I found the BIGGEST WTF of this whole "Wall Street Bailout Bullshit". It is just incredible and unbelievable and and and and....well, my goodness, it smells bad!

Do they think we are some sort of chumps?
(stoopid question)

Wall Street is apparently the only place in the world where you can steal from the taxpayers and then bill them for services rendered.

Workers will build the recovery, NOT Wall Street

Wall street shovels fantasies.
Workers make real things.

"Whatever happens on Wall Street, fixing the economy will mean making sure ordinary people have access to basic amenities, and guaranteeing that workers have the power to prevent abuses from corporate America’s executive class." CLICK~N~READ

"We let Bush have everything he
wanted for 8 bloody years
but now we're ready to
stop Obama - whatever it takes."

wierd, unnatural, unamerican, perverted, twisted, toe dancing whores - the lot!

republicans FREAK OUT. NO - REALLY!

He's Back...The Return of Elliot Spitzer....

He's Back...The Return of Elliot Spitzer....

Elliot Spitzer is back and hes talking. The thought of this, no doubt, brings a small shiver to the boardrooms of some of the perps walking around trying to figure out how to hide the money this week. Today Edward Liddy testified that there have been death threats made to or about executives who received bonuses, so no names will be put on the record, but these anonymous players must know that the jig is up in the land of easy-money. Isn't what to do a no-brainer for these great Americans?

Spitzer may be as "disgraced" as any anonymous sex loving Republican loser, but America is known for its great second acts, and we may be witnessing the curtain rising on Spitzer's.
Today in Slate Elliot Spitzer has a short op-ed that speaks volumes about what is going on, and indirectly, if you follow the money, what happened to him. Plainly stated, Spitzer brings the AIG Ponzi Scheme one step closer to the revered establishment when he explains how the bailout money was funneled straight into the top players, with Goldman Sachs being the name that comes up again and again. These top players already got bailout money, and Goldman is looking at zero losses at this point, while regular Americans are being asked to make concessions or just plain losing everything. here are the biggest financial entities in the world, making billions on what appears to have been nothing but air traded back and forth, and having gutted the American people they are walking away with 100% return to their stockholders. In return AIG seems to think that its appropriate to pay themselves bonuses with the leftover funds. This leaves AIG still a wobbly shell with no plan of how to go forward, and the threat of the collapse of all of the world's financial markets still up in the air. So, what was all that bailout money for? Apparently to make sure that no one at Goldman or the other few top firms in the hand-out-line lost anything!

The relationship between AIG and Goldman goes back long enough that one would think that Goldman would know, having bought so much of this "insurance" or whatever it was, whether the "products" were ...er...real or feasible at all. Indeed, Goldman and AIG almost merged a few years ago, but Spitzer notes that the unknown black hole of AIG's business practices were probably what prevented it. Still, that didn't stop the incestuous dealings; it almost makes one think that this whole thing was a setup.

This is country that Spitzer is familiar with; he has been a terrible liability to entities that, under the Bush administration, were allowed to literally gut the country and its citizens. All of this seems to have been part of the Bush Administration's own Ponzi Scheme, which figured that the illusion of an ownership society, terrified of the "terraism" and steeped in the me, me, me, culture would look the other way while they finished clearing out the vault. Beyond that, it's clear that the media hyped housing bubble encouraged the house flip mentality and the idea that anyone could be rich. The idea of the lottery dropping on our own heads made us more protective of the rich, because we might one day be one....or look, we could be one with no money down, if we could just balance that on this, and flip that house!!

Every week came a new offer from our bank or credit card to just put the enclosed check into the bank for a $50,000 loan, unsecured and with a low APR!! Who would know that those same banks would go out of their way to cause a day or week default by changing the cycle or stopping refusing cards that went over-limit, in order to charge fees and raise the rates. Who could know that the fine print on all those little fliers talking about privacy rights and how they are selling all of our information, also said that by-the-way the interest rate is now 25% and the minimum payment has tripled! Default on that and likely AIG has sold insurance to your lending institution that should repay them for making the bad loan in the first place....no money down mortgages? No problem....its the same story. This is the ownership society and we all need to own alot of stuff. It is... what did he say?...uniquely American!

Spitzer was questioning this back in February 2008 when he wrote his Valentine to predatory lenders in the Washington Post. He detailed that Attorneys General across the country had entered into litigation in an attempt to protect the people of their states from predatory lending. The response from the federal government was astounding!

What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge? As Americans are now painfully aware, with hundreds of thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure and our markets reeling, the answer is a resounding no.

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.

snip

In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government's actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.

But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.

Now, they will say that they fought the consumer protection laws to actually protect the consumers and assure that they could get credit in the future. But actually, Americans could get credit; just credit that they were able to handle and could, by reasonable standards, pay back. This was just more of the same in hindsight. Looking back that all that the Bush administration has done, the beginnings of this disaster looks almost quaint, and not like an institutionalized foray into the dirty underside of criminal activity. There were quotas passed by the government as to who got the loans and the focus was on certain populations who would be helped into homeownership even if they couldn't maintain the credit. It was treated as some sort of fulfillment of the American Dream for people to own something, but really had more to do with the insurance on the loans than the people involved. The American dream is dead, as we well know, but what it was, way back then, was that people could afford to own a house and put their kids in college!

AIG sold insurance to the biggest entities in the financial world to cover the proliferation of bad loans. This insurance became so common that it was impossible that the lions of finance didn't somehow have an inkling that something was wrong. Didn't Goldman and the rest of these huge firms know something about the stability of an impossible business plan? Hadn't Goldman gone over everything in their bid to merge? And what of the government and their mandating of certain loans that were bound to go bad. There were people involved in these things, and its not like regular people understand the ins and outs of the financial industry. They rely on brokers to explain it to them. But these brokers were being forced to see a certain product to an unqualified population. How could they? Why would they? Those are questions for another time.

Spitzer has been fighting these guys and asking questions all along. Coincidentally, right after the WSJ editorial appeared on Valentine's Day 2008, Spitzer was caught up in what was an extremely unusual sting. So unusual is an investigation like this that it seems almost like it was a set-up; and considering where it all came from and how it all came down, it might well have been.

It seems that Spitzer's bank was investigating expenses under the auspices of the newer Homeland Security laws of the Bush administration. Greg Palast wrote about this compellingly, and in light of how the whole thing is shaking out now, and what Spitzer said back then about this financial mess and what he tried to DO about it, Palast had a pretty good early grasp on what had gone down. So now, with Spitzer poking his head up from the underground of "healing his family," at this most compelling of moments, its probably worthwhile for Americans to screw their heads on straight and forget the details of the hooker, and look at what Spitzer was working on when he was taken down. We might all find ourselves wanting to thank the egotistical crime fighter who cant keep it in his pants.

I am no apologist for breaking the law, and usually its the highest and mightiest that fall the hardest. But when the mainstream is showing us the shiny object, we must resist the temptation to succumb to our base natures and try to see the bigger picture. There was never a real case against Elliot Spitzer, and no charges were filed. The release of embarrassing personal information was at the discretion of the Bush Administration's Justice Department.

Why was this information released? It wasn't that he was a crusader against such crimes, because many who have been caught were exactly the same and their information has been kept quiet. It wasn't that the press is all so great in their investigative journalism, either...because we know they're loathe to get off their asses if they can just read a talking point; as is evidenced by the reportage on this case.

Palast:

Not all crimes lead to federal bust or even public exposure. It’s up to something called “prosecutorial discretion.”

Funny thing, this ‘discretion.’ For example, Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, paid Washington DC prostitutes to put him in diapers (ewww!), yet the Senator was not exposed by the US prosecutors busting the pimp-ring that pampered him.
Naming and shaming and ruining Spitzer – rarely done in these cases - was made at the ‘discretion’ of Bush’s Justice Department.

Or maybe we should say, 'indiscretion.'

Bush's Justice Department.
Its clear to me that all things being equal, this was at the very least, not a transsexual streetwalker a la Hugh Grant, and it was all very ho-hum and quiet. So, whatever the problem that leads to this sort of behavior, I don't want to know about it...its personal, so just walk on by...nothing to see here.

Welcome back Elliot Spitzer. I hope we hear more from you very soon...your voice is needed in this matter.


c/p Brilliant at Breakfast
via RIP COCO

please copy/paste this into emails, blogs,
or otherwise spread it around.
thank you.

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!
Bush official shifted insurer’s billions into stocks just before crash

MADRID, – A Spanish court has agreed to consider opening a criminal case against six former Bush administration officials, including former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, over allegations they gave legal cover for torture at Guantanamo Bay, a lawyer in the case said Saturday.GO.READ

ya ya, I know, this is already all over the blogo intertubes, but if only ONE person catches it here, it is worthwhile as far as I am concerned. I want to see these criminals in prison. A prison they built would be best.

"The charges as related to me make no sense," Feith said Saturday. "They criticize me for promoting a controversial position that I never advocated." WHAT HE SAY?

AMERICAN CASINO


VIA

How much is eight trillion dollars? It is more than the following previous ventures combined: The Marshall Plan, Louisiana Purchase, Race to the Moon, S&L Crisis, Korean War, The New Deal, Invasion of Iraq, Vietnam War, AND NASA; that entire list is again COMBINED and adjusted for inflation. And the bailout? Well, it may exceed $8 trillion when all is said and done.

Leslie Cockburn has been filming scenes from the crisis for the last year and the film is quite impressive. It has been selected for the Tribeca Film Festival. You can find out more about the film here.

Blind Spot -- Missing: Thousands of Night Vision Devices Sent to Iraq

"...This report on the probable loss of thousands of U.S. supplied night vision devices in Iraq joins a long list of media reports wherein federal prosecutors announced arrests in foreign technology transfer cases involving night vision devices that have been the targeted proscribed items sought by both terrorist organizations and foreign governments..." GO.READ

IRAQ HAS BEEN THE WORST PLACE IN THE WORLD FOR "LOSSES" OF MILITARY EQUIPMENT AND AMERICAN MONEY, TO SAY NOTHING OF AMERICAN LIVES! WHO THE HELL IS RESPONSIBLE FOR STARTING THIS AND WHY ARE THEY NOT IN PRISON? WHY THE HELL IS OBAMA CONTINUING? SHIT.

The Market Wizards Were Exposed as Frauds -- Too Bad Obama's Team Still Believes in Their Magic

The market mystique didn’t always rule financial policy. America emerged from the Great Depression with a tightly regulated banking system, which made finance a staid, even boring business. Banks attracted depositors by providing convenient branch locations and maybe a free toaster or two; they used the money thus attracted to make loans, and that was that.
GO.READ.EDUCATION IS POWER

Evidently it PAYS and PAYS REALLY WELL to be an old pal of GEITHNER'S

Yesterday, on The Business Insider, we noted the appalling fact that the head of AIG's risk management team still has his job. Today, the WSJ follows up by noting that the WHOLE AIG RISK MANAGEMENT TEAM still has their jobs. The apparently incompetent overseer of Citigroup's risk-management group got an $8 million retention bonus last year. And so on.

Where's all this "accountability" you speak of Pres. Obama? FULL STORY

BY THE WAY...We know who is rich in America. Wonder who is getting rich in Afghanistan?

NO MORE TAXPAYER GIVEAWAYS TO BIG OIL AND GAS! USE THIS LINK TO SEND EMAIL TO YOUR CONGRESSPERSON NOW

Please support President Obama’s plan -- included in his budget proposal -- to cut billions of taxpayer subsidies to the giant oil and gas industries. These companies are making record profits and don’t need handouts from our nation’s taxpayers.

If the federal government is going to subsidize energy, then that money should be used for ending energy waste and funding clean energy options. PLEASE SEND AN EMAIL NOW

THE DAY THEY REPEALED THE GLASS-STEAGALL ACT WAS A DARK DAY FOR "ORDINARY" PEOPLE AND A RETURN TO PROMINENCE OF THE INVESTING/BANKING CLASS

Does anyone remember a president called BILL CLINTON? I have been saying for a long time that he was/is not much of a Democrat, which is a good reason to keep an eye on President Barak Obama.

Does anyone remember this? I CERTAINLY HOPE SO. 'THOSE WHO FAIL TO REMEMBER HISTORY ARE DESTINED TO REPEAT IT" or some such.

"Published: Sunday, November 7, 1999

After decades of trying, Congress finally repealed Depression-era laws that limited the ability of banks to enter the securities and insurance industries. President Clinton is expected to sign the legislation shortly, ushering in a new era on Wall Street as leading institutions seek partners to become financial supermarkets.

Passage of the law to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act marked an end to one of Washington's great gravy trains. In the last Congressional session alone, the industries affected by the bill poured more than $300 million into lobbying and campaign fund-raising."

New York Times

who is truly at the helm of our national healthcare reform effort

Healthcare Foxes are Building the Taxpayer Funded Hen House

by Donna Smith

If we want to know who is truly at the helm of our national healthcare reform effort, all we need to do is keep watching who is asked to provide official testimony and guidance to Congress and who is left out completely. Those decisions are made at the highest levels in our government and the choices are purposeful and meant to elicit just the information that will bolster a predetermined outcome.

Last week I wrote about Karen Ignagni, CEO of America's Health insurance Plans (the industry trade group known as AHIP) who was called on and recognized by President Barack Obama during his White House Summit on Healthcare Reform in late February and who was also the only "stakeholder" seated in the front of the room later for a briefing by the staff of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (the committee chaired by Senator Ted Kennedy). Clearly, Ignagni has been afforded a sort of access and status in this debate and in the reform effort that many others have not.

The fox isn't just in the hen house. The fox is building it.

I've got to hand it to Congress right now. Most members of Congress are making sure they remember "on which side of the toast you find the butter" in terms of making the for-profit health insurance industry comfortable in their deeply entrenched roles not only in our broken healthcare system but also in the deep-pocket funding of many Congressional campaigns. The insurance industry's influence is purchased with millions and millions in campaign contributions and with the preventable deaths of tens of thousands of American citizens every year. That is fact.

So why does it even warrant mention that the hearing this week to discuss health insurance reform has a witness list populated with industry-friendly voices, including Ignagni? I write this because it is so deeply dishonest and offensive to me that we are told we have an allegedly open and inclusive process to explore what's best for the nation's healthcare reform while the drafting and crafting thunders forward with very closed very elitist and very non-human rights oriented effort.

If healthcare is a basic human right, we must start from that truth and work forward in how to provide that basic human right to every person in this nation. Period. That is not Karen Ignagni's view. It is not her job. Her job - and she does it well - is to advocate for and protect her industry.

It's time for all of us who would like to hear nurses and patients and doctors tell their truths in these official hearings to let the committee chairs and their staff members know it and we're watching. Though we are not invited to testify, written testimony is always permitted. If we cannot secure appropriate discourse with wide representation of witnesses at these hearings, we should submit our own "expert testimony" in written form following every hearing. Unless and until we hold our government directly accountable for these issues, the abuses will continue.

And if the abuses continue, then Congress will give us health reform legislation based only on the testimony they wanted to hear rather than all the information they needed to consider. We'll not hear much from those who advocate for single payer - publicly funded, privately delivered - healthcare reform because no one who advocates that position is being asked to officially testify.

Below is the link to this week's Senate HELP Committee hearing and a copy of the witness list asked to help shape reform of health insurance. Do we really want insurance executives telling Congress how to reform their own industry? And then dictating that we all purchase their defective product? Do you suppose they'll pay themselves handsomely on our billions of dimes? It's not going to be good for this nation if we allow the industry that has so damaged us all to now determine the next half-century of American healthcare.

So, if you can, watch the hearing live (you can do so on-line via the link on the committee's website). And speak up about what you are experiencing at the hands of this industry.

You are the experts who are seeing the abuses. You are the cancer patients spending precious hours fighting insurance issues and billing pressure, bankruptcy and even foreclosure due to unpaid medical debt. You are the families burying loved ones denied care.

You are the American people who elect leaders and then expect sound governance from your Congressional representatives and senators. Your testimony is every bit as critical as any of those listed below. Write it. Print it out. Send it. Become the witnesses that should have been invited all along.

Witness list for Tuesday's Senate hearing on health insurance reform:

• Janet Trautwein, Executive Vice President and CEO, National Association of Health Underwriters, Arlington, VA
• Ronald A. Williams, MS, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Aetna Inc., Hartford, CT
• Karen Pollitz, M.P.P., Research Professor, Health Policy Institute at Georgetown University, Washington, DC
• Karen Ignagni, M.B.A., President and CEO, America's Health Insurance Plans, Washington, DC
• Len Nichols, Ph.D, Director, Health Policy Program at the New America Foundation, Washington, DC
• Katherine Baicker, PhD, Professor of Health Economics, Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health, Cambridge, MA
• Sandy Praeger, Health Insurance Commissioner, State of Kansas, Kansas City, KS

Donna Smith is a community organizer for the California Nurses Association and National Co-Chair for the Progressive Democrats of America Healthcare Not Warfare campaign.

GEITHNER'S GOTTA GO! THE PEOPLE WHO CAUSED THE PROBLEM ARE NOT THE ONES TO TRUST TO FIX IT!

Tim Geithner's actions throughout his career, including his time as Treasury Secretary, are proof that the toxic thinking that got us into this mess is part of his DNA. That's why every proposal he comes up with is déjà vu all over again -- a remixed variation on the same tried-and-failed let-the-bankers-work-it-out approach championed by his predecessor, Hank Paulson. Geithner's Masters of the Universe, the people he still thinks are the ones we should turn to to save the day, are the same people who brought us here. And that is why Geithner either needs to go or keep his job but have his authority stripped and transferred to someone who does not share his Wall Street world view. Use any window dressing you want, just take the steering wheel out of Geithner's hands. Click here to read more.

"...We can hope that Gov. Palin's (R Dink, Alaska) refusal of the federal stimulus funding does not reflect how she truly feels about the special needs community.

Specifically, the recovery package passed by Congress and signed into law by the president would have directed around $36 million to Alaska in Individuals with Disabilities Education Act money, including funding for the same Americans who participate in the Special Olympics..." VIA TWM

SOCIAL SECURITY AND THE ECONIMIC CRISIS click~n~read

the same as he believes in 'clean coal', the president thinks he can cut social security. it comes from an ignorant, elite place in his education.

THE INVASION OF WALL STREET

It's time to do what we do so well - REGIME CHANGE, BABY!

For ten years, the regime in Wall Street has been using evasion and deception to stockpile some of the mankind’s deadliest financial instruments to use against the taxpayers of the United States and our economic allies around the world. Regime scientists and secret business units have worked around the clock to produce warehouses of toxic mortgages. Secret caches of Collateralized Debt Obligations. Credit default swaps so lethal one teaspoon-full can kill an entire lending institution.

During all of that time, our attempts at diplomacy have been used as a ploy to gain time and advantage.

My fellow citizens, events on Wall Street have now reached the final days of decision.

Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Wall Street regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal financial instruments ever devised. The regime has a history of reckless, destructive behavior in the region.

Now go. read. the. rest

Obama's budget for the military and Pentagon are higher than G W T F Bush's. Where does that much money go? You may be surprised.

RICH PEOPLE DON'T CREATE WEALTH, THEY MANIPULATE IT.

While it IS true that these scumbags shouldn't have taken these obsene bonuses, Congress and Presidents all the way back through Reagan (including Obama!) have been setting up this scam. Political Economy: Mob Rule

So why does Congress continue to give ITSELF bonuses for doing such a piss poor job of governing?? Incompetence clearly pays very well.

The DoD finally admits that 360,000 Iraq and Afghanistan vets may have suffered serious brain injuries they previously dismissed as mild concussions!

"...The blast injuries of Americans -- and Iraqis -- will remain when Brain Injury Awareness Month passes. Robert Gates's reformulated Pentagon has agreed to show us our dead soldiers. Now we need a thorough coherent approach to diagnosing, healing, and compensating the living afflicted by the current wars..." PLEASE. GO. READ

The Rise And Fall Of AIG's Financial Products Unit

"...Who is this combover shithead poking his head nervously around the corner? Why, it’s none other than Joseph Cassano, who should be high up on everyone’s list for a little game hunting this weekend. Joseph Cassano, the thief who created AIG’s Financial Products division–that’s the division that racked up $500 billion in losses. Yep, that’s half a trillion dollars–enough to provide health care for tens of millions of Americans, all gone–poof! All because of this fuckhead named Joseph Cassano. He’s doing fine though, thanks for asking–he’s got all the health care he needs and then some, thanks to the fact that while he bequeathed to us a half trillion dollar bill, he pocketed for himself about $315 million. Plus after he was forced out of AIG last year, he awarded himself a $1 million monthly pension..." yes you DO WANT TO READ THIS

NOW, if you dig revenge, I suggest you read THIS VERSION (where I took the quote above) of the story where they name names and propose action. I caution you there is naughty language at this one.

OH YEA, ONE MORE THING: THIS MEMO FROM TOPSIDE AT AIG TO THE EMPLOYEES ON HOW TO BE SAFE IN PUBLIC IS A SCREAM! CULTURE WARS YO!

This just gets gooder an gooder. SO FAR 19 state's attorney generals have signed on to THIS letter (pdf) of demand! Culture war? Class war? Call it what you like, it is ON.

Friday evening:
Just when you thought "this AIG outfit could NOT POSSIBLY be any sleazier, we learn of THIS. Are we going to have to shut down the whole fucking place? WALL STREET? WHO THE FUCK NEEDS IT?

Sunday - Senator Chris Dodd (D-Sleazeville, Conn) has taken $280,000 from AIG. Senator Dodd is lately famous for changing the Widen/Snowe language to eliminate the bonuses.

Republican Congressional representatives are not only disrupting business, they are causing danger. These people (?) are truly un-American as their goal is simply to drive Democratic numbers down rather than to do the peoples' business!
HERE IS ANOTHER DISTURBING EXAMPLE

PRESIDENT OBAMA, IS THIS REALLY A NEW DAY OR REALLY TRULY BUSINESS AS USUAL? TRANSPARENCY? MIGHT WE HAVE SOME VASELINE TO GO WITH THAT?

"...Building on public outrage and presidential denunciations of executives at bailed out companies getting bonuses, Wyden and his Republican colleague, Sen. Olympia Snowe, crafted a provision in the stimulus bill that would have forced bailout recipients to cap their bonuses at $100,000 (any amount above that would be taxed at 35 percent).

According to Wyden, he "spent hours on the Senate floor," working to get the bipartisan amendment passed. He succeeded -- not a single Senator voted against the provision. "But," says Wyden, "it died in conference."

So who killed it? Wyden doesn't know.

Think about that for a second. We live in a country where one of the 100 most powerful people in government, the cosponsor of the amendment in question, has no clue how it got removed in the Senate-House conference committee -- or if it was taken out of the legislation even before it made it into conference.

And, so far, no one in the administration of a president who promised that transparency would be a "touchstone" of his presidency has demanded that whoever killed the provision step forward and own up to it..."

GO.READ

OUTRAGE OVER THE BONUSES ON WALL STREET IS
THE NEW RAGE THING. LET US REMEMBER THE OLD RAGE
THAT CONTINUES TO STEAL OUR MONEY AND
CAUSE HORROR AROUND THE WORLD IN OUR NAME:

PLEASE HELP REMOVE NUCLEAR WASTE AND NUCLEAR WASTE PRODUCING TECHNOLOGY FROM OUR GARDEN PLANET

What's the largest environmental cleanup site in the world? It's located in the beautiful state of Washington at a place called Hanford, a former nuclear-weapons producing facility now known as the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States.

This single nuclear weapons production facility alone stores over 53 million gallons of waste in underground tanks, almost 40 percent of which has leaked into the ground and water supply. And this is just one site.



The production, storage and testing of nuclear weapons continues to leave a devastating footprint on the Earth.

Join the movement for a world free of nuclear weapons. We will keep you updated and alert you to critical moments when your action is most important.

For the sake of our environment and our national security, the United States must commit to reducing our nuclear-weapons stockpile and lead the way for other countries to do the same,.

For over 40 years, we have fought to reduce the dangers posed to our environment and our national security from nuclear weapons. As our environmental security and national security become increasingly intertwined, it is more important than ever to work toward a world free of nuclear weapons.

Join us and over 50,000 people who have called for a world free of nuclear weapons.

President Obama has been one of the most outspoken presidents to date on nuclear arms control. Under his leadership, we have a unique window of opportunity to make serious progress on reducing our nuclear weapons stockpile. It's up to all of us to make sure that we do.

Congress needs to know that Americans no longer feel safe with 10,000 nuclear weapons. The United States should ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which would bind the United States to refrain from all nuclear testing. We should make serious efforts to negotiate a follow-on treaty to START (a U.S.-Russia nuclear arms agreement that will soon expire) and take our nuclear arsenals down to 1,000 weapons as a first step toward total disarmament. We should show the world that the United States is a leader in nuclear non-proliferation, paving the way for other countries to do the same.

What we need is your support and you voice. Join us and the thousands of others who have called for a world free of nuclear weapons. Let President Obama know that the time is now.

A world free of nuclear weapons is a more livable world, one in which you and I and others around the globe deserve to live.

a small bright spot on the Hanford clean-up

Fed Chairman Bernanake & Gietner Told AIG They Had To Disclose Where The Billion$ Of US Taxpayer Monies Went. Here Is A Partial Accounting

18 MARCH - AFTER WATCHING THE HEARINGS THIS MORNING, I RETURN TO APOLOGISE TO MR. LIDDY AT AIG:
He was appointed to run this company FOR the US TAXPAYER in order to recoup our INVESTMENT, that may, in fact, end up making the US TAXPAYER a good bit of PROFIT.

"...But in a letter that followed, Liddy (AIG BIGSHOT) said he had "grave concerns" about the impact on the firm's ability to retain talented staff "if employees believe that their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury."LINK
TELL YA WHAT, MR. AIG BIGSHOT I WILL SHOW YOU WHERE THE TOILET IS FOR A WHOLE LOT LESS MONEY THAN ANY OF YOUR "TALENTED STAFF" DID.

This chairman of the Fed, Bernanake, is a good guy. Click HERE for part 1 of the 60 minutes interview. HERE for part 2. I only hope the republican'ts don't fuck this up. AGAIN, THE PREVIOUS STATEMENT REMAINS TO BE PROVEN.

Barack Obama Administration Continues US Military Global Dominance

The military, industrial, congressional, and administrative elite profit from defense spending, both financially and ideologically. Insider profit taking from pentagon spending is widespread in Washington. But perhaps more important is the belief that this global military machine is seen as necessary for the protection of US corporate interests and the American upper classes in an increasingly destabilized world. Given that belief, the Obama administration is unlikely to change the defense spending policies of the previous US administrations without significant disruptive pressure from anti-war activists and global empire resisters.AND SO IT GOES IN THE LAND OF THE FREE AND THE HOME OF THE REPRESENTED BY ARMED SOLDIERS...


Also - The pork that dares not be called pork...

This news story of volunteers welcoming returning veterans from overseas is a reminder for all of us, Americans and others with service members out doing our dirty work. I only wish there was a bus or train station around HERE, I would go do this. I think I will contact the small Veterans Outreach office near here to see what I CAN do...

pop up some popcorn and open a beer. CSPAN is getting better than NASCAR on the teevee machine!

Have you heard all the talk about "earmarks" and "porkbarrel spending"? Seems all that noise is about only 2 percent of '09 spending!

Can YOU hear the WINGNUT DISTRACTION, DISINFORMATION, PARTY OF "NO" noise machine?

CITI BANK ADVISING NEW IRAQ BANKS. WTF?

"Yes, clearly Citibank is just the right institution to help the Iraqi banking sector become mature and responsible corporate citizens."

The Washington Independent’s Spencer Ackerman notes that at a press conference in Baghdad on Sunday, U.S. Embassy spokesman Adam Ereli boasted that the Iraqi banking sector is taking advice from Citibank:

Beyond education and culture, in the field of economy and services, it’s worth noting that representatives of U.S. banks, JP Morgan and Citibank and others came to Baghdad on January 28th, participated in an international banking conference that explored correspondent banking relations that would deepen commercial ties between Iraq and the international community, business community. Citibank has already established correspondent relationship services agreement with Iraq’s Warka Bank that allows clients of both banks to execute cash payments, wire transfers and trade transactions to both corporate and retail entities in all Iraq’s cities and provinces.

Citigroup, Inc. recently received its third bailout of U.S. taxpayer money. Ackerman writes, "Yes, clearly Citibank is just the right institution to help the Iraqi banking sector become mature and responsible corporate citizens. I hear Warka Bank is too big to fail."

WTF AMERICA? WHY NOT JUST HIRE JIM CRAMER FROM OVER AT CNBC AMERICA'S "FINANCE NETWORK"?

JIM CRAMER - CNBC'S FAVE CRIM SAYS "IT'S A FUN GAME"

I AM SO ITCHING TO SEE THIS TURD ON THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART TONIGHT. STEWART AND I HAVE BEEN ON THESE SCUMBAGS (HE OF COURSE, IS THE BRIGHTER OF US). JON STEWART IS GONNA TOAST THIS FUCKERS EYEBALLS.

Climate fears 'being realised''

By Matt McGrath
BBC environment reporter, Copenhagen

The Arctic sea-ice has seen a rapid decline in recent summers

"The worst-case scenarios on climate change envisaged by the UN two years ago are already being realised, say scientists at an international meeting.

In a statement in Copenhagen on their six key messages to political leaders, they say there is a increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climate shifts.

Even modest temperature rises will affect millions of people, particularly in the developing world, they warn.

But, they say, most tools needed to cut carbon dioxide emissions already exist.

More than 2,500 researchers and economists attended this meeting designed to update the world on the state of climate research ahead of key political negotiations set for December this year." GO.READ

We are in the midst of multiple major crises and we find ourselves embroiled in a fucking culture war? WTF AMERICA?

UBS: Washington’s old friend becomes new foe=
Switzerland's largest bank,
UBS and its relationship with US politicians
(about 5 minutes)

SUNDAY SERMON - FROM INSIDE THE BRAIN OF THE CONSERVATIVE/'CHRISTIAN' RIGHT/REPUBLICANS:
CRAZY FOR GOD

Please copy this to your blog or link to here or here in order to spread this across and throughout America.

Army says deployments not linked to suicides PLEASE CLICK HERE AND READ THIS

"The Army released frightening new suicide statistics Thursday, but suggested the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have little to do with this alarming trend.

In fact, the vice chief of staff of the Army said that after reviewing suicide statistics for 2008, multiple combat deployments actually make soldiers less likely to commit suicide."

So if you are sent back to see/cause this over and over,

you are less likely to stick a pistol in your own mouth?

If you are concerned about our returning troops, you really should read this story AND click on the comments link at the bottom, AND click here for a couple of VERY thoughtful comments.

VIA Our Troops NewsLadder

CLICK ~ Rick Santelli, along with Lawrence Kudlow and all the other free-marketeer hustlers at CNBC are nothing but bailout queens posing as angry, principled anti-bailout crusaders.~ CLICK

I fukken LOVE it when I'm right!

LOOKS LIKE SANTELLI'S BUTT-BUDDIES IN THE OLD BAIT AND SWITCH GAMES ARE GOING TO THE GREY-BAR HOTEL SOON.

WHY IN THE NAMES OF ALL THE GODS DOES IT TAKE A COMEDIAN TO SHOW US HOW BAD THIS FINANCIAL CRISIS REALLY IS?

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

OF COURSE, STEWART IS, ARGUABELY THE BEST COMEDIAN ON PLANET EARTH, BUT STILL...

In the opinion of THIS humble American citizen, perhaps in order to get to the root of the problem, we should SHUT DOWN Wall Street, and SHUT DOWN, the banks and other organisations that have operated in criminal ways until after the investigation is finished? HEY, I'M JUST SAYIN'....

Billions Dished Out in the Shadows

Billions Dished Out in the ShadowsSix months ago, we taxpayers began bailing out AIG with more than $140 billion, and then it went and lost $61.7 billion in the fourth quarter, more than any other company in history had ever lost in one quarter. So Timothy Geithner and Ben Bernanke huddled late into the night last weekend and decided to reward AIG for its startling failure with 30 billion more of our dollars. Plus, they sweetened the deal by letting AIG off the hook for interest it had been obligated to pay on the money we previously gave the company.

WAIT A FUKKEN MINUTE!

It's only 10 paragraphs,
maybe we should all read this?
Maybe even write to our Congressional representatives
about what we think about it? Hm?

WRITE TO CONGRESS!

I only wish the Obama people would continually remind
the citizens of the world that
this debacle was brought down on them by the
G WTF BUSH gang and their de-regulating frenzy.

Prosecution of The Bush Crew Coming Closer to Reality. Please use our handy CLICK~N~READ by clicking right here!

WHO STASHES MONEY IN OFFSHORE ACCOUNTS AND WHY DO THEY DO IT? TO DUCK TAXES IS WHY!

The other day I wrote a rant about this CNBC scumbag named Santelli who ranted from the floor of the Chicago Merc about bailing out folks who had been scammed by "mortgage salesmen", and had an interesting reply from someone who either works at CNBC or loves something about millionaires.

TODAY over at CNBC we get this dickhead named Larry Kudlow who does not one bit enjoy that President Obama wants to try closing some of the tax loopholes that allow RICH FUCKS to duck thier share of taxes by hiding thier money in the fucking Bahamas, Switzerland and other offshore hidey holes:



FUCK this guy, and CNBC too! What the HELL do these rich sons of bitches DO with thier millions? Why they make MORE millions! Well goody goddamned goody for them. The greedy assholes are NOT paying thier share and now they are whining like a bunch of goddamned spoiled brats (OH, I GUESS THAT'S WHAT THEY REALLY ARE, EH?) about being asked to pay up!

- ALL YOUR DOWNSIDE ARE BELONG TO US - click~n~read

Alrighty then - we (you and I, if you are an American) own 80% of insurance big AIG (G WTF Bush bought it for us). We ( you and I again) are going to loan OUR company another $30B. Dosen't seem like very good business practice for MY company. I OWN this sonofabitch and I want to KNOW what makes this behemouth more worthy of propping up than some small business and homeowners who are going down the shitter? Poorly managed businesses, I don't give a crap WHAT sort they are, go into bankruptcy restructuring. These fucking banks should be no different.

I am 62 years old, a veteran and a registered voter. I have NEVER liked banks or bankers. I have always believed that a bankers ONLY goal in life is to seperate you from your money. If that really IS the goal, they are quite successful indeed.

humor:
The government gave another 30 billon dollars to AIG because they already lost the 62 billion they got last quarter due to systemic deterioration. Said a government spokesperson, “I know it sounds like an unreal amount of money, but the cost of doing nothing would be in the jillions.”

JOSH over at TPM has been wondering the same thing

ONE PERSON SCREAMING IN THE WILDERNESS OF REGULATORY AGENCIES TOLD NOT TO REGULATE TRIED TO WARN OF MADOFF CRIMES

THANK YOU SO MUCH BUSH/CLINTON/BUSH, YOUR SPONSORSHIP TOOK GREED TO ENTIRELY NEW LEVELS.

Senator Cantwell (D-Wa) speaks against the TARP bill designed to enrich JP Morgan BankCo at the expense of American taxpayers. CLICK~N~WATCH!

AMAZING!
CLICK HERE
FOR THE
FULL STORY.