Fed Defies Transparency Aim in Refusal to Disclose

-- The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system.

Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn't require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.

``It's your money; it's not the Fed's money,'' said billionaire Ted Forstmann, senior partner of Forstmann Little & Co. in New York. ``Of course there should be transparency.'' [snip]

In an interview Nov. 6, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said the Fed's disclosure is sufficient and that the risk the central bank is taking on is appropriate in the current economic climate. Frank said he has discussed the program with Timothy F. Geithner, president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and a possible candidate to succeed Paulson as Treasury secretary.

``I talk to Geithner and he was pretty sure that they're OK,''

said Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat.

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Troops Become Citizens on Veterans Day in Afghanistan

BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan, Nov. 11, 2008 – This Veterans Day was like no other for 77 service members who took the oath of allegiance and officially became U.S. citizens while deployed to Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan.

Bill Wood, U.S. Ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, gives a certificate of naturalization to a U.S. Army soldier on Bagram Air Field, during a Veterans Day ceremony, Nov. 11, 2008.

“For some of you, it probably seems like it was just yesterday when you raised your right hand and said that you would support and defend the constitution of the United States and serve in the Armed Forces,” said Schloesser. “Today, you are going to raise your hand again and become a citizen of the country of that constitution.”

Wood’s speech recognized the hard work and dedication of the 77 service members who stood in front of him.

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Recruiting Successes Continue in Fiscal 2009

Recruiting successes in fiscal 2008 continued into the first month of the new fiscal year, with all active and reserve components meeting or exceeding their October goals. Story

Britain should look to its own 'occupied territories' before criticizng Israel

Pot, meet kettle.

While Britain harumphs about Israel's "occupied territories," preparing , once again, to butt its uh, diplomatic noses into another country's--in this case Israel's--security and internal concerns, Michael Freund, writing in the Jerusalem Post, provides updates on Britain's real occupied territories. While the Brits dispute land that has a 5000 year Jewish presence;

Judea and Samaria are the ancient heartland of the Jewish people, the cradle of our civilization, and Israel has every right - morally, historically, theologically and militarily - to be there.

Freund reminds us that the sun still has not set on the over 500 years of the tragedy of the British Empire.

There is hardly a corner of the world in which Britain isn't involved in some territorial dispute or another as it obstinately clings to control over disparate chunks of terrain. The most famous of these, of course, are the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic, which are claimed by Argentina. Although the islands are of little economic value and are home to more penguins than people, Britain fought a brief war with Argentina over them in 1982 which left 900 dead. And just last week, the British sparked a diplomatic row with Buenos Aires by issuing a new constitution for the Falklands, which it said is intended "to protect UK interests."

With variations, similar arguments are applicable to those other European countries -- France, Russia, even Norway -- that are so self righteously indignant. As for the Arab/Moslem countries, their history of brutal conquest continues to this day.

So England, retreat to your island and devote your diplomatic efforts to grant the Welsh and Scots their independence. That's enough for you to handle.

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Look who's leading a UN forum on religious tolerance

Even the Washington Post can't avoid using irony in its lede:

Saudi Arabia, the oil-rich Islamic kingdom that forbids the public practice of other religious faiths, will preside Wednesday over a two-day U.N. conference on religious tolerance that will draw more than a dozen world leaders, including President Bush, Israeli President Shimon Peres and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Now, it is not a bad thing that the major religions of the world want to get together and try and find areas they can agree. But to have Saudi Arabia lead the way on this issue is not only laughable, it is an insult to people of other faiths who have found their co-religionists thrown in jail or worse for being discovered practicing any other religion except Islam.

So why are Bush and Rice participating in this charade?

I am at a loss for words why other, less religious European countries recognize the hypocrisy at play and are sending diplomatic flunkies to participate while we give this conference the full presidential treatment.

[A: it's because, rather than Rice fixing the State Department as we all had hoped, it fixed her instead. UN-salvageable]

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Iran tests precision missile able to reach Europe

Tehran, Iran - Iran said it successfully test-fired a new generation of long range surface-to-surface missile on Wednesday—one that could easily strike as far away as southeastern Europe with greater precision than earlier models.

The Sajjil is a solid fuel high-speed missile with a range of about 1,200 miles, Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammed Najjar said on state television. At that range, it could easily strike Iran's arch-foe Israel and go as far as southeastern Europe.

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Obama to be told U.S. missile defense capable, general says

WASHINGTON -- The outgoing head of the U.S. missile defense agency said he'll tell President-elect Barack Obama's transition team that missile defenses are workable and working in tests.

During the campaign, aides to Obama said he would support a missile defense shield when "the technology is proved to be workable." Lt. Gen. Trey Obering said Wednesday that missile technology is developed much further than some may believe it to be.

The general said Wednesday that American interests would be "severely hurt" if President-elect Obama decided to halt plans developed by the Bush administration to install missile interceptors in Eastern Europe.

Obering told a group of reporters that he is awaiting word from Obama's transition team on their interest in receiving briefings.

[their 'interest'?]

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N. Korea Refuses To Allow Nuclear Samples

Seoul, South Korea - North Korea said Wednesday that it won't allow outside inspectors to take samples from its main nuclear complex to verify the communist regime's accounting of past nuclear activities.

Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it never agreed to such sampling, contradicting statements by U.S. officials (Snip) The conflicting statements could prove to be a new snag in the long, tortured process of nuclear disarmament ...

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Mexico's War: The Iraq Next Door

The accelerating drug war in Mexico cries out for more attention. The horrific violence signals something already too big for Mexico to fight alone. It will spread north. The U.S. can't afford to wait. As Americans went to the polls last week, Juan Camilo Mourino, Mexico's interior secretary, was falling to Earth over the capital in a fiery crash that killed him and 13 others.

[we better wake up to our border security]

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Mexico: the next crisis

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Terror and a grim warning about future instability struck our NAFTA partner, Mexico, on the day Barack Obama was elected President of the United States.

There was no press attention in Canada, and hardly any in the U.S., about the crash during rush hour in downtown Mexico City of a Lear jet carrying the second-highest official in the Mexican government, Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mouriño, along with key drug interdiction officials. Thirteen other people died in the plane, and on the ground, and 40 were injured.


Another passenger was former Assistant Attorney-General José Luis Santiago Vasconcelos who had a multi-million dollar price put on his head by the cartels because of his work against the drug trade during the Administration of Vicente Fox.

It appears to be a message that the drug cartels will stop at nothing as they continue to corrupt and ruin the country as they did in Colombia...

Mexico's drug war
In the past year, Mexico’s drug-related murder rate became four times’ higher than the casualty rate in Iraq among Americans. Some 4,000 people have been killed and the all-out war waged by Sr. Mourino, 37, resulted in assassinations of police chiefs, mayors and soldiers.

Clearly, this has grave implications for all NAFTA partners, notably the United States which will see increased drug trafficking and illegal immigration as Mexico starts a possible descent into a kleptocracy...

[we'll have to help - right after we secure our borders]

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Sunspots spell end of climate myth

The evidence is unequivocal. Measurable, let alone dangerous, manmade global warming is not happening, and is not likely to happen in the future. The real cause for concern is the possibility of severe cooling. More evidence is gathering, going back thousands of years, that the sun, not greenhouse gases, drives our climate. [snip]

Computer-based climate models provide the only "evidence" supporting claims that the world is warming, that it will be dangerous, that there will be rapid rises in sea levels and the like, yet these same models failed to predict the temperature peak in 1998 and the steady cooling trend that set in from 2002.

Observations from balloons and satellites have shown that warming is not happening. Therefore greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide are not a major factor in the world climate. This fact alone is sufficient to sink the manmade global warming hypothesis...

[contains good science and economic data - Recommended > ]

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Climate first for Obama transition team

After eight years out in the cold, Democrats in Washington DC are rushing to warm themselves by the White House fireplace. And although research advocates may have to wait to see major science-policy positions in the new administration filled, a sense of the next president's priorities and style of governance is starting to emerge... [snip]

Podesta, who trained in psychology as an undergraduate before going on to study law, founded the liberal think tank Center for American Progress (CAP) in 2003. The Washington-based group includes a number of leading scholars in science, including Thomas Kalil — another Clinton-White-House veteran, now at the University of California, Berkeley — who served as a science adviser to the Obama campaign.

The transition team declines interviews, but the CAP may provide some clues to how certain issues may fare under an Obama presidency — chief among them energy and climate. In a book published this week, Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President, the think tank outlines its case for a 'national energy council' that would coordinate energy policy among the various agencies and departments with a stake in such issues.

The creation of such a council, under an 'energy czar', would provide a coordinating role not seen before...

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The Climate for Change

The inspiring and transformative choice by the American people to elect Barack Obama as our 44th president lays the foundation for another fateful choice that he — and we — must make this January to begin an emergency rescue of human civilization from the imminent and rapidly growing threat posed by the climate crisis.

[they're serious. {well, 'they' is also the NYT}]

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Study: Tap natural gas from Alaska's frozen areas

Washington - Today's technology could extract enough untapped natural gas, frozen in Alaska's North Slope, to heat millions of homes for years, federal officials announced Wednesday.

An estimated 85.4 trillion cubic feet of ''undiscovered, technically recoverable gas'' is frozen in the state's North Slope region, according to a U.S. Geological Survey study released by the Interior Department.

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THE DEBT AGE

State and local governments have caught bailout fever and are asking taxpayers to clean up their messes, and with trillions in underfunded public pensions, the messes are colossal, say observers... [snip]

• Analysts at the National Bureau of Economic Research have found that state pensions alone are expected to grow to about $7.9 trillion in 2005 dollars over the next 15 years.
• There's a 50 percent chance, they say, that the pensions will be underfunded by $750 billion by that time ...

To put this in perspective, consider that the NBER report says that underfunding in state pension plans is larger than the total magnitude of outstanding state bonds.

So who is going to be responsible for the debt run up by reckless elected officials eager to provide luxury -- and often outrageously early -- retirements for civil servants?

Primarily the next generation's taxpayers, who will reap few if any benefits from services they'll be forced to pay for, as well as those who are not yet paying serious taxes but one day will be.

[I.e., allowing our tax payer funded public servants to unionize was and remains insane - it needs be undone, or probably you and certainly your children will be bankrupted by them and the actions of the politicians they own]

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PAY ATTENTION AMERICA

Explosion of private clinics raising red flags

Since the first private MRI clinics opened their doors in Canada 10 years ago, there has been a national explosion of private health facilities across Canada: there are 42 for-profit magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) clinics, 72 private surgical hospitals (excluding cosmetic surgery facilities) and 16 "boutique" physician clinics, the Ontario Health Coalition says in a report, entitled Eroding Public Medicare: Lessons and Consequences for For-Profit Health Care Across Canada, being released today. [and as they must be paid for 100% by patients, they must really, really want them. But there's a problem... snip]

"The contention that for-profit health care can exist along with a public system is not true," said Natalie Mehra, the report's author and director of the coalition. "It is a take-away from the pblic health-care system"

Doris Grinspun, executive director of the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario, said the federal government has simply "turned a blind eye" and not enforced the Canada Health Act. [which prohibits private competition]

"Governments have fallen down on it. The Harper government definitely has, but the Liberals did too. This trend needs to be reversed. They need to catch up to the reality that the for-profit clinics are moving into this country and we need to get ahead of them."

[so, the wait times and capabilities of the government system are so bad that an entirely separate industry has sprung up to serve it without a penny from the government, and the government response? Kill it. This is crossing the (fine) line between socialism and communism. More to the point, it is the inevitable evolution of self-serving/protecting governments once allowed into markets: legislatively kill all competition. We've been warned...]

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Here Come Health Insurance Mandates

This was inevitable as every single policy expert I've ever read says it is impossible to have "half" a national health insurance plan. It's everybody in or the plan will fail. Obama ran on a platform that stopped well short of forcing everyone into an insurance pool. When queried about that he claimed that health care costs would come down because insurance premiums would be cheaper.

This is the harsh reality: The first item for business before the Congress will probably be this plan being worked up by Max Baucus, chairman of the Finance Committee and one of the most senior Democrats in the Senate.

"There is one important difference between the initiative coming from Montana Democratic Sen. Max Baucus and the plan Mr. Obama laid out during his presidential campaign: Mr. Baucus would require all Americans to have health insurance..."

... if you mandate coverage - if you tell every single American they must have health insurance - there must be an enforcement mechanism so that people don't get away with not paying their "fair share." The only logical entity who is equipped to carry out such a task is the IRS who will almost certainly be empowered to seize your property - most likely any tax refund you might have coming - and even send you a bill for what is due the same way they send bills for taxes owed... [snip]

What will start out costing $100 billion or so will skyrocket. Also skyrocketing will be the number of citizens who will be eligible for subsidies. Soon, virtually the entire health insurance system will be subsidized to one degree or another. And with the government putting that much into health insurance, it logically follows that they are going to want a bigger say in divvying up health care resources.

You can bet if they're paying for it, they are going to want to horn in on personal decisions made by citizens in consultation with their doctors. That would be the end of private health care and the beginning of the nightmare that European countries are experiencing as they pick and choose who gets care and who doesn't, who lives, and who dies...

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CA Press Downplays Policital Facism in State

California

The litmus test results are in: If you're against the legalization of same-sex marriage and are discovered, you can't be involved in the performing arts in California, even though the majority of potential patrons in your state agree with you.

Under the pressure of a threatened boycott, the artistic director of a Sacramento theater has stepped down after it was learned that he contributed to Yes side of the Proposition 8 campaign.

Here's the opening of the Sacramento Business Journal's story (links were in original):

Scott Eckern, artistic director of the California Musical Theatre, is resigning his post and leaving the organization.

A boycott of the theater was called Tuesday by some in the national arts community when news broke that Eckern contributed $1,000 to the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign, which supported the ban on gay marriage.

Scott Eckern said in a prepared release that he chose to express his view through the democratic process, and he was deeply sorry for any harm or injury he cause by doing so. [?]

“I am leaving California Musical Theatre after prayerful consideration to protect the organization and to help the healing in the local theatre-going and creative community,” he said. “I am disappointed that my personal convictions have cost me the opportunity to do what I love the most.”

Eckern's statement reflects failed attempts made in the past day or so to backtrack and make nice with his critics. It's clear that nothing short of his resignation would satisfy those who called for a boycott.

It's not unreasonable to think that this might be the beginning of a purge of all same-sex marriage dissenters in the theatrical and entertainment communities in California, and perhaps elsewhere ("Are you now, or have you ever been, an opponent of same-sex marriage?").

The headline writers at the Sacramento Bee or the Los Angeles Times's Culture Monster blog have done their best to make the stories appear less ugly than they really are. Their respective headlines -- "Prop. 8 gift gets theater's leader in a ruckus" and "Prop. 8 repercussions hit Sacramento theater" -- give little indication of the free speech-stifling severity of the situation.

The blacklist is back in full force in California's performing arts, and may be coming to your state or city [or profession] soon .

[ok you enlightened types, please explain to this simpleton how this is 'tolerant' - or better: not seriously dangerous to the civil discourse our society depends on. It's name is fascism.]

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Analyst: California faces

Sacramento - California's budget deficit will grow to $28 billion through June 2010 unless lawmakers take bold action, possibly including a hike in the state income tax, the Legislature's nonpartisan analyst said Tuesday. [snip]

The revenue collapse is so bad that if lawmakers did nothing, the state would face $22 billion shortfalls each year from 2010 to 2014, the analyst's report said.

[yet we just returned all Democrats to Sacramento again on the 4th.]

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Anti Prop 8 Mob Swarms Elderly Lady

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Watch this amazing video of an anti Proposition 8 mob in Palm Springs swarming an elderly woman, ripping a cross out of her hand, and then stomping on it. What is most amazing about this video is the idiotic summation of what happened by KPSP TV anchorman, Kris Long. However before we get to his money quote, let us take a look at a report on this mobbing by LifeSiteNews.Com:

Video footage from KPSP CBS 2 Palm Spring News shows Proposition 8 protesters surrounding an elderly woman and the reporter trying to interview her, shouting and blocking the camera's view of the woman, ultimately forcing the two to flee from the encircling crowd.

Phyllis Burgess, a supporter of true marriage, had been assaulted earlier as she displayed a large cross in front of the protesters. Video footage shows the anti-marriage crowd pushing Burgess, slapping the cross out of her hand and stomping on it as they surround her.... [snip]

Matching the thuggery of the crowd was the idiocy of anchorman Kris Long who came up with this "gem" of a conclusion:

...There is a lot of anger and a lot of hate, quite honestly, on both sides.

Anger and hate "on both sides?" Mr. Long, perhaps you need to have your eyes checked. All the anger and hate was coming from one side only as any sensible person can plainly see.

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A Checklist Of Obama's Many Promises

Few presidential candidates have made more specific promises to American voters than Barack Obama. They came so fast and furious in the latter part of the campaign, you'd be excused for not keeping up. So as a public service, we've put together a handy checklist of some of the biggest Obama promises — culled from his "Blueprint for Change," his campaign speeches and advertisements. Clip it. Save it. And see how he did in four years.

[ok]


Taxes
• Give a tax break to 95% of Americans.
• Restore Clinton-era tax rates on top income earners.
• "If you make under $250,000, you will not see your taxes increase by a single dime. Not your income taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes. Nothing."
• Dramatically simplify tax filings so that millions of Americans will be able to do their taxes in less than five minutes.
• Give American businesses a $3,000 tax credit for every job they create in the U.S.
• Eliminate capital gains taxes for small business and startup companies.
• Eliminate income taxes for seniors making under $50,000.
• Expand the child and dependent care tax credit.
• Expand the earned income tax credit.
• Create a universal mortgage credit.
• Create a small business health tax credit.
• Provide a $500 "make work pay" tax credit to small businesses.
• Provide a $1,000 emergency energy rebate to families.

Energy
• Spend $15 billion a year on renewable sources of energy.
• Eliminate oil imports from the Middle East in 10 years.
• Increase fuel economy standards by 4% a year.
• Weatherize 1 million homes annually.
• Ensure that 10% of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012.
Environment
• Create 5 million green jobs.
• Implement a cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
• Get 1 million plug-in hybrids on the road by 2015.

Labor
• Sign a fair pay restoration act, which would overturn the Supreme Court's pay discrimination ruling.
• Sign into law an employee free choice act — aka card check — to make it easier for unions to organize.
• Make employers offer seven paid sick days per year.
• Increase the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2009.

National security
• Remove troops from Iraq by the summer of 2010.
• Cut spending on unproven missile defense systems.
• No more homeless veterans.
• Stop spending $10 billion a month in Iraq.
• Finish the fight against Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida terrorists.

Social Security
• Work in a "bipartisan way to preserve Social Security for future generations."
• Impose a Social Security payroll tax on incomes above $250,000.
• Match 50% of retirement savings up to $1,000 for families earning less than $75,000.

Education
• Demand higher standards and more accountability from our teachers.
Spending
• Go through the budget, line by line, ending programs we don't need and making the ones we do need work better and cost less.
• Slash earmarks.

Health care
• Lower health care costs for the typical family by $2,500 a year.
• Let the uninsured get the same kind of health insurance that members of Congress get.
• Stop insurance companies from discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most.
• Spend $10 billion over five years on health care information technology.

source