September 20, 2008 archive

I went to our local county fair last week to take some pictures. It is “goat themed” and there is an emphasis on rodeo and old timey things. The fair is free and there is plenty of really bad food to eat. I managed to get a sunburn and spill mustard down the front of my jeans from the sausage concoction piled high with condiments and onions, so by that measure it was a success….

Some action shots….

In adding to the angst of the shocking capitalistic disaster otherwise known as “George Bush is our President”, last night the FDIC announced the twelfth bank failure of the year.  This time it was Ameribank, Inc of Norfolk, West Virginia. See failed bank list here.

As noted in this diary posted earlier this morning, Congress: “We have never heard language like this” by pfiore8, and in some of the comments therein, this weekend we will be witnessing the doctrine of the transfer of this nation’s wealth in ways that must be making Milton Friedman and Saint Ronnie grin in mummified, shocking glee.  

This diary will provide some links and source material for those who would like to follow this catastrofinancefuck a bit more closely.

The “war hero” candidate buried information about POWs left behind in Vietnam.  

Included in the evidence that McCain and his government allies suppressed or sought to discredit the story that American POWs were left behind is a transcript of a senior North Vietnamese general’s briefing of the Hanoi politburo, discovered in Soviet archives by an American scholar in 1993. The briefing took place only four months before the 1973 peace accords. The general, Tran Van Quang, told the politburo members that Hanoi was holding 1,205 American prisoners but would keep many of them at war’s end as leverage to ensure getting war reparations from Washington, which never came.

Imagine.  1,205 POWs left to rot in the caves and prison camps of Viet Nam while Haliburton bills US tax payers for monogrammed towels.  

(more)  

CNBC interviewed Paul Donovan, senior international economist at UBS, who is out shilling for government bailouts like all the other bankers.  Here’s what he has to say:

The financial system is ceasing to function effectively. The government needs to step in to support the financial system, or else capitalism is over.

Perhaps more dire was his answer to a question about whether injecting all this money into the economy would have an inflationary impact:

What we’re concerned about at the moment is salvaging something…If, in two or three years time we get back to a more normal function, [then that will be a concern.]  For the next two or three years, deflation is the concern.

.

Deflation is really a codeword for Depression–for years stretching into the future.

John McCain Wants The Chairman Of The “FEC” To Resign

Is This Because His Campaign Has Sunk To The Bottom Of

Tokyo Bay?

Or Is It Because He Does Not Understand The “Alphabet Soup” Of Government Regulators? Or Maybe He Just Doesn’t Know the Alphabet.

Capital Feels Its Way on Huge Rescue Plan, Eyes on Nov. 4  



By JACKIE CALMES

Published: September 19, 2008    

WASHINGTON – The huge bailout of the financial system that the Bush administration and Congress are rushing to draft will leave taxpayers with at least part of the bill at a time when high gasoline prices, job losses and stagnant incomes have already helped produce an overwhelming sense that the nation is on the wrong track.

Policy makers cannot say where it all ends. News reports are unrelentingly talking of “crisis.” After decades of deregulation and free-market fealty, antiregulation, small-government Republicans are putting the government in control of a big chunk of the financial sector.

All of which has left Washington in the midst of a political convulsion that both parties are struggling to understand and turn to their advantage – or at least keep from turning against them.

A Modernized Taliban Thrives in Afghanistan

Militia Operates a Parallel Government  

By Pamela Constable

Washington Post Foreign Service

Saturday, September 20, 2008; Page A01  

KABUL, Sept. 19 — Just one year ago, the Taliban insurgency was a furtive, loosely organized guerrilla force that carried out hit-and-run ambushes, burned empty schools, left warning letters at night and concentrated attacks in the southern rural regions of its ethnic and religious heartland.

Today it is a larger, better armed and more confident militia, capable of mounting sustained military assaults. Its forces operate in virtually every province and control many districts in areas ringing the capital. Its fighters have bombed embassies and prisons, nearly assassinated the president, executed foreign aid workers and hanged or beheaded dozens of Afghans.

USA

McCain’s camp tests fundraising limits

Helping him is a key advocate of campaign finance reform  

By MICHAEL LUO

Sept. 20, 2008  

Senator John McCain toiled for years to push a campaign finance overhaul through Congress. After the measure finally passed, Trevor Potter, a lawyer and vigorous advocate for reforming the system, was instrumental in defending the law from challenges and pressing for strict enforcement.

Now, as Mr. McCain makes his final sprint for the White House, Mr. Potter is again helping Mr. McCain, but this time by maneuvering to wring the maximum out of campaign finance laws in ways that some contend are at odds with the spirit of the reforms they championed.

Congressional Leaders Stunned by Warnings writes David M. Herszenhorn in the New York Times yesterday.

Or, as Chuck Schumer, Senator from New York State, put it, “When you listened to him (Fed chairman Ben Bernanke) describe it you gulped…History was sort of hanging over it, like this was a moment.”

Ya think, Senator. Yeah. Like this is a moment.

Original article, by Niklas Albin Svensson , vial Socialist Appeal (UK):

Yesterday John McDonnell MP explained why US imperialism is so concerned about developments in Bolivia and Venezuela: “What the US is terrified of is the prospect that socialism will catch light all across the Americas, so of course it has to go on the attack. But it is exactly for this moment that solidarity campaigns exist.” He explained that, “what is happening is not a personal attack on Morales or Chavez but an attack on the seeds of socialism that they are spreading.”

Read dogemperor’s “Sarah Palin used AK tax dollars to fund dominionist churches”

Sarah Palin, who has attacked Alaska Native Languages and Alaska Tribal Sovereignty, gave a speech at the Master’s Commission on September 2nd, 2008,

Source

It has only one mission, to throw defeat in the face of the Devil and see God’s people freed.

and the Master’s Commission has a branch that Christianizes Alaskan Natives.

Source

Although the Native Reservations of the lower 48 states may be off the beaten path, these tribes are easily accessible compared to the Native tribes of bush Alaska. Forgotten? Not by God! But the reality is reaching the indigenous people of this state is very difficult and very expensive!

Let’s look at the speech and how she’s attacked Alaska Native Languages and Alaska Tribal Sovereignty after briefly looking at the history of Missionary work in Alaska. Then, we’ll look at “Palin’s Pipeline”the TransCanada gas pipeline.