Where Your Tax Dollars Go

y Mike Lillis 04/15/2008 08:47AM To celebrate tax season, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has compiled a nice summary of where your dollars go (or, more specifically, where they went last year.)

In brief, the federal government took in more than $2.5 trillion in tax revenues in fiscal 2007, and spent more than $2.7 trillion (the $162 billion difference represents the budget deficit, to be paid by your kids and grandkids).

Trading Science for Politics

Why EPA Head Stayed Silent on Key Agency Findings, Despite a Science Background

By Matthew Blake 04/15/2008

The Environmental Protection Agency, on its Web site, describes air quality on the U.S.-Mexico border as "abysmal" and getting worse, due to rapid industrialization. Yet when Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced plans last week to complete the border fence by waiving environmental laws, the EPA administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, was silent. The EPA is supposed to address air quality programs under the Clean Air Act, but agency spokesman Jonathan Shrader said he wasn't aware of anyone from homeland security even bothering to check with the environmental agency.

A little knowledge is dangerous

By Rick Perlstein
April 11th, 2008 - 11:43am ET

Progressive blogger and professional economics student Kathy G is involved in a tussle with libertarian blogger and professional economics know-nothing Megan McArdle over the economic concept of "monopsony"—actually not much of a tussle, because Megan, as yet, won't cowboy up and join the battle, nor even link to Kathy G. The term sounds technical, but Kathy pulls you through the concept with admirable clarity and bite. Basically, the monopsony model is one of the many ways economists, abiding by the most rigorous neoclassical principles, are able to demonstrate that laissez-faire markets, acting on their own, can deliver both unfair and inefficient outcomes. Which opens the door to the conclusion that, sometimes, government intervention makes markets work better and more fairly.

NYT: Retailer bankruptcies set to prompt thousands of store closings

A growing number of bankruptcies among US retailers is set to prompt thousands of store closings, the New York Times will report on the front page of its Tuesday edition.

"The consumer spending slump and tightening credit markets are triggering a wave of bankruptcies in American retailing," with ensuing store closures "expected to remake suburban malls and downtown shopping districts across the country," writes Michael Barbaro for the Times.

The fiscal consequences of the Bush administration

By Clive Crook
Financial Times
Published: April 13 2008

Competition for “most damaging legacy of the Bush administration” is lively. Iraq is the front-runner, of course, but bear in mind the wreckage of fiscal policy – although to use that term is to imply that the US even has a fiscal policy, when it does not. It would be more accurate to talk of fiscal consequences or fiscal footprint (an apt metaphor) than to imply anything as deliberate as “policy”.

All three presidential contenders criticise the administration on this, but none is offering much improvement. The Democrats remind the country that in the late 1990s the Clinton administration ran a budget surplus. With ill-designed tax cuts and reeling indiscipline on spending (partly, but not only, because of the war) the Bush administration turned this into a deficit. Barack Obama’s answer is the same as Hillary Clinton’s: undo the tax cuts and then raise spending by even more. John McCain, the Republican nominee and supposed fiscal conservative, is against raising taxes and promises to get spending down instead – but will not say how to do it.

Daily Kos: Died hanging from wrists and gagged, with over 25 rib fractures

by bewert

Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 03:05:50 PM PDT

This is my first of a series of diaries about prisoners murdered by US forces. It will tell the story of an Iraqi man who died hanging by his cuffed wrists from a door frame, gagged, and beaten to death by his US interrogators. As the Final Autopsy Report noted:

The remains are received clad in a white shirt, white pajama type pants, and white
undershorts. Feces covers the clothing from the waist down....There is gauze dressing on the left wrist. No other evidence of medical intervention is noted.... The right chest wall has fractures of ribs three through seven anteriorly and ribs six through twelve posteriorly. The left chest wall has fractures of ribs two through nine anteriorly and ribs seven through twelve posteriorly. There are fractures of the lateral aspect of ribs nine and ten on the left side. There is a horizontal fracture through the mid-portion of the body of the sternum."

'This is a Class War' -- Auto Workers Fight 50 Percent Pay Cut Demand

By Wendy Thompson, Labor Notes
Posted on April 15, 2008, Printed on April 15, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/82319/

Holbrook Avenue is a busy thoroughfare stretching from I-75 to downtown Hamtramck, a small town enclosed on all sides by Detroit. Cars honk in support of striking members of UAW Local 235 as they pass five picket lines filled 24 hours a day on both sides of the street along the large American Axle and Manufacturing (AAM) complex.

There are five more lines going south on St. Aubin Street, and two to the north. Spirits are high, and strikers are dressed warmly to face the bitter tail of winter weather.

Wall Street and Washington Are Failing Spectacularly -- Where Do We Go?

By Joe Costello, AlterNet
Posted on April 15, 2008, Printed on April 15, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/82339/

I was 19 in October 1979, when I first stepped into a campaign office. It was the Draft Kennedy (Teddy) for President office, located directly east across the Daley Plaza from Chicago's City Hall. I would work on that campaign across the country for ten months, and it would instill in me an interest in politics, more accurately an interest in the politics of self-government that has lasted 30 years. It was a time when economics dominated political discourse from the nightly news to the kitchen table. Unfortunately, little did I understand, two months before I walked into that campaign office in 1979, President Jimmy Carter had appointed Paul Volcker head of the Federal Reserve, an event that would change American politics for the next three decades. Almost everything I learned on the Kennedy campaign about how American politics worked collapsed over the course of the next ten years. A new political regime, people, institutions, thinking, and culture replaced what had been the dominance of New Deal politics. Monetarism, Reaganomics or Neoliberlism, call it what you may, would totally dominate the American political landscape until today.

How Republicans Quietly Hijacked the Justice Department to Swing Elections

By Steven Rosenfeld, Ig Publishing
Posted on April 15, 2008, Printed on April 15, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/82348/

The following is an excerpted chapter by Steve Rosenfeld from the new book "Loser Take All," edited by Mark Crispin Miller (Ig Publishing, 2008).

Jim Crow has returned to American elections, only in the twenty-first century, instead of men in white robes or a barrel-chested sheriff menacingly patrolling voting precincts, we are more likely to see a lawyer carrying a folder filled with briefing papers and proposed legislation about "voter fraud" and other measures to supposedly protect the sanctity of the vote.

Since the 2004 election, activist lawyers with ties to the Republican Party and its presidential campaigns, Republican legislators, and even the Supreme Court -- in a largely unnoticed ruling in 2006 -- have been aggressively regulating most aspects of the voting process. Collectively, these efforts are undoing the gains of the civil rights era that brought voting rights to minorities and the poor, groups that tend to support Democrats.

Housing Woes in U.S. Spread Around Globe

DUBLIN — The collapse of the housing bubble in the United States is mutating into a global phenomenon, with real estate prices swooning from the Irish countryside and the Spanish coast to Baltic seaports and even parts of northern India.

This synchronized global slowdown, which has become increasingly stark in recent months, is hobbling economic growth worldwide, affecting not just homes but jobs as well.

In Ireland, Spain, Britain and elsewhere, housing markets that soared over the last decade are falling back to earth. Property analysts predict that some countries, like this one, will face an even more wrenching adjustment than that of the United States, including the possibility that the downturn could become a wholesale collapse.

Foreclosure Politics

With foreclosures running at about 20,000 per week, at least 100,000 more families are likely to lose their homes before Congress passes a relief bill. And even then, the measure may fail to stanch the problem unless Congress comes up with something that is significantly better than proposals currently in either chamber.

To produce a worthy relief package, lawmakers will first have to scrap most of the provisions in a bill passed last week by the Senate.

That bill would cost $21 billion over 10 years, with $15 billion of the total going to tax cuts that offer no direct help to at-risk families or hard-hit communities. One set of cuts would subsidize renewable energy; another would let businesses take temporarily larger write-offs for losses. A proposed $7,000 tax credit for buyers of foreclosed homes could backfire, encouraging more foreclosures by allowing banks to charge more for repossessed property. A measure to let non-itemizers deduct property taxes is dubious tax policy and bad foreclosure prevention, since it does not target the neediest.

Paul Krugman: Crisis of Confidence

The Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan has been tracking American economic perceptions since the 1950s. On Friday the center released its latest estimate of the consumer sentiment index — and it was a stunner. Americans are more pessimistic about their situation than they have been for more than a quarter century.

Meanwhile, a recent Pew report found that the percentage of Americans saying that they’re better off than they were five years ago is at its lowest level in 44 years of polling.

Co-Payments Soar for Drugs With High Prices

By GINA KOLATA

Published: April 14, 2008

Health insurance companies are rapidly adopting a new pricing system for very expensive drugs, asking patients to pay hundreds and even thousands of dollars for prescriptions for medications that may save their lives or slow the progress of serious diseases.

With the new pricing system, insurers abandoned the traditional arrangement that has patients pay a fixed amount, like $10, $20 or $30 for a prescription, no matter what the drug’s actual cost. Instead, they are charging patients a percentage of the cost of certain high-priced drugs, usually 20 to 33 percent, which can amount to thousands of dollars a month.

Will the Constitution Be Altered to Eliminate Key Liberties?

By Robert Parry, Consortium News
Posted on April 14, 2008, Printed on April 14, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/81638/

Though little discussed on the campaign trail, a crucial issue to be decided in November is whether the United States will return to its traditions as a constitutional Republic respecting "unalienable" human rights or whether it will finish a transformation into a frightened nation governed by an all-powerful President who can do whatever he wants during the open-ended "war on terror."

That reality was underscored on April 1 with the release of a five-year-old legal opinion from former Justice Department official John Yoo asserting that President George W. Bush possessed nearly unlimited authority as Commander in Chief, including the power to have military interrogators abuse terror suspects.

The full subprime letter from Hayman’s Kyle Bass

Hayman Capital 2626 Cole Avenue, Suite 200
Dallas, TX 75204
July 30th, 2007

Dear Investors,
Over the past few months, we have seen the exacerbation of the Subprime problem accelerate at a precipitous pace. Wait a minute…I thought the Subprime problem was neatly contained in a nice little box of risk that the Fed had put it in? After many meetings and conversations with the various leaders of brokerage firms and asset managers, I don’t think the Subprime problem is as contained as many would like for you to believe. To understand the massive ripple effects of the Subprime problem, you have to look deeply into who owns the eventual risk and furthermore, how it will affect their behavior going forward.

Did the Fed Prevent a Financial Chernobyl?

There are two useful but frustrating articles addressing different aspects of the extraordinary measures implemented by the Federal Reserve in the last ten days, in particular the bailout of Bear Stearns.

A New York Times article, "What Created This Monster," is very much worth reading despite its shortcomings. It attempts to say how we got to where we are today, but lacking a clear problem definition (are the markets in trouble due to excessive leverage? Overly complex instruments? Lack of transparency? Poorly thought and inadequate regulations? Those negative real interest rates under Greenspan?) it comes off being unfocused. However, it interviews a lot of Big Names and have some fascinating moments. My fave is this one:

Two months before he resigned as chief executive of Citigroup last year amid nearly $20 billion in write-downs, Charles O. Prince III sat down in Washington with Representative Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Among the topics they discussed were investment vehicles that allowed Citigroup and other banks to keep billions of dollars in potential liabilities off of their balance sheets — and away from the scrutiny of investors and analysts.

“Why aren’t they on your balance sheet?” asked Mr. Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts. The congressman recalled that Mr. Prince said doing so would have put Citigroup at a disadvantage with Wall Street investment banks that were more loosely regulated and were allowed to take far greater risks. (A spokeswoman for Mr. Prince confirmed the conversation.)

Pyramids Crumbling

My college experience dates so far back that it can only be labeled "ancient history." Still, there are a few seminal lessons I learned at Duke University—unfortunately none of them having much to do with the classroom. "Ticket Scalping 101" and "Beginning Blackjack" probably head the list, but not far behind would be "Introduction to Pyramid Schemes." While the first two courses may be rather unique to my own experience, the latter I assume is standard fare, and has been since the first diploma was awarded at Harvard, Yale or whichever college claims to have been the "firstest" with the "mostest." A second semester senior who never signed up for a dorm-born chain letter cannot really claim to have received a college education at all. The chain’s lesson was that you should be the originator of the letter, not the 500^th recipient. You wanted your name at the apex of this upside down pyramid not at the broadened top, which signaled the exhaustion of additional fish, tuna or whatever derogatory noun one could employ to signify the university’s last few suckers.

Wall Street and its global lookalikes, of course, are life’s largest colleges where lessons can be mighty expensive and downright bankrupting. The last two decades alone have witnessed pyramid schemes involving savings and loans/junk bonds, the small investor/dot.coms, and now global bonds/subprimes. I could go on and you have your own candidates to be sure, but in each and every case the originator of a surefire "can’t miss" concept collected huge premiums from a willing investment public, only to see the pyramid collapse either of its own merits or from the lack of additional gullible investors. There will be more to come, much like a regular university that welcomes a never-ending stream of new "students" who pay annual "tuition" to be "educated."

Daily Kos: Rolling a Hard Six with the Economy

by Devilstower

Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 10:11:00 AM PDT

I usually leave the technical economic stories to more fiscally knowledgeable editors (and considering the state of my checking account, that would be everyone). But here's a story on which I feel I can write with equal authority to those who account for every last penny, because in this story no one knows what's going on. Not me. Not economists. Not Ben Bernanke. Not even the investment bankers involved in the story. Certainly not the government, because -- as part of the worship of free markets -- this is an area that's completely unregulated.

It's called credit default swaps. Just defining a credit default swap can be difficult, but here's my best shot. When you buy one of these things, you're buying a level of protection for an investment. For example, say someone has some double-yuck rated bonds, and is concerned that these things may soon be worth as much as a Zimbabwean dollar. With the right credit default swap, you can pay out a small amount over time to ensure that the the bonds still pay out close to face value in case of a default. So, in a sense, a credit default swap is insurance you buy for a risky investment.

Wealthy pimp Rand to college students through eager universities

Posted by Charles II on April 12, 2008

There is hardly any act more intrinsically corrupt than a college professor accepting cash to teach the writings of someone. And yet that seems to have happened, as universities have lined up to pimp right-wing novelist Ayn Rand to unsuspecting college kids. Matthew Keenan, Bloomberg:

The charitable arm of BB&T Corp., a banking company, pledged $1 million to the University of North Carolina Charlotte in 2005 and obtained an agreement that Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged” would become required reading for students. Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, and Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina, say they also took grants and agreed to teach Rand….

“A corporation crosses a line and a university is complicit in crossing the line if it accepts money” and accedes to a request to assign specific books, said Jonathan Knight, director of the program on academic freedom, tenure and governance for the American Association of University Professors, in Washington. “It’s unique in my experience.” Knight has worked in the field for 31 years….

Mythbusting the right's subprime excuses

Rick Perlstein
April 11th, 2008 - 7:32am ET

It's one of the most brazen and absurd pieces of right-wing propaganda out there: the claim that liberals caused the subprime housing crisis by pressuring Congress to force banks to loan to uncreditworthy borrowers. At the American Progress web site, Robert Gordon explains where the "idea" came from:

The idea started on the outer precincts of the right. Thomas DiLorenzo, an economist who calls Ron Paul "the Jefferson of our time," wrote in September that the housing crisis is "the direct result of thirty years of government policy that has forced banks to make bad loans to un-creditworthy borrowers." The policy DiLorenzo decries is the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, which requires banks to lend throughout the communities they serve.

The Blame-CRA theme bounced around the right-wing Freerepublic.com. In January it figured in a Washington Times column. In February, a Cato Institute affiliate named Stan Liebowitz picked up the critique in a New York Post op-ed headlined "The Real Scandal: How the Feds Invented the Mortgage Mess." On The National Review's blog, The Corner, John Derbyshire channeled Liebowitz: "The folk losing their homes? are victims not of 'predatory lenders,' but of government-sponsored -- in fact government-mandated -- political correctness."

Ouch! The Daily Show's Eviscerating "Documentary" About Fox News

The Daily Show's John Oliver put togther a stunning smackdown of Fox News on last night's show, punctuated by some damning clips showing egregious comments from some anchors (John Gibson, natch) and some — gasp! — flip-flopping on certain positions (like, say, executive privilege). Watch as Oliver tries to sneak into Fox HQ dressed as the Statue of Liberty, hosts a pundit shoutfest, and waves many flags. Featuring Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Neil Cavuto, Chris Wallace, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, George Bush, Bill Hemmer, Megyn Kelly, Jim Pinkerton, Peter Hart, Newt Gingrich and the super-chipper Gretchen Carlson.

The Very Annoying Washington Post

By Robert Parry
April 11, 2008

One of the many annoyances about living in George W. Bush’s Washington is to read the commentaries about the Iraq War on the editorial pages of the Washington Post. Possibly never in modern times has a major newspaper been more wrong, more consistently with more arrogance than has the Post on this vital issue.

Beyond getting almost nothing right – from the Post’s certitude over Iraq’s WMD to its reverence for Colin Powell’s U.N. testimony to its excitement over the purple-ink elections to its enthusiasm over whatever latest corner has been turned – the Post also has this obnoxious tendency to mock Americans who don’t share the paper’s wisdom.

One might have thought that editorial-page editor Fred Hiatt and the Graham family would have learned a few lessons in humility from their wretched record as cheerleader for what even many Republicans now acknowledge has been a disastrous war.

Judge dismisses challenge to lobbying disclosure law

By Kevin Bogardus
Posted: 04/11/08 08:50 PM [ET]

The National Association of Manufacturers suffered a major blow Friday in its legal battle against the new ethics and lobbying law.

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court dismissed the group’s challenge to a key provision of the law. The group took issue with the clause that would require disclosure of the member companies of “stealth lobbying” coalitions.

Frank Rich: The Petraeus-Crocker Show Gets the Hook

THE night before last week’s Senate hearings on our “progress” in Iraq, a goodly chunk of New York’s media and cultural establishment assembled in the vast lobby of the Museum of Modern Art. There were cocktails; there were waiters wielding platters of hors d’oeuvres; there was a light sprinkling of paparazzi. Then there was a screening. We trooped like schoolchildren to the auditorium to watch a grueling movie about the torture at Abu Ghraib.

Not just any movie, but “Standard Operating Procedure,” the new investigatory documentary by Errol Morris, one of our most original filmmakers. It asks the audience not just to revisit the crimes in graphic detail but to confront in tight close-up those who both perpetrated and photographed them. Because Mr. Morris has a complex view of human nature, he arouses a certain sympathy for his subjects, much as he did at times for Robert McNamara, the former defense secretary, in his Vietnam film, “Fog of War.”

Juan Cole: The Iraq wars

Confused by the war in Iraq? No wonder. There isn't just one, there are three.

April 13, 2008

AT LAST WEEK'S Iraq hearings on Capitol Hill, amid the talk of progress, withdrawal timetables, and casualty numbers, one crucial question was largely ignored: How much of Iraq can American troops really expect to fix?

American leaders and media tend to focus on the insurgency in Baghdad and its environs, but that's only a small part of the total picture. When the United States toppled Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003, it engendered a series of power struggles around the country.

Administration Set to Use New Spy Program in U.S.

Congressional Critics Want More Assurances of Legality

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 12, 2008; A03

The Bush administration said yesterday that it plans to start using the nation's most advanced spy technology for domestic purposes soon, rebuffing challenges by House Democrats over the idea's legal authority.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his department will activate his department's new domestic satellite surveillance office in stages, starting as soon as possible with traditional scientific and homeland security activities -- such as tracking hurricane damage, monitoring climate change and creating terrain maps.

U.S. Attempt to Control Iraq's Oil and Economy Continues Behind the Scenes

By Maya Schenwar, TruthOut.org
Posted on April 7, 2008, Printed on April 13, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/81573/

As violence rises again in Iraq, negotiations to institutionalize US economic dominance continue unabated.

While the battle of Basra raged last week, a series of talks between the Bush administration and the US-backed Maliki government rolled forward. These negotiations may have at least as many implications for Iraq's future as the violence on the ground.

Telecom Whistleblower Discovers Circuit that Allows Access to All Systems on Wireless Carrier—Phone Calls, Text Messages, Emails and More

Babak Pasdar is a computer security expert who was hired in 2003 to help restructure the tech infrastructure at a major wireless telecommunications company. What he found shocked him. The company had set up a system that gave a third party, presumably a governmental entity, access to every communication coming through that company’s infrastructure. This means every email, internet use, document transmission, video, text message, as well as the ability to listen to and record any phone call.

Taco Bell, Wal-Mart, NRA hired 'black ops' company that targeted environmental groups

Dumpster-diving firm collected Social Security numbers of activists

A private security firm managed by former Secret Service officers spied on myriad environmental organizations throughout the 1990s and the year 2000, thieving documents, trying to plant undercover operations and collecting phone records of members, according to a new report.

Documents obtained by James Ridgeway, a Mother Jones correspondent formerly with the Village Voice, reveals the contractor collected confidential internal records -- donor lists, financial statements -- even Social Security numbers, for public relations outfits and "corporations involved in environmental controversies."

Paul Krugman: Health Care Horror Stories

Not long ago, a young Ohio woman named Trina Bachtel, who was having health problems while pregnant, tried to get help at a local clinic.

Unfortunately, she had previously sought care at the same clinic while uninsured and had a large unpaid balance. The clinic wouldn’t see her again unless she paid $100 per visit — which she didn’t have.

Eventually, she sought care at a hospital 30 miles away. By then, however, it was too late. Both she and the baby died.

Discredited and Unpopular, Bush Still Gets His Way on Judicial Nominations

In response to today's Senate vote to confirm Catharina Haynes to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, People For the American Way president Kathryn Kolbert released the following statement:

“George W. Bush is in the twilight of his presidency and his approval ratings are scraping bottom, yet the Senate confirmed another controversial Bush nominee to a lifetime seat on the federal bench. Bush wants to remake the judiciary as part of his legacy, and the Senate must not continue to aid and abet his efforts.”

Going Behind Closed Doors in Christian Right Households

By Jeremy Adam Smith, Public Eye
Posted on April 11, 2008, Printed on April 11, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/82000/

"Models of idealized family structure lie metaphorically at the heart of our politics," writes linguist George Lakoff in his 2002 book Moral Politics. "Our beliefs about the family exert a powerful influence over our beliefs about what kind of society we should build."

Certainly, many Christian Right leaders would agree with him.

People who make it their business to track and fight the Right tend, with good reason, to focus on public, political activity, but the Christian Right sees the private home as a major arena of political struggle and a showcase for the world they want to live in. "These homes are the source of ordered liberty, the fountain of real democracy, the seedbed of virtue," write long-time activists Allan C. Carlson and Paul T. Mero in their new book, The Natural Family: A Manifesto.

An Unfamiliar (Economic) Game

Wall Street has become addicted to taking enormous risks and sticking taxpayers with the bill. As a result, financial panics are causing real recessions and returning us to the 19th century.

Howard Gleckman | April 3, 2008

When a young Jack Nicklaus won the 1965 Master's Tournament, golf legend Bobby Jones said Nicklaus was "playing a game with which I am not familiar." I have the same feeling about today's financial markets.

This is not capitalism as I learned it. Rather, for the past three decades financial engineers have been playing a game with unlimited upside reward and, thanks to the Federal Reserve and the White House, limited downside risk.

Iceland Has Power To Burn

The tiny island nation can teach the United States valuable lessons about energy policy.

By Daniel Gross
Posted Wednesday, April 9, 2008, at 2:57 PM ET

The Blue Lagoon, Iceland's largest tourist destination, is a 100-degree melting pot. On a cold March day, as driving rain blows wisps of vapor from the nearby geothermal power plant, a group of Brazilian twentysomethings, a Japanese couple, and teens from St. Paul's, a New Hampshire prep school, wade through the milky water and coat themselves in silica mud.

The lagoon was created entirely by accident. In the 1970s, the Svartsengi geothermal plant began to discharge water rich in salt, algae, and silica, which turned into a kind of caulk. A pool formed in the featureless lava fields in western Iceland, and when locals jumped in, they found that it cleared up symptoms of skin ailments like psoriasis. Today, the Blue Lagoon sports a 15-room clinic and a spa that attracts 407,000 tourists annually. With revenue of $21 million and 200 workers, the Blue Lagoon is an Icelandic blue chip. "We are one of the 300 largest enterprises in Iceland," says Anna Sverrisdottir, managing director of the Blue Lagoon.

Sara Robinson: Two Kinds of Americans: Us Versus Them

Two Kinds of Americans: Us Versus Them (Part I)

The old joke goes that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who think there are two kinds of people in the world, and those who don't.

Funny thing is: it's not a joke. In fact, it turns out that this one oddly recursive fact can tell us a whole lot about any country's prospects for social order, political stability, and propensity for violence.

Two Kinds of Americans, Part II: From "Us versus Them" to "We the People"

In last week's essay, I noted that our ability to function effectively as a nation has been deeply compromised by the conservative movement's reflexive reliance on Us-versus-Them politics. Allowing a winners-and-losers worldview to dominate our country is a dangerous self-indulgence, I argued. History is littered with the corpses of great empires and economies that were toppled when their people got distracted from their shared identity and goals, and gave in to internal culture wars that weakened their countries to the point of eventual collapse or conquest. And it's all too clear now, looking back on what 40 years of wanton right-wing civil war has wrought, that America cannot hope to be history's first exception.

For Many, a Boom That Wasn’t

By DAVID LEONHARDT

How has the United States economy gotten to this point?

It’s not just the apparent recession. Recessions happen. If you tried to build an economy immune to the human emotions that produce boom and bust, you would end up with something that looked like East Germany.

The bigger problem is that the now-finished boom was, for most Americans, nothing of the sort. In 2000, at the end of the previous economic expansion, the median American family made about $61,000, according to the Census Bureau’s inflation-adjusted numbers. In 2007, in what looks to have been the final year of the most recent expansion, the median family, amazingly, seems to have made less — about $60,500.

The Keating Five Legacy

By William K. Black

Submitted by OurFuture.org Staff

April 9th, 2008

William K. Black is Associate Professor of Law and Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. He was counsel to the Federal Home Loan Bank Board during the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and was a whistleblower in the Keating Five scandal. His book on the crisis is "The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One."

---

Twenty-one years ago today five U.S. senators met with federal savings and loan regulators at the request of Charles Keating, who controlled Lincoln Savings and Loan. They became known as the "Keating Five"—Alan Cranston, D-Calif., Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz., John Glenn, D-Ohio, John McCain, R-Ariz., and Donald Riegle, D-Mich. The Keating Five meeting was the event that transformed the S&L debacle from a story buried in the business section to one of the worst financial and political scandals in U.S. history (though the current financial crises have proven even worse).

The Keating Five, including McCain, were perfectly situated to take action to protect their constituents. They could have held oversight hearings. They could have warned the widows. "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing," an anonymous commenter one said (in a statement generally, but inaccurately, attributed to Edmund Burke). These men did nothing.

U.S. Has Launched a Cyber Security 'Manhattan Project,' Homeland Security Chief Claims

By Ryan Singel

SAN FRANCISCO -- The federal government has launched a cyber security "Manhattan Project," U.S. homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff said Tuesday, because online attacks can be a form of "devastating warfare", and equivalent in damage to "physical destruction of the worst kind."

Speaking to hundreds of security professionals at the RSA security conference, Chertoff cited last year's denial-of-service attacks against Estonia, and hypothetical hack attacks on financial networks and air traffic control systems, as proof that a federal strategy was needed.

The Mythology of Boomers Bankrupting Our Healthcare System

By Maggie Mahar, Health Beat
Posted on April 10, 2008, Printed on April 10, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/81142/

Berlin, March 13, 2008 -- By bringing 600 government and industry leaders together from more than 50 countries, the "World Health Care Congress Europe" (WHCCE) last month offered a splendid window on the wide variety of solutions that countries around the world are using as they struggle toward healthcare reform. One constant theme of the conference: "No One Thing Works."

When the three-day conference ended, it also was apparent that developed countries share many of the same problems. One that stands out is the fact that our populations are aging. Each country faces the same question: How will a shrinking work force possibly pay for the medicine their nations' retirees will need?

Oil roars to record over $112 on US inventory drop

Matthew Robinson
Reuters North American News Service

Apr 09, 2008 13:29 EST

NEW YORK, April 9 (Reuters) - Oil surged to a record high over $112 a barrel on Wednesday after a government report showed a sharp drop in U.S. inventories ahead of the summer driving season.

U.S. crude rose $3.03 to $111.53 a barrel by 1819 GMT after peaking at $112.21, and eclipsing the previous record of $111.80 hit March 17.

A Hundred Years' War?

Manchester, NH

John McCain—who, solely because of the grievous blow to Romney, seems to have been almost as big a winner last night as Huckabee or Obama—flew here yesterday for an early evening “town meeting.” He was accompanied by his own personal Chuck Norris, Joseph I. Lieberman.

The setting was the nearby town of Derry, which looks like a Lionel Train layout, in a building called the Adams Memorial Opera House, which is not an opera house. It's a cozy little auditorium with a curvy balcony that embraced the packed room like a pair of comforting arms. The stage was reserved for an overflow of supporters; McCain and his improbably blonde wife, Cindy (whom Lieberman Yiddishly referred to as “Sidney”), mounted a platform in the middle of the orchestra. It was political theatre in the round.

Fed plan would shrink states' powers

By Pauline Vu, Stateline.org Staff Writer

Some state officials see the federal government’s plan to overhaul the country’s financial regulatory systems as an intrusion on their powers to enforce state laws, and state regulators warn that it could carry grave consequences for consumers.

Insurance rates could climb, efforts to fix the mortgage industry mess could be stalled and a grassroots banking system that paved the way for innovations such as interest-paying checking accounts would be threatened, they predict.

No Exit

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Wednesday, April 9, 2008; 1:06 PM

Well, it's official. Getting out of Iraq is now exclusively the next president's problem.

That's the only serious conclusion that can be drawn from yesterday's Senate testimony by Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. The two standard-bearers for President Bush's war engaged in an absurd tap-dance that nevertheless made it clear that U.S. troops aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

GOP blocks surveillance extension

By J. Taylor Rushing
Posted: 04/07/08 11:54 PM [ET]

Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic attempt to revive a controversial wiretapping law for 30 days on Monday night, leading to a mini-squabble on the chamber floor over the Bush administration’s program.

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had asked for unanimous consent for the month-long extension to allow more time for House-Senate negotiations.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) objected, saying the temporary fix was inadequate. The objection essentially blocks Reid’s extension request.

IMF slashes world growth forecast

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said that the world economy will grow much more slowly in the next two years as a result of the credit crunch.

In its latest economic forecast, the IMF says that world economic growth will slow to 3.7% in 2008 and 2009, 1.25% lower than growth in 2007.

The downturn will be led by the US, which the IMF believes will go into a "mild recession" this year.

Dems Miss Opportunity to Challenge Surge

By David Corn, Mother Jones
Posted on April 9, 2008, Printed on April 9, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/81792/

As General David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday and pitched a story of success in Iraq, a news update flashed on the television screen: Sadr threatens to end cease-fire. Meaning that civil war between the Shiite-dominated government of Baghdad and the Shiite movement led by cleric Moqtada al-Sadr could erupt. But Senator John McCain, the senior Republican member at the hearing, seemed unaware of this development. He asked Petraeus, "What do you make of Sadr's declaration of a cease-fire?"

This brief moment underscored a point that war supporters and war critics on the committee kept making throughout the hearing: The ground reality in Iraq is starkly different from how the war is depicted in the United States. Senator Joe Lieberman scoffed at war skeptics for embracing what he called a see-no-progress, hear-no-progress, speak-no-progress view of the war. On the other side, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) remarked that the testimony from Petraeus and Crocker -- who each claimed there has been significant though fragile progress in Iraq -- "describes one Iraq while we see another."

The Foreclosure Prevention Act (a k a the Bank and Builder Bailout Act)

By Dean Baker

t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 07 April 2008

Conservatives used to complain liberals always wanted to throw money at problems. While there may have been some truth at times to this charge, Congress decided to literally take this path in its approach to the housing bubble last week.

There are many villains in the story of the housing bubble, but the homebuilders and the mortgage industry would go on almost everyone's list. The homebuilders rushed ahead with new developments under the delusion the bubble would last forever. The result is an unprecedented glut in housing.

The mortgage industry aggressively promoted adjustable rate mortgages to the most vulnerable segments of the population, giving us the subprime crisis. They didn't care mortgages couldn't be paid because they could dump them into the secondary market almost immediately after they were issued.

Documents prove FBI has national eavesdropping program that tracks IMs, emails and cell phones

FBI also spies on home soil for military, documents show; Much information acquired without court order

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been routinely monitoring the e-mails, instant messages and cell phone calls of suspects across the United States -- and has done so, in many cases, without the approval of a court.

Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act and given to the Washington Post -- which stuck the story on page three -- show that the FBI's massive dragnet, connected to the backends of telecommunications carriers, "allows authorized FBI agents and analysts, with point-and-click ease, to receive e-mails, instant messages, cellphone calls and other communications that tell them not only what a suspect is saying, but where he is and where he has been, depending on the wording of a court order or a government directive," the Post says.

CO2 map zooms in on emissions

Scientists have high hopes for a new system of mapping carbon dioxide emissions in the United States

April 8, 2008 11:39 AM

US scientists have unveiled a new, high-resolution interactive map which tracks patterns of CO2 emissions coming from fossil fuels burned daily across the country.

The maps and system, called Vulcan, show CO2 emissions in more than 100 times greater detail than was previously available. Until now, scientists say, data on carbon dioxide emissions was reported monthly at a statewide level.

A New WPA?

An Introduction to the Employer of Last Resort Proposal

Ryan A. Dodd

Dark clouds are now looming over America's economic future. As first the stock market boom and then the housing boom have come to an end, along with the fountains of cheap credit that were their mainspring, the perennial gale of unemployment is blowing in. The president and Congress have addressed the downturn with tax rebates and talk of "debt relief." Meanwhile, public infrastructure is crumbling. Workers' wages are stagnating while their work hours are rising. Health insurance is becoming less and less affordable for the typical family. And as U.S. military spending escalates, government spending on essential services is drastically reduced.

The Ridenhour Courage Prize

Bill Moyers acceptance speech

NOTE: INTERESTED PARTIES SHOULD FEEL FREE TO QUOTE THE FOLLOWING TEXTS IN PART OR IN FULL. ANY SUCH USE MUST INCLUDE ATTRIBUTION TO THE RIDENHOUR PRIZES, AND TO THEIR SPONSORS "THE NATION INSTITUTE" AND THE "FERTEL FOUNDATION."

BILL MOYERS: Thank you very much, Sissy Farenthold, for those very generous words, spoken like one Texan to another - extravagantly. Thank you for the spirit of kinship. I could swear that I sensed our good Molly Ivins standing there beside you.

I am as surprised to be here as I am grateful. I never thought of myself as courageous, and still don't. Ron Ridenhour was courageous. To get the story out, he had to defy the whole might and power of the United States government, including its war machine. I was then publisher of Newsday, having left the White House some two years earlier. Our editor Bill McIlwain played the My Lai story big, as he should, much to the chagrin of the owner who couldn't believe Americans were capable of such atrocities. Our readers couldn't believe it either. Some of them picketed outside my office for days, their signs accusing the paper of being anti-American for publishing repugnant news about our troops. Some things never change.

Kevin Phillips: If America Declines, Don't Expect Anyone to Talk About It

Posted on April 8, 2008, Printed on April 8, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/81652/

The following is an excerpt from Kevin Phillips' newly-released book, "Bad Money" (Viking, 2008).

Rarely in U.S. history has a president, especially a two-term president, been so unpopular at a time when the Congress, captured in the midterm elections by the opposition, is held in no greater regard. In such a case, the norm is for the two to fight, with one side gaining the edge. But that has not been true of George W. Bush and the Democratic Congress elected by running against him in 2006.

The two sides have gone after each other in a fashion, but more often they have simply talked past each other to their separate party constituencies, repeating familiar commitments to keep the true believers on each side somewhat more contented than the unimpressed independents -- those who bulk so large in the 60 to 70 percent of voters convinced that the country is on the wrong track. Most office holders on both sides seem to rest easier if everyone stays away from uncomfortable themes, even ones in the headlines, like costly U.S. overreach in the Middle East; the reckless expansion of private debt, as well as the federal budget deficit variety; the new economic (and political) dominance of the financial sector; and the mounting probability that the nation will have to choose between desirable energy supplies and global warming measures. After all, what you can sidestep today might go away tomorrow.

Petraeus's Ponzi Scheme

They came, they saw, they… deserted.

That, in short form, is the story of the recent Iraqi government "offensive" in Basra (and Baghdad). It took a few days, but the headlines on stories out of Iraq ("Can Iraq's Soldiers Fight?") now tell a grim tale and the information in them is worse yet. Stephen Farrell and James Glanz of the New York Times estimate that at least 1,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen, or more than 4% of the force sent into Basra, "abandoned their posts" during the fighting, including "dozens of officers" and "at least two senior field commanders."

Two people die from vCJD in Spain

Two people have died in Spain after contracting the human form of "mad cow disease", variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), Spanish media has said.

The two died in the central region of Castilla-Leon, one three months ago and the other last week, regional health sources were quoted by news agency AFP.

Time to Buy Gold Bars?

By Charles R. Morris
04/07/2008

If Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke was hoping that the rescue of Bear Stearns would calm financial markets, he is likely to be disappointed. Last week’s Senate hearings on the details of the rescue brought more of the gory details into the light. Investors might be tempted to phone their neighborhood dealer in gold bars.

Bear Stearns, readers will recall, notified the Federal Reserve on Thursday, March 13, that it was on the point of declaring bankruptcy. The Fed provided a short-term loan, funneled through JP Morgan Chase, and over the following weekend engineered a shotgun marriage with Morgan. The Fed had to put up a $30 billion credit line, later changed to $29 billion, to induce Morgan to do the deal.

Paul Krugman: Grains Gone Wild

These days you hear a lot about the world financial crisis. But there’s another world crisis under way — and it’s hurting a lot more people.

I’m talking about the food crisis. Over the past few years the prices of wheat, corn, rice and other basic foodstuffs have doubled or tripled, with much of the increase taking place just in the last few months. High food prices dismay even relatively well-off Americans — but they’re truly devastating in poor countries, where food often accounts for more than half a family’s spending.

Frank Rich: Tet Happened, and No One Cared

REALLY, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton should be ashamed of themselves for libeling John McCain. As a growing chorus reiterates, their refrains that Mr. McCain is “willing to send our troops into another 100 years of war in Iraq” (as Mr. Obama said) or “willing to keep this war going for 100 years” (per Mrs. Clinton) are flat-out wrong.

What Mr. McCain actually said in a New Hampshire town-hall meeting was that he could imagine a 100-year-long American role in Iraq like our long-term presence in South Korea and Japan, where “Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed.” See for yourself on YouTube.

The Already Big Thing on the Internet: Spying on Users

By ADAM COHEN

In 1993, the dawn of the Internet age, the liberating anonymity of the online world was captured in a well-known New Yorker cartoon. One dog, sitting at a computer, tells another: “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” Fifteen years later, that anonymity is gone.

It’s not paranoia: they really are spying on you.

Technology companies have long used “cookies,” little bits of tracking software slipped onto your computer, and other means, to record the Web sites you visit, the ads you click on, even the words you enter in search engines — information that some hold onto forever. They’re not telling you they’re doing it, and they’re not asking permission. Internet service providers are now getting into the act. Because they control your connection, they can keep track of everything you do online, and there have been reports that I.S.P.’s may have started to sell the information they collect.

Over the Top Fed Actions Feed Conspiracy Thinking

By Scott Thill, AlterNet
Posted on April 7, 2008, Printed on April 7, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/80501/

Given the fact that it is the target of more than a few conspiracy theories since it was created in 1913, the Federal Reserve System, more commonly known as the "Fed," in media and finance parlance, could be acting with a bit more prudence during these dark economic times. But no, it's gone ahead and damned the depression by doing what the New York Times described as the "unthinkable": bailing out Bear Stearns while giving away hundreds of billions to banks and other institutions whose labyrinthine securitization of our debt economy started this whole mess in the first place.

Penn out as Clinton senior strategist

By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press Writer
Mon Apr 7, 10:26 AM ET

Hillary Rodham Clinton is turning to her communications chief and pollster to plan her presidential election strategy after giving the boot to a polarizing top aide because of his work on behalf of a trade agreement Clinton opposes.

Mark Penn, a lightning rod for controversy throughout Clinton's presidential campaign, left the campaign Sunday after it was disclosed he had met with representatives of the Colombian government in his capacity as chief executive of public relations giant Burson-Marsteller to help promote the trade agreement.

Communications director Howard Wolfson and pollster Geoff Garin will direct the campaign's message and strategic efforts for the campaign going forward, said campaign manager Maggie Williams. She said Penn will continue "to provide polling and advice to the campaign."

Huge Job Losses Set Off Recession Alarms

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 12:09 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's no longer a question of recession or not. Now it's how deep and how long. Workers' pink slips stacked ever higher in March as jittery employers slashed 80,000 jobs, the most in five years, and the national unemployment rate climbed to 5.1 percent. Job losses are nearing the staggering level of a quarter-million this year in just three months.

For the third month in a row total U.S. employment rolls shrank -- often a telltale sign that the economy has jolted dangerously into reverse.

Matt Taibbi: Hillary's Flimsy Case for the Nomination

Posted on April 5, 2008, Printed on April 5, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/81140/

In the space of three short months, I've contrived to write two lengthy, gloating political obituaries for Hillary Clinton, only to see both of them blow up in my face after fantastic eleventh-hour comebacks that ended with scenes of the Hillmeister doing the dual flabby-arm raise on CNN while gusts of confetti whooshed across the room, obscuring almost everything except the shocking results blaring out from the crawl on the bottom of the screen. There was a time when this race looked like it might become the most uplifting in a generation. It's now threatening to become the most divisive and disturbing. It is a good time to ponder how that happened — and to address a few of the other Frequently Asked Questions about this depraved circus that is now poised to continue well past Pennsylvania.

Petraeus Testimony Field Manual

By Spencer Ackerman 04/04/2008

On Tuesday, Gen. David H. Petraeus will update Congress on the status of the Iraq war. The general is so respected as a military officer that his September run through the Capitol Hill gauntlet effectively deflated political opposition to continuing the war and forestalled Democratic calls for withdrawal. The surge received a congressional reprieve after his testimony.

Now the surge is over -- the final additional brigades are just leaving Iraq -- and Petraeus' goal is different: halting troop reductions amid a rising tide of violence from terrorists, insurgents and militias.

The leading Democrats in Congress, well aware of the political potency of Petraeus' last round of testimony, are already sending the general the message that he'll face tougher questioning in this election year. But with all the talk about what questions Petraeus is likely to face next week, less attention has been paid to what the general's potential answers could be -- and what his comments could indicate about the war and the politics of continuing it.

Paul Krugman: Voodoo Health Economics

Elizabeth Edwards has cancer. John McCain has had cancer in the past. Last weekend, Mrs. Edwards bluntly pointed out that neither of them would be able to get insurance under Mr. McCain’s health care plan.

It’s about time someone said that and, more generally, made the case that Mr. McCain’s approach to health care is based on voodoo economics — not the supply-side voodoo that claims that cutting taxes increases revenues (though Mr. McCain says that, too), but the equally foolish claim, refuted by all available evidence, that the magic of the marketplace can produce cheap health care for everyone.

Freedom's Watch: Right-wing juggernaut, or another 'rootless organization'

Funded by wealthy Republican Party donors and former White House officials, the group may be accomplishing less than it claims

The hiring of Carl Forti, the former political director for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney's failed presidential run and hardball flinging spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), appeared to signal that Freedom's Watch is getting ready to gear up for Election 2008. However, will recent defections from the group, and reported questions about the actual existence of the $250 million war chest that Freedom's Watch's leaders have boasted about, slow its operation down?

Peak Oil? Bring it on!

Solving the climate problem will solve the peak oil problem, too

Posted by Joseph Romm at 10:10 PM on 30 Mar 2008

I have a new article in Salon on perhaps the most misunderstood subject in energy: peak oil.

Here is the short version:

1. We are at or near the peak of cheap conventional oil production.
2. There is no realistic prospect that the conventional oil supply can keep up with current projected demand for much longer, if the industrialized countries don't take strong action to sharply reduce consumption, and if China and India don't take strong action to sharply reduce consumption growth.
3. Many people are expecting unconventional oil -- such as the tar sands and liquid coal -- to make up the supply shortage. That would be a climate catastrophe, and I (optimistically) believe humanity is wise enough not to let that happen. More supply is not the answer to either our oil or climate problem.
4. Nonetheless, contrary to popular belief, the peak oil problem will not "destroy suburbia" or the American way of life. Only unrestrained emissions of greenhouse gases can do that.
5. We have the two primary solutions to peak oil at hand: fuel efficiency and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles run on zero-carbon electricity. The only question is whether conservatives will let progressives accelerate those solutions into the marketplace before it is too late to prevent a devastating oil shock or, for that matter, devastating climate change.

The Silent Side of Oil

Press needs to pump information on peak supply

By Katherine Bagley
Wed 2 Apr 2008 01:03 PM

Oil has always been a big story for obvious economic, environmental, political, and technological reasons. For decades, Americans have read about tanker spills, rising oil prices, shortages at the pumps, and delicate trade relations. More recently, the press has swarmed the story of prices topping $100 a barrel and OPEC’s refusal of President Bush’s request to increase production. But throughout the history of oil reporting, there has been one major aspect that the press has remained largely silent on: peak oil.

“Peak oil” is shorthand for the understanding that there is a finite amount of oil in the world and at some point we will hit a production peak, after which oil production will steadily decline until supplies are effectively exhausted. Present oil reserves took nearly 550 millions years to form and with current consumption rates, there is no possible way to replenish the resources before they are used up. However, the concept of peak oil is not only about the decrease of production, but also the end of cheap oil. As oil fields are depleted and the discovery of new fields decreases, oil becomes harder and thus more expensive to produce.

The Destructive Rise of Big Finance

By Kevin Phillips, Huffington Post
Posted on April 4, 2008, Printed on April 4, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/81004/

Economic, financial and regulatory issues should dominate politics and government in the United States for the next two or three years, which is important enough. National discourse may also have a new and deserving bogeyman. Franklin D. Roosevelt had Big Business, Ronald Reagan had Big Labor, and my guess is that the new president inaugurated next January will have Big Finance.

True, finance has been whupped by presidents before. Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, for example. But that was in the quill-pen era when the financial sector was a pup. Today's financial services sector, by contrast, is a grasping, gargantuan combination of banks, stockbrokers, insurance men, loan sharks, credit-card issuers, hedge fund speculators, securitization mavens and mortgage operators. Over the last five years, financial services has reached a swollen 20-21% of U.S. GDP -- the largest sector of the private economy.

Huge Job Losses Set Off Recession Alarms

Friday April 4, 4:42 pm ET
By Jeannine Aversa, AP Economics Writer Biggest Job Loss in 5 Years Sets Off Recession Alarms; Nearly Quarter-Million Gone in 3 Months WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's no longer a question of recession or not. Now it's how deep and how long.

Workers' pink slips stacked ever higher in March as jittery employers slashed 80,000 jobs, the most in five years, and the national unemployment rate climbed to 5.1 percent. Job losses are nearing the staggering level of a quarter-million this year in just three months.

For the third month in a row total U.S. employment rolls shrank -- often a telltale sign that the economy has jolted dangerously into reverse.

Chesapeake Bay ecosystem health remains poor, but slightly improved in 2007

While better, report card's C-minus grade shows bay conditions far from optimal

An independent scientific analysis led by University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science researchers gives the Chesapeake Bay a C-minus in 2007, indicating that Bay ecological conditions were slightly better than the previous year, but far below what is needed for a healthy Bay.

“The Chesapeake Bay Health Report Card shows conditions slightly improved last year, but there is nothing here from which we can take great comfort,” said University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science researcher and project leader Bill Dennison. “Data gathered from more than 150 monitoring sites throughout the Bay show us that the health of the Bay remains poor. We are not on the road to recovery.”

'No Sun link' to climate change

By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website

Scientists have produced further compelling evidence showing that modern-day climate change is not caused by changes in the Sun's activity.

The research contradicts a favoured theory of climate "sceptics", that changes in cosmic rays coming to Earth determine cloudiness and temperature.

The idea is that variations in solar activity affect cosmic ray intensity.

But Lancaster University scientists found there has been no significant link between them in the last 20 years.

Movers and sheikhs

How the Bin Ladens became corporate giants while gaining wealth and favor from the Saudi royals

By Richard A. Clarke | March 30, 2008

The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century
By Steve Coll
Penguin, 671 pp., illustrated, $35

One of the many conspiracy theories surrounding Sept. 11, 2001, is some inchoate suspicion about the request the Saudi embassy in Washington, D.C., made to fly out Saudi citizens and members of the Bin Laden family in the days after the attack. That Osama Bin Laden's relatives were among those asking to leave and that the government let them go is seen as some sort of indicator of a hidden hand, of secrets, evil deeds. Who let them go?

I did. When the embassy request came to me as the White House crisis manager, it seemed understandable that these people might think themselves at risk after disclosures that almost all of the 9/11 attackers were Saudis. I had arranged evacuation flights for Americans from crisis zones many times when I thought they might be at risk. So I approved the request on condition that the FBI sign off on the Saudi flights and everyone on them. The FBI did not want to interview the passengers then and has not asked to interview them since. Why wouldn't the bureau want to investigate what the Bin Ladens were doing here?

Iran wins again

Gene Lyons
Posted on Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Maybe it’s too bad that Baghdad isn’t actually a part of the United States, like, say, New Orleans. Bush administration loyalists would be arguing that its make-believe “Green Zone” government had become the ultimate welfare state and needed to be cut loose of its dependency on U. S. dollars and military might lest it remain permanently crippled. What’s more, they’d be right. Instead, the al-Maliki government’s ill-advised attempt to overthrow its rivals’ control over the Iraqi port city of Basra saw American soldiers enlisted as partisan fighters in what is essentially a domestic quarrel. Why should we care which Iranian-backed Shiite political party prevails there ? With one crucial exception, the differences among the three main parties concern Iraqi civil and religious issues of no importance to Americans. How many Americans should die over whether or not Iraqi women are forced to wear veils ? Don’t look to our own peerless leader for an answer. As usual, President Bush limned the conflict in cartoonish goodguy-vs.-bad-guy terms. He described the fighting in Basra and elsewhere as “a bold decision” by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and predicted “a defining moment in the history of a free Iraq.”

Algae could one day be major hydrogen fuel source

ARGONNE, Ill. (April 1, 2008) –As gas prices continue to soar to record highs, motorists are crying out for an alternative that won’t cramp their pocketbooks.

Scientists at U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory are answering that call by working to chemically manipulate algae for production of the next generation of renewable fuels – hydrogen gas.

“We believe there is a fundamental advantage in looking at the production of hydrogen by photosynthesis as a renewable fuel,” senior chemist David Tiede said. “Right now, ethanol is being produced from corn, but generating ethanol from corn is a thermodynamically much more inefficient process.”

The Welfare King of the 21st Century

By Dean Baker
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Monday 31 March 2008

To help advance his 1980 presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan invented the "welfare queen;" a woman who drove to pick up her check every month in a Cadillac. This mythical figure helped galvanize support among working class whites who felt that their tax dollars were being frittered away on people too lazy to work, most of whom they believed to be black.

There was little truth to the mythology of the welfare queen, the vast majority of welfare stints were always short and were usually the result of family breakups or job loss. Furthermore, welfare never amounted to more than a trivial item in the federal budget, coming in near one percent of total spending. And, most welfare beneficiaries were white. But the welfare queen mythology proved to be an effective political tool, propelling Reagan to an election victory and boosting Republican prospects over the next two decades.

States quietly buy, mine personal data -- including names of your associates and relatives

The government is rounding up your cell phone numbers, insurance claims, credit reports, financial records, and the names of your associates and relatives and sharing them with law enforcement officials nationwide.

They may even have your unlisted iPhone number.

Documents show Pentagon now using FBI to spy on Americans

ACLU obtains documents after suit over National Security Letters

The military is using the FBI to skirt legal restrictions on domestic surveillance to obtain private records of Americans' Internet service providers, financial institutions and telephone companies, according to Pentagon documents.

The American Civil Liberties Union expressed outrage at the new revelations, based its conclusion on a review of more than 1,000 documents turned over by the Defense Department after it sued the agency last year for documents related to national security letters, or NSLs, investigative tools used to compel businesses to turn over customer information without a judge's order or grand jury subpoena.

The Green Light

As the first anniversary of 9/11 approached, and a prized Guantánamo detainee wouldn’t talk, the Bush administration’s highest-ranking lawyers argued for extreme interrogation techniques, circumventing international law, the Geneva Conventions, and the army’s own Field Manual. The attorneys would even fly to Guantánamo to ratchet up the pressure—then blame abuses on the military. Philippe Sands follows the torture trail, and holds out the possibility of war crimes charges.

by Phillippe Sands, May 2008

The abuse, rising to the level of torture, of those captured and detained in the war on terror is a defining feature of the presidency of George W. Bush. Its military beginnings, however, lie not in Abu Ghraib, as is commonly thought, or in the “rendition” of prisoners to other countries for questioning, but in the treatment of the very first prisoners at Guantánamo. Starting in late 2002 a detainee bearing the number 063 was tortured over a period of more than seven weeks. In his story lies the answer to a crucial question: How was the decision made to let the U.S. military start using coercive interrogations at Guantánamo?

The Bush administration has always taken refuge behind a “trickle up” explanation: that is, the decision was generated by military commanders and interrogators on the ground. This explanation is false. The origins lie in actions taken at the very highest levels of the administration—by some of the most senior personal advisers to the president, the vice president, and the secretary of defense. At the heart of the matter stand several political appointees—lawyers—who, it can be argued, broke their ethical codes of conduct and took themselves into a zone of international criminality, where formal investigation is now a very real option. This is the story of how the torture at Guantánamo began, and how it spread.

Glenn Greenwald: John Yoo's war crimes

Yet again, the ACLU has performed the function which Congress and the media are intended to perform but do not. As the result of a FOIA lawsuit the ACLU filed and then prosecuted for several years, numerous documents relating to the Bush administration's torture regime that have long been baselessly kept secret were released yesterday, including an 81-page memorandum (.pdf) issued in 2003 by then-Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo (currently a Berkeley Law Professor) which asserted that the President's war powers entitle him to ignore multiple laws which criminalized the use of torture:

If a government defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate a criminal prohibition, he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network. In that case, we believe that he could argue that the executive branch's constitutional authority to protect the nation from attack justified his actions.

Doubts Greet Treasury Plan on Regulation

By STEPHEN LABATON

WASHINGTON — As Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. laid out an ambitious plan to overhaul the regulatory apparatus that oversees the nation’s financial system on Monday, lawmakers and lobbyists from an array of industries opposed to the plan predicted that most of it would be dead on arrival.

While the plan promotes a long-term goal of reducing an alphabet soup of regulatory agencies, in the shorter run it may actually do the opposite. One of the blueprint’s few short-term goals is the creation of a mortgage commission that would set new minimum standards for mortgage brokers and otherwise unregulated financial institutions that sell mortgages. The new commission could be formed only by Congress, and some lawmakers predicted it might be adopted this year.

GAO Blasts Weapons Budget

Cost Overruns Hit $295 Billion

By Dana Hedgpeth
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 1, 2008; A01

Government auditors issued a scathing review yesterday of dozens of the Pentagon's biggest weapons systems, saying ships, aircraft and satellites are billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule.

The Government Accountability Office found that 95 major systems have exceeded their original budgets by a total of $295 billion, bringing their total cost to $1.6 trillion, and are delivered almost two years late on average. In addition, none of the systems that the GAO looked at had met all of the standards for best management practices during their development stages.

Embarrassed U.S. Starts to Disown Basra Operation

Analysis by Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, Mar 31 (IPS) - As it became clear last week that the "Operation Knights Assault" in Basra was in serious trouble, the George W. Bush administration began to claim in off-the-record statements to journalists that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had launched the operation without consulting Washington.

The effort to disclaim U.S. responsibility for the operation is an indication that it was viewed as a major embarrassment just as top commander Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker are about to testify before Congress.

Glenn Greenwald: Michael Mukasey's tearful lies

Michael Mukasey has conclusively proven himself to be an exact replica of Alberto Gonzales -- slavishly loyal to every presidential whim and unbound by even the most minimal constraints of truth while serving those whims. Speaking in San Francisco this week, Mukasey demanded that the President be given new warrantless eavesdropping powers and that lawbreaking telecoms be granted amnesty. To make his case, Mukasey teared up while exploiting the 3,000 Americans who died on 9/11 and said this:

Officials "shouldn't need a warrant when somebody with a phone in Iraq picks up a phone and calls somebody in the United States because that's the call that we may really want to know about. And before 9/11, that's the call that we didn't know about. We knew that there has been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn't know precisely where it went."

Tomgram: Howard Zinn, The End of Empire?

In Iraq, in Afghanistan, and at home, the position of the globe's "sole superpower" is visibly fraying. The country that was once proclaimed an "empire lite" has proven increasingly light-headed. The country once hailed as a power greater than that of imperial Rome or imperial Britain, a dominating force beyond anything ever seen on the planet, now can't seem to make a move in its own interest that isn't a disaster. The Iraq government's recent offensive in Basra is but the latest example with -- we can be sure -- more to come.

In the meantime, the fate of that empire, lite or otherwise, is the subject of Howard Zinn today at Tomdispatch, and of a new addition to his famed People's History of the United States. The new book represents a surprise breakthrough into cartoon format. It's a rollicking graphic history, illustrated by cartoonist Mike Konopacki, that takes us from the Indian Wars to the Iraqi "frontier" (with some striking autobiographical asides from Zinn's own life). It's called A People's History of American Empire. It's a gem and it's being published today.

Paul Krugman: About the Social Security trust fund

I see from comments on an earlier post, plus some of the incoming links, that the whole “there is no trust fund, so the system will be in crisis in 2017″ thing is still out there. So I’m just going to reprint what I wrote about this three years ago:

Social Security is a government program supported by a dedicated tax, like highway maintenance. Now you can say that assigning a particular tax to a particular program is merely a fiction, but in fact such assignments have both legal and political force. If Ronald Reagan had said, back in the 1980s, “Let’s increase a regressive tax that falls mainly on the working class, while cutting taxes that fall mainly on much richer people,” he would have faced a political firestorm. But because the increase in the regressive payroll tax was recommended by the Greenspan Commission to support Social Security, it was politically in a different box - you might even call it a lockbox - from Reagan’s tax cuts.

Digby: Party Crashers

Apparently Jay Rosen was intrigued (and concerned) by Will Bunch's characterization of the liberal bloggers at Eschacon "declaring war" on the press. I find that interesting since, as far as I'm concerned, liberal bloggers declared war on the press many years ago. I'm not sure that this is even controversial. Pushing back on biased, anti-Democrat and pro-Republican lies and editorial judgment is supposed to be one of our primary raison d'etres.

The Obama Doctrine

Barack Obama is offering the most sweeping liberal foreign-policy critique we've heard from a serious presidential contender in decades. But will voters buy it?

Spencer Ackerman | March 24, 2008

When Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama met in California for the Jan. 31 debate, their back-and-forth resembled their many previous encounters, with the Democratic presidential hopefuls scrambling for the small policy yardage between them. And then Obama said something about the Iraq War that wasn't incremental at all. "I don't want to just end the war," he said, "but I want to end the mind-set that got us into war in the first place."

Until this point in the primaries, Clinton and Obama had sounded very similar on this issue. Despite their differences in the past (Obama opposed the war, while Clinton voted for it), both were calling for major troop withdrawals, with some residual force left behind to hedge against catastrophe. But Obama's concise declaration of intent at the debate upended this assumption. Clinton stumbled to find a counterargument, eventually saying her vote in October 2002 "was not authority for a pre-emptive war." Then she questioned Obama's ability to lead, saying that the Democratic nominee must have "the necessary credentials and gravitas for commander in chief."

Survey: 59% of US doctors support universal health care

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than half of U.S. doctors now favor switching to a national health care plan and fewer than a third oppose the idea, according to a survey published on Monday.

The survey suggests that opinions have changed substantially since the last survey in 2002 and as the country debates serious changes to the health care system.

USA 2008: The Great Depression

Food stamps are the symbol of poverty in the US. In the era of the credit crunch, a record 28 million Americans are now relying on them to survive – a sure sign the world's richest country faces economic crisis

By David Usborne in New York
Tuesday, 1 April 2008

We knew things were bad on Wall Street, but on Main Street it may be worse. Startling official statistics show that as a new economic recession stalks the United States, a record number of Americans will shortly be depending on food stamps just to feed themselves and their families.

Dismal projections by the Congressional Budget Office in Washington suggest that in the fiscal year starting in October, 28 million people in the US will be using government food stamps to buy essential groceries, the highest level since the food assistance programme was introduced in the 1960s.

The increase – from 26.5 million in 2007 – is due partly to recent efforts to increase public awareness of the programme and also a switch from paper coupons to electronic debit cards. But above all it is the pressures being exerted on ordinary Americans by an economy that is suddenly beset by troubles. Housing foreclosures, accelerating jobs losses and fast-rising prices all add to the squeeze.

Gore to recruit 10m-strong green army

· Huge drive for Congress action on global warming
· $300m TV campaign will focus on job opportunities

• Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
• The Guardian,
• Tuesday April 1 2008

Al Gore yesterday launched a drive to mobilise 10 million volunteers to force politicians to act on climate change - twice as many as the number who marched against the Vietnam war or in support of civil rights during the heyday of US activism in the 1960s.

During the next three years, his Alliance for Climate Protection plans to spend $300m (about £150m) on television advertising and online organising to make global warming among the most urgent issues for elected American leaders.

Far Right Political Funder Scaife Enthusiastic About Clinton

By Bruce Wilson
Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 04:56:51 PM EST

As the New York Times and other major papers are reporting today, an op-ed written by Richard Mellon-Scaife in the Sunday edition of Scaife's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review is raising eyebrows because the considerable enthusiasm Scaife evinced for Democratic Party presidential nomination contender Hillary Clinton.

While making clear that he was not yet endorsing Hillary Clinton, far-right wing political infrastructure funder Scaife seemed quite enthusiastic after his meeting with Clinton:

Sen. Clinton came to the Trib anyway and, for 90 minutes, answered questions.

Her meeting and her remarks during it changed my mind about her.

How Conservatives Have Duped Us in the Global Warming Fight

By Joe Brewer, The Rockridge Institute
Posted on April 1, 2008, Printed on April 1, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/80874/

The movie Field of Dreams had a wild idea -- that a person could build his dream in the corn field and others would come from miles around to take part. This attitude is not restricted to Hollywood: It is a common notion in government that if we build a good policy the people will come rally around it. But because most policy solutions are bureaucratic and technical, people are often uninterested. To get people to care and to rally around good policies, we need to advance the ideas from which the policies flow.

When it comes to the climate crisis, there's been plenty of talk about cap-and-trade, carbon offsets, taxes on fossil fuels, and investment plans for renewable energy. But there is hardly any talk about what all this means to everyday folks or why public understanding matters. What most people are missing is that the solution may well lie in the way people think about and understand the climate crisis.

Construction spending falls in February

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
Tue Apr 1, 10:32 AM ET

Construction spending fell again in February as home building tumbled for a record 24th straight month.

The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that overall construction activity dropped 0.3 percent in February, reflecting weakness not only in home building but also in nonresidential activity. Only government building projects showed a gain in February.

Residential construction fell by 0.9 percent in February. Residential activity has fallen every month since March 2006, a record period of declines that underscored the severe downturn going on in housing.

UBS in capital hike after huge loss, chairman quits

By Thomas Atkins
Tue Apr 1, 6:02 AM ET

UBS AG (UBSN.VX) doubled its writedowns from the subprime crisis on Tuesday, dumped its chairman and sought more emergency capital in a second attempt to reverse its fortunes.

Its shares climbed 7.5 percent as investors hoped the move marked a turning point for the firm that now leads the global list of banks hit hardest by the credit crisis.

UBS wrote down an additional $19 billion in ailing assets, bringing to $37 billion the damage wrought by the subprime crisis and causing a net loss of 12 billion Swiss francs ($12.03 billion) in the first quarter.

It pushes UBS, Switzerland's flagship bank and financial fortress for rich investors, past Merrill Lynch (MER.N) to the top of the league of writedown shame.

Paulson's regulation plan won't fix current economic crisis

Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers

last updated: March 30, 2008 07:27:59 PM

WASHINGTON - Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson makes public on Monday a new blueprint for regulation of the turbulent financial markets, one that has plenty to do with the future and little to fix what ails the economy right now.

The plan would merge some federal bank regulators, weaken the agency that regulates the stock market and broaden the shoulders of the Federal Reserve, which will become the chief regulator for the safety and soundness of financial markets.

It's the broadest reform of oversight in the financial markets since the aftermath of the Great Depression and is sure to touch off a frenzy by Gucci-shoed lobbyists in the months and years ahead.

Exclusive: 22-year-old Pentagon arms dealer also marketed to civilians

The 22-year-old Florida man who allegedly provided old, substandard Chinese-manufactured ammunition to troops in Afghanistan as part of a nearly $300 million Pentagon contract also started a private company that specialized in selling foreign munitions to civilian gun enthusiasts, according to public documents, a RAW STORY investigation reveals.

Efraim E. Diveroli, 22, could face federal fraud charges after he tried to pass off the Chinese ammo as manufactured in Hungary. His company, AEY Inc., was banned from doing future business with the Defense Department after the New York Times revealed the shady circumstances surrounding a $298 million contract he received in January 2007.

CNN: Iran helped broker ceasefire in Iraq

It was reported on Sunday that Iranian officials had helped broker a ceasefire agreement in the recent fighting between Iraq's government and radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Iran has close ties to both al-Sadr's movement and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and representatives of two of the parties in Maliki's coalition traveled to Iran to finalize the talks.

Paul Krugman: The Dilbert Strategy

Anyone who has worked in a large organization — or, for that matter, reads the comic strip “Dilbert” — is familiar with the “org chart” strategy. To hide their lack of any actual ideas about what to do, managers sometimes make a big show of rearranging the boxes and lines that say who reports to whom.

You now understand the principle behind the Bush administration’s new proposal for financial reform, which will be formally announced today: it’s all about creating the appearance of responding to the current crisis, without actually doing anything substantive.

The financial events of the last seven months, and especially the past few weeks, have convinced all but a few diehards that the U.S. financial system needs major reform. Otherwise, we’ll lurch from crisis to crisis — and the crises will get bigger and bigger.

Revamp Proposed for Financial Regulators

Monday March 31, 6:56 pm ET
By Jeannine Aversa, AP Economics Writer Proposed Financial Overhaul Puts Fed in Charge of Market Stability; No Fix for Present Woes WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's a Herculean task: revamping a financial regulatory system dating back to the Civil War to deal with 21st century crises imperiling the country.

Under an ambitious Bush administration plan, the Federal Reserve would take on the unwieldy role of uber cop in charge of financial market stability. Other regulatory agencies could see their influence diminished.

The proposal won't fix the host of economic and financial problems that threatens to plunge the United States into a deep recession, but it might help guard against future troubles. It would take years and a lot of political wrangling -- in Congress, on Wall Street, in statehouses and elsewhere -- to implement all the changes envisioned.

Commentary: Shame on them and shame on us

Joseph L. Galloway | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: March 26, 2008 12:31:38 PM

This week, the Iraq war claimed its 4,000th American killed in action, but that sad and tragic milestone came as the war seems to have slipped off the evening news, off the front pages and from the minds of the American people.

I suppose this benign neglect of so important and damaging an event is combat fatigue on the part of the public. No doubt the White House is happy to see Iraq shoved to a back burner, just as all three presidential candidates are relieved to talk about something else, anything else, but their half-baked ideas about the war.

Shame on them, and shame on us, for such callous indifference to the service, sacrifice and suffering of the families of the dead, wounded and injured troops who've given so much for so little in return.

The Decriminalization of Corporate Crime

Posted on Mar 29, 2008
By Stanley Kutler

With our economic and financial crises deepening, government insiders reportedly are debating whether we need to restore some regulation—or not. Given the state of things, we can expect further woes and no regulation.

Why have regulation when JPMorgan can gobble up Bear Stearns for peanuts, with the backstage encouragement and acquiescence of the Federal Reserve Board? The Fed’s concern for the big investors is no surprise, and it needed no cue from John McCain to reject any thoughts of helping the victims of the banks’ sting operations. Meanwhile, JPMorgan has offered bonuses to Bears Stearns’ top brokers to stay on, though many of them are probably responsible for the subprime loans Bear Stearns so aggressively pursued.

Time to honour America’s debt to the retired

By John Shilling

Published: March 27 2008 19:09 | Last updated: March 27 2008 19:09

The first American baby boomers have now become eligible to retire and start drawing on Social Security, the government pension programme. Many politicians are telling us that the resulting rise in Social Security “entitlement” payments will break the budget, so we have to cut benefits to retired people. But the politicians do not want to mention that the Social Security system has been compiling a huge surplus. Why? Because they have been using that surplus for years to hide the real size of the current federal budget deficit, allowing them to spend more and justify tax cuts for the wealthy.

US Office of Management and Budget data show that while government’s reported deficit averaged about $300bn a year from 2002 to 2006 – roughly $4,000 per household – the real current deficit was actually more than 50 per cent bigger. The government just “borrowed” about $165bn from the Social Security Trust Fund every year – under the table.

The Degeneration of American Education

The high-stakes testing mania in general and No Child Left Behind in particular have reduced too much of public education to a system to be games. Some people play the game sincerely and seriously. The teachers and principal in Linda Perlstein's Tested are such players. They have doubts about the value of the state test, but they strive mightily to get their impoverished students over that barrier. After the test is given in late spring, they start acting like real teachers in a real school -- they take the kids to museums and aquariums and to watch the Blue Angels perform. They make art and write poetry. But only in the short time between the state test and the end of the school year.

Some people play it cynically, doing whatever it takes to get children close to the passing score -- the bubble kids -- off the bubble and into the magic kingdom of "proficient." The "sure things" and "hopeless cases" are ignored. Or emphasizing the increasing passing rates on a required test as students enter their senior year, not taking into account the massive dropouts that have occurred along the way. Or establishing "leaver codes" in sufficient number that a school can have over 1000 9th-graders, fewer than 300 12th-graders and zero dropouts.

10 days That Changed Capitalism

By Robert Borosage
March 28th, 2008 - 12:31pm ET

By Rob Johnson and Robert Borosage

The world has changed. The market fundamentalism that has dominated our economics over last three decades has been unmasked as a sham, deemed useless by the guardian of the integrity of finance itself, the Federal Reserve.

Without a vote of the Congress or a public debate, the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve have made government the guarantor of the shadow banking system – the unregulated, unhinged hedge funds and investment houses whose compulsive excesses now threaten the global economy. They say necessity is the mother of invention, but we seen only a part of the new machine, not surprisingly, the part that buttresses Wall Street. They have scrambled to put this together in an emergency, behind closed doors, without a hint of the necessary regulatory changes that must rationally accompany such guarantees. That is what the fight in the coming months will surely be about.

Girls Will Be Girls. Or Not.

Why aren't more powerful public women caught up in sex scandals?

By Julia Baird | NEWSWEEK
Mar 31, 2008 Issue | Updated: 1:04 p.m. ET Mar 22, 2008

Catherine the Great was a woman with an extravagant, exacting sexual appetite. During the 34 years of her reign, she had a host of young, well-trained lovers—many of them soldiers—who were paid handsomely for sating her, and were often rewarded with plum positions on her court, or gifts of property or serfs. Her libido was so legendary that when she died of a stroke in 1796, rumor spread quickly that she had been crushed under the weight of a stallion she was attempting to have sex with. It's a myth that has endured, and serves as a reminder of our fascination with powerful, sexual women: will they stop at nothing?

The question is, as another round of public sex scandals unfolds, where are these women today? The confessions of Eliot Spitzer, David Paterson (the man who, on the same day he replaced Spitzer, admitted to past affairs) and, more recently, the allegations against Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, pale when compared with tales of the Russian empress. Yet while there has been a spate of men caught with their pants around their ankles in recent years, political scientists scratch their heads when asked to come up with a female equivalent for the men--Spitzer, former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey--the New York tabs have dubbed "Luv Guvs."

A Case of the Blues

By BENJAMIN WALLACE-WELLS

Published: March 30, 2008

Correction Appended

The Oklahoma Congressman Tom Cole is 58 years old, but he has never been famous before, and after this year, he will most likely never be famous again. Even this kind of fame, brief and slight, is uncomfortable on him. Cole is a party man, a lifelong Republican consultant, campaign worker and politician whose career, like that of a typical European Social Democrat, has recognized only a fluid and fungible line between political operative and elected official. It sometimes seems an accident he’s in Congress at all. He is tall and slightly formal, and slightly awkward; people who meet him casually describe him as cordial or gentlemanly. The Republican Party, in its current uncertainty, might have chosen an ideologue to fill Cole’s post or, as is its habit, a money man. Its choice of Cole, an operative, was the establishment insisting that its own learned habits were enough to save itself. “Right now, with where we are,” Ken Mehlman, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, told me, “Tom Cole is the perfect leader.”

Rich Men Behaving Badly

Meet the super-rich, the dysfunctional class threatening American values.

By Daniel Gross
Posted Saturday, March 29, 2008, at 7:08 AM ET

For decades, social scientists, policy wonks, and politicians have studied and debated what's come to be known as the "culture of poverty." The consensus: A group of Americans is set apart from the mainstream by geography, class, and income. Its members adhere to norms that don't apply to the rest of society and engage in self-destructive behavior that imposes significant costs on the nation at large. The culture of poverty has made for potent politics (remember Ronald Reagan's fictitious welfare queen?) and spawned best-selling polemics from the right (Charles Murray) to the left (Jonathan Kozol).

We don't hear as much about the culture of poverty these days. Perhaps it's because the market turmoil is making us all feel a little poorer. Or perhaps it's because a highly visible group is now exhibiting all the outward appearances of the underclass: the overclass. Forget welfare queens and the culture of poverty. Think Wall Street kings and the culture of affluence.

Struggling homeowners find little hope in federal program

WASHINGTON — In the nearly four months since Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson challenged mortgage lenders to modify distressed home loans voluntarily to ease record numbers of foreclosures, it remains difficult to gauge the program's success.

McClatchy followed several homeowners as they worked with — and sometimes battled — lenders and loan collectors during the mortgage modification process, called Hope Now.

These homeowners got their loan problems fixed, either temporarily or permanently, but the process was arduous and varied. Some got stays from foreclosure, while others merely saw the threat pushed into the future. For many, the total values of their loans didn't drop and remained larger than the current values of their homes.

Those who control oil and water will control the world

New superpowers are competing for diminishing resources as Britain becomes a bit-player. The outcome could be deadly

• John Gray
• The Observer,
• Sunday March 30 2008

This article appeared in the Observer on Sunday March 30 2008 on p33 of the Comment section. It was last updated at 00:03 on March 30 2008.

History may not repeat itself, but, as Mark Twain observed, it can sometimes rhyme. The crises and conflicts of the past recur, recognisably similar even when altered by new conditions. At present, a race for the world's resources is underway that resembles the Great Game that was played in the decades leading up to the First World War. Now, as then, the most coveted prize is oil and the risk is that as the contest heats up it will not always be peaceful. But this is no simple rerun of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today, there are powerful new players and it is not only oil that is at stake.

It was Rudyard Kipling who brought the idea of the Great Game into the public mind in Kim, his cloak-and-dagger novel of espionage and imperial geopolitics in the time of the Raj. Then, the main players were Britain and Russia and the object of the game was control of central Asia's oil. Now, Britain hardly matters and India and China, which were subjugated countries during the last round of the game, have emerged as key players. The struggle is no longer focused mainly on central Asian oil. It stretches from the Persian Gulf to Africa, Latin America, even the polar caps, and it is also a struggle for water and depleting supplies of vital minerals. Above all, global warming is increasing the scarcity of natural resources. The Great Game that is afoot today is more intractable and more dangerous than the last.

Frank Rich: Hillary’s St. Patrick’s Day Massacre

MOST politicians lie. Most people over 50, as I know all too well, misremember things. So here is the one compelling mystery still unresolved about Hillary Clinton’s Bosnia fairy tale: Why did she keep repeating this whopper for nearly three months, well after it had been publicly debunked by journalists and eyewitnesses?

In January, after Senator Clinton first inserted the threat of “sniper fire” into her stump speech, Elizabeth Sullivan of The Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote that the story couldn’t be true because by the time of the first lady’s visit in March 1996, “the war was over.” Meredith Vieira asked Mrs. Clinton on the “Today” show why, if she was on the front lines, she took along a U.S.O. performer like Sinbad. Earlier this month, a week before Mrs. Clinton fatefully rearmed those snipers one time too many, Sinbad himself spoke up to The Washington Post: “I think the only ‘red phone’ moment was: Do we eat here or at the next place?”

The Wright Controversy Revealed America's Deeply Insecure Side

By Matt Taibbi, RollingStone.com
Posted on March 27, 2008, Printed on March 30, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/80577/

The word "squeeb" is a crude mix of squid and dweeb, and by inventing it I mean no disrespect to the squid, which in most respects is an excellent and admirable animal. In the ocean there's almost nothing you'd rather be than a squid, one of nature's most perfect predators -- fast, resilient, ruthless, more intelligent by leaps and bounds than your average fish, and able to squeeze into impossibly tiny cracks. In the ocean, there is no hiding from a squid, I tell you.

But on land, a squid is about as useless as it gets. It's a spineless, squishy little hunk of seafood that wouldn't stand a chance in a cage match with a baby squirrel. It has no heart, and its first instinct when trouble comes is to hide in a cloud of its own excretions. This is why a squiddy word like squeeb seems to me to be a good way to describe the American voter during a presidential election season.

Warlord vs. Warlord

What are they fighting about in Basra?

By Fred Kaplan
Posted Thursday, March 27, 2008, at 6:40 PM ET

The wars in Iraq (the plural is no typo) are about to expand and possibly explode, so it might be useful to have some notion of what we're in for.

Here is President George W. Bush, speaking this morning in Dayton, Ohio, and revealing once again that he has no notion:

[A]s we speak, Iraqi security forces are waging a tough battle against militia fighters and criminals in Basra—many of whom have received arms and training and funding from Iran. … This offensive builds on the security gains of the surge and demonstrates to the Iraqi people that their government is committed to protecting them. … [T]he enemy will try to fill the TV screens with violence. But the ultimate result will be this: Terrorists and extremists in Iraq will know they have no place in a free and democratic society.

Paul Krugman: Loans and Leadership

When George W. Bush first ran for the White House, political reporters assured us that he came across as a reasonable, moderate guy.

Yet those of us who looked at his policy proposals — big tax cuts for the rich and Social Security privatization — had a very different impression. And we were right.

The moral is that it’s important to take a hard look at what candidates say about policy. It’s true that past promises are no guarantee of future performance. But policy proposals offer a window into candidates’ political souls — a much better window, if you ask me, than a bunch of supposedly revealing anecdotes and out-of-context quotes.

The $3 Trillion War

After wildly lowballing the cost of the Iraq conflict at a mere $50 to $60 billion, the Bush administration has been concealing the full economic toll. The spending on military operations is merely the tip of a vast fiscal iceberg. In an excerpt from their new book, the authors calculate the grim bottom line.

by Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes
April 2008

On March 19, 2008, the U.S. will have been in Iraq for five years. The Bush administration was wrong about the need for the Iraq war and about the benefits the war would bring to Iraq, to the region, and to America. It has also been wrong about the full cost of the war, and it continues to take steps to conceal that cost.

In the run-up to the war there were few public discussions of the likely price tag. When Lawrence Lindsey, President Bush’s economic adviser, suggested that it might reach $200 billion all told, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld dismissed the estimate as “baloney.” Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz went as far as to suggest that Iraq’s postwar reconstruction would pay for itself through increased oil revenues. Rumsfeld and Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels estimated the total cost of the war in the range of $50 to $60 billion, some of which they believed would be financed by other countries.

US gave $300m arms contract to 22-year-old with criminal record

· Old stock sent to Afghan forces battling Taliban
· 40-year-old ammunition had to be destroyed

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Friday March 28 2008

This article appeared in the Guardian on Friday March 28 2008 on p18 of the International section. It was last updated at 00:14 on March 28 2008.

The Pentagon entrusted a 22-year-old previously arrested for domestic violence and having a forged driving licence to be the main supplier of ammunition to Afghan forces at the height of the battle against the Taliban, it was reported yesterday.

AEY, essentially a one-man operation based in an unmarked office in Miami Beach, Florida, was awarded a contract worth $300m (£150m) to supply the Afghan army and police in January last year. But as the New York Times reported in a lengthy investigation, AEY's president, Efraim Diversoli, 22, supplied stock that was 40 years old and rotting packing material.

Obama's Sweeping Foreign Policy Critique

By Spencer Ackerman, The American Prospect
Posted on March 28, 2008, Printed on March 29, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/80623/

When Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama met in California for the Jan. 31 debate, their back-and-forth resembled their many previous encounters, with the Democratic presidential hopefuls scrambling for the small policy yardage between them. And then Obama said something about the Iraq War that wasn't incremental at all. "I don't want to just end the war," he said, "but I want to end the mind-set that got us into war in the first place."

Until this point in the primaries, Clinton and Obama had sounded very similar on this issue. Despite their differences in the past (Obama opposed the war, while Clinton voted for it), both were calling for major troop withdrawals, with some residual force left behind to hedge against catastrophe. But Obama's concise declaration of intent at the debate upended this assumption. Clinton stumbled to find a counterargument, eventually saying her vote in October 2002 "was not authority for a pre-emptive war." Then she questioned Obama's ability to lead, saying that the Democratic nominee must have "the necessary credentials and gravitas for commander in chief."

How Lethally Stupid Can One Country Be?

By David Michael Green, AlterNet
Posted on March 28, 2008, Printed on March 29, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/80497/

Watching George W. Bush in operation these last couple of weeks is like having an out-of-body experience. On acid. During a nightmare. In a different galaxy.

As he presides over the latest disaster of his administration (No, it's not a terrorist attack -- that was 2001! No, it's not a catastrophic war -- that was 2003! No, it's not a drowning city -- that was 2005! This one is an economic meltdown, ladies and gentlemen!) bringing to it the same blithe disengagement with which he's attended the previous ones, you cannot but stop and gaze in stark comedic awe, realizing that the most powerful polity that ever existed on the planet twice picked this imbecilic buffoon as its leader, from among 300 million other choices. Seeing him clown with the Washington press corps yet once again -- and seeing them fawn over him, laugh in all the right places, and give him a standing ovation, also yet once again -- is the equivalent of having all your logic circuits blown simultaneously. Truly, the universe has a twisted and deeply ironic sense of humor. Monty Python is about as funny -- and as stiff -- as Dick Nixon, by comparison.

Born-Again Americans and That Old-Time (Civil) Religion

By Sara Robinson
March 26th, 2008 - 11:25pm ET

Can we progressives -- who won't be caught dead these days calling ourselves liberals -- can we stop serving as a punching bag for the right?

And speak with depth and conviction about the things that really matter to us? Once and for all, can we break through the false and humiliating charade that they and they alone are the arbiters of family values, morality, patriotism, the flag, the life of the spirit, God-talk? And that they alone have the credibility to speak to these subjects and concerns?

The search for meaning that defines us as humans is the greatest conversation going, and I want IN.

-- "Born-Again American" Norman Lear at the Take Back America conference last week

Ever since the overlong election season first kicked off last summer, I've been feeling deep gratitude for the happy fact that, for the first time since 1988, we're finally having a presidential election that does not involve re-fighting the Vietnam War. To everyone's profound relief, there's nary a draft dodger, National Guardsman, Bronze Star recipient, or Swiftboater in sight. Nobody's service records are under investigation. Not a single public conversation has devolved into an ugly he said/he said over who did what in some swamp somewhere in 1969. I think I speak for an entire grateful nation when I say: It's been nice.

I must confess, however, that I'm just about ready to take it all back. Because this time, instead of military exploits two-thirds of the country is too young to remember, this election is being fought over religion -- which is, apparently, the new battlefield on which candidates must try themselves and not be found wanting. Obama's pastor of 20 years is being trotted out to whip up white voters' latent terror of Angry Scary Black Men (and, as a twofer, also undercut the resonance of his strong moral voice). McCain is proudly advertising his bizarre affiliations with John Hagee, Richard Land, and Rod Parsley -- religious ideologues so extremist and creepy that most straight-thinking Evangelicals won't have anything to do with them. Jeff Sharlet has a new book coming out shortly that will detail Hillary's long association with a shadowy elitist global prayer group that puts her in spiritual cahoots with the worst kind of paleo-cons and dictators. And I'm watching this theological three-ring circus -- and actually find myself longing wistfully for the good old days when we were merely obsessed with re-hashing the details of a 40-year-old war.

Mark Morford: Tax my rich white torturer

Schools? Health care? As if. Your taxes pay for brutality and Wall St. bailouts. Feel better?

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Just so we have this straight: You are not paying taxes merely to fund torture and bomb-dropping and the killing of countless innocents in Iraq in a futile and lost war that's not really a war and is far more of a massive fiscal, tactical and moral failure which will end up costing the nation an estimated $3 trillion, burn through any remaining sense of national dignity and leave repercussions that will last for generations.

Ha. You should be so lucky. Because your tax money is right now also funding the Fed's unprecedented and rather shocking multibillion-dollar bailout of rich bankers and fund managers who have, through their greed and excess and with the implied blessing of former Chairman Alan Greenspan (whom many consider the architect of the collapse in the first place), helped bring about what is shaping up to be the worst fiscal crisis since World War II.

What the Government Doesn't Want You To Know About Global Warming

By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
Posted on March 24, 2008, Printed on March 27, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/80508/

JUAN GONZALEZ: Dr. James Hansen is widely regarded as the leading climate change scientist in the country. It was his testimony to a Senate committee in 1988 that first brought the threat of global warming to the world's attention. For the past quarter of a century he has headed the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, NASA's premiere climate research center.

Just over a year ago, Dr. Hansen went public with a charge that made headlines around the world, that the Bush administration had been trying to silence his warnings about the urgent need to address climate change.

Economy nearly stalled in 4th quarter

By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer
2 hours, 16 minutes ago

The economy nearly sputtered out at the end of the year and probably is faring even worse now amid continuing housing, credit and financial woes.

The Commerce Department reported Thursday that the gross domestic product, or GDP, increased at a feeble 0.6 percent annual rate from October through December. The reading, unchanged from a previous estimate a month ago, provided stark evidence of just how much the economy has weakened. In the previous three months, the economy had a sizzling 4.9 percent growth rate.

The GDP measures the value of all goods and services produced in the United States and is the best barometer of economic health.

Many economists say they believe growth in the current January-through-March quarter will be even weaker than the 0.6 percent figure from late 2007. A growing number says the economy actually may be shrinking now. Under one rough rule, the economy needs to contract for six straight months to be considered in a recession. The government will release its estimate for first-quarter GDP in late April.

Glenn Greenwald: What can and cannot be spoken on television

I'm going to re-post the segment I posted yesterday, from Charlie Rose's fifth anniversary Iraq show, because I want to encourage as many people as possible to watch it. If I could recommend one article or segment for Americans to read or watch regarding the current Iraq debate, it would be this interview -- the entire interview -- with Sinan Antoon and Ali Fadhil, an Iraqi professor and journalist, respectively, currently living in the U.S.

[...]

The significance of the interview lies as much in what it says about the American occupation of Iraq as it what it illustrates about the American media. In the American media's discussions of Iraq, when are the perspectives expressed here about our ongoing occupation -- views extremely common among Iraqis of all types and grounded in clear, indisputable facts -- ever heard by the average American news consumer? The answer is: "virtually never."

The Society of the Owned: Moral Hazards

By Terrance Heath

March 25th, 2008 - 10:43am ET

---

Part Seven of a Series

Imagine that you've come upon two people who have somehow fallen into a very deep hole, which neither of them can climb out of on their own. (Nor, for some reason, can they help one another climb out.) In the course of figuring out what to do, you learn how they each came to be in that hole.

One of them fell in because he either didn't see the hole or should have seen it but wasn't paying attention. OK, so he could have avoided falling into the hole if he'd been more careful. The other person, you find out, apparently dug the hole for the one who fell in first, and then fell in himself.

Which one do you help out of the hole? The careless one who fell in first? Or the one who dug the hole in the first place? Which one do you leave in the hole? Which one do you help out first?

Tomgram: The Fate of the Bear Market

The Little Administration That Couldn't

Rebuilding the American Economy, Bush-style
By Tom Engelhardt

No one was prepared for the storm when it hit. The levees meant to protect us had long since been breached and key officials had already left town. The well-to-do were assured of rescue, but for everyone else trapped inside the Superdome in a fast-flooding region, there was no evacuation plan in sight. The Bush administration, of course, claimed that it was in control and the President was already assuring his key officials that they were doing a heck of a job.

No, I'm not talking about post-Katrina New Orleans. That was so then. I'm talking about the housing and credit crunches, as well as the Bear Stearns bailout, that have given the term "bear market" new meaning.

Supreme Court allows retiree benefit cuts

Employers may coordinate with Medicare on healthcare provisions for seniors. An AARP legal challenge is turned away.

By David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 25, 2008

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday gave employers a green light to reduce health benefits for millions of retirees who turn 65 and become eligible for Medicare. The justices turned away a legal challenge from AARP, the nation's leading senior citizens lobby, which had contended these lower benefits for older retirees violated the federal law against age discrimination.

The court's action upholds, in effect, a rule adopted last year by federal regulators that says the "coordination of retiree health benefits with Medicare" is exempt from the anti-age-bias law.

Sadr urges 'civil revolt' as battles erupt in Basra

A ceasefire crucial to recent security improvements in Iraq was today under severe strain after Moqtada al-Sadr called for "civil revolt" following a crackdown on Shia factions in Basra.

Iraqi security forces in the southern Iraqi city encountered heavy resistance as battles broke out with gunmen from Sadr's Mahdi Army militia.

Officials in Basra said 22 people were killed in the clashes, with a further 58 wounded.

Following the clashes, Sadr appeared to threaten to end the ceasefire, which was declared last August.

IRD Blows Smoke in Response to Expose Film

By Frederick Clarkson
Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 07:34:53 PM EST

The oxymoronically named Institute on Religion and Democracy for a generation has sought to disrupt and divide the major denominations of mainline Protestantism, as well as the wider ecumenical communions, the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches. Even more remarkably perhaps, while presenting itself an agency dedicated to reform and "renewal" of the churches, IRD's leadership and staff have been substantially populated by men and women who are not even members of any of the churches they say they seek to "renew."

I mention all this, because IRD Methodist program staffers Mark Tooley and John Lomperis recently issued a sliming of Steven D. Martin's DVD discussion of the agency: Renewal or Ruin: The Institute on Religion & Democracy's Attack on the United Methodist Church. Martin has written

I was able to produce "Renewal or Ruin?" using only personal funds. I wanted to avoid the accusation that it had been made by someone with an agenda. I wanted to be as fair, and as firm, as I could be. You can see the results of the project by visiting www.ird-info.com, and by viewing the trailer for the video.

Architect of War(s)

by MICHAEL T. KLARE

[from the April 7, 2008 issue]

What more fitting way for the Bush Administration to observe the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq than to send its principal architect, Vice President Dick Cheney, to Baghdad to rally dispirited US troops for years more of futile sacrifice? "It's been a difficult, challenging but nonetheless successful endeavor," Cheney opined during a surprise visit on March 17, at the beginning of a ten-day Middle East trip. As he toured Baghdad, bragging of "phenomenal" security improvements, a bomb went off in the heavily guarded Shiite holy city of Karbala, killing fifty and wounding dozens more.

Ostensibly, Cheney's visit is intended to lend muscle to the White House claim that substantial progress is being made in Iraq because of the troop surge--thereby burnishing the Administration's "legacy" and enhancing the election prospects of John McCain (who recently made an Iraq trip of his own with this purpose). Cheney also sought to persuade Iraqi lawmakers to pass a national hydrocarbon law, thus smoothing the way for the exploitation of Iraqi oilfields by US energy firms.

Fighting Words: How to Humiliate -- and Convert -- a Right-Winger

By John Dolan, AlterNet
Posted on March 25, 2008, Printed on March 25, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/80507/

I'd like to suggest a very simple strategy for American liberals: Get mean. Stop policing the language and start using it to hurt our enemies. American liberals are so busy purging their speech of any words that might offend anyone that they have no notion of using language to cause some salutary pain.

Why, for example, not popularize slogans that mock the Bush loyalists as "suckers"? Something like, "There are two kinds of Republicans: millionaires and suckers." Put that on a few bumper stickers and I guarantee a lot of "South Park Republicans" will quit the GOP. They just smirk when you tsk-tsk at them for being disrespectful. They want to be disrespectful; every normal young male wants to be.

Sedatives and Sex Hormones in Our Water Supply

By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
Posted on March 25, 2008, Printed on March 25, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/80505/

Editor's Note: Read more about this topic on AlterNet from Wenonah Hauter of Food and Water Watch.

AMY GOODMAN: Saturday was World Water Day, and the United Nations estimates close to 1.5 billion people around the world do not have access to clean drinking water. What about here in the United States?

The Associated Press has conducted an extensive investigation into the drinking water in at least twenty-four major American cities across the country, which contain trace amounts of a wide array of pharmaceuticals. The amounts might be small, but scientists are worried about the long-term health and environmental consequences of their presence in the water supplies of some forty-one million Americans.

Consumer confidence plunges in March

By EILEEN ALT POWELL, AP Business Writer
Tue Mar 25, 1:53 PM ET

American consumers are gloomier about the economy that at any point since just before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, as slumping housing prices and soaring fuel costs depress consumer confidence to its lowest level in five years.

The Conference Board, a business-backed research group, said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index plunged to 64.5 in March from a revised 76.4 in February.

The March reading was far below the 73.0 expected by analysts surveyed by Thomson/IFR and was the worst reading since the gauge registered 61.4 in March 2003, just ahead of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The Volunteer Army: Who Fights and Why?

By Michael Massing

1.

In 2003, Colby Buzzell, then twenty-six, was living in a small room in a renovated Victorian house in the Richmond district of San Francisco, doing data entry for financial companies. Raised in the suburbs of the Bay Area, Buzzell had hated high school and, deciding against college, ended up in a series of low-paying jobs—flower deliverer, valet parker, bike messenger, busboy, carpet cutter, car washer. Data entry paid somewhat better— about $12 an hour—but even so he was barely able to get by. At one point, he ran into an old friend who had joined the Marines, and, in his telling, military life sounded like one big frat party, but with weapons and paychecks. After nearly a year of feeling stuck, Buzzell decided to visit an Army recruiter. He describes his state of mind in My War: Killing Time in Iraq,^[1] an uproarious account of his life in the military:

I was sick of living my life in oblivion where every fucking day was the same fucking thing as the day before, and the same fucking routine day in and day out. Eat, shit, work, sleep, repeat.

At the time, I saw no escape from this. I was in my mid-twenties and I still had no fucking idea what the hell I wanted to do with myself....

Black carbon pollution emerges as major player in global warming

Soot from biomass burning, diesel exhaust has 60 percent of the effect of carbon dioxide on warming but mitigation offers immediate benefits

Black carbon, a form of particulate air pollution most often produced from biomass burning, cooking with solid fuels and diesel exhaust, has a warming effect in the atmosphere three to four times greater than prevailing estimates, according to scientists in an upcoming review article in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego atmospheric scientist V. Ramanathan and University of Iowa chemical engineer Greg Carmichael, said that soot and other forms of black carbon could have as much as 60 percent of the current global warming effect of carbon dioxide, more than that of any greenhouse gas besides CO2. The researchers also noted, however, that mitigation would have immediate societal benefits in addition to the long term effect of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Harold Meyerson: A New New Deal

Reshaping the U.S. economy so that it actually benefits Americans won't be easy. But it must be done.

Harold Meyerson | March 21, 2008 | web only

The American Prospect is co-sponsoring the Roosevelt Institution's Toward a New New Deal Conference on April 9 in Washington, D.C.

Putting together everything we've learned over the past 10 days about high finance in Manhattan, one thing is clear: If Eliot Spitzer had saved all the money he apparently paid "Kristen" and her co-workers at the Emperors Club, he could have bought Bear Stearns.

Manhattan's culture of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous collapse has been on display in recent days as it has not since 1929. Now, as then, an edifice of shaky credit is toppling. Now, as then, what we took to be prosperity turns out to have been a bubble.

The Gentlemen's Bailout

The Federal Reserve's announcement of an open-ended bail-out for Wall Street's endangered financial firms and banks opens an ominous new chapter in what might be called "market socialism with American characteristics." If Washington tries to do something for "losers" who are ordinary citizens, financial titans complain about violating free-market principles. When the titans themselves are going down, they rush to their patrons at the central bank and demand extraordinary relief. Government must save the big money, we are told, for the overall good of the economy. Thus, the financial system's reckless losses--approaching $1 trillion but probably far more--are being "socialized," dumped on the public, the very people victimized by its snares and falsified valuations.

Put aside the obvious hypocrisy and greed. This nation is on the brink of a historic catastrophe. It requires emergency responses from the federal government on a scale not seen since the Great Depression and the New Deal, the subject of this special issue. Yet the rescue party is composed of the same people who co-wrote this disaster. They are, first, the financiers who indulged their own appetites for extreme wealth and enlarged a financial system of esoteric fakery that inflated prices and profits. Second, the close collaborators were the Federal Reserve and other authorities who blessed this dangerous concoction and declined to enforce prudential standards.

Paul Krugman: Taming the Beast

We’re now in the midst of an epic financial crisis, which ought to be at the center of the election debate. But it isn’t.

Now, I don’t expect presidential campaigns to have all the answers to our current crisis — even financial experts are scrambling to keep up with events. But I do think we’re entitled to more answers, and in particular a clearer commitment to financial reform, than we’re getting so far.

In truth, I don’t expect much from John McCain, who has both admitted not knowing much about economics and denied having ever said that. Anyway, lately he’s been busy demonstrating that he doesn’t know much about the Middle East, either.

Recession Literature

The best books, articles, and Web sites about the economic collapse.

By Daniel Gross
Posted Saturday, March 22, 2008, at 7:50 AM ET

This is the first installment of "Reading List," in which Slate writers discuss which books, articles, and Web sites they are reading about the subject that interests them most. The weekly column appears in both Slate and the Washington Post's Outlook section.

For connoisseurs of financial folly, commercial irrationality, and general fiscal inanity, these last several weeks have been an all-you-can-eat buffet. In New York, the implosion of Bear Stearns and the serial failure of billion-dollar hedge funds have induced a combination of schadenfreude (I knew those guys never deserved their big salaries) and foreboding (What will this do to the price of that co-op I just bought?). And across the country, the bursting of the real-estate and housing-credit bubble is destroying personal balance sheets.

So what am I, a business/finance journalist and a self-proclaimed expert on bubbles, reading to keep up?

For less-educated workers, good jobs will be harder to find

WASHINGTON — The steady loss of "good jobs" by less-educated workers has left them more vulnerable to recession than at any time in nearly 30 years, and signs are mounting that a recession is either already here or coming soon.

High-school dropouts and even high-school graduates who lack specialized job training have seen their already limited employment prospects steadily decline during America's decades-long shift from a manufacturing-based economy to a service economy.

Scientists warn of soot effect on climate

Soot produced by burning coal, diesel, wood and dung causes significantly more damage to the environment than previously thought, according to research published today. So-called "black carbon" could cause up to 60% of the current warming effect of carbon dioxide, according to the US researchers, making it an important target for efforts to slow global warming.

Around 400,000 people are estimated to die each year due to inhaling soot particles, particularly because of indoor cooking on wood and dung stoves in developing countries. These deaths are mainly among women and children. Professor Greg Carmichael, of the University of Iowa, one of the authors of the study, published in Nature Geoscience, said: "Trying to develop strategies that really go after black carbon is really a very good short-term strategy and a win-win strategy for both climate and air pollution perspectives."

Frank Rich: The Republican Resurrection

THE day before Barack Obama gave The Speech, Hillary Clinton gave a big speech of her own, billed by her campaign as a “major policy address on the war in Iraq.” What, you didn’t hear about it?

Clinton partisans can blame the Obamaphilic press corps for underplaying their candidate’s uncompromising antiwar sentiments. But intentionally or not, the press did Mrs. Clinton a favor. Every time she opens her mouth about Iraq, she reminds voters of how she enabled the catastrophe that has devoured American lives and treasure for five years.

Race has been America’s transcendent issue far longer than that. I share the general view that Mr. Obama’s speech is the most remarkable utterance on the subject by a public figure in modern memory. But what impressed me most was not Mr. Obama’s rhetorical elegance or his nuanced view of both America’s undeniable racial divide and equally undeniable racial progress. The real novelty was to find a politician who didn’t talk down to his audience but instead trusted it to listen to complete, paragraph-long thoughts that couldn’t be reduced to sound bites.

Digby: Wright And Wrong

*Note: this is a tediously long post. If you are inclined to spout off in anger at me about it, could you please do me the favor of reading the whole thing before you do it.


I finally got a chance to hear Senator Obama's speech in full today and I couldn't help but think of a piece Rick Perlstein wrote for the Washington Post a few weeks back. He wrote:

One of the most fascinating notions raised by the current presidential campaign is the idea that the United States can and must finally overcome the divisions of the 1960s. It's most often associated with the ascendancy of Sen. Barack Obama, who has been known to entertain it himself. Its most gauzy champion is pundit Andrew Sullivan, who argued in a cover article in the December Atlantic Monthly that, "If you are an American who yearns to finally get beyond the symbolic battles of the Boomer generation and face today's actual problems, Obama may be your man."

No offense to either Obama or Sullivan, but: No he isn't. No one is.

Cheney, Saudis to discuss oil crisis

Vice President Dick Cheney to Talk About Oil, Security Issues With Saudi King

DEB RIECHMANN, AP News

Mar 21, 2008 05:07 EST

High oil prices socking U.S. consumers will be a key topic of Vice President Dick Cheney's talks Friday with Saudi King Abdullah but it's unclear whether Cheney will ask the Saudis to increase production.

Early this year, the oil producing nations ignored President Bush's request to increase supplies so that gas prices, which are up over $3 a gallon, could fall. Bush asked the Saudis, a main player in OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) to push oil producing nations to pump more oil when he was in Saudi Arabia in January.

Paul Krugman: Partying Like It’s 1929

If Ben Bernanke manages to save the financial system from collapse, he will — rightly — be praised for his heroic efforts.

But what we should be asking is: How did we get here?

Why does the financial system need salvation?

Why do mild-mannered economists have to become superheroes?

The answer, at a fundamental level, is that we’re paying the price for willful amnesia. We chose to forget what happened in the 1930s — and having refused to learn from history, we’re repeating it.

Glenn Greenwald: The media's special relationship with John McCain

The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus yesterday discussed the reasons why there has been so little media attention paid to John McCain's repeated (though somehow perfectly innocent) "slips of the tongue" regarding the non-existent Iran-Al Qaeda connection, and I think her comments are the most revealing to date about how the media treats McCain (h/t Teddy at FDL):

Ruth Marcus: I thought that was an odd comment from Sen. McCain, and I do think that it would have gotten a lot more attention were it not coming from someone who is generally judged to have a lot of foreign policy expertise.

Several minutes later, she said this:

Probably won't break through the chatter, and I agree, would be a bigger deal if the speaker had been different.

The Fed Packages Corruption as Sound Public Policy

By David Sirota, Creators Syndicate
Posted on March 21, 2008, Printed on March 21, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/80418/

The Federal Reserve Bank's decision last week to address the housing crisis by extending $200 billion of taxpayer-financed credit to Wall Street banks was met with a stunned reaction typical of surprising events. But really, the move was the expression of longstanding isms that routinely package corruption as sound public policy.

Some background: During the housing boom, banks doled out home loans to financially strapped borrowers, often on predatory terms. On the creditor side, these same banks packaged many of the loans as complex securities and sold them off to unwitting investors, generating a handsome profit on the paper transactions. At the same time, Wall Street used campaign contributions to coerce Congress into blocking anti-predatory-lending bills and repealing a landmark law regulating how banks could buy and sell securities.

Most republicans think the US health care system is the best in the world; democrats disagree

All political groups agree the US lags in providing affordable care and controlling costs

Boston, MA - A recent survey by the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Harris Interactive, as part of their ongoing series, Debating Health: Election 2008, finds that Americans are generally split on the issue of whether the United States has the best health care system in the world (45% believe the U.S. has the best system; 39% believe other countries have better systems; 15% don’t know or refused to answer) and that there is a significant divide along party lines. Nearly seven-in-ten Republicans (68%) believe the U.S. health care system is the best in the world, compared to just three in ten (32%) Democrats and four in ten (40%) Independents who feel the same way.

This poll was conducted during a period of debate over the comparative merits of the U.S. health care system and the health care systems in other countries. President Bush and other prominent political figures have claimed that the U.S. has the best system in the world. At the same time, the World Health Organization and other organizations have ranked the U.S. below many other countries in their comparisons, while Michael Moore presented a similarly negative assessment of the U.S. health system in a popular format with his film Sicko.

Bush's Triumphalist Amnesia

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Wednesday, March 19, 2008; 12:52 PM

On the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq, President Bush today attempted to recast it as a great success for the United States and a major blow to Osama bin Laden. But for the American people to go along with his construction will require a pretty severe case of amnesia.

The security situation in Iraq is undeniably somewhat better than it was a year ago, before Bush increased the number of American troops there to more than 160,000. But the violence nevertheless continues at an appalling level. And the political reconciliation the "surge" was intended to bring about remains a distant fantasy.

Five years of Iraq lies

How President Bush and his advisors have spent each year of the war peddling mendacious tales about a mission accomplished.

By Juan Cole

Mar. 19, 2008 | Each year of George W. Bush's war in Iraq has been represented by a thematic falsehood. That Iraq is now calm or more stable is only the latest in a series of such whoppers, which the mainstream press eagerly repeats. The fifth anniversary of Bush's invasion of Iraq will be the last he presides over. Sen. John McCain, in turn, has now taken to dangling the bait of total victory before the American public, and some opinion polls suggest that Americans are swallowing it, hook, line and sinker.

The most famous falsehoods connected to the war were those deployed by the president and his close advisors to justify the invasion. But each of the subsequent years since U.S. troops barreled toward Baghdad in March 2003 has been marked by propaganda campaigns just as mendacious. Here are five big lies from the Bush administration that have shaped perceptions of the Iraq war.

Democrats, Bush Square Off Over Housing Relief

President Resists Wide-Scale Assistance

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Lori Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 20, 2008; D01

Now that the Federal Reserve has pledged billions of dollars to rescue Wall Street bankers from possible default, lawmakers and regulators are turning their attention to helping average citizens -- from homeowners in danger of foreclosure to people who want to buy a home.

But unlike the Fed's rapid moves last week to stabilize financial markets, the consumer benefits are likely to progress slowly as they face resistance from the Bush administration on some broad issues and from special interests on some narrow ones.

More Library Wrecking by Federal Agents

By Arthur Allen 03/18/2008 06:00PM

If you've ever worked in one of the cramped docket rooms of a federal agency, you know it can be a tiresome way to get insights into the intricacies of regulation. So the government's plan to put documents online is a good, democratic thing.

But before you destroy the paper copies, it's a good idea to make sure they've been scanned.

Apparently, the EPA forgot to do this.

Reducing carbon emissions could help -- not harm -- US economy

New Haven, Conn. — A national policy to cut carbon emissions by as much as 40 percent over the next 20 years could still result in increased economic growth, according to an interactive website that reviews 25 of the leading economic models used to predict the economic impacts of reducing emissions.

“As Congress prepares to debate new legislation to address the threat of climate change, opponents claim that the costs of adopting the leading proposals would be ruinous to the U.S. economy. The world’s leading economists who have studied the issue say that’s wrong — and you can find out for yourself,” said Robert Repetto, professor in the practice of economics and sustainable development at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies who created the site.

The difference between Jeremiah Wright and radical, white evangelical ministers

Ross Douthat and Ezra Klein are arguing about whether Jeremiah Wright's statements are comparable to those of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and John Hagee's. To argue that they're not comparable, Douthat -- like most people commenting on this raging controversy -- conflates two entirely separate analytical issues:

(1) Given their close and long-standing personal relationship, does Wright merit more scrutiny vis-a-vis Obama than white, radical evangelical ministers merit vis-a-vis Republican politicians? and,

(2) Are the statements of white evangelical ministers subjected to the same standards of judgment as those being applied to Wright's statements?

Even if the answer to (1) is "yes," that doesn't change the fact that the answer to (2) is a resounding "no."

Being responsible

-- by Dave

"This is an acknowledgment that we need to fundamentally change what our conversation about national security and war looks like in order to be able to move forward."
-- Darcy Burner

I felt a real burst of old-fashioned Northwesterner pride yesterday watching Darcy Burner lead a contingent of Democratic congressional candidates announce their "Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq" before the Take Back America Conference here in D.C. Not only was it clear that Darcy was the sparkplug and leader for the group -- and it was an impressive group -- but all the reasons to support her congressional campaign were on full display: the razor intelligence, the fearlessness, the natural leadership qualities.

But Burner herself must take a back seat to the plan, which is perhaps even more impressive: a thorough, comprehensive approach not just to solving the immediate issues around the Iraq conflict but also the systemic issues that go deeper. The idea is not just to end the war and bring peace and stability to Iraq, but to keep such a blunder from happening again.

And Now for the Really Bad News. . .

Just in case the arrival of St. Patrick’s Day doesn’t furnish an adequate reason for you to hang on a nice stiff drink, here’s some more.

Last week while the media were engaged in spinning various silly tales relating to presidential candidates, not to mention the enticingly lurid story of the fall of Eliot Spitzer, the nation’s financial markets were in a barely observed meltdown. Here are just a few snippets that suggest what we’re in for.

Greenspan: Worst Crisis Since World War II
Alan Greenspan offers sobering analysis in the pages of the Financial Times:

The current financial crisis in the US is likely to be judged in retrospect as the most wrenching since the end of the second world war. It will end eventually when home prices stabilise and with them the value of equity in homes supporting troubled mortgage securities.

The Greenspan article is fascinating, readable, and ends predictably with a strong (and certainly correct) argument against over-regulation as a false panacea. But Greenspan acknowledges that the crisis has been precipitated by irresponsible profit taking on the part of major financial institutions, and the subprime market figures as an obvious example.

America was conned - who will pay?

The South Sea Bubble ended in riots as trust was lost. Wall Street also duped the public

Larry Elliott, economics editor
The Guardian,
Monday March 17 2008

Bear Stearns marks the moment when the global financial crisis went critical. Up until last Friday, it had been possible - just about - to believe that the worst was over and that things were about to get better. That pretence was stripped away when JP Morgan, at the behest of the Federal Reserve, stepped in when the hedge funds pulled the plug on the fifth-biggest US investment bank.

It is now clear that no end is in sight to the turmoil, and the reason for that is that the Fed and the US treasury are no closer to solving the underlying problem than they were eight months ago. The crisis will only end when house prices stop falling and banks stop racking up huge losses on their loans. Doing that, however, will require the US government to intervene directly in the real estate market to end the wave of foreclosures. Ideologically, it is ill-equipped to take that step and, as a result, property prices will fall and the financial meltdown will go on and on.

Time magazine invents facts to claim that Americans support Bush's domestic spying abuses

No matter how corrupt and sloppy the establishment press becomes, they always find a way to go lower. Time Magazine has just published what it purports to be a news article by Massimo Calabresi claiming that "nobody cares" about the countless abuses of spying powers by the Bush administration; that "Americans are ready to trade diminished privacy, and protection from search and seizure, in exchange for the promise of increased protection of their physical security"; and that the case against unchecked government surveillance powers "hasn't convinced the people." Not a single fact -- not one -- is cited to support these sweeping, false opinions.

UN warns climate change melting glaciers at alarming rate

2 days ago

ZURICH (AFP) — The world's glaciers are melting at an alarming rate, the UN said Sunday, calling for immediate action to prevent further constraints on water resources for large populations.

"Millions if not billions of people depend directly or indirectly on these natural water storage facilities for drinking water, agriculture, industry and power generation during key parts of the year," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The culprit is climate change, according to data from the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS), based at the University of Zurich and supported by UNEP.

Obama Race Speech: Read The Full Text

"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

The crunch bites deeper in the US

By Stephanie Flanders
Economics Editor, BBC News

The credit crunch has hit the US economy hard. From Wall Street to Main Street, loans that looked rock-solid a year ago now look shaky.

And the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, is throwing away the rule book to contain the effects.

Kevin Logan of Dresdner Kleinwort, one of the less gloomy New York economists, summarises the state of play as the credit crunch has spread to different types of assets as follows: "We're all sub-prime now".

Digby: Tell Me Lies

As we hurtle forward into GOP smear season, this article in this week-end's NY Times magazine may help us explain how these character assassinations damage Democrats so successfully:

...To determine the veracity of a given statement, we often look to society’s collective assessment of it. But it is difficult to measure social consensus very precisely, and our brains rely, instead, upon a sensation of familiarity with an idea. You use a rule of thumb: if something seems familiar, you must have heard it before, and if you’ve heard it before, it must be true.

New Yorker: Abu Ghraib abuses were 'de facto US policy'

Photographer wanted to expose 'what the military was allowing to happen'

Some of the most iconic images of the Iraq war came not from photojournalists on the front lines, but US soldiers carrying point-and-shoot digital cameras. In its latest issue, the New Yorker profiles the woman who snapped many of the photos depicting abuse at Abu Ghraib prison that the same magazine revealed nearly four years ago.

The Gathering Storm at Justice

I don’t in the ordinary course review and recommend law review articles, but I’ve just come across one that is close to indispensable for public affairs junkies. On December 7, 2006—the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor—at least eight U.S. attorneys received phone calls from Michael Battle, the executive director of the Office of U.S. Attorneys at the Justice Department. Each was essentially ordered to submit his or her resignation.

The Administration attempted to sell the event as a routine personnel turn-over. But Congress and the public weren’t buying. After a series of hearings at which senior members of the Administration committed acts of perjury, there was a public uproar. In its wake the entire senior echelon of political appointees at the Justice Department were forced to leave office under a cloud and subject to an investigation into potentially criminal misconduct, as were a number of senior White House figures, most prominently including Bush’s senior political advisor, Karl Rove.

Only Saddam Hussein can run Iraq, says aide

By Damien McElroy in Baghdad

Last Updated: 7:36pm GMT 16/03/2008

A prominent figure in the Iraqi opposition movement that helped propel America and Britain to war in 2003 has said the country would be better off if Saddam Hussein was still in power.

Lufti Saber, once a key lieutenant of the first post-Saddam Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, has a ringside seat on the new Baghdad regime as an aide to the American-led military coalition.

'It's not so much about the mission anymore'

The order came over the radio: "Charlie Mike," US army jargon for "continue mission."

Cliff Hicks' team of soldiers patrolling a typically friendly neighbourhood had mistaken celebratory gunfire at a wedding for a hostile attack and had shot up a house, wounding two people and killing a little girl.

The troops didn't want to linger in the house, and their command centre ordered them out.

Paul Krugman: The B Word

O.K., here it comes: The unthinkable is about to become the inevitable.

Last week, Robert Rubin, the former Treasury secretary, and John Lipsky, a top official at the International Monetary Fund, both suggested that public funds might be needed to rescue the U.S. financial system. Mr. Lipsky insisted that he wasn’t talking about a bailout. But he was.

It’s true that Henry Paulson, the current Treasury secretary, still says that any proposal to use taxpayers’ money to help resolve the crisis is a “non-starter.” But that’s about as credible as all of his previous pronouncements on the financial situation.

JPMorgan buys Bear Stearns for $2 a share

By Francesco Guerrera in New York and Henny Sender in Abu Dhabi

Published: March 16 2008 18:03 | Last updated: March 16 2008 23:29

JPMorgan Chase on Sunday night agreed to buy Bear Stearns, the stricken US investment bank, for around $236m in shares in a deal that puts an end to Bear’s 85 years of independence and highlights the serious risks faced by banks during the credit crunch.

JPMorgan’s cut-price takeover of Bear, which has the backing of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury, was agreed before the opening of Asian markets on Monday morning in an attempt to stave off a run on other banks.

Tomgram: Philip K. Dick Meet George W. Bush

Blowing Them Away Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry

Globalization Bush-style
By Tom Engelhardt

Imagine, for a moment, that you live in a small town somewhere near the Southern California coast. You're going about your daily life, trying to scrape by in hard times, when the missile hits. It might have come from the Iranian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) -- its pilot at a base on the outskirts of Tehran -- that has had the village in its sights for the last six hours or from the Russian sub stationed just off the coast. In either case, it's devastating.

In Moscow and Tehran, officials announce that, in a joint action, they have launched the missile as part of a carefully coordinated "surgical" operation to take out a "known terrorist," a long-term danger to their national security. A Kremlin spokesman offers the following statement:

"As we have repeatedly said, we will continue to pursue terrorist activities and their operations wherever we may find them. We share common goals with respect to fighting terrorism. We will continue to seek out, identify, capture and, if necessary, kill terrorists where they plan their activities, carry out their operations or seek safe harbor."

JPMorgan to buy Bear for $2 a share

By JOE BEL BRUNO and MADLEN READ, AP Business Writers
1 minute ago

JPMorgan Chase said Sunday it will acquire rival Bear Stearns for a bargain-basement $236.2 million — or $2 a share — a stunning collapse for one of the world's largest and most storied investment banks.

The last-minute buyout was aimed at averting a Bear Stearns bankruptcy and a spreading crisis of confidence in the global financial system.

The Federal Reserve and the U.S. government swiftly approved the all-stock deal, showing the urgency of completing the deal before world markets opened.