Left News and Views

by Kevin Phillips
The American Prospect
5/5/08

As of spring 2008, we’re probably just a third of the way through the unfolding debacle in the housing, credit, and financial markets. In political and regulatory terms, the ultimate problems and remedies have only begun to define themselves.

We’re not just looking at an ordinary recession. Since the 1970s, the United States has redefined itself from a manufacturing nation to a financial economy built on debt, leverage, and a considerable ratio of speculation. Both political parties have been complicit in this, and the downturn now beginning will be unusual and potentially tragic.

The case being made in some reform-minded and progressive circles — that we are on the cusp of a grand political, ideological, and pro-regulatory opening such as that of 1933 — has some logic but also merits a considerable amount of economic and historical caution. The plausible analogies deserve a quick run-through. To begin with, there is the prospect that, over the next few years, the largest credit bubble since the Roaring Twenties is going to unwind with at least some of the angst and pain of the Depression years.

In 2007, total credit-market debt in the U.S. reached almost 340 percent of gross domestic product, far above the previous high-water mark of 287 percent a few years after 1929. Second, it is also becoming likely that the 2006?2010 decline in U.S. home prices will be the largest in three-quarters of a century.

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From my inbox last week:

http://www.gp.org/index.php

Please Take the time to see what the Green Party has going on. I was going to withhold my vote this year… something I have never done- but I see that voting Green Party will tell the rest of the nation that we don’t have to put up with these atrocities any longer! So, please- take the time to see what they are doing. After all, how many hours have the Democraps and Repuglicans taken up of your time?????

Also, I will say, once again, what I have said since the Supreme Court committed treason and appointed a president of the United States. The ultimate goal of the Bush Juggernaut is a fascist government and the total collapse of the U.S. Dollar. How far away are we now? Besides, I still won’t believe the bastards have left the White House until the helicopter has flown away from the White House, Bush, Cheney, wives and dogs in tow.

So, what the hell? “And it’s one, two, three- what are we fighting for?” {Country Joe McDonald and the Fish} It has taken a lot to break the bank for this Once Great Nation…. But endless extreme war {in which Bush Co. has profited to the extreme on the hardware of war- an international war crime, might I add), corporate give-aways, tax-dodging for the very wealthy, funding of heinous piracy on Wall Street, and other atrocities as yet unrevealed certainly have changed the tides of financial realities. The aristocrats learned from the French Revolution… don’t let the peasants know who is really in charge.

What will we do? Well, as I was reminded this morning, there is a Chinese blessing/curse for this moment in History… “May you live in interesting times.” Right on! Let’s live it then. And while you are at it, please consider turning off the black magic box in your life… your television! You are being mesmerized by the Beast itself! Stop. Look. Listen… this is, after all, our world and our lives, too. Let us live by our own convictions and means.

Good luck to us all… and may we be able to see the interesting times for what they are!

From Earthmother Carla

I know a lot of people are saying that taxpayers who took out home loans that they couldn’t afford don’t deserve to be bailed out. But, it is not like we took out a quarter of a million dollar loan to buy a sports car, damn it. Yes, I am indeed taking this stuff personally.

We had five people ( me, my husband, our two kids, and my mother) living in a two bedroom trailer(18×80). None of us had any space or privacy, ever. The baby had to sleep with me and my husband, and Mom shared a room with our 7 year old son. We had to do something.

So, we took a loan from Wells Fargo, because they told us it was the only way we could get a bigger home (3 bedrooms versus the 2 that we were living in). You know what we got - a home worth $63,000 that, by the time we pay off the mortgage, will have cost us $250,000. But we’re the greedy, selfish bastards who don’t deserve a bailout, or apparently, a home to call our own.

The people on “Main Street” are the ones who built a country we could all be proud of, while the fat cats on Wall Street have once again managed to throw us all in the sewer. Thanks. I hope we someday get to return the favor.

We seriously need to reinvoke the Glass-Steagall Act.

I am not the only one to think our financial system is full of craziness either, check out this post over on Will Blog for Food.

Shattering the Glass-Steagall Act

By WILLIAM KAUFMAN

If you’re looking for a major cause of the current banking meltdown, you need seek no farther than the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act.

The Glass-Steagall Act, passed in 1933, mandated the separation of commercial and investment banking in order to protect depositors from the hazards of risky investment and speculation. It worked fine for fifty years until the banking industry began lobbying for its repeal during the 1980s, the go-go years of Reaganesque market fundamentalism, an outlook embraced wholeheartedly by mainstream Democrats under the rubric “neoliberalism.”

The main cheerleader for the repeal was Phil Gramm, the fulsome reactionary who, until he recently shoved his foot even farther into his mouth than usual, was McCain’s chief economic advisor.

But wait . . . as usual, the Democrats were eager to pile on to this reversal of New Deal regulatory progressivism — fully 38 of 45 Senate Democrats voted for the repeal (which passed 90-8), including some famous names commonly associated with “progressive” politics by the easily gulled: Dodd, Kennedy, Kerry, Reid, and Schumer. And, of course, there was the inevitable shout of “yea” from the ever-servile corporate factotum Joseph Biden, Barack Obama’s idea of a tribune of “change”–if by change one means erasing any lingering obstacle to corporate domination of the polity. (more…)

by Edward F. Mazur

Sophisticated and elaborate plots are often plagued with one or more serious flaws or oversights, which if followed up doggedly, would expose them as malicious frauds. More often than not, such flaws are discounted or massaged by the architects and their abettors and although the explanations may not be generally accepted by astute observers they do contribute to the convoluted and tortuous pattern of evidence that keep researchers running in circles and chasing rainbows.

To solve the entire 9/11 puzzle—to connect all the dots—would certainly be desirable. But to dilute one’s efforts by taking in all the broad aspects of the entire series of events at the outset would be unproductive.

Six years have elapsed since the attacks took place at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and many of the pieces to the 9/11 puzzle still remain scattered and disconnected. A broad overview of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon points to American Airlines’ Boeing 757, Flight 77 as the weak link in the 9/11 incident. The official account of the Pentagon explosion contains inconsistencies and aberrations that can and should be explored and exploited.

French author and researcher Thierry Meyssan provided detailed data, photographs and drawings in his book bearing the English title, The Big Lie. It offered sound evidence to support the conclusion that what struck the Pentagon was not Flight 77 but probably a missile. Another French writer, Emmanuel Ratier, published Letter of Confidential Information—Faits & Documents, which won first prize from LeMonde for investigative reporting together with his dramatic presentation of a series of photographs entitled, No Plane Crashed Into The Pentagon.

David Ray Griffin, Professor of Philosophy and Religion is the author of five books on 9/11, His latest work, 9/11 Contradictions: An Open Letter to Congress and the Press, points out the many contradictory and false statements that have been allowed to remain without comment, clarification or retraction.

[Photos, cartoons and links added to original article]

See complete article at: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=MAZ20080911&articleId=10158

Warning! Graphic Photos!

Think before you click the following link. It contains pictures of war, in all its ugliness. If you’re under 18 Do Not follow the link, unless you’re considering enlisting, then by all means, click ahead. (Note the last photo)

From: http://mindprod.com/politics/iraqwarpix.html

Denial

Most Americans are in deep denial that their country would butcher children and civilians, routinely torture, or bomb homes. Yet nearly every American saw this live on CNN with his own eyes on 2003-03-20 when America did its Shock & Awe bombing of the residential sections of Baghdad on the opening day of the war. Granted, they did not see the blood spurting, but they saw apartments full of families being turned to rubble. Everyone knows perfectly well what happens when a bomb hits an apartment. Americans pretend the $2 trillion they borrowed for the war went for reconstruction. If that were so, every Iraqi would be living in a $400,000.00 USD mansion. That money clearly went for mayhem and destruction. Soldiers are trained and paid to kill, not build schools or hand out candy. America has behaved worse than Nazi Germany. Americans plug their ears and say “lah lah lah” as if that would erase their responsibility. How dare they claim to be a Christian nation!

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from Drug War Chronicle, Issue #551, 9/12/08

An Irish judge last Friday threw out drugged driving charges against a young driver, saying that a positive result for marijuana in his urine sample was not specific enough to allow him to conclude that the driver was indeed impaired. Judge Kevin Kilrane of the Ballyshannon District Court in Donegal also criticized the Road Safety Medical Bureau for failing to test for the level of drug intoxication in its drug tests.

Peter Gillen was pulled over shortly after 4:00am for driving erratically, and Garda Officer Sean Flynn described him as “very shocked, unsteady, and very agitated” upon being stopped. Gillen tested negative on a breath test for alcohol, but Flynn arrested him on suspicion of drugged driving, and a urine sample Gillen provided soon after came up positive for marijuana.

That wasn’t enough for Judge Kilrane to find Gillen guilty of drugged driving, which carries a harsh penalty of an automatic four-year loss of one’s drivers’ license. The mere presence of marijuana in Gillen’s system did not show he was impaired, the judge said.

“The defendant could have been stoned out of his mind or he might have had a trace element only,” Kilrane said. “At best, all you have is suspicion, and suspicion is not enough.” The evidence was “too thin” to convict he said, as he dismissed the charge.

Kilrane scolded the Road Safety Medical Bureau for only testing for the presence of marijuana and not quantifying the amount present. “It is not the fault of the gardaí,” he said. “It is the fault of the bureau that does not give a concentration of drugs.”

US states that have “zero tolerance” drugged driving laws operate on the same standard criticized by the Irish jurist. In such jurisdictions, the mere presence of marijuana or its metabolites is sufficient to garner a conviction, without the need to show actual impairment.

I have mixed feelings about this story. While I am definitely pro-marijuana, I am not pro-impaired driving, whatever the cause of the impairment.

Then there’s the fact that you can have a fairly high concentration of THC in your urine and not be impaired. Cannabis remains in your system for up to 90 days, depending on strength and frequency of use. I know from personal experience that you can test positive for marijuana even 45 days after quitting all usage.

What we really need is an accurate way for law enforcement officers to test for any chemical impairment (alcohol, pharmaceuticals, street drugs, or whatever) that will expose current impairment instead of past usage. The issue should be the driver’s ability to operate their vehicle safely, not what they choose to put into their own bodies.

By Ernest Stewart

“I know 9-11 was an inside job, the police know it’s an inside job, and the firemen know it too.”
~~~ New York City auxiliary fire lieutenant Paul Isaac, Jr. ~~~

“It is unacceptable for Iran to possess a nuclear weapon. It would be a game changer. It’s sufficient to say I would not take military action off the table, and that I will never hesitate to use our military force in order to protect the homeland and the United States’ interests.” ~~~
Barrak Obama 09-04-08

For my military knowledge, though I’m plucky and adventury, has only been brought down to the beginning of the century; But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral, I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
The Pirates of Penzance ~~~ Gilbert and Sullivan

The seventh anniversary of the false flag attack known as 911 has come and gone with the promise of another one on the horizon. It was, of course, the fourth time we’ve attacked ourselves for political and monetary gain.

Our first “Reichstag Fire” was Pearl Harbor. You may recall when FDR set up the Japanese to attack us? You’ll remember that the governments of Great Britain, the Netherlands, Australia, Peru, Korea, and the Soviet Union warned the U.S. that Japan was planning to attack Pearl Harbor.

Robert Stinett, a decorated naval veteran of World War II who served under Lt. George H.W. Bush, examined thousands of U.S. government documents declassified under the Freedom of Information Act proving that FDR knew about the planned attack on Pearl Harbor but allowed it to happen. According to materials published by the National Security Agency in 1994, the JN-25B code had been cracked in December 1940. The entire Pearl Harbor attack plan was revealed by that code which was regularly used in messages intercepted by U.S. military intelligence. FDR did more than just allow the attack to happen.

A memo declassified in 1988 and written on October 7, 1940 by Navy Lt. Commander and Japan expert Arthur McCollum outlined an eight-point plan designed to provoke Japan into a first strike against the United States. These provocations included deploying U.S. warships in Japanese waters, seizing Japanese assets in the United States, and a total embargo on Japan. All eight
points of this plan were carried out by FDR before the attack on Pearl Harbor. All this done so we could become #1 and rule the world.

For those of you who say the Junta couldn’t keep a secret if their lives depended upon it, I agree. Just remember the WWII information didn’t come out until the late 80s and mid 90s. Be patient and similar proof will come to light about 911, too. In fact, a lot of it already has but the Sheeple being the Sheeple…

Our second false flag was a little operation called Operation 34A, also know as the Gulf of Tonkin incident. You’ll recall we claimed North Vietnamese PT boats attacked a pair of US destroyers in international waters off Vietnam. Actually, those destroyers were trying to get the Vietnamese to attack the ships by shelling Vietnam, thus committing an act of war. Again, the war related industries and body bag manufactures were the only winners. Half a million US kids were wounded and 60,000 died. 3 million South East Asians were slaughtered to make a buck for our corpo-rat elite. Unlike WWII, the Vietnam war destroyed our economy, forcing us off the gold standard and beginning our long downhill slide.

During this time just before current presidential contender Johnny McCain began his long stay at an apartment in downtown Hanoi with his two hooker spy friends, his daddy was running an “Operation Northwood’s” project for LBJ, i.e., the attack on the USS Liberty. You’ll remember how Israel attacked and tried to sink the Liberty at LBJ’s bidding in order to blame the ship’s loss on Egypt so we could enter the war and save Israel while gaining permanent bases in the Middle East. Does that ring any deja vue bells, America? Trouble was, the ship didn’t sink and, even though they called back American fighters before they could intervene, the truth got out before she could be sunk and the survivors were sworn to either keep it secret or face a firing squad. It took
another 30 years for the truth to come out, but come out it did.

Our fourth false flag attack was 911 where, like in WWII, a number of countries warned us that the attack was coming. Issues & Alibis found at least 7 countries that warned us but Robert (Robin) Cook, the British Foreign Secretary, said the number was 11. These countries told us who, when, where, why and how. Of course, as 911 was another CIA operation, we already knew about it and stood the air force down lest they intervene and spoil the plot. I figured it out in July when Bush went to Genoa and took his own missile battery with him. The Italians had uncovered a plot to fly an airliner into the G8 meeting building. That’s when I knew they’d attack the WTC, which had just missed being destroyed in `93, and would, no doubt, go for the Pentagon, Langley and the US Capitol with airliners as well. My only mistake was the date, which I got wrong by a week. Not seeing the now obvious 911, I thought the day after Labor Day, one week earlier, would be the best time to strike. I came to this conclusion after the announcements in June that pilots would no longer be able to carry guns aboard airliners, something started under JFK and allowed right up until that time. It was also announced that all Junta members would henceforth fly only in air force planes! Not to mention our good friends the Taliban turned down our offers of a carpet of gold for letting Cheney build his pipeline through Afghanistan and decided they’d rather have a carpet of bombs, which was our other offer. Much like the Kennedy sanction, the CIA set up it’s own, Osama and the CIA group Al Qaeda, like they did in Dallas with Lee
Harvey Oswald, another CIA operative. If you’ve seen the photo of George HW Bush leaning up against the Book Depository building moments after the motorcade sped away, you’ll no doubt recall that smirk on his face!

The conclusion to all of this is that eventually the truth about 911 will come out and will be recognized by all but only after the participants are long since dead just as with WWII and the USS Liberty.
As Papa Smirk once said, “If the people knew what we had done, they would chase us down the street and lynch us.”

Read More from Uncle Ernie at: http://www.issuesandalibis.org/

Is it just me or do those “crazy” conspiracy theorists make more sense every day?

From WSWS.org:

Political dissent as terrorism: “Minnesota Patriot Act” charges filed against RNC Eight

By Tom Eley
11 September 2008

The charges of terrorism leveled against the eight youth who had sought to organize protests and civil disobedience against the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Minnesota last week sound an alarm that political opposition in the US is on its way toward being criminalized.

In what may be the first case of its kind, American citizens have been arrested and charged as terrorists for no other act than planning to protest and obstruct a political event. In this case the occasion was the nominating convention of a party chiefly responsible for policies detested by the majority of Americans, including the war in Iraq and the enrichment of a tiny layer of the enormously wealthy.

Even a casual review of the case reveals that the charges are a baseless frame-up, carried out in the name of constitutionally dubious “anti-terrorist” legislation enacted since 2002.

More alarming than the case itself, however, is the fact that it has gone virtually unnoted by the national news media. This reporter could also find no mention of the case on the web sites of left-liberal publications such as the Nation, the Progressive, or In These Times. No major politician from either party has commented on the case, including Minnesota’s Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar. Attempts to contact the campaign and Senate office of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama revealed that he had not released a statement on the arrests.

This silence on the case is no indication of its lack of importance. In essence, the terrorism charges against the RNC 8 show what the World Socialist Web Site has long warned: that anti-terrorism laws like the Patriot Act—enthusiastically supported by both major parties—have never been about protecting the American people from terrorism. They were put into place to create the legal framework for the suppression of basic constitutional and democratic rights of the population.

Read the rest of the article here.

Email from Coalition on Human Needs:

Lipstick and pigs are not the biggest issues facing the country right now.

Unemployment is up.
Millions are struggling to pay for food, gas, and housing.
Heating costs will rise 40 percent this winter, and many households just don’t know how they can possibly manage.

Congress must not go home
without passing an economic recovery package!

Call your Rep. and Senators on Wednesday, September 17 to tell them they must act now!

Use this toll-free number:  1-888-245-0215

Tell them: Please do not leave this month without passing an economic recovery package that helps low-income people avoid hardships, helps the jobless, maintains needed public services, and boosts the economy.

Wednesday September 17 is the best day to call. But you can call any day that week - Sept. 15-19.  You’ll be connected to the Capitol Switchboard - please call three times to be connected to your Rep. and to your 2 Senators.

Background:  The House leadership is expected to bring up a recovery bill soon.  If constituents are heard from, Reps. and Senators will not just talk about doing something - they will take action.  If they do not hear from you, they will leave millions of Americans without enough to pay for food and fuel, with no more unemployment insurance and no help in sight.

Advocates have been urging more funds for food and home energy assistance, additional weeks of unemployment benefits, more aid to states for rising Medicaid costs and to keep collecting child support owed to millions of children, more funds for Head Start, and more jobs through infrastructure repair and jobs programs for youth.  For explanation of these proposals, see Towards Shared Recovery, at http://www.chn.org/pdf/2008/stimulus9908.pdf Mention some or all of these important items when you call.

We know making these calls is not your favorite thing to do.  But Congress needs to know we’re tired of diversions - we need action to turn the economy around and protect people.

Many thanks - please forward this to everyone you can think of.

by Ron Pernick

Of the recent political maneuvering and verbal attacks in the current presidential election, perhaps one of the most disappointing and frustrating has been John McCain’s disparagement of conservation and efficiency. Mocking Obama’s call for Americans to make sure their tires are properly inflated to help reduce gasoline consumption: The McCain team started handing out tire gauges to journalists and editors engraved with the words: “Obama’s Energy Plan.”

Give me a break!

It’s time that serious and informed policymakers stop putting down one of the most effective energy sources of all: conservation and efficiency (or what some people call the “fifth fuel.”) There’s nothing funny about disparaging one of our most valuable energy assets. It’s common knowledge among energy experts that the lowest hanging fruit is often conservation and efficiency. And I believe that most traditional “conservatives” in the mold of Theodore Roosevelt and British statesman Edmund Burke (often credited with founding modern conservatism) understand the value of energy “conservation.”

Conservation and efficiency also make good economic sense. In some research my colleagues and I recently conducted at Clean Edge, we analyzed the capital costs to deploy a range of energy generation and energy reduction measures for utilities. In most cases, energy conservation efforts (everything from implementing energy efficiency programs to demand side management) came in as the least expensive option.

On the automobile front, the Department of Energy estimates that “you can improve your gas mileage by around 3.3 percent by keeping your tires inflated to the proper pressure.” Combined with regular tune-ups, replacing clogged air filters, and using the right oil grade, the U.S. Department of Energy estimates that the average driver could save 18-19 percent combined. So how much savings are we talking about? According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, about 1.2 billion gallons of fuel per year could be saved from properly inflated tires alone (equal to about one percent of total gasoline consumption).

And many of these conservation measures can be done in very short order.

By contrast, opening up drilling in areas that are currently off-limits in the Gulf of Mexico and off the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts of the lower 48 states are estimated to be just slightly more than the savings that could be achieved via proper tire pressure. The Energy Information Administration projects that there’s about 1.5 billion gallons of gasoline a year that could be accessed from new offshore drilling, but that it wouldn’t come online for years. To be fair, some industry estimates show that this number could be much higher, but no clear metrics exist.

Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins, in their 1998 Club of Rome report Factor Four: Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use, outlined how to do just that: double the world’s wealth while cutting the use of our resources in half. They wrote in the book’s introduction: “‘Factor Four,’ in a nutshell, means that resource productivity can — and should — grow fourfold. The amount of wealth extracted from one unit of natural resources can quadruple. …it heralds nothing less than a new direction for technological ‘progress.’”

These remain awfully sage words in today’s carbon- and resource-constrained world.

But in his attempt to score political points by painting Obama in some cardigan-wearing, Carteresque light — McCain did a disservice to the broader energy dialogue. It harkens back to Vice President Cheney’s discounting of energy efficiency more than seven years ago, when he stated “Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy.”

The future of energy in the U.S. will involve a combination of many different technologies, policies and business approaches. There is no one silver bullet. In my estimation, we’re talking about the massive scale up of solar, wind and other non-hydro clean-energy sources (getting to 30 percent of the nation’s electricity generation by around 2030); the extensive build-out of green buildings and energy-sipping built environments; the deployment of a smart grid and plug-in hybrid and all-electric vehicles; and yes, energy efficiency measures as simple as tuning one’s car and weatherizing one’s house for the winter.

The issues we face will require an integrated, whole-systems approach that utilizes the best weapons in our clean-energy arsenal. In fact, a review of both Obama’s and McCain’s web sites, point to a range of options and policy recommendations by both candidates. Implying otherwise is simply ludicrous.

And, I believe, near the center of any 21st Century energy plan should sit a robust energy efficiency and conservation component — one that is exemplified rather than belittled.

Ron Pernick is co-founder and managing director of Clean Edge, Inc., coauthor of The Clean Tech Revolution, and Sustainability Fellow at Portland State University’s School of Business.

This was a good article, and I totally agree with Ron about conservation being one of the first, and easiest steps to take in improving our energy consumption. Since when is it a bad thing to be a conscientious, responsible adult? I think “personal virtues” is the perfect place to begin improving our energy policy, whatever Darth Cheney insists.

The Anchorage Daily News in Alaska reported that when Palin first became mayor in 1996, she asked the city librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, what her response would be if Palin asked her to remove some books from the library’s collection. She did not mention any specific books. Emmons responded by saying she would resist all efforts to ban books.

Emmons subsequently received a letter from Palin informing her that she was going to be fired. The censorship issue was not mentioned as a reason for firing, according to the Daily News.

“The letter just said the new mayor felt Emmons didn’t fully support her and had to go,” the paper reported. “After a wave of public support for [Emmons], Palin relented and let Emmons keep her job.”

From The Anchorage Daily News:

Editor’s note: This story was originally published January 31, 1997

Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin fired the city’s police chief and the library director without warning Thursday, accusing them of not fully supporting her efforts to govern. Irl Stambaugh and Mary Ellen Emmons said letters signed by Palin were dropped on their desks Thursday afternoon telling them their jobs were over as of Feb. 13 and that they no longer needed to report to work.

Emmons has been the city’s library director for seven years. Stambaugh has headed the police department since it was created in 1993. Before that, he served 22 years with the Anchorage Police Department rising to the rank of captain before retiring.

While both struggled with Palin when she was first elected in October, they said the letters caught them off guard.

Both had publicly supported Palin’s opponent, long-time mayor John Stein, during the campaign last fall. When she was elected, Palin questioned their loyalty and even initially asked for their resignations. But both said Thursday that they thought things had been worked out.

”After the initial roller coaster, we were ready to work for Mayor Palin,” Emmons said. ”Unfortunately I think we were both fired for politics.” Stambaugh said he considers it a slap in the face.

And that wasn’t the worst thing we learned about Sarah Palin this week. This was:

While Sarah Palin was serving as the Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, the city charged victims of sexual assault between $300 and $1200 for their own rape kits. A rape kit is a sexual assault forensic evidence kit, used to collect DNA that can be used in criminal proceedings to assist in the conviction of those who commit sex crimes. The kit is performed as soon as possible after a sexual assault or attack has been committed. It is usually humiliating and uncomfortable for the victim–imagine enduring that and then paying $1200 just so that the criminal who assaulted you might be caught.

The League of Conservation Voters presents the Top Ten Energy and Enviromental reasons why every American should vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden on November 4:

10. Look to the future: Senator Obama offers the most comprehensive energy plan of any Presidential nominee in history, it will end our dependence on foreign oil and create as many as 5,000,000 jobs. Senator McCain’s plan continues the Bush Administration’s policy of appeasement to Big Oil, does nothing to reduce our dependence on oil, and isn’t as good as Paris Hilton’s.

9. You pollute, you pay: Obama and Biden support plan to make polluters pay for pollution credits and to clean up toxic waste. McCain wants us to foot the bill for clean-up and to give polluters billions in tax breaks and subsidies.

8. Keeping us healthy: Obama and Biden have fought to keep our air and water clean. McCain has voted against clean water ten times and voted six times to make it harder for states and the EPA to keep our air clean.

7. Listening to the scientists: The Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that America must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 in order to avoid the worst effects of global warming. Obama’s plan will reach that goal. McCain’s plan falls far short.

6. The record speaks for itself: Senator Barack Obama earned a lifetime environmental voting score of 86%. Senator Biden earned an 83%. Senator John McCain earned a 24% score.

5. Decisions are made by those who show up: In the last two years, John McCain missed EVERY SINGLE major vote on energy. One vital 2007 bill, to move billions of dollars in tax credits from the oil industry to wind, solar and other clean energy sources, failed by one vote: John McCain’s. Obama and Biden, also running for President, voted for it.

4. Saving money at the pump: Obama proposes to double the fuel efficiency of
our cars in 18 years, reducing our oil consumption by at least 35% or 10 millions barrels per day. McCain voted against increasing fuel efficiency in 2003 and 2005. He missed the 2007 vote. Presumably, he ran out of gas.

3. We’re not alone: For more than 20 years, Joe Biden has been at the forefront of the fight against global warming. In 1986, he offered the first Senate bill to fight global warming pollution. Since then, he has been the Senate’s strongest voice for making America the international leader in reducing global warming pollution and exporting clean technology.

2. Higher standards: To create millions of new jobs, we must boost production of renewable electricity. Obama plans create 25% of our electricity from clean energy by 2025. McCain opposes any national renewable energy standard.

1. Judge him by his friends: Senator McCain accepted more than $2 million from the oil and gas industry, more than half of that since he changed his position on offshore drilling last month. His forthcoming plan to open America’s playgrounds and sandboxes to drilling is expected to net another
$1.2 million.

Sami Al-Arian

Sami Al-Arian’s long-delayed freedom

Nicole Colson reports

IN A long-overdue victory, Palestinian activist Dr. Sami Al-Arian was released on bail September 2 and reunited with members of his family for the first time since his arrest in early 2003.

“[I]t feels very unbelievable and surreal that he’s finally with us after more than five-and-a-half years of being apart and of only being able to see him behind glass. It’s breathtaking, really,” his daughter, Laila Al-Arian, described her feelings to Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!

“And the whole time, we–me and my siblings–just kept telling each other, ‘Is this a dream? Is this real?’ We couldn’t believe it. And even when we first heard the news, we were a bit skeptical, because we’ve been in this situation so many times, where we thought my father would finally be released, and he wouldn’t. So we kind of held back our happiness and joy until he was finally with us.”

Sami Al-Arian is the former University of South Florida professor who has been the victim of an ongoing government witch-hunt since the Bush administration, in the days following the September 11 attacks, accused him of using an Islamic think tank and a Muslim school and charity as a cover for raising funds to finance “terrorism” through the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Though then-Attorney General John Ashcroft held up Al-Arian’s arrest as an essential part of the “war on terror” here at home, after a six-month trial costing more than $50 million, a Florida jury in 2006 refused to find Al-Arian guilty of a single count of the 17 charges against him.

What you can do

Visit the Free Sami Al-Arian Web site to get regular updates about his case and learn more about what you can do to protest the government’s continued persecution of Dr. Al-Arian.

You can send donations to help the Al-Arian family defray the costs of more than five years of legal defense to: Liberty Defense Fund, P.O. Box 1211, 24525 E. Welches Road, Welches, OR 97067.

The documentary film USA v. Al-Arian can be viewed on the Internet at the LinkTV Web site.

Facing the prospect of a lengthy and costly retrial, not to mention further separation from his wife and children, Al-Arian agreed to plead guilty to a single count of the least-serious charge against him in exchange for what was supposed to be a minor additional sentence and voluntary deportation.

Instead, before his scheduled release date, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg had Al-Arian moved to Virginia to try to compel his testimony in an unrelated investigation of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT)–despite an explicit agreement with Florida prosecutors, recorded in court transcripts, that Al-Arian would be exempt from all future testimony.

Because of his continued refusal to testify, Al-Arian has had his prison stay extended first with civil, and then criminal contempt charges. But according to his defense lawyers and family, the government’s request of his testimony is nothing more than a trap–designed to keep Al-Arian imprisoned indefinitely on contempt charges if he refuses to testify, or allow government prosecutors a reason to charge him with perjury if he were to testify.

As Laila Al-Arian noted on Democracy Now, “[W]hat we’ve learned along the way [about Gordon Kromberg]…is that he’s not really interested in the truth. What he’s interested in really is retrying the case that the government lost so badly in Florida.”

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Read more here.

By the Bolpress editorial board, translated by Sean Seymour Jones for Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal

State intervention in economic activity — the nationalisation of businesses, restrictions on exports and price controls, among other measures — doesn’t appear to be contributing to the materialisation of the structural changes postulated by the National Development Plan (PND) of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS). This is the evaluation of business leaders, analysts and political leaders from the right-wing opposition in Bolivia. However, according to the government of President Evo Morales, the brutal and desperate reaction of the dominant classes “in relegation” proves that something is changing.

Many documents issued recently by institutes and conservative pressure groups conclude that the “out of fashion statism” of the MAS doesn’t guarantee the macroeconomic stability or controlled inflation; while its “radical” “ideological” postulates in international trade “isolate” the country and scare off investment. [1]

In almost every case, the conservative groups analyse the economic policy of the MAS from the point of view of liberalism as the only valid paradigm for interpreting reality, and they criticise the government for not gambling on the unrestricted free market and big private business as key factors of economic development

Growth of the economy

The government’s PND projected an economic growth of 5.3% in 2007, but the National Institute of Statistics (INE) reported 4.6% and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) calculated 4%. The PND expects growth of 6.4% in 2008, although the IMF estimates only 4.7%. According to the right wing’s criticisms, these rates of growth, less than the Latin American average, prove that the country isn’t making use of the increase in the prices of raw materials nor the expansion of world manufacturing demand.

Nevertheless, in macroeconomic terms, the “post-neoliberal” nationalist regime of the MAS and its despised state interventionism has had to more successes in two and half years than economic liberalism did in two decades.

Vice-President Alvaro García Linera recalls that during neoliberalism (1985-2005), Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew on average 3% per year and never passed 5%. During the MAS administration of President Evo Morales, GDP grew 4.5% on average. The 12 economic sectors studied by the INE in order to measure GDP shows increases in 2007 in production of oil and gas of 11.34%, construction 8.59% and mining 6.07%.

The income of the state rose from on average from US$300 million to $1500 million annually thanks to the nationalisation of the Chaco, Andina and Transredes oil companies; of the refineries in Cochabamba and Santa Cruz; as well as the Vinto foundry, the Huanuni mine and the National Telecommunications Company (ENTEL).

The neoliberal governments accumulated in the Central Bank of Bolivia (BCB) $1700 million in international reserves over two decades. In two years and six months of “Indigenous nationalism”, the reserves have exceeded $7000 million.

Read the entire article here.