AT FIRST AMENDMENT DINNER, NEWT DUMPS ON FREE SPEECH

The Manchester Union Leader reports:

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich yesterday said the country will be forced to reexamine freedom of speech to meet the threat of terrorism. Gingrich, speaking at a Manchester awards banquet, said a “different set of rules” may be needed to reduce terrorists’ ability to use the Internet and free
speech to recruit and get out their message. “We need to get ahead of the curve before we actually lose a city, which I think could happen in the next decade,” said Gingrich, a Republican who helped engineer the GOP’s takeover of Congress in 1994.

Gingrich spoke to about 400 state and local power brokers last night at the annual Nackey S. Loeb First Amendment award dinner, which fetes people and organizations that stand up for freedom of speech.

http://tinyurl.com/ynx7mj

Question: Didn’t we already “lose an American City,” the one called New Orleans?

WASHINGTON POST TO RATE REPORTERS

Seattle Times: Take control of YOUR airwaves by Michael J. Copps, FCC Commissioner

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2003451881_copps29.html

NOW THEY HAVE DONE IT: MCWORLD VS JUCHE

U.S. bans sale of iPods to North Korea - Yahoo! News

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061129/ap_on_go_pr_wh/nkorea_ipod_diplomacy

ISRAEL’S NEW GLOBAL MEDIA OFFENSIVE
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1952099,00.html

RADAR REPORT: BLOGGING ARMAGEDDON– DEBKA WEBSITE
http://www.radaronline.com/features/2006/11/debkafile_qa.php

Battle for Internet Freedom Moves to the States

Josh Silver of Free Press explains:

While this past year, AT&T and Verizon pursued both national and state legislation, they now seem determined to focus on state legislation as a way to bypass Net Neutrality requirements. We need to break the phone/Internet duopoly.

http://action.freepress.net/ct/AdwOYqM1TuZh/

DISSECTOR DEBT WATCH

Lou Dobbs yesterday on CNN:

DOBBS: Not good news for our middle class homeowners tonight. The value of their largest asset, their home, is down. Millions of Americans with adjustable rate loans are also finding their mortgages more and more expensive these days.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0611/28/ldt.01.html

WALL STREET LOSES COMPETITIVE EDGE
http://www.nysun.com/article/44368

ARMY: DEBT A NEW ENEMY

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Like the other branches of the military, the Army is seeing a marked increase in the number of troops stripped of their security clearances because they are so deep in debt, according to military data obtained by The Associated Press.

Soldiers need security clearance when they work with secret information and sometimes when they are sent overseas. The Pentagon says financial problems can distract personnel from their duties or make them vulnerable to bribery and treason.

ECO CRISIS WARNING FROM A EUROPEAN THINK TANK

This can get even worse that I though, Here’s part of a scary prognosis from LEAP, a European think tank, Read it closely:

”For more than five years the American consumer has been the “cash-cow” of US growth, contributing more than 70% to the resulting progression of the United States economy. Stimulated by the easy money policy promoted by the US Federal Reserve in order to avoid a catastrophic recession feared after the explosion of “internet bubble”, the US consumer rushed into a frenzy of purchases of consumer goods. Encouraged by banks and the whole US financial system, he exceeded his own financing capacities and plunged since 2004 into generalized debt (7) and into a situation not seen in the United States since the dip of the Great Depression post 1929, namely a negative saving rate.

The Federal Reserve, the Bush administration and the republican Congress, as well all the financial and banking sectors of the country then fed the fiction of a continuous and fast enrichment via the development of the “real estate bubble” which convinced the majority of the country’s middle class, including its least ‘well off’, to rush into a strategy of purchase, and often of speculation, in real estate. In parallel, the very strong growth of real-estate prices made it possible for the financial sector to offer loans for household consumption, linked with the “value” of the real estate (9). Because of these operations relating to more than 2,500 billion dollars since 2004, these same lenders and other banks have in same time increased considerably their results, gaining the admiration of stock markets by their extraordinary success, whereas these same assessments were potentially seen to be depending more and more on the future evolution of the real estate market.

Indeed, the obvious risk of this strategy of the banking sector was due to the possibility of an inversion in real estate trends. In the event of a strong and sustained fall in the prices and volumes of the real estate market simultaneously on the whole of the US territory, the “magic circle” of individual enrichment and the collective growth would become an “infernal spiral” of personal debt and generalized recession. Indeed, households in debt would suddenly become insolvent because of the collapse in the price of the real estate guaranteeing their loans, while the whole of the banking sector would be found in a double trap with on one side an increasing share of the loans not refunded due to personal bankruptcy, and on the other a financial assessment quickly down-grading because of the depreciation of the value of the guaranteed loans (namely the real estate .

For the LEAP/E2020 team, it is from now on time to remove the ‘conditional’ from this scenario. It is currently happening throughout all the United States and constitutes a catalyst of the impact phase of the global systemic crisis. The US consumer, i.e. the US middle class, basically becomes insolvent (11), victim of overwhelming debt, a negative rate of saving, the bursting of the real estate bubble, the rise of interest rates and the collapse of US growth. All these elements are dependent, and mutually reinforcing, to plunge the United States, starting from the end 2006, into an economic, social and political crisis without precedent .

http://www.leap2020.eu/December-2006-Dollar-Real-Estate-Stock-Markets-US-consumer-s-insolvency,-a-catalyst-of-the-impact-phase-of-the-global_a233.html

DOLLAR COULD COLLAPSE, WARNS FINANCIAL TIMES
Sorry no URL

Christmas shopping in New York is usually thought of as an expensive indulgence rather than a bargain hunter?s dream. But this year, there are savings to be had if one is spending euros, sterling or yen. With the dollar suddenly sliding against all the main currencies, shoppers in Europe and Asia are being told they can get their iPods, Nintendo Wiis and Armani suits cheaply if they buy them in the US.

Anyone tempted to make the trip a week ago will be even more tempted now, the dollar went on to register its worst week since June, falling 2 per cent against the euro and 1.9 per cent against sterling. Yesterday it hit a 20-month low of $1.3180 against the euro and a two-year low of $1.9465 against sterling, meaning it has fallen 10.8 per cent against the European single currency and 12.4 per cent against the pound this year….”

FROM THE INSURANCE JOURNAL

In a decision that could cost insurers many more billions of dollars than they have already paid out in Hurricane Katrina claims, a federaljudge in New Orleans has ruled that ambiguities in certain homeowners policies leave open the possibility that flooding due to “man-made” acts could be covered, despite widespread water.