I understand him, Arneoker ....

And he does make sense ....

Ultimate sense, actually ....

And so ...

I believe that rla is referring to STATES OF MIND, here, Arneoker ....

The STATES OF MIND that must exist in a population for either to take place ...

And one is the other by a matter of degrees ...

That's what I hear rla saying here, anyway ...

And so ...

I believe that rla is expressing a view on MORALITY in here, Arneoker ....

And in a thread ON PATRIOTISM, I think the subject of MORALITY in America is fair game in here ...

I believe that I might share this same view, Arneoker ....

That when you have had the thought .....

That is when you have committed the sin ....

Not afterwards, when you finally take the action ....

And so ....

Ethnic cleansing is segregation taken to another level .....

But the same thought impels that action ...

And so ...

AND WHILE WE ARE ON THE SUBJECT OF A DIVIDED AMERICA IN HERE ....

WE HAVE ....

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

"Senators probe DoJ politics, potential profiling"

By LARA JAKES JORDAN Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic senators cited concerns Wednesday about political meddling and policies likened to racial and ethnic profiling in urging Attorney General Michael Mukasey to ensure the Justice Department abides by the laws it is supposed to enforce.

"I wish you were more focused on restoring the department's role as protector of the rule of law," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., told Mukasey at the end of nearly three hours of testimony.

"Instead, you seem content to serve as a caretaker for the regime of excessive executive power established by the Bush administration."

Mukasey, eight months into his tenure as President Bush's third attorney general, said he is doing all he can to make sure that the once fiercely independent department recovers from months of scandal last year.

"It is equally crucial that the American people have complete confidence in the propriety of what we do," Mukasey said.

Republicans on the Senate panel largely left Mukasey unscathed.

But front and center on Democrats' minds was a recent Justice Department report that concluded politics improperly, and perhaps illegally, played a part in the 2006 hirings of newly graduated career attorneys and summer law interns.

Liberal-leaning or Democratic law students with sterling credentials were passed over for the jobs in some cases, while GOP applicants with less impressive resumes were hired, the report showed.

Mukasey was nominated as attorney general last September - nearly a year after the problematic hirings that led, in part, to charges of a politicized Justice Department and triggered the resignation of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

"You indicated that you have worked to see to it that the department is not politicized," Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., told Mukasey.

"Did you find it had politicized when you arrived?"

Mukasey noted that the department's inspector general had concluded that it was, but was reluctant to brand his employees as politically motivated.

"What I found were enormously dedicated people who were very committed to my succeeding," he told Biden.

Biden persisted: "Did you find that some of those enormously dedicated people engaged in politicizing the administration of justice?"

"That was my question."

"No," Mukasey said.

"Otherwise I would not characterize them as enormously dedicated."

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., appeared equally frustrated when he asked Mukasey about a proposed Justice Department policy that would allow the FBI to investigate Americans without any evidence of wrongdoing.

The tentative policy, first reported last week by The Associated Press, would let agents begin investigations by relying on a terrorist profile that could single out Muslims, Arabs or other racial and ethnic groups.

Mukasey made clear that race, ethnicity or religion would not be the only factor used in deciding whether to open an investigation.

But he did not rule out the possibility that race and ethnicity might be used with other traits - like travel or gun ownership - to create a profile of a potential terrorist.

"I'm not prepared to discuss today particular hypotheticals one way or the other," Mukasey told Feingold, describing the policy largely as giving bureaucratic approval to a process that has been ongoing since shortly after the 2001 terror attacks.

Mukasey also said such investigations - and what's used to trigger them - will undergo scrutiny both by senior FBI and Justice Department officials.

"I'll be following this very closely," Feingold responded.

The American Civil Liberties Union sent letters Wednesday to the chairmen and top Republicans of the House and Senate Judiciary panels, urging an investigation of the policy that could be enacted later this month.

Mukasey was in front of the Senate panel for the second of three oversight hearings planned for this year.

He is expected to give similar testimony to House lawmakers later this month.

---

On the Net:

Senate Judiciary Committee: http://judiciary.senate.gov/

2008-07-09 20:33:57 GMT

http://news.findlaw.com/ap_stories/a/w/115...9135001_13.html

I've not had an opportunity to see much of New York, up close and personal. It is my general impression that one finds more integrated Diversity there than in most parts of the country. Part of that is that ones finds more of everything than just about anywhere else. Even so, there is some systemic segration by race, socio-economic class and ethnicity. We aren't as sorted out as the Sunnis, Kurds and Shiites in Iraq but we are not immune to the problem, whether North, South or
West.

No, we certainly are not immune, rla ...

And perhaps the best way to deal with the problem is to not be making it worse, ourselves, by our actions ....

And so ...

AND SPEAKING OF GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED SEGREGATION ....

"Prosecutor flagged by US terror watch list"

By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer

14 JULY 2008

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department's former top criminal prosecutor says the government's terror watch list likely has caused thousands of innocent Americans to be questioned, searched or otherwise hassled.

Former Assistant Attorney General Jim Robinson would know: he's one of them.

Robinson joined another mistaken-identity American and the American Civil Liberties Union on Monday to urge fixing the list that's supposed to identify suspected terrorists.

"It's a pain in the neck, and significantly interferes with my travel arrangements," said Robinson, the head of the Justice Department's criminal division during the Clinton administration.

He believes his name matches that of someone who was put on the list in early 2005, and is routinely delayed while flying — despite having his own government top-secret security clearances renewed last year.

"I suppose if I were convinced that America is a safer place because I get hassled at the airport, I might put up with it," Robinson said.

"But I doubt it."

He added: "I expect my story is similar to hundreds of thousands of people who are on this list who find themselves inconvenienced."

The government calls its watch list one of the most effective tools in its fight against terrorism.

It was created after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to consolidate 12 existing lists and make sure no terrorists slipped through the cracks — whether when entering the country or if otherwise stopped for questioning.

Last year, congressional investigators found "general agreement that the watch list has helped to combat terrorism."

Other audits of the watch list over the last several years, however, have concluded that it has mistakenly flagged innocent people whose names are similar to those on it.

More than 30,000 airline passengers had asked the Homeland Security Department to clear their names from the list as of October 2006.

Additionally, as many as 20 suspected terrorists were left off the list as of last year due to a technology glitch.

Chad Kolton, a spokesman for the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center that maintains the list, said the government is working to fix the gaps.

"We strive to have the watch list contain all appropriately suspected terrorists who represent a threat to the U.S., but only appropriately suspected terrorists," Kolton said.

The ACLU predicted the watch list would include 1 million names as early as Monday.

The civil liberties group reached that number by citing the 700,000 records on the watch list as of last September and adding 20,000 names each month, as forecast by the Justice Department's inspector general.

Kolton disputed that number, however, saying that only about 400,000 individuals are on the list — with the rest being records of aliases or other identifiers for those same people.

Kolton said that 95 percent of the people on the list are not Americans or legal U.S. residents — and most aren't even in the country.

The Government Accountability Office, the investigations arm of Congress, similarly concluded last year that the total number of records on the watch list "does not represent the total number of individuals," saying it contains multiple records for the same person.

For some Americans whose names match those on the list, being delayed or detained for extra screening isn't just a hassle — it's frightening.

Chicago-area computer consultant Akif Rahman, who was born in Springfield, Ill., said he has been detained at least seven times after traveling abroad.

During one such incident in May, he said, he was held for five hours, shackled to a chair and kicked by a Customs Service agent after being stopped at a U.S. checkpoint on the Canadian border.

"I was fearful for my own safety and that of my family," said Rahman, who is suing the government to have his identity cleared from the watch list.

"I simply could not believe that I, a born U.S. citizen, was going though this experience simply re-entering my own country."
___

On the Net:

ACLU: http://www.aclu.org/

Terrorist Screening Center: http://www.fbi.gov/terrorinfo/counterrorism/tsc.htm

News

"Report Sees Illegal Hiring Practices at Justice Department"

Wednesday 25 June 2008

by: Eric Lichtblau, The New York Times

Washington - Justice Department officials over the last six years illegally used "political or ideological" factors to hire new lawyers into an elite recruitment program, tapping law school graduates with conservative credentials over those with liberal-sounding resumes, a new report found Tuesday.

The blistering report, prepared by the Justice Department's inspector general, is the first in what will be a series of investigations growing out of last year's scandal over the firings of nine United States attorneys.

It appeared to confirm for the first time in an official examination many of the allegations from critics who charged that the Justice Department had become overly politicized during the Bush administration.

"Many qualified candidates" were rejected for the department's honors program because of what was perceived as a liberal bias, the report found.

Those practices, the report concluded, "constituted misconduct and also violated the department's policies and civil service law that prohibit discrimination in hiring based on political or ideological affiliations."

The shift began in 2002, when advisers to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft restructured the honors program in response to what some officials saw as a liberal tilt in recruiting young lawyers from elite law schools like Harvard and Yale.

While the recruitment was once controlled largely by career officials in each section who would review applications, political officials in the department began to assume more control, rejecting candidates with liberal or Democratic affiliations "at a significantly higher rate" than those with Republican or conservative credentials, the report said.

The shift appeared to accelerate in 2006, under then-Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, with two aides on the screening committee - Michael Elston and Esther Slater McDonald - singled out for particular criticism.

The blocking of applicants with liberal credentials appeared to be a particular problem in the Justice Department's civil rights division, which has seen an exodus of career employees in recent years as the department has pursued a more conservative agenda in deciding what types of cases to bring.

Applications that contained what were seen as "leftist commentary" or "buzz words" like environmental and social justice were often grounds for rejecting applicants, according to e-mails reviewed by the inspector general's office.

Membership in liberal organizations like the American Constitution Society, Greenpeace, or the Poverty and Race Research Action Council were also seen as negative marks.

Affiliation with the Federalist Society, a prominent conservative group, was viewed positively.

Representative John Conyers Jr., the Michigan Democrat who heads the House Judiciary Committee, saw the report as affirmation that the Justice Department had crossed the line in "putting politics where it doesn't belong."

"When it comes to the hiring of nonpartisan career attorneys," Mr. Conyers said, "our system of justice should not be corrupted by partisan politics."

"It appears the politicization at Justice was so pervasive that even interns had to pass a partisan litmus test."

The inspector general is still investigating other issues related to alleged politicization of the Justice Department, including the central question of why nine United States attorneys were fired in late 2006.

Those findings have not been made public.

http://www.truthout.org/article/report-ill...ice-deptartment

THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Report Assails Political Hiring in Justice Dept."

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

Published: June 25, 2008

WASHINGTON — Justice Department officials illegally used “political or ideological” factors in elite recruiting programs in recent years, tapping law school graduates with Federalist Society membership or other conservative credentials over more qualified candidates with liberal-sounding résumés, an internal report found Tuesday.

The report, prepared by the Justice Department’s own inspector general and its ethics office, portrays a clumsy effort by senior Justice Department screeners to weed out candidates for career positions whom they considered “leftists,” using Internet search engines to look for incriminating information or evidence of possible liberal bias.

One rejected candidate from Harvard Law School worked for Planned Parenthood.

Another wrote opinion pieces critical of the USA Patriot Act and the nomination of Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court.

A third applicant worked for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and another posted an unflattering cartoon of President Bush on his MySpace page.

Another applicant, a student at the top of his class at Harvard who was fluent in Arabic, was relegated to the “questionable” pile because he was a member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a group that advocates civil liberties.

And another rejected candidate said in his essay that he was “personally conflicted” about the National Security Agency’s program of wiretapping without warrants.

The report, prepared jointly by the office of the inspector general, Glenn A. Fine, and the Office of Professional Responsibility, is the first in a series of internal reviews growing out of last year’s controversy over the dismissals of nine United States attorneys.

The report is the first from an official investigation to support accusations that the Bush Justice Department has been overly politicized.

“When it comes to the hiring of nonpartisan career attorneys, our system of justice should not be corrupted by partisan politics,” said Representative John Conyers Jr., the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

“It appears the politicization at Justice was so pervasive that even interns had to pass a partisan litmus test.”

The inspector general is investigating other issues related to accusations of politicization in the Justice Department, including the central question of why the United States attorneys were dismissed in late 2006.

Another aspect of the review will look at the work of Monica M. Goodling, a young Justice Department official who testified before Congress in the midst of the controversy over the dismissals last year that she had “crossed the line” in considering politics in the hiring of some immigration judges and others.

But the findings in Tuesday’s report go well beyond the scope of the problems she acknowledged.

Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said Tuesday that using politics in hiring career lawyers was “impermissible and unacceptable” and that the department had taken steps to fix the problems.

The report recommended further tightening of internal policies, which Mr. Mukasey said he would welcome.

Ideological and political factors can be used in hiring political appointees, but it is illegal to do so under federal civil service law and Justice Department guidelines in hiring career lawyers.

Victims can sue, but offenders cannot generally be prosecuted under criminal law.

The report, based on interviews with dozens of officials and a review of e-mail correspondence, found that “many qualified candidates” were rejected from two key recruiting programs — the attorney general’s honors program and the department’s summer intern program — because of what was perceived as their liberal bent.

Those practices, the report concluded, “constituted misconduct and also violated the department’s policies and civil service law that prohibit discrimination in hiring based on political or ideological affiliations.”

The department has used its honors program for many years to attract top entry-level lawyers, luring them away from better-paying jobs in the private sector with the promise of influential careers in public service.

For most of that time, career lawyers in Justice Department divisions, like civil rights or antitrust, chose their own lawyers for the honors program.

But in 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft gave his political aides final say over hundreds of applications in response to what some officials believed was a liberal tilt favoring Ivy League schools.

The effect was clear, the report found, with applicants with a Democratic affiliation rejected “at a significantly higher rate” than those with Republican, conservative or neutral credentials.

For instance, in 2002, all seven of the honors applicants with membership in the American Constitution Society, a liberal group, were rejected, while 27 of 29 applicants with ties to the Federalist Society, a bedrock conservative group, were accepted.

Similarly, 43 of 61 applicants with ties to the Democratic Party were rejected, while 41 of 46 applicants listed as Republicans were accepted.

Many of those rejected were regarded as “highly qualified” based on the quality of their schools and other criteria.

Investigators found little evidence of political favoritism from 2003 to 2005, as political appointees at the Justice Department appeared to reduce their role in hiring.

But in 2006, under Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, the practice rose to new heights.

The report singled out two Justice Department officials on the screening committee — Michael Elston and Esther Slater McDonald.

Investigators noted that they were not subject to discipline because they had left the department.

Mr. Elston, who was the chief of staff to the deputy attorney general, left in 2007 after several prosecutors said he had tried to intimidate them into keeping silent about their dismissals.

Ms. McDonald, a counsel in the associate attorney general’s office, abruptly resigned in October — the day before she was to be interviewed by investigators for the report.

Her lawyer declined to make her available for an interview after that.

Neither Mr. Elston nor Ms. McDonald, both now working at private law firms in Washington, could be reached for comment Tuesday.

Investigators reviewed e-mail messages from Ms. McDonald in which she indicated that “leftist commentary” or “buzz words like ‘environmental justice’ and ‘social justice’ ” were grounds for rejecting applicants.

Membership in liberal organizations like the American Constitution Society, Greenpeace or the Poverty and Race Research Action Council was also seen as a negative mark, the report said.

Peter Keisler, assistant attorney general for the civil division, complained to Mr. Elston after the rejection of several highly qualified applicants that the decisions were “either irrational or so irrational that they are motivated by politics,” the report found.

And Carol Lam, the United States attorney in San Diego who was later among the nine dismissed prosecutors, sent an e-mail message to Mr. Elston to ask why a Stanford Law School graduate with strong grades had been rejected over her recommendation.

Ms. Lam suspected it was because the applicant had clerked for an appellate judge appointed by President Bill Clinton, or because she had written an article on sex discrimination, the report said.

Ms. Lam asked if there was something unacceptable in the applicant’s background that she was not aware of.

“Not that I know of, Carol,” Mr. Elston responded.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/washingt...xprod=permalink

Enabling Tyranny
I recently read that Brigette Bardot, now in her 70s, has been arrested as a hate criminal for complaining that Muslims in France slaughter sheep without first stunning them. The famous actress is known for her sympathy with animals, but the French government preferred to interpret her remarks as hatred for Muslims. Prosecutor Anne de Fontetts promised to throw the book at Bardot.

There are many incongruities here. The French are persecuting one of their own for taking exception to the practices of an alien culture. But then, perhaps this is just being broad-minded. What really jumps out is: if Bardot's animal rights position makes her a hate criminal, what does French President Nicholas Sarkozy's foreign policy position make him?

According to Information Clearing House's running tally as of July 12, 1,236,604 Iraqis have been slaughtered as a result of the Sarkozy-supported US invasion and occupation of Iraq. If Bardot is a hate criminal under French law for complaining about how Muslims prepare their mutton, why isn't President Sarkozy a hate criminal for supporting an American policy that has resulted in the deaths of 1,236,604 Muslims and the displacement of 4 million Iraqis?

Such incongruities are everywhere. It is as if people are no longer capable of thought.

Last week the US Congress passed an ex post facto law that legalized the illegal behavior of telecommunication companies that enabled the Bush Regime to violate US law and to spy on Americans without warrants. Retroactive laws are unconstitutional. But, alas, the US Constitution does not make campaign contributions, and telecommunication companies do.

The Bush Regime claimed that its illegal behavior, which requires an unconstitutional retroactive law to protect telecommunication companies and President Bush from being held accountable, is necessary to protect us. But as our Founding Fathers and every intelligent patriotic person since has patiently explained to the American public, it is the Constitution that protects us. No safety can be found by fleeing the Constitution.

Without the Constitution we have no protection. We simply stand naked before unbridled government power.

That's pretty much how we stand now after 7.5 years of the Bush Regime. Electing a Democratic Congress in 2006 did not make any difference. Indeed, it was a Democratic majority Congress that last week gave Bush his unconstitutional ex post facto law.

As Larry Stratton and I point out in the new edition of Tyranny, the US Constitution has no friends. The Democrats don't like the Second Amendment (another incongruity in the face of the right-wing police state that Bush has created), and the Brownshirt Republicans regard the rest of our civil liberties as coddling devices for criminals and terrorists.

Across the political spectrum, Americans are happy to shred the Constitution in behalf of some agenda or the other.

The government is happy to oblige, because shredding the Constitution removes constraints on the government's power.

It has fallen to the private, member-supported organization known as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to challenge the retroactive law that destroys the privacy rights granted to US citizens by the Constitution. The ACLU is regarded by conservatives as a Jewish conspiracy to destroy Christianity, and the right-wing idiots on Fox "News" and talk radio will denounce the ACLU for wanting to empower terrorists.

Conservatives will repeat endlessly that Americans who are doing nothing wrong have nothing to fear. If this argument held any water, there would have been no point in the Founding Fathers writing the Constitution.

The position of the US Government is that the rights granted Americans by the Constitution facilitate terrorism. To be safe from terrorists, the argument goes, we must allow the government to take liberties with the Constitution. This argument gives government the power to set aside the Constitution, and, thus, enables tyranny. As Milton Friedman and many others taught us, rules are the essence of freedom, and discretionary power is the essence of tyranny.

Bush's "war on terror," essentially a hoax, has transformed the United States into a lawless nation. We are not lawless in the sense of an absence of laws. We are lawless in the sense that despite a surfeit of laws, we no longer have the rule of law.

If the President doesn't like an existing law, he ignores it. If the President doesn't like new laws passed by Congress, instead of vetoing them he prepares a "signing statement," which says that he will determine what the law means.

This lawlessness has spread from the top of the federal government down to local governments and community associations. Recently the state of Georgia passed a law that reaffirmed that anyone with a carry permit was entitled to have their concealed weapon when dropping off or picking up passengers at the Atlanta airport. The Atlanta city government said it would not obey the state law and would arrest anyone, including the state legislator who sponsored the legislation, who carried a permitted weapon onto airport property.

A community in which I live has by-laws that forbid members of the board of the property owners association from serving as general manager of the designated community. This did not prevent the board from appointing one of their own the general manager. The POA board regards the by-laws which govern it as merely words without force.

Just like Bush regards the US Constitution.

Constitutional Compromise

http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/20080...nal_compromise/

9-11 was George W. Bush's Reichstag Fire, here in America ...

It was a "fortuitous" event for him that gave him the near-absolute power in America and the world that the REPUBLICAN PARTY craved and sought after ...

It was a GREAT BOON for CORRUPT CORPORATIONS in America, as well ...

Firstly, all of the evidentiary records of investigation of corporate corruption which were in the Office of the New York State Attorney General in the World Trade Center were incinerated and destroyed on 9-11 ...

And then, the FBI was ordered to shift its resources away from investigations of corporate corruption and white-collar crime here in America, as was the Office of the New York State Attorney General by REPUBLICAN BUSHITE George Pataki in New York State ...

So that was a WIN-WIN for the REPUBLICANS and the CORPORATIONS ...

At a cost of just a couple of borrowed airplanes and the loss of some human life, which is a cost of doing business in the world today, and nothing more ...

And 9-11 then enabled George W. Bush and CORPORATE AMERICA to use the U.S. military to seize IRAQINAM as America's newest COLONY for its global empire ...

Which they construe as a JEWEL in George W. Bush's CROWN ...

BIG MONEY is to be made in IRAQINAM, and George W. Bush holds the purse strings, and remembers who his friends and "best buddies" are, alright ...

And the Congress is not OUR Congress ....

It is the CONGRESS of the REPRESENTATIVES of SPECIAL INTERESTS ...

We get to vote for who the REPOSITORY of their LARGESSE might be ....

The POCKET into which this SPECIAL INTEREST money will flow ....

But it doesn't flow into that pocket on OUR behalf ....

And so ...

I have been following the financials now for many, many years ...

Watching for signs ....

And now ....

We are here .....

AND ...

Wherever this is ....

WE HAVE BEEN LED HERE BY BEN BERNANKE OF THE FED ...

And right now, Ben Bernanke is CROONING to OUR Congress, in name, anyway, to make him a literal CZAR here in the United States of America and the world as well, with regard to handing him almost total control over the economy, BECAUSE of these economic problems here in America that are in large part a direct effect of his own economic policies as FED CHAIRMAN .... ...

And in its panic, and in its rush to protect its own interests, that Congress is going to grant these sweeping powers to severely regiment the United States economy to the bearded BUSHIAN "Benny Bounce" ...

CREATE A PENDING CATASTROPHE THAT ONLY YOU HAVE THE POWER TO AVERT!

AND THEN PROMISE TO AVERT IT, IF ONLY YOU ARE GIVEN THE NECESSARY POWER TO DO SO ....

A DICTATOR OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY!

The most powerful position in the land!

Brilliant on the part of Bernanke ....

THE TRIUMVERATE!

BERNANKE, BUSH and PAULSON ...

The ECONOMY of America is now firmly in their hands ...

AND BERNANKE IS GOING TO HAVE CONGRESS GRANT HIM AND PAULSON EXCEPTIONAL EXTRA-JUDICIAL POWER AND AUTHORITY TO NATIONALIZE SEGMENTS OF THE UNITED STATES ECONOMY ...

That is a sign of impending FASCISM here in America ....

Centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition ....

And we have ring-side seats to its immanence ....

It's happening as we write these words back and forth in here ...

And so ...

GEORGE W. BUSH IS A MASTER AT STATING CONTRADICTIONS IN TERMS ...

THE AMERICAN ECONOMY IS REALLY SOUND ...

IT'S JUST TROUBLED A BIT RIGHT NOW, IS ALL ....

IT ATE SOME BAD CAVIAR THAT HAD GONE OFF ....

AND IT HAD A LITTLE TOO MUCH CHAMPAGNE ....

IT'S GOING TO SLEEP IN TIL NOON ...

AND THEN IT WILL BE ALRIGHT AGAIN, FOR TONIGHT, ANYWAY ...

And so ...

"Bush: Troubled financial system is basically sound"

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent

15 JULY 2008

WASHINGTON - President Bush said Tuesday the nation's troubled financial system is "basically sound" and urged lawmakers to quickly enact legislation to prop up mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

He also called on the Democratic-run Congress to follow his example and lift a ban on offshore drilling to help increase domestic oil production.

"I readily concede it won't produce a barrel of oil tomorrow, but it will reverse the psychology," Bush told a White House news conference — his first since late April.

Bush said the two troubled mortgage companies play a central role in the nation's housing-finance system and that government action to help them were not bailouts because the two would remain shareholder-owned companies.

"I don't think the government ought to be involved in bailing out companies," Bush said.

Amid soaring gas prices, the toughest real estate market in decades, falling home prices and financing that's harder to come by, Bush said:

"It's been a difficult time for many American families."

But he also said that the nation's economy continues to grow, if slowly.

Bush said that despite the woes of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the recent government takeover of California bank IndyMac, U.S. depositors should not worry because their deposits are insured by the government up to $100,000.

"If you're a depositor, you're protected by the federal government," Bush said.

The administration and the Federal Reserve announced an emergency rescue plan Sunday to bolster Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which hold or guarantee more than $5 trillion in mortgages — almost half of the nation's total.

The plan would temporarily increase a long-standing Treasury line of credit that could be provided to either company.

Treasury also said it would, if necessary, buy stock in the companies to make sure they have enough money to operate.

The Fed also announced that it would allow Fannie and Freddie to get loans directly from the Fed — a privilege previously granted only to commercial banks until this March, when the Fed extended the borrowing to investment banks to deal with the collapse of Bear Stearns.

At the same time, a housing package was heading toward final congressional passage.

It would modernize the Federal Housing Administration and create a new regulator and tighter controls for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

It's this legislation that Bush urged Congress to pass as soon as possible.

Congress could move as early as this week on the housing legislation to send it to Bush.

First, though, House and Senate leaders must strike a deal in consultation with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to resolve key differences so Bush, who has threatened to veto the measure, will sign it.

"I think the system is basically sound, I truly do," Bush said.

"I understand there's a lot of nervousness."

"The economy is growing."

"Productivity is high."

"Trade's up."

"People are working — it's not as good as we'd like."

"And to the extent that we'll find weakness, we'll move."

Bush defended his insistence that the U.S. economy was not in a recession, even though many economists believe it is.

He said the traditional definition of a recession — two quarters in a row of negative growth — had not been met.

"I'm not an economist, but I do believe we're growing," he said.

"I'm an optimist."

"I believe there's a lot of positive things for the economy."

He acknowledged, however, that "it's not growing as it should."

On Capitol Hill, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke warned that inflation seemed likely to move even higher and economic growth would be "appreciably below its trend rate."

"In general, healthy economic growth depends on well-functioning financial markets," Bernanke said.

"Consequently, helping the financial markets to return to more normal functioning will continue to be a top priority," he said.

Bush acknowledged it could take years before opening the Continental Shelf to oil drilling would result in increased U.S. production.

But, he said, at least it would put the nation on the right track toward reducing its reliance on imported oil.

"There is no short term solution," Bush said.

"The president doesn't have a magic wand."

"You can't just say, 'Low gas.' "

Asked about his comment earlier this year that he hadn't heard of $4 gasoline, Bush said:

"I've heard of it now."

Asked why he hasn't appealed more to Americans to conserve energy, Bush said:

"They're smart enough to figure out whether they're going to drive less or not ..."

"The marketplace works."

"If they're not in their homes, they ought not to keep the air conditioning running."

"There's a lot they can do," he added.

Bush's first full-blown exchange with reporters at the White House since April 29 came amid troubling developments in Afghanistan, where U.S. deaths have exceeded casualties in Iraq over the last two months.

There also is turmoil in the financial markets, and the government has been forced to throw a lifeline to mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Bush opened with a statement about steps to help stabilize the housing and financial markets and his lifting of the executive ban on offshore oil drilling.

He also called on lawmakers to pass long-stalled spending bills.

On other subjects, Bush:

• Said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are both important fronts on the war on terrorism.

Currently, events in Iraq are going better, and some troops are coming home "based upon success," he said.

"The question really facing the country is, will we have the patience and determination to succeed in these very difficult theaters."

• Declined to comment on whether he felt betrayed by a highly critical book about his administration by former press secretary Scott McClellan.

• Expressed unhappiness with the casting of vetoes by Russia and China in the U.N. Security Council to block U.S.-sponsored sanctions on the government of President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, who was has retained power in an election that the United States and many other countries have labeled a sham.

"I was displeased," Bush acknowledged.

INCIPIENT FASCISM IS BREWING IN AMERICA!

It goes without saying that CONGRESS handed George W. Bush the POWER to enact severe social regimentation here in America by passing his RETRO-ACTIVE WARRENTLESS WIRE-TAPPING LAW ...

And so ...

All we are missing is forcible suppression of opposition ...

And actually, that is not missing ....

That is how it started ......

At least up here in New York State where I am ...

And so ...

Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official... – Theodore Roosev

And yet, Snuf, that is exactly what we have here in the USA - FACTIONALISM rather than true patriotism ...

And no nation has ever benefitted from FACTIONALISM ....

Rome comes to mind, at the end of its Republic ...

When people wanted kind masters more than they did LIBERTY ...

And so, they flocked to the banners of strong men like Julius Caesar, or Pompey the Great ...

And Rome's republic went down in the flames of a civil war ...

Never to rise again ...

And so ...

I agree.

Did you learn anything at all about PATRIOTISM when you were a young child in school, Frenchy?

And this is not meant to confront you in any way ....

Rather, it is an attempt on my part to try to understand how we could have gotten to where we are today as a nation, with so many different and conflicting views of what PATRIOTISM should mean to us ALL as American citizens in a REPUBLIC ...

And so ...

The debate about the meaning of Patriotism and Citizenship always heats up during war
time and and the various peace movements continue to drive the debate. Neither are entirely fixed concepts and depend heavilly upon the various educational and socialization processes in place. In
general, my conclussion is that more systematic attention to Citizenship Education could contribute to world peace and build a less militarized social system.

America Has No Obligation to Save the World When it comes to American foreign policy, could it be that less is more? Raja Mohan of Singapore’s Nanyang Tech University thinks so, arguing for a “policy of restraint” on the part of a United States that has reached the limits of its ambitious post-WWII superpower strategy on the world stage.

An excellent post, rla ...

Well thought out ...

And it mirrors my own thoughts that I have had on this subject since making my post to Frenchy in here this morning ...

It came to me when I asked Frenchy if he had learned anything in school about PATRIOTISM when young that when I was young, I was not taught PATRIOTISM ....

I was taught CITIZENSHIP ...

I was taught DUTY and RESPONSIBILITY to my community, my state, and my nation, in that order ....

I was taught that there had been PATRIOTS in America's past ....

And why that was ....

BUT ...

I was not taught to be a PATRIOT ....

I was taught to be a CITIZEN ....

By being all that you could be as a CITIZEN, by contributing to the general well-being of the community, then that could be construed as PATRIOTISM, I guess ....

But I was taught that in America, PATRIOTISM was really anachronistic ....

We had no cause to be PATRIOTS, nor did OUR country need us to be PATRIOTS ...

IT NEEDED US TO BE SOUND CITIZENS ...

Which was why we were there in kindergarten that day ...

ON THIS DAY, CHILDHOOD ENDS ...

CITIZENSHIP BEGINS ...

That's infliction of TRAUMA today, isn't it, ending a child's childhood at five years old?

Childhood should last until you are 60 or 70, anyway, in an ideal world, ain't it?

And so ....

From the Annotations to Article I of the United States Constitution, Powers and Duties of the Legislative Branch of OUR government, concerning the separation of powers of the Departments of OUR federal government consistent with the REPUBLICAN FRAME spelled out in the 1776 Constitution of Virginia, and the 1780 Constitution of Massachusetts:

When the colonies separated from Great Britain following the Revolution, the framers of their constitutions were imbued with the profound tradition of separation of powers, and they freely and expressly embodied in their charters the principle.

(Thus the Constitution of Virginia of 1776 provided: ''The legislative, executive, and judiciary department shall be separate and distinct, so that neither exercise the powers properly belonging to the other; nor shall any person exercise the powers of more than one of them, at the same time." Reprinted in 10 W. Swindler (ed.), Sources and Documents of United States Constitutions (1979), 52. See also 5 id., 96, Art. XXX of Part First, Massachusetts Constitution of 1780: ''In the government of this commonwealth, the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them; the executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them; the judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them; to the end it may be a government of laws, and not of men.'')

To a great extent, the Constitution effectuated these principles, but critics objected to what they regarded as a curious intermixture of functions, to, for example, the veto power of the President over legislation and to the role of the Senate in the appointment of executive officers and judges and in the treaty-making process.

It was to these objections that Madison turned in a powerful series of essays.

(The Federalist Nos. 47-51 (J. Cooke ed. 1961), 323-353 (Madison).)

Madison recurred to ''the celebrated'' Montesquieu, the ''oracle who is always consulted,'' to disprove the contentions of the critics.

''[T]his essential precaution in favor of liberty,'' that is, the separation of the three great functions of government had been achieved, but the doctrine did not demand rigid separation.

Montesquieu and other theorists ''did not mean that these departments ought to have no partial agency in, or controul over, the acts of each other,'' but rather liberty was endangered ''where the whole power of one department is exercised by the same hands which possess the whole power of another department.''

That the doctrine did not demand absolute separation provided the basis for preservation of separation of powers in action.

Neither sharply drawn demarcations of institutional boundaries nor appeals to the electorate were sufficient.

Instead, the security against concentration of powers ''consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others.''

Thus, ''[a]mbition must be made to counteract ambition."

"The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.''

Institutional devices to achieve these principles pervade the Constitution.

Bicameralism reduces legislative predominance, while the presidential veto gives to the Chief Magistrate a means of defending himself and of preventing congressional overreaching.

The Senate's role in appointments and treaties checks the President.

The courts are assured independence through good behavior tenure and security of compensation, and the judges through judicial review will check the other two branches.

The impeachment power gives to Congress the authority to root out corruption and abuse of power in the other two branches.

Thanks Livyjr. You definitely push me to keep up...or perhaps its pull instead of push.

I prefer the sound of pull, myself, rla ...

Did you ever go to kindergarten, rla?

And what did you eat before you got electricity?

For that matter, is human life even possible without electricity?

If I hadn't of been to war, maybe I would think on these things in here different than I do ....

But I was ....

And so ...

Rogue consciousness on my part, I guess ....

And so ...

This is part of what I remember, rla ...

There was no kindergarden where I grew up. We walked about 1 & 1/2 miles to the elementary
school, where my older brothers caught a bus to the County High School 13 miles away. After
school was out I went to my Daddy's Black Smith Shop at the same cross roads where my job was to turn the blower at his forge. There was no electricity there either. Between the 7th & 8th grades
we moved to a small town where we rented a house with electricity and in door plumbing. Two of my older brothers and I gathered wood from the woods around our house for heating and cooking.
Comming out of the depression, there wasn't much money. Many of my Daddy's customers paid with vegatables, corn meal, meat and cane syrup.

My first grade teacher was somewhat of a tryant. Luckily, I caught on pretty quick and didn't get
my kmuckles cracked with a yard stick nearly as much as my peers. Getting to go to school was
usually a relief for me, everything being relative.

Yours is a real American story to me, rla ...

You have seen much ....

And you have survived largely intact ....

That's a statement of something, rla ....

I wonder how many younger people in America today with their material riches can even comprehend your early life ...

"WHAT, NO CELL PHONES?"

"OOOOK!"

And so ...

And there is where we are heading back to up here where I am ...

Why not?

The money is no longer much good for anything ....

And so ...

Was your first grade teacher somebody from down there local, rla?

Or had they imported somebody in from the city for the job?

I had the nuns.

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-US-Is...080714-510.html

July 16, 2008

The US Is On The Verge Of Utter Financial Collapse And Martial Law

By William Cormier

Rob Kall at Op-Ed News ran an interesting poll, and it does appear that Congress could dramatically improve their ratings, however, based on my personal interpretation of that poll and the subsequent comments, it appears that Nancy Pelosi allowing impeachment hearings to go forth and allow Bush and Cheney to be impeached are the key to Congress improving its ratings. It is the will of the American people, the population is tired of Bush and Cheney, their constant war rhetoric, and the destruction of the American economy while the wealthy of America are increasing their wealth - and the rest of us are going down in flames. It’s no longer a matter of speculation, but documented fact that Wall Street and America’s corporations, devoid of real oversight by the government, are raping and plundering the American and even the global economy.

Sadly, our own corporations have turned a blind eye to the American people, and in order to enhance their own wealth, have outsourced anything and everything to other countries to bolster their own bottom lines while the American economy is withering and dying before our eye - and it’s happening at a pace that is shocking and spells the eventual bankrupting (if we’re not already there) of our own economy. Other countries are getting richer, building-up armies and becoming prosperous off the backs of Americans - and our Presidency, Congress, and especially corporate America are allowing this to happen for only one reason - money. When we forsake our own countrymen and pour hundreds of billions of dollars in economies of countries that are not our friends, use the money to build weapons specifically designed to counter American weapon systems, it takes greed to the level of treason, at least in this writer’s opinion. Some large corporations that are not benefiting from this outsourcing binge are beginning to fight back, and the people should join them and understand that we cannot help others if we place ourselves in a position that we can’t help ourselves.

In what I believe is an unprecedented move, America’s airlines have posted a plea to the people to try and stop the bleeding as many are watching their industry fall into shambles and recognize, as it’s already been well-documented, that there is no oil shortage, and the high prices we see today are due to oil speculators, the corporate thieves who already raped America through ENRON, MCI, the Sub-prime Crisis, and any financial vehicle they can devise to plunder the wealth of America:

The airlines need your help!

Posted Jul 10 2008, 07:17 PM by Matt Koppenheffer

I typically skip over the periodic emails that I get from various airlines for being part of their frequent flier programs, but the subject line of the email from Delta yesterday — “An Open Letter to All Airline Customers” — caught my eye. And it’s a good thing I read it, because the letter brought it to my attention that there’s an evil group of speculators out there that are driving up oil prices and making all of our lives miserable (please be sure to note my sarcasm).

The letter ended with the plea “We need your help. Get more information and contact Congress by visiting www.StopOilSpeculationNow.com.” Interested to find out if the airlines actually have found conclusive evidence that speculators are responsible for pushing up oil prices I followed the link. Unfortunately, instead of evidence I got “While everyone is aware that supply and demand constraints contribute to price increases, there’s another force at work that, like gravity, is invisible yet powerful. This force is rampant speculation.”

I couldn’t help but conjure up the image of a bunch of Al Capone-like thugs sitting in a back room somewhere admiring their pile of oil futures contracts, smoking thick cigars, and having a hearty laugh at our expense. MUCH MORE - MUST READ ARTICLE!

NOTE: It has been proven there is no oil shortage and that oil speculators are driving-up oil prices. It’s too bad the airlines didn’t research or have the guts to spell-out the brutal facts, but they are attempting to be bipartisan and appeal to a wide-swath of America; as for myself, I prefer the brutal facts, and the sugar-coating is for our MSM to do, not those of us that are seeking the truth! Bush Blames Democrats For Oil Prices; More Lies From “The Commander In Thief”

President Bush and henchman Dick Cheney have opened the door to anyone that is willing to plunder our nation, and for all practical purposes, appear intent on eliminating our Middle-Class and transferring most of our wealth to other nations. Many people believe this is at the behest of the “New World Order“, and since I’m no expert on the matter, at this point I am unable to disagree or agree, simply because I haven’t spent the time to research the subject to a point where I’m comfortable giving it a yea or nay vote, however, from what I have seen, there appears to be a high degree of validity to their claims. We know that Congress votes the will of AIPAC, various special interest groups, and especially wealthy foreign corporations that constantly add to their campaign coffers. Lobbyists are nothing more than legally sanctioned con artists and a system where bribing America’s Congress has become legal and against the interests of the general public; to bring accountability back to government and stop the bribing of our Congress, we need sweeping legislation that will stop this form of bribery - but don’t expect it soon, as Congress will be extremely reluctant to kill the goose that is laying golden eggs into the campaign coffers and hidden bank accounts of those who vote for money rather than patriotism. If there were any justice left in our nation, there’s little doubt that a huge segment of our Congress could be indicted for bribery and actions that I believe amount to treason. Yes, the wording of this particular Op-Ed is harsh, but with Bush essentially “green lighting” an attack on Iran by Israel, it’s vital that the public take action and impeach Bush and Cheney before they are allowed to finish-off their destruction of America!

Bush backs Israel in plans to attack Iran

RAW STORY
Published: Sunday July 13, 2008

President Bush is closer to approving an Israeli military strike on Iran, according to a source for the Sunday Times.

As the Times reported Sunday, Bush has given an “amber light” to an Israeli plan to attack Iranian nuclear sites with long-range bombing capabilities.

“Amber means get on with your preparations, stand by for immediate attack and tell us when you’re ready,” the Pentagon official said. MUCH MORE, Another Must-Read Article

An attack against Iran, whether it is started by Israel or the United States, who will back them up if Iran retaliates (which they have vowed to do) will take gas prices to a level where none but the wealthy will be able to afford it for recreational purposes, and America’s families, who make this country operate, will be making harsh choices on what has to be cut from their budgets just to make it to work, and those with fixed-incomes will be driven into utter despair. Furthermore, consumer buying will be limited to only those items that are able to sustain food on the table and roofs over our heads, and for millions, the ability to do both will be impossible. The Great Depression will pale in comparison, and the world’s premier “super-power” and wealthiest country on earth will enter into and stay in third-world status for years to come. We also can’t forget that an attack on Iran could escalate to World War III, so the impeachment of Bush and Cheney could easily be a life or death decision. It’s time for all of us to ramp-up our efforts and get these criminals out of office before they can finalize the destruction of the United States.

Op-Ed News’ Poll on Congress demonstrates that unless they impeach Bush and Cheney, it’s likely their poll numbers will remain worse that those of George Bush - a minor miracle itself that anyone or entity could be as loathed or hated as much as the “Commander in Thief”, but our do-nothing Congress has done what I thought was the impossible, actually doing a worse job than a “C Average President” that has betrayed everything that our constitution and Bill of Rights guarantees to each and every American citizen that is alive; staying alive and free may be a challenge if things keep getting worse, and a new article which has revealed the subject-matter of a secret meting of Congress should act to energize the public to demand change - or strike and refuse to work another day until our do-nothing Congress stands-up to a President that is dismantling the constitution and utterly ripping-apart the United State of America:

As America Collapses US Government Secret Plans Revealed

A secret meeting of Congress discusses immanent martial law.

B.A. Brooks
The United American Freedom Foundation
March 13, 2008

On March 13th 2008 there was a secret closed door meeting of The United States House Of Representatives in Washington. In the history of The United States this is only the fourth time a secret meeting was held by the house. Even though Representatives are sworn to secrecy by House Rules XVII, some of the members were so shocked, horrified, furious, and concerned about the future of America by what was revealed to them inside the secret meeting, that they have started to leak this secret information to independent news agencies around the world. The mass media said almost nothing about the secret meeting of the House, mentioning only one of the items being discussed. (The new surveillance techni