Congress Can Compel Bush Republican Guard To Appear, Karl Not Immune
July 31st, 2008 - by: danny
THE FEAR, THE FEAR: ARE THE CHICOMS OUT TO GET US?
NATIONAL PASTIME: There is no joy in Beantown, Manny Goes To La La Land
(AP) The Red Sox finally parted ways with their disgruntled slugger, sending him to the Los Angeles Dodgers in a startling, three-team trade Thursday that brought Jason Bay to Boston. “When a player like Manny becomes available, I don’t think there’s a manager in baseball who wouldn’t say they’re interested,” said Dodgers skipper Joe Torre..”
AND AT LAST: THE STORY ABOUT FORECLOSURES THAT WILL TOUCH AMERICA’S HEART. FORGET THE PEOPLE, A CAT IS AT RISK. AND THE CAT IS BIG…AND CUTE.
BUSHEVIKS CAN BE FORCED TO APPEAR IN CONGRESS
RECESSION GOES GLOBAL
PARIS HILTON’S DAD IS A MCCAIN DONOR (OR WAS)
SUSPECT FOUND IN ANTHRAX CASE…SCIENTIST KILLS HIMSELF
Mr. President, I have some bad news for you. You want me to wait until you are back from the gym? Will you be too pluckered out then to receive it Yeah, its about Karl They want to haul his ass up up to the hill. Looks like those liberal activist law writing, constitution-flouting judges have done it again….A court says he has to go…..Also by the way, our friend Senator Ted has pled not guilty….He’s such a good man….So you will have a place to crash on your next trip to Alaska to watch the caribou and the drilling.
FACE THE MUSIC
AP: WASHINGTON – President Bush’s top advisers are not immune from congressional subpoenas, a federal judge ruled Thursday in a long-running dispute between the two political branches.
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BREAKING NEWS TODAY: FBI NAMES ANTHRAX KILLER, SUSPECT COMMITS SUICICE–IS TOP GOVERNMENT SCIENTIST, NOT FOREIGN TERRORIST (ALTHOUGH HE WAS BORN IN LEBANON, LEBANON, OHIO)
THE LA TIMES REPORTS: “Bruce E. Ivins, one of the nation’s top biodefense researchers, dies just as the Justice Department was to file criminal charges against him in the 2001 mailing attacks that killed five, The Times has learned.
AP HAS MORE DETAILS: “Ivins was one of the nation’s leading biodefense researchers.
In 2003, Ivins and two of his colleagues at the USAMRIID received the highest honor given to Defense Department civilian employees for helping solve technical problems in the manufacture of anthrax vaccine.
In 1997, U.S. military personnel began receiving the vaccine to protect against a possible biological attack. Within months, a number of vaccine lots failed a potency test required by federal regulators, causing a shortage of vaccine and eventually halting the immunization program. The USAMRIID team’s work led to the reapproval of the vaccine for human use.
The Times said Ivins was the son of a Princeton-educated pharmacist who was born and raised in Lebanon, Ohio. He received undergraduate and graduate degrees, including a Ph.D. in microbiology, from the University of Cincinnati.”
GO GET HIM JOHN. JOHN?
From the Washington Post: As Aides Map Aggressive Race, McCain Often Steers Off Course–Sen. John McCain last week delivered one of his sharpest critiques yet of Sen. Barack Obama’s Iraq policies. But just hours after his crisp performance, the Republican presidential candidate blurred his own message with an offhand comment to a television interviewer that Obama’s proposal for a 16-month time frame for removing combat troops from Iraq might be a “pretty good timetable,” reports Juliet Eilperin and Robert Barnes:
Now McCain is Challlenging Obama For Using “Race Card”–Obama Attacks Him For Taking Oil Company $
Worse, yet and guess what, the economy just ain’t respondin…..The Bush Stimulus, as predicted here, was a BIG BUST!
AP – The country didn’t get the energetic rebound in economic growth hoped for from the government’s tax rebates in the second quarter, and the economy jolted into reverse at the end of 2007, raising new recession fears.
NYT: G.D.P. Grows at Tepid 1.9% Pace Despite Stimulus
The economy grew less than expected from April to June, the government said on Thursday, and it shrank in the final months of 2007, dimming the outlook for a quick recovery.
Meawnhile, the Naked Capitalism blog reports that its not just the US economy that’s in the sewer:
First, Grantham ( DS: Jeremy Grantham, legendary investor and the man who manages Dick Cheney’s ill gotten gains) now thinks we will have a global recession (before, he thought emerging markets would escape):
Economically, most emerging countries really looked to have decoupled for 18 months as we slowed and they did not. But in a global recession no one decouples. As German, French, and British growth slowed rapidly in the last 6 weeks, a global slowdown looks more likely and more painful. To this end, we have done an about face and lowered our weightings in emerging equities to neutral or just below. To critics of this change, I would cite the quote attributed to Keynes, caught in the same predicament: “When the facts change, I change my mind — what do you do, sir?”
Nouriel Roubini, by contrast, never bought the decoupling thesis, as he reminds us in his latest post:
As already analyzed and discussed in detail in this blog there is now fresh evidence that at least a dozen major economies and some emerging markets are at risk of a recessionary hard landing. The list includes:
United States
Japan
United Kingdom
Spain
Ireland
Italy
Portugal
Canada
New Zealand
Estonia
Latvia
Some other South-Europe emerging marketsMoreover, even in the rest of the Eurozone (Germany, France, etc,) there is now evidence of a sharp growth deceleration as industrial production is falling in all of the Eurozone, business confidence is down, consumer confidence is down and retail sales are flat or falling….
So while we will not experience a global recession we will get close to one as the US will have a severe recession, Japan is entering one, a third of Europe will go into a recession, the rest of Europe will have a severe growth slowdown…”
WHERE THE ECONOMY IS BOOMING–FROM ARABIAN BUSINESS (ENGLISH)
“Will the house of cards come tumbling down?”
While the subprime shadow continues to lengthen around the world, the sun continues to shine across the oil-fuelled economies of the Gulf.
House prices are on the up, restaurants are full, shopping malls are brimming, and the culture of spend, spend, spend shows no sign of abating. But as the good times roll, little attention is being paid to the region’s rapidly growing levels of consumer debt or the hidden human misery behind it.
Banks are granting loans and credit cards like never before, encouraged by the increasingly cheap cost of money since the Fed started slashing interest rates last year.
Some are even willing to send out unsolicited credit cards to their customers, in the hope that they’ll activate them and start spending even more.
The result has been massive growth in consumer debt levels across the Gulf. Second-quarter earnings from the region’s major lenders indicate that the trend could even be accelerating.
Consumer loans in the UAE have soared 55 percent since the end of 2006 to reach around $13.2bn. In Kuwait, credit to residents also increased some 25 percent in the year to June, despite the introduction of tighter controls over the banks’ lending criteria in April.
Central bank data from Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Oman tells a similar tale, with consumer debt predicted to reach 60 percent of private consumption in Gulf Arab states this year. In layman’s terms, that means a whole lot of maxed-up credit cards.
The numbers reveal that many people in the Gulf are simply living beyond their means – seduced by the wealth and excess that is on plentiful display in cities from Dubai to Doha.
Reuters: Deutsche Bank writedowns swell beyond $11 billion
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Deutsche Bank announced $3.6 billion of fresh writedowns on Thursday, taking its bill from the financial crisis beyond $11 billion and putting it among the top ten global casualties of the turmoil.
Massachusetts sues, settles over ARS
The state charged Merrill Lynch with fraud related to auction rate securities and settled a similar claim with UBS.
CNN: Foreclosures linked to subprime fraud
A New York state investigation of subprime mortgage practices reveals fraud proliferated in the state, which had the eighth-highest number of foreclosures in 2007.
The Center for Economic and Policy Research: “Recent reports of the budget deficit are troubling. Not because of the size of the deficit – indeed, we had proportionally larger deficits in the eighties and nineties – but because talk of the deficit threatens to limit the measures Congress and the president are willing to take to turn this economy around.”
Central banks fire new round at credit crisis
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S., European, and Swiss central banks on Wednesday extended emergency lending facilities for investment banks and expanded other liquidity programs to ease credit market strains that have weighed on the global economy for nearly a year.
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CANDID CAMERA MEETS GOTCHA: Israeli Abuses Exposed
July 31st, 2008 - by: danny
Will the Bush Administration pull a new Middle East peace deal out of its moth eaten hat?
PEACE OR PIECES?
Nadia Hajib writes:
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has convened Palestinian and Israeli negotiators in Washington this week. Under a rumored deal, Israeli leaders will agree to keep only part of land that doesn’t belong to them while Palestinian leaders agree to give up rights not theirs to cede.
Borders in exchange for the Palestinian refugees’ right of return, with the issue of Jerusalem left hanging for now, is where negotiations supposedly stand. Rice’s peacemaking ambitions are said to have boiled down to presenting a reasonable report to the UN General Assembly and the next president.
If Israeli leaders agree to withdraw their soldiers and settlers from parts of the West Bank (in fact, they’ve just announced plans for a new settlement), and if Palestinian leaders can sell their people an exchange of rights for a chimera (in fact, they’re likely to face fierce resistance), and if anyone who’s followed this process believes in such a deal, then Rice will certainly succeed.
So many “Ifs,” so little time. A more fruitful avenue for speculation: What if Barack Obama is elected president and follows through on his campaign promise to immediately engage on the Arab-Israeli conflict? Can he succeed where Rice has failed? (President George W. Bush is too invisible to even mention).
Whether a President Obama can succeed depends on getting three things right: the reality on the ground, the team, and political will. Reality is not easy to get in office. Just ask Tony Blair, the former British prime minister now Middle East envoy for the Quartet (the US, Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations).
REAL NEWS: HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES CAUGHT ON CAMERA
TROUBLED BRIDGES OVER TROUBLED WATERS
Statement of Terence M. O’Sullivan, General President of LIUNA,
On the One Year Anniversary of the I-35 Bridge Collapse in Minnesota
Minneapolis, Minnesota (July 31, 2008) — Today we mark the one year anniversary of the tragic collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minnesota that killed 13 people and injured hundreds more.
The image of the I-35 bridge collapsing is seared in America’s memory and in the memory of LIUNA — the Laborers’ International Union of North America. LIUNA members were on that bridge, some simply crossing the Mississippi River as millions do every day, while others were working on a repaving crew. Every one of those members would rather have been fixing the I-35 instead of just patching it.
There were numerous warnings about the I-35 bridge dating back to the 1990s, but even after its deadly collapse there remain today more than 150,000 bridges across America in need of repair. Overall, the American Society of Civil Engineers gives our infrastructure a “D” grade and estimates that the investment now needed to bring the country back to acceptable condition is $1.6 trillion and rising because of inflation and continuing deterioration.
The condition of our bridges and the state of America’s other basics call for a commitment to build America. It is time that we repair, rebuild and renew the basics in our country rather than relying on band-aid fixes and patch-work solutions. We must make building America an immediate priority. We cannot wait for another bridge to fall or another levee to be breached before we act.
Juan Cole: “Mark LeVine is disturbed by the tendency of Barack Obama and other US politicians to lump the Taliban together with al-Qaeda. The latter, he says is an international terrorist organization. The Taliban in contrast is a ‘territorially rooted’ ‘ethno-nationalist’ movement.”
Obama and the Taliban
By Mark LeVine
FROM IRAN’S PRESS TV: Afshin Rattansi interviews Bosnia’s former foreign minister who confirms Radovan Karzic’s assertion that Washington made a deal for Dayton and privatization over the genocide in Srebrenica. WATCH ON YOU TUBE.
ONE IN SEVEN U.S. PUBLIC SCHOOLS CONSIDERING A FOUR-DAY SCHOOL WEEK
BUSH & CO.: LET THE INFRASTRUCTURE ROT MORE SO WE CAN PRIVATIZE IT
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Great Fire Wall Of China Strikes Again: Web Access Blocked In Olympic China
July 31st, 2008 - by: danny
The Games have inspired other games….
WEB TO BE CENSORED IN CHINA
Beijing, China (AHN) – Chinese officials on Wednesday confirmed that journalists covering the Olympic Games will not have free access to Internet sites, as they will block some Websites.
A senior government spokesman said the Falun Gong spiritual group’s Website will be blocked. However, some unspecified sites will also be blocked to journalists.
More than 20,000 foreign journalists are expected to cover the Olympic Games in Beijing, which begin August 8. Many have already arrived in the capital and have begun working in press and broadcast centers provided by the organizers.
On Tuesday, several media personalities complained they were unable to access the Amnesty International Website, which released a report on China’s human rights record. Several news sites, especially those discussing Tibet and human rights are also not accessible, journalists said.
Amnesty International on Tuesday released a report saying China’s human rights record has deteriorated as the Olympic Games approach.
The human rights group released documents which accuse China of “re-education through labor,” the suppression of rights activists and journalists, and the use of arbitrary imprisonment.
Communist China has traditionally enforced tough Internet controls, but vowed to provide media with free access when it bid for the Games.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) pledged to look into the complaints.
LATER….
Some International Olympic Committee officials cut a deal to let China block sensitive websites despite promises of unrestricted access, a senior IOC official admitted on Wednesday.
Persistent pollution fears and China’s concerns about security in Tibet also remained problems for organizers nine days before the Games begin. China had committed to providing media with the same freedom to report on the Games as they enjoyed at previous Olympics, but journalists have this week complained of finding access to sites deemed sensitive to its
communist leadership blocked.
“I regret that it now appears BOCOG has announced that there will be limitations on website access during Games time,” IOC press chief Kevan Gosper said, referring to Beijing’s Olympic organizers.
“I also now understand that some IOC officials negotiated with the Chinese that some sensitive sites would be blocked on the basis they were not considered Games related,” he said.
Maybe the Cave-in KowTow can become an event.
On the other hand, China fears disruptions, groups using the Games to push their agendas and organize protests.
If you defend China’s position, let me know and I will post your views.
APPEAL FOR HUMAN RIGHTS MONITORING
Czech ex-president Vaclav Havel and Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu called on Olympic athletes on Thursday to speak up on human rights in China during the Beijing Olympics next month.
Havel, a human rights campaigner jailed by Communist rulers before their government fell in 1989, and the South African Archbishop Tutu said in an open letter the International Olympic Committee (IOC) should let athletes know about the suppression of liberties in China.
“It is necessary for all Olympians to be able to learn about the real situation in China and to point out human rights violations freely whenever and wherever, in line with their conscience,” the letter said.
FAIR DISSES CNN OVER IMPEACHMENT HEARING COMMENTARY
ACTION CALL FROM CENTER FOR RESPONSIBLE LENDING
“if your representative in Congress is on the House Financial Services Committee, Please call them now to stop unfair credit card practices and ensure responsible and fair terms for Americans. Tell them to support HR 5244 and oppose both the Hodes amendment and Castle substitute bill.
The House Financial Services Committee is voting on HR 5244, the Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights. This bill now largely mirrors, and in some aspects is stronger than, the Fed’s very positive proposals against unfair and deceptive credit card practices.
Opponents will try to pass a voluntary resolution instead.
* A vote for a voluntary resolution only is a vote on behalf of the credit card companies to kill the enactments tough new restrictions on abusive lending practices. With thousands of consumers being harmed by credit card practices, this is not acceptable.
* A vote for a voluntary resolution only is a vote to let the Fed off the hook. If Congress wants to ensure that the Fed does not weaken the rule, now or later, the Fed must see that Congress is serious about legislating. Congressional resolutions are a dime a dozen and not taken seriously.
* If members want to support the Fed resolution without killing H.R. 5244 — which is worth supporting — they can send a letter to the Fed or support a resolution IN ADDITION TO supporting HR 5244.
Your representative in Congress is on the House Financial Services Committee. Please call them now to stop unfair credit card practices and ensure responsible and fair terms for Americans. Tell them to support HR 5244 and oppose both the Hodes amendment and Castle substitute bill.”
Philadelphia fighting foreclosures
COMMENT ON HOUSING BILL BY ECONOMIST AND NY TIMES COLUMNIST PAUL KRUGMAN
“Financial regulation needs to be extended to cover a much wider range of institutions. Basically, the financial framework created in the 1930s, which brought generations of relative stability, needs to be updated to 21st-century conditions. …
If the government is going to stand behind financial institutions, those institutions had better be carefully regulated – because otherwise the game of heads I win, tails you lose will be played more furiously than ever, at taxpayers’ expense.”
He also cautions:
“Proponents of expanded regulation, no matter how compelling their arguments, will have to contend with very well-financed opposition from the financial industry. And as Upton Sinclair pointed out, it’s hard to get a man to understand something when his salary – or, we might add, his campaign war chest – depends on his not understanding it.”
YOUR NEWS DISSECTOR INTERVIEWED BY RAZORCAKE MAGAZINE ON SUBCRIME MESS
DON’T COUNT YOUR EGGS….
Martha Older writes on the Housing Bill, sharing “skepticism and warnings from a tax-finance expert, printed yesterday on Marketwatch.com, a respected Wall St. Journal website for investors. Intended for individuals, the article’s called “Devil in the details: The hidden tax traps in the housing-rescue bill.” Even in outline form, It’s long and complicated. But as I personally interpret the information, it’s a case of don’t catch your eggs . . . because they still haven’t even been laid, let alone hatched. The URL is here.
Congratulations…..
To our intern and resident mermaid, Lauren McCabe, for winning a Conde Nast Traveler prize for the linked submission. The good news is she won. The bad —for us – she’s traveling on. They are sending her to Thailand for a well deserved adventure before she returns home to NOLA.
HOLLYWIERD STRIKES BACK AS PER THE SOMETIMES AUTHORITATIVE BOROWITZ REPORT
Britney, Paris Air Savage Anti-McCain Ad; Party Gals Slam Mac in Negative Spot
One day after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) broadcast an anti-Obama ad in which he compared the presumptive Democratic nominee to celebrities Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, the two tabloid mainstays fought back with an eviscerating anti-McCain spot of their own.
While Mses. Spears and Hilton said they had planned to remain on the sidelines during the 2008 presidential campaign, Sen. McCain’s negative ad “left us no choice,” the notorious party gals said today.
“We don’t mind John McCain going after us if he sticks to the facts,” Ms. Spears said at a New York press conference. “But we are sick of the distortions about our record.”
Ms. Hilton said that the McCain ad appeared to link herself and Ms. Spears to Sen. Obama, leading the casual viewer to conclude that the three of them had “the same energy policy.”
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” said Ms. Spears. “Both of us strongly favor off-shore drilling to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.”
Ms. Hilton said she was also “offended” by the implication that she and Ms. Spears favor a tax on electricity: “We have both been very clear on that issue.”
In their anti-McCain spot, the two starlets fight fire with fire, comparing Sen. McCain to the Joker from the smash-hit film “The Dark Knight.”
“It’s perfectly fair,” Ms. Spears said of the ad. “They both have pasty white faces and totally creepy smiles.”
PS: PARIS HILTON’S DAD SUPPORTS MCCAIN
“If a certain heir to a hotel-based fortune is rethinking his support of John McCain, it will be understandable.” But that’s another story…
Thank you for being here. Have a great weekend. I note the passing of July. We now officially enter the dog days of summer.
Your comments on this blog welcome. As always, with all its flaws, foibles, unintended typos and rushed forumulations, Danny Schechter is responsible for its creation and production.
Write: Dissector@mediachannel.org
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About Danny Schechter
Danny Schechter is an Emmy award winning journalist, television producer and independent filmmaker who also writes, blogs and speaks about media issues.
His latest film is PLUNDER The Crime Of Our Time.
Mr. Schechter is NOT the Godfather of Soul.
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