Archive for December, 2008
Was the ‘Credit Crunch’ a Myth Used to Sell a Trillion-Dollar Scam?
Tuesday, December 30th, 2008By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted December 29, 2008.
There is something approaching a consensus that the Paulson Plan — also known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP — was a boondoggle of an intervention that’s flailed from one approach to the next, with little oversight and less effect on the financial meltdown.
But perhaps even [...]
A Hundred Eyes for an Eye
Monday, December 29th, 2008By Norman Solomon
Israelis and Arabs “feel that only force can assure justice,” I. F. Stone noted soon after the Six Day War in 1967. And he wrote: “A certain moral imbecility marks all ethnocentric movements. The Others are always either less than human, and thus their interests may be ignored, or more than human and [...]
The Economic Civil War
Thursday, December 18th, 2008By Michael Lind, Salon.com
The South’s attempt to kill the North’s auto industry is the latest battle in an ongoing conflict. It’s time for a Third Reconstruction to put an end to it.
It is just as well that Barack Obama is emulating Abraham Lincoln by traveling to his inauguration in Washington by train. As the regional [...]
Don’t Be Fooled By The Status Of Forces Agreement – We’re Not Leaving Iraq Anytime Soon
Wednesday, December 17th, 2008By Eli Lake, The New Republic
When it comes to Iraq, “withdrawal” seems to be the word of the day. In Washington, the incoming administration has revived the Obama campaign’s 16- month timetable for removing combat troops from Iraq. At his press conference on Monday, for example, Obama said he still thought that timeframe was “realistic” [...]
The Logic of Keynes in Today’s World
Tuesday, December 16th, 2008By Robert Reich
Not long ago I was talking to someone who once had been a deficit hawk but the current recession had turned into a full-blooded Keynesian. He wanted a stimulus package in the range of $500 to $700 billion. “Consumers are dead in the water,” he said, fervently, “so government has to step in.” [...]
As possible Afghan war-crimes evidence removed, U.S. silent
Friday, December 12th, 2008By Tom Lasseter, McClatchy Newspaper
DASHT-E LEILI, Afghanistan — Seven years ago, a convoy of container trucks rumbled across northern Afghanistan loaded with a human cargo of suspected Taliban and al Qaida members who’d surrendered to Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Afghan warlord and a key U.S. ally in ousting the Taliban regime.
When the trucks arrived [...]
Rumsfeld Responsible for Torture, Report Says
Thursday, December 11th, 2008by Joby Warrick, the Associated Press
WASHINGTON – A bipartisan Senate report released today says that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top Bush administration officials are directly responsible for abuses of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and charges that decisions by those officials led to serious offenses against prisoners in Iraq and elsewhere.
The Senate [...]
The Economy in a Mess – It Doesn’t Have to Be
Tuesday, December 9th, 2008From BrianHull.net
There are several issues that I have wanted to write about for a while now, but never took time to do, until now. There’s a lot of discussion about the economy: the financial crisis, home foreclosures, the auto industry bailout, growing unemployment, a shrinking economy, etc. To be honest with you, it seems like [...]
The Silent Winter of Escalation
Tuesday, December 9th, 2008By Norman Solomon
Sunday morning, before dawn, I read in the New York Times that “the Pentagon is planning to add more than 20,000 troops to Afghanistan” within the next 18 months–”raising American force levels to about 58,000″ in that country. Then I scraped ice off a windshield and drove to the C-SPAN studios, where a [...]
The Price of Oil: Down it Goes
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008From Economist.com
A barrel of oil could be bought for $47.36 in after-hours trading at the New York Mercantile Exchange on Monday December 1st. The price of oil is now at its lowest level in over three years and some $100 cheaper per barrel than at its peak in July. The latest drop came after members [...]
Health Care: It’s Time for a Major Overhaul
Monday, December 1st, 2008By Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet.
Back in early September, a microcosm of the looming health care debate played out on the stage of the Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce. Karen Ignagni, CEO of the insurers’ largest industry association, was leading a roundtable discussion as part of a national “listening tour” organized by her organization, America’s Health Insurance [...]
Consensus Emerging on Universal Healthcare
Monday, December 1st, 2008By Noam N. Levey, Los Angeles Times.
The prospect of bold government action appears to be accepted among players across the ideological and political spectrum, including those who opposed the idea in the 1990s.
After decades of failed efforts to reshape the nation’s healthcare system, a consensus appears to be emerging in Washington about how to [...]