By Ali Abunimah
During the United States election campaign, racists and pro-Israel hardliners tried to make an issue out of President-elect Barack Obamas middle name, Hussein. Such people might take comfort in another middle name, that of Obamas pick for White House Chief of Staff: Rahm Israel Emanuel
Obama Picks Pro-Israel Hardliner For Top Post
Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:47:51 GMT
...and then there's the credit rating agencies, classifying all those (now known as) toxic assets as AAA.
“Let me read this email to you. It’s a series of instant messages between Standard & Poor’s officials that were sent on April 7 2007.”
The speaker is John Yarmuth, a Democratic Congressman from Kansas. It’s Oct. 22, 2008, Yarmuth, a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in Washington, D.C., is in the process of grilling two former executives at credit rating agencies, and one current one. (Ratings agencies represent just one of many players being assigned blame in the ongoing financial crisis.)
Yarmuth’s question is directed at Mr. Frank Raiter, the former head of the division in charge of rating mortgage backed securities at Standard & Poors.
Terrible looting of public capital has a habit of taking place during periods of dramatic political transition, and Bush has one underway.
Plus major article in Rolling Stone.
Can Obama Stop the Bush Administration's Final Economic Heist?
Naomi Klein
Voters dealt what may be a fatal blow to America's longest-running and least-discussed war -- the war on marijuana.
Pot Wins in a Landslide: A Thundering Rejection of America's Longest War
Rob Kampia, AlterNet
Wed, 05 Nov 2008 20:00:01 GMT
An analysis of the U.S. financial/political quagmire and some thoughts on a new paradigm of social organization.
The United States government has for two decades attempted to maintain a financial bubble rather than address the fundamental problems underlying the political economy. Our understanding of reality, rather than belief in the facade of false growth, offers a better platform on which to build a more reliable economic future. - Joe Costello
Economics can open to new realities
Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:00:00 GMT
Don't read this if you're feeling a little low today.
The Israeli administration has buried more than 50 percent, or three million tons, of its nuclear and chemical waste in the occupied West Bank. Most of the waste comes from the Israeli industrial zones and is buried secretly causing slow death and disease as it seeps from the soil, PNN partner station Radio Dream reports.
[Uruknet 48504 04-nov-2008 08:13 ECT] Israeli industrial zones using West Bank as chemical dump
By Chris Hedges —
Tomorrow I will go to a polling station in Princeton, N.J., and vote for Ralph Nader. I know the tired arguments against a Nader vote. But there is little disagreement among liberals and progressives about the Nader and Obama campaign issues. Nader would win among us in a landslide if this was based on issues.
For more details, please click on the link to read the article.
Only Nader Is Right on the Issues
Tue, 04 Nov 2008 13:25:00 GMT
Reality check? What changes, what doesn't. Passing of the guards or the same old story.
By John Murphy
When Amy Goodman asked how Michael Moore could say that he was opposed to war and yet support a candidate who has announced his intentions to commit the same crimes against humanity as are being committed by the Bush cabal and which were committed by the Clinton regime, the rotund Republican-lite moviemaker said, well, I dont know if Im giving him the benefit of the doubt. Im hoping that he breaks his campaign promise, like all politicians do. Im counting on him to be a good politician and do that. Michael Moore is hoping that O-BOMB-A is just a liar instead of a mass murderer
Michael Moore And The Great Barack Hope
Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:15:14 GMT
A little backgrounder on 'the Calgary School, Straussism and the Harperites world view.
by Frances Russell - October 10, 2006
Despite their professed Christian beliefs, many theological and social conservatives have a strong 'survival of the fittest' streak. They want a hierarchical society with heterosexual white males at the top.
In what will go down as one of the epic prank calls of all time, Canadian radio show jester Marc Antoine Audette got Sarah Palin on the phone Saturday by telling her French President Nicolas Sarkozy was calling. Oops.
It seems almost incredible that Ursula Bogner's musical talents should have remained undiscovered until now.
The first-ever pan-European civil society coalition against water privatisation was launched last week during the European Social Forum in the Swedish city Malmö. Including citizens groups from Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Turkey and a dozen other countries across Europe, the European Network for Public Water will insist on major changes in EU policies towards water management, away from the current pro-privatisation approach.
Europe Seeks Moratorium to Protect Public Water from Privatization Push
Olivier Hoedeman, Corporate Europe Observatory
