;t accept the truth.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And who are these well-meaning peeps who willingly or foolishly assist the predators with their five year plan?&amp;nbsp; One might consider the loyal democrats (I love their passion but God help them!), the last remaining Obama-loving Americans, the victims of this regime, many of whom are now avoiding the issues by being fatalistic, or just incredibly naive. They lie down and accept their terrible fate rather than consider rebelling or protesting a president who has betrayed them. They won&#39;t accept there is a way to change this country without redefining reality after it has struck them in the face.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For example, Obama fails to end the ruinous wars that have drained so many hundreds of billions from his nation, and yet, in an effort to avoid blaming Obama, left-leaning types (less today than months ago, of course) will accept &quot;the reality&quot; of the need to continue to fight morally wrong and nation-killing wars. They wrongly assume nothing can be done, nothing will change, so they fall back on bad solutions like printing money and borrowing more from China as the only realistic solution possible. They ask you, What Would You Do? And not given the powers of God, or even a President, or even a first-term Senator, you flounder. When you can&#39;t answer, they say, you have to accept &quot;reality&quot; and go with the flow, and roll with the punches, and settle for cuts, or pain, or printing money, or borrowing from China, or whatever else avoids the real issues, the core problems, the underlying implosion.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What these people desperately need is a real leader who can show them that wisdom and grit CAN change things for the better. They lack any such leader now, so fatalism rules the day, one now disguised as pragmatism. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;On the New-Deal-hating conservative side of things, this fatalism, feeling very convenient, naturally fails to take into account, for example, the bankrupting costs associated with our perpetual wars. Instead, they point to &quot;entitlement programs&quot; as the culprit when they know quite well that Iraq alone has cost twice the cost of WW II when adjusted for inflation, and yet the madness continues: 50,000 troops still in Europe, a half trillion a year Pentagon budget, anti-ballistic systems in Hawaii, etc. etc. And let&#39;s not forget the yearly billions in pork, corporate subsidies, politically inspired tax breaks, Medicare fraud, and bloated gov spending in general. Who is left to address these issues? Senator Tom Coburn on a good day?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And then you have the optimists. These types, on both sides of the political spectrum, just can&#39;t believe that the bad guys are out there, that they&#39;re running things. Sadly, they want to believe in the goodness of the human condition. They want to believe that basically fine people are running our government and board rooms when nothing could be further from the truth. They need a history lesson. They need a bath in Washington politics. They need to talk to a few whistleblowers, attend a Steny Hoyer lobbyist ball, whatever it takes to slap them out of their daze.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Optimists who deny their fate, like the fatalists who accept the worst as an unavoidable reality, both combine to extend the pain of their country without even realizing it.&lt;div class=&quot;blogger-post-footer&quot;&gt;________________________________________&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://thepotomacwatch.blogspot.com/2010/12/fatalism-and-optimism-kills-americans.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Michael Neff)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TP0rWs9SNVI/AAAAAAAAAEA/loWf2kXr0k4/s72-c/obama.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4091982005581439079.post-8398639768782394540</guid><pubDate>Tue, 23 Nov 2010 21:56:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2010-11-23T16:02:30.252-08:00</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Tibet in Song</category><title>Tibet in Song</title><description>&lt;a href=&quot;http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_HnrLbzRGa5o/TOxP0hPWF0I/AAAAAAAAAAM/LolQoiWz-YI/s1600/Tibet-in-Song-Medium-500x365.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img style=&quot;MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 234px; CURSOR: hand&quot; id=&quot;BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5542893005080762178&quot; border=&quot;0&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; src=&quot;http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_HnrLbzRGa5o/TOxP0hPWF0I/AAAAAAAAAAM/LolQoiWz-YI/s320/Tibet-in-Song-Medium-500x365.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div&gt;I attended a screening this weekend in D.C. of the award-winning documentary &lt;em&gt;Tibet in Song.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Afterwards there was a fascinating question and answer session with the Tibetan director, &#39;star&#39; (and seven-year political prisoner), Ngawang Choephel. I urge you to visit the movie’s website for times and locations in your area. The movie is powerfully moving on a number of levels:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.tibetinsong.com/&quot;&gt;http://www.tibetinsong.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Commenting on China’s systematic fifty-year effort to supplant indigenous Tibetan folk music with state-sponsored propagandized music, Choephel (via narrative overdub, and I paraphrase) makes the rather sanguine observation that, “gradually meaninglessness acquires meaning.” What appears as an alien vessel to one generation (a virtual Kubrick obelisk) gradually fills with memories for a younger generation, no matter how illegitimate the vessel’s arrival might have been. The implications here are positively Orwellian. He who controls the music controls the soundtrack for a culture. Time legitimizes all things. Or does it?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is a priceless scene of older Tibetans watching a Chinese production with utterly vacant stares. Even an unschooled viewer with no ability to discern ‘real from fake’ Tibetan music will glean volumes through those mystified faces on the screen. Like a body rejecting an organ, the writhing is palpable, as in ‘What is this alien cacophony that has been dropped into our midst?’&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;By way of further proving his rather dispiriting point (in a scene which one suspects was shot a few years later), Choephel encourages a young Tibetan boy to sing his favorite song. The boy launches into a made-in-China composition as though he’s known it all his life. And he has known it all his life! This is both a dreary and disquieting moment in the movie. The fresh-faced boy is parroting, with all the exuberance and innocence of youth, a cultural deception.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As Choephel notes, the early prohibitions against Tibetan folk music have been relaxed by the Chinese invaders. Why? Because Tibetan youth have, by and large, been severed from their cultural underpinnings such that overt prohibitions are no longer necessary. As George W. Bush might say: “Mission accomplished.”&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I asked Choephel if he saw parallels between the cultural hegemony of China towards Tibet in a larger global context. After all one could argue that a global alienation project has been underway for at least fifty years to sever Westerners from &lt;em&gt;their&lt;/em&gt; indigenous music, the better to provide a bumper crop of malleable consumers for ever-shifting ‘modern music’. Perhaps my question was mildly impertinent, if not a bit off-topic. However in all but the extreme and reprehensible measures employed by their Chinese overlords (no small thing to be beaten, killed and imprisoned, tactics I hardly wish to minimize for their barbarity), how does Tibet’s cultural destruction differ, in essence, from Time-Warner’s choreographed glamorization of bitches and ho’s in inner city America, or death metal’s hold over disenfranchised Midwestern youth?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Choephel noted that while Western cultural imperialism is no small problem, at least people are not subjected to torture and death should they indulge their affinities for homegrown music. They still are the masters of their iPods. This is a more than valid point. Let&#39;s face it, America&#39;s youth are not forgoing the &lt;em&gt;Grand Ole Opry&lt;/em&gt; under threat of imprisonment. One might even be excused for entertaining a couple of months in the slammer to avoid Minnie Pearl’s rendition of &lt;em&gt;Howdy!&lt;/em&gt; And yet, how much inner-city violence--gang versus gang, misogynistic, etc.--has Time-Warner and it ilk choreographed across the American landscape?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is another especially heartbreaking scene in the movie where four young Tibetan women, all former political prisoners, recount in near-whispers their refusal to sing the Chinese national anthem, even after suffering electric prods and daily beatings. This horrific treatment culminates in the martyrdom of some very courageous and steadfast women.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The thrust of the movie reinvigorates a jaundiced American ear (certainly mine) to the transformative power of music. Music, in its most authentic manifestation is after all, an expression of the soul, to which Madison Avenue jingles and Chinese revolutionary songs can only offer the most insipid parodies. Like the blank-faced old Tibetans who know a real song when they hear one, the heart is never fooled for long.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;blogger-post-footer&quot;&gt;________________________________________&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://thepotomacwatch.blogspot.com/2010/11/tibet-in-song.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Norman Ball)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_HnrLbzRGa5o/TOxP0hPWF0I/AAAAAAAAAAM/LolQoiWz-YI/s72-c/Tibet-in-Song-Medium-500x365.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4091982005581439079.post-3819707359070387831</guid><pubDate>Tue, 23 Nov 2010 21:18:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2010-11-23T13:18:58.300-08:00</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Murdoch-cracy</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Rupert Murdoch</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Steve Jobs</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">The Daily</category><title>Rupert Murdoch creates &#39;iNewspaper&#39; THE DAILY While Steve Jobs Fawns and Steers</title><description>&lt;a href=&quot;http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TOwvKBFtuLI/AAAAAAAAAD8/b6mVMXhF8is/s1600/rupert_murdoch.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; height=&quot;146&quot; src=&quot;http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TOwvKBFtuLI/AAAAAAAAAD8/b6mVMXhF8is/s200/rupert_murdoch.jpg&quot; width=&quot;200&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;The creator of the professional political wrestling program, FOX NEWS, now seeks to extend his &quot;vision&quot; to the iPAD, and he&#39;s doing so with the willing collaboration of none other than Steve Jobs. I can only say, thanks, Steve.&amp;nbsp; Can we all go to bed and sleep soundly knowing &lt;i&gt;et tu&lt;/i&gt; are playing a role in expanding the toxic principles of Murdoch-cracy in America?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Course, Jobs sees this as a great way to make more money, so why bother  with issues of integrity or democracy or sociopathology or anything  complicated like that?&amp;nbsp; Rumors are that he worships Rupert Murdoch.&amp;nbsp; Perhaps there are deeper and more bizarre psychodynamics taking place between the two of these &quot;men&quot;?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;According to &lt;a href=&quot;http://mashable.com/2010/11/21/the-daily-ipad-journalism/&quot;&gt;Mashable.Com&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;i&gt;It&#39;s Apple’s involvement  that makes this project interesting, though.  The tech giant has  reportedly been offering its engineering talent to help create a  seamless delivery experience for the publication, which should launch  sometime in early 2011.  For his part, News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch has  hired approximately 100 journalists to run the publication. They are  preparing for the publication’s launch next year and are thought to be  led by Jesse Angelo, the former managing editor of &lt;i&gt;The New York Post&lt;/i&gt; (also a News Corp publication).&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The new Frankenstein of Murdoch will be called THE DAILY--no doubt a  play off THE DAILY SHOW. One can only surmise that Murdoch hates Jon  Stewart. How could he not?&amp;nbsp; Regardless, we can all imagine THE DAILY  pasted top to bottom with embedded videos of Glen Beck, O&#39;Reilly,  Malkin, and the other FN bozos. It might even turn out to be funny.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My guess however is that THE DAILY will be upscale, hip, a far more subtle version of FN, one designed to slowly and insidiously turn the upper classes against the American tradition of democracy. Where FN is the hammer, TD will be the slow screwdriver.&amp;nbsp; Both tools of Murdoch-cracy working towards a more perfect and more hollow American tin man.&lt;div class=&quot;blogger-post-footer&quot;&gt;________________________________________&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://thepotomacwatch.blogspot.com/2010/11/rupert-murdoch-creates-inewspaper-daily.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Michael Neff)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TOwvKBFtuLI/AAAAAAAAAD8/b6mVMXhF8is/s72-c/rupert_murdoch.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4091982005581439079.post-1041600378889090418</guid><pubDate>Tue, 23 Nov 2010 16:45:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2010-11-23T08:45:54.898-08:00</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Michael Moore</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">SICKO</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Wendell Potter</category><title>Wendell Potter, The Insurance Company Whistleblower, Talks to Democracy Now About SICKO and Michael Moore</title><description>&lt;center&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;object height=&quot;385&quot; width=&quot;480&quot;&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;movie&quot; value=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/byooYCO6-y4?fs=1&amp;amp;hl=en_US&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowFullScreen&quot; value=&quot;true&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowscriptaccess&quot; value=&quot;always&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;embed src=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/byooYCO6-y4?fs=1&amp;amp;hl=en_US&quot; type=&quot;application/x-shockwave-flash&quot; allowscriptaccess=&quot;always&quot; allowfullscreen=&quot;true&quot; width=&quot;480&quot; height=&quot;385&quot;&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;blogger-post-footer&quot;&gt;________________________________________&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://thepotomacwatch.blogspot.com/2010/11/wendell-potter-insurance-company.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Michael Neff)</author><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4091982005581439079.post-676254989287600536</guid><pubDate>Mon, 22 Nov 2010 18:04:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2010-11-27T17:07:49.335-08:00</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">predatory lending</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">student loan debt</category><title>Predatory Student Loan Practices Suffocate the Dream for College Grads</title><description>&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TOqvBJ4OCcI/AAAAAAAAAD0/uPTQ-Q2eBHU/s1600/studentloan1.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; src=&quot;http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TOqvBJ4OCcI/AAAAAAAAAD0/uPTQ-Q2eBHU/s1600/studentloan1.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aX3KEl8UGL8/TOmd11xtWPI/AAAAAAAAAAw/K6stodnduqw/s1600/student-debt.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-family: georgia;&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-family: georgia;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-family: &#39;Trebuchet MS&#39;, sans-serif;&quot;&gt;If there’s one area where the blatant lack of fairness and sanity in our financial system shows its ugly face it’s with student loans.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-family: &#39;Trebuchet MS&#39;, sans-serif;&quot;&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-family: &#39;Trebuchet MS&#39;, sans-serif;&quot;&gt;According to the &lt;/span&gt;&lt;i style=&quot;font-family: &#39;Trebuchet MS&#39;, sans-serif;&quot;&gt;Institute For College Access and Success&lt;/i&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-family: &#39;Trebuchet MS&#39;, sans-serif;&quot;&gt; the average college student amasses $24,000 in debt before graduating, a figure that has increased 6% from the year prior. Go to a private institution and that number can easily quadruple.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-family: &#39;Trebuchet MS&#39;, sans-serif;&quot;&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-family: &#39;Trebuchet MS&#39;, sans-serif;&quot;&gt;At the same time, according to CNN, the unemployment for recent college graduates jumped from 5.8% in 2008 to 8.7% in 2009. A volatile brew of escalating tuition costs and a lousy economic environment are making young people rethink just how important a college education really is.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;font-family: &#39;Trebuchet MS&#39;, sans-serif;&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;margin: 0in 0in 10pt;&quot;&gt;The result of all this debt is that many college grads are moving back home, living extremely restrictive lifestyles, or even considering leaving the country altogether. I read in one post where a young college grad, having gained acceptance into a prestigious university and become a hero in his home town, wound up $160,000 in private loans and now struggles with odd jobs to make the payments which eat up nearly 1/3 of his income. To make matters worse, the bank that was happy to lend him all that money is now under scrutiny for predatory lending practices, and the financial aid workers at his prestigious university are now accused of taking kickbacks. What a way to introduce an idealistic young person to the realities of American Society. Back in the eighties, we might have heard about similarly coercive tactics used by the IMF when putting the squeeze on a third world country. Now the same mentality is finding fresh victims with 18 year-old mid-westerners from Iowa who are naive enough to sign up for a four-year program at an expensive school without any scholarship or money from their parents. Here’s another good example from Forbes.com:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;i&gt;&quot;Tamara Reese tried to make the most of college. After weighing various undergraduate programs in her home state of Ohio, she opted to attend the University of Findlay, a private four-year school with a price tag of $23,000 a year. The first person in her family to leave home for college, Reese double-majored in pre-veterinary medicine and biology, and was active in the school&#39;s theater and music communities.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But eight years after graduation she isn&#39;t reaping the rewards of her hard work. Reese, now 30, faces student loan debt of $70,000 -- plus another $30,000 from graduate school in public health at Ohio State. Despite holding a series of jobs in academic research and at nonprofits, she struggles to make her monthly payments, which range from $600 to $900 depending on interest rates. Combined with the $250,000 her husband owes for medical school, the couple can&#39;t buy a house -- and now they&#39;re grappling with the costs of a new baby. By the time Reese finishes paying it all off, her five-month-old son will be 26.&quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;Now check this out. Forbes.com also writes articles advising students &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; to pay down their student loans but to instead invest (for example) $10,000 they&#39;ve saved to purchase $20,000 worth of stock on margin. Now this is our American genius at work. Don&#39;t pay your loans, become a speculator like all the other miscreants on Wall Street, and beat the system by joining with the hedge funds in our collective speculative madness. And all of this is said with a straight face.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;margin: 0in 0in 10pt;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TOqwHsuEFCI/AAAAAAAAAD4/fBGwgCDNqus/s1600/studentloan2.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; src=&quot;http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TOqwHsuEFCI/AAAAAAAAAD4/fBGwgCDNqus/s1600/studentloan2.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;In fairness, investing is of course not evil, and professional degrees have always been expensive, so the return on investment can be well justified. But now we’re seeing liberal arts students who get loaded up with outrageous amount of debt, sold private loans in a predatory fashion, only to hit the job market and experience a quick dose of financial reality. We have to inject some common sense and balance into the situation.&lt;/div&gt;What is clear is that the free-wheeling, over leveraged, derivatives-addicted financial system is eroding the value systems that make for a society that can adequately call itself human. &lt;b&gt;We shiest our children out of tens of thousands of dollars, pray that their good upbringing will keep them in line so they make their payments, and offer the carrot of speculation to win the lotto and get out of debt in a hurry. &lt;/b&gt;The values of such a system put a lot of pressure on basically good people to either opt out or opt in to a kind of tenant farmer relationship with the banks. Because the reality is that we can’t all speculate ourselves to riches – the numbers don’t work out over the long term, and somebody ends up holding the bag (yeah, only the stupid people, right?).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;margin: 0in 0in 10pt;&quot;&gt;The more likely scenario to speculative riches is that you find yourself in a lifetime relationship with banks – because the mindset of the banks is to keep you on the leash forever. While this might be ‘just the way it is’ for adults, for our young people my vote is to forgive this student debt, and do it quick. And while the recently passed Student Loan Reform (a subset of the Health Care Reform of 2010) will help young people get better terms for their loans and eliminate abusive private loans, we really need to go beyond a loan system and move toward expanding grants and debt forgiveness. To sum up, get rid of a couple of bomber programs, don’t send tanks to Afghanistan, cut the President’s pay – do anything – but don’t continue to force kids into debt slavery so early in life.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;MsoNormal&quot; style=&quot;margin: 0in 0in 10pt;&quot;&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;blogger-post-footer&quot;&gt;________________________________________&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://thepotomacwatch.blogspot.com/2010/11/predatory-student-loan-practices.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (D.R. Thompson)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TOqvBJ4OCcI/AAAAAAAAAD0/uPTQ-Q2eBHU/s72-c/studentloan1.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4091982005581439079.post-8202329274299363714</guid><pubDate>Sun, 21 Nov 2010 00:48:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2010-11-20T17:30:15.480-08:00</atom:updated><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Bank of America</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Cook County Sheriff</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">illegal foreclosures</category><category domain="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#">Tom Dart</category><title>Illinois Sheriff Threatens Chase and BOA Employees with Jail For Robo-Signing Practices, and More</title><description>&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TOhsCMAUrpI/AAAAAAAAADs/sjXL_tovNMQ/s1600/tomcook.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; src=&quot;http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TOhsCMAUrpI/AAAAAAAAADs/sjXL_tovNMQ/s1600/tomcook.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Sheriff Tom Dart of Cook County is walking tall in his bid to pit himself as a man of the little people. And he&#39;s doing it by taking on THE MAN, a predator in the form of Bank of America and Chase (among others) who are working feverishly and illegally to throw hundreds of Cook County citizens out of their homes. According to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/19/tom-dart-resumes-foreclosure-evictions_n_786325.html&quot;&gt;Huffington Post&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;br /&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: left;&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;&quot;For the people who have been involved with this and think now that  because the (Cook County) State&#39;s Attorney&#39;s office has ordered me to go  ahead with the evictions that everything&#39;s fine . . . No, we are going  to be looking at you for criminal violations,&quot; Dart said. &quot;You may have  got through one storm now, the other one is coming.&quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: left;&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify;&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Dart singled out Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and GMAC/Ally  Financial last month for problems with eviction notices. He said Friday  that investigators continue to find problems with bank employees signing  off on foreclosure documents they haven&#39;t read, although he did not  single out individual companies.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;More information on the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cookcountysheriff.org/press_page/press_evictionResumes_11_19_10.html&quot;&gt;Cook County Sheriff&#39;s website&lt;/a&gt;, notes that Dart&#39;s staff has also found that upwards of 70% of foreclosure documents were illegally &quot;robo-signed&quot;, a process whereby large quantities of foreclosure documents are signed by lender staff, swearing they   have reviewed the entire foreclosure file and that the foreclosure  is  proper and legal. A  judge then validates it with a signature and an eviction order  is given to the  sheriff to carry out.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Dart wanted bank attorneys to sign sworn affidavits that the documents were legal before he would carry out the evictions, but they refused.&amp;nbsp; As reported on the Cook County website:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;i&gt;Loyola University School of Law has  agreed to work with Dart’s office  to comb through the 2,200 awaiting  foreclosure eviction orders signed  by Cook County judges. The law school’s  students and staff will be  looking through the case files for any signs of  irregularities.  Anything of concern that is identified will be forwarded to  Cook County  Sheriff’s staff for further review and possible referral to  financial  crimes investigators.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;Dart has been instrumental in calling attention to abuses by BOA, Chase, and others, and his work has been felt in the state capital.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;i&gt;The Illinois  Legislature is now considering legislation that was filed  in response to this  latest crisis, including one presented by Illinois  Attorney General Lisa  Madigan, to require banks to attach all documents  to their foreclosure filing.  Madigan is also one of 50 attorneys  general investigating foreclosure filing  practices across the country. &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;As Willy Wonka once said, &quot;So shines a good deed in a weary world.&quot;&lt;div class=&quot;blogger-post-footer&quot;&gt;________________________________________&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://thepotomacwatch.blogspot.com/2010/11/illinois-sheriff-threatens-chase-and.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Michael Neff)</author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_3-WPaYgUFIs/TOhsCMAUrpI/AAAAAAAAADs/sjXL_tovNMQ/s72-c/tomcook.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></item></channel></rss>

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