Riding on the

… or maybe it’s the ‘little yellow bus,’ you have to wonder from the public reaction. But there’s a reason that such a reflection mirrors what America has become for the rest of the world — backward, incompetent and not to be trusted with sharp objects.

The elephant in the room is money — today we’ll follow dots on the less obvious, rather than begin our Monday dissecting the Bear Sterns bail-out with your tax dollars [while thousands lose their homes with no help at hand.] Oh citizen, PITY those poor investors that counted their shares at $170 a few months back and settled for $2 yesterday — or don’t, if you have to choose between groceries and gas yourself.

Juan Cole wrapped it up pretty well in three sentences:

I can still remember, as a child, the other children on the playground boasting that the US was the greatest country in the world, and the pride we all took from that. Predictably, George H. W. Bush’s cokehead son has managed to reduce the US to the second largest economy after the eurozone. Bush was second best all his life, and has managed to make America second best.

Between the economy and the hate-speak, punditry was near impossible to watch this weekend — I’m disgusted. And clearly, as a nation, we’ve really got ourselves in a mess now. We can say, Bart Simpson-like, “I didn’t do it!” but collectively we certainly did — and many of our fellow citizens still haven’t figured out HOW … consequently, we aren’t through mucking it all up. Seems to me if we’re going to get out of this in a whole skin, we’ve better smarten up FAST.

This nation spins up with the juicy details of scandal without looking at the whole picture, we entertain ourselves with [seriously] whacked commentary when the last thing we need is to give a platform to wingnut hacks [like Dr. Laura.] We listen to [cherry picked factoids that lead us to believe things that aren’t true — hence] lies … hell, we pass ‘em along … and allow the news media to report obvious bilge straight from the mouths of the leaders of a failed state … yes, that would be us, or at least failing quickly … without demanding that they ask any relevant questions or poke a stick at bubbles shooting out the ass of, fer instance, the man who called the US Constitution a ‘gawddamned piece of paper.’ We not only let all this happen with listless cries of outrage — now we can’t seem to make our way through it without stooping to mud-slinging and whisper campaigns ourselves, a kind of superficial comprehension that looks suspiciously like the limitations of the kids that ride that short bus.

OK, don’t jump me for using the ’special’ kids allegory — I used to ride the bus with them when we went on field trips [and you thought POLITICAL writing was courageous!!] Working in Special Ed burned me out in three intense, satisfying years, but those kids remain part of my “bundle.” I still think about them, worry and wonder. They were dear little souls, their ability to love and accept love just a millimeter off their surface … but their attention span was shorter than a gnats and their education was reduced to Pavlovian repetition-repetition-repetition because they couldn’t absorb or decode either the information or the NEED for it. Remind you of anyone?

The ability to connect the dots remains Numero Uno in the ‘intelligence’ game — in our own lives, as well as politics. Whatever we’re looking at today started days [weeks, months, years, decades] before … tracing back to First Cause is the secret of getting to the crux of what is unworkable and redesigning the blueprint for a better result — the original failed premise will give us the heads up on the fix. Sadly, we’re not there yet — we’re still busting up the mythology of the nation, and doing what we’ve always done — defending it. [Note the pro-war commentary in the first Winter Soldier article.]

Meanwhile, in even lower consciousness, the white folk are coming apart at the brain-pan because a black minister used his pulpit to tell some harsh political truth — no sugared up “Jesus wants you for a moonbeam” in Barack’s church, dearhearts. Begs a question or two. Do we still have a ’slave mentality’ in this nation? Sure. Do black folks have a genuine bitch about the ‘American Dream?’ You betcha they do! Is God blessing America? It’s been damned with [going on] eight years of George Bush, with crumbling infrastructure from roads to banks to everything in between, with decline in everything dear to her — perhaps the Reverend was right and our karma has already kicked our butts … but we’re too dumbed-down to realize it. Black churches are much more politically verbal than mainstream, and for good [and obvious] reason — here’s an article by a former Fundy that tells us that’s what the snake-handlers do too, including bash America, so there is a HUGE hypocrisy going on with 24/7 clips of Wright’s pulpit-pounding. Don’t expect any MSM pundit to mention that … in fact, they’ve dragged out those very Fundy’s to BE the pundits on this one!

Remember when Obama wasn’t black enough? Now he’s not white enough. Remember when he was a Muslim? Now he’s a Christian but a black militant. Remember when he looked like he was ahead in the race? Got a surprise for ya — he still is; not that you’ll hear that from the media [who are a shameful lot of infotainers, profiting from putting forward the first sniff of controversy while creating backward, uninformed viewers. Expect no intellect, citizen — I mean, look at Wolf Blitzer!!]

By the by, here’s a little peek at the guy that John McRib calls one of HIS ’spiritual mentors’ — and add him to Hagee as a fellow ‘good news’ing’ troglodyte; but that didn’t impact the ‘chattering class,’ did it! No headlines there! I Googled to find out who Hil’s spiritual mentor was, but all I could find was a snarky mention of the “Rev. Dow Jones.” It turns out that neither Clinton, McCain nor Bush HAVE an actual pastor — which leaves only Barack hanging loose to answer for his pastors “sins.”]

Meanwhile, women who have waited all their lives for a woman president can’t let go of Hillary Clinton as a worthy prototype, fearful that there will never be another [???] even though she has put her surrogates into the slime business and, speaking personally, embarrasses me AS a member of the female sex with what she’s done in her campaign … and she should embarrass you, even if you still think she should win the Oval in ‘08. The award for toughness and self-discipline, if that’s what we want in a contender, goes to Obama for not lowering himself to her tactics and snapping her neck using her long history of cronyism and backroom deals, and what can only be called at this point ‘blind ambition.’ Does all this have to do with sexism? Yes, and on OUR part. Are we ready to lower our personal flags and move into humanism? Apparently not.

When I told you, years back, that the system was broken and the game over, that no ‘patch’ put in place would fix what needed to be scrapped, I wasn’t blowing smoke. Errors compound, like interest — and when there are so many glitches and failures apparent you get a system failure. My computer problems lately are a good illustration — I cranked up one morning a few weeks back and got what a computer-wonk friend called ‘the blue screen of death.’ Danger, danger, Will Robinson - crash eminent! After a long series of attempts to fix what was not fixable, I had to do what’s called a “factory restore” — taking it back to its condition on the first day I’d taken it out of its box and plugged it in. [And I’m not entirely confident I won’t have to do it again at some point in the future — beware Windows Vista OS, just a heads up.] Sometimes errors compound to the place where the whole thing needs to be scrapped.

So the first thing we need to do about getting out of this hole is to stop digging it long enough to connect the dots. What then? We need a factory restore in this nation — it’s coming, when the last of the drek and darkness bubbles up, threatening to choke us — when the average Joe/Jane connects the dots from the loaf of bread that’s costing them 12% more at checkout because wheat farmers have switched to growing corn for the [bogus] ethanol market, causing feed to skyrocket and milk to jump up 17%, cheese up 15%. When it becomes, finally, personal in ways they can’t ignore. When it finally filters down to the bb-brained that what’s happening around them came from bad choices LONG ago, then perhaps we’ll stop shuffling our feet and mumbling, WTF! We’ll look around to see who put the ‘plan’ together — and realize that a factory restore isn’t nearly as scary as trying to keep doing what we’ve always done and expect a different result.

All that WILL happen, but too late, I’d think, to actually examine the candidates to see who offers something ‘new’ — Obama’s new isn’t nearly potent enough to suit me, but at least it IS new and thoughtful. It has the elements of the kind of governance we could have used in the year 2001 when 9/11 turned us all into whimpering cowards ready to give away the farm to be ’safe’ from unnamed terrors [and probably turbaned.] Obama has taken a higher political road and we’ll need it to repair our failed systems and poisoned international relationships. Judging from these last weeks, if we want calm and measured response in a shit-storm, Obama’s our man — if Clinton gets the nod, I’ll vote Blue but I won’t forget how she caused that storm in order to build her presidency on the same cynical political sand that has put us where we are today, and crossed the line between Red and Blue for her own purpose. [And by the way, if any of you think that Rush Limbaugh’s quite-serious campaign to get Hillary nominated is a goofy quirk on his part, connect those dots, won’t you?]

Clinton, of all people, KNOWS that the unity of the Democratic party is imperative if we are to halt the emotional and irrational behavior that unflaggingly supports the concept of “compassionate conservatism.” JFK made it clear: “Divided, there is little we can do. Together, there is little we cannot do.” When so MANY people have turned their eyes toward the Democrats as an answer to some of these challenges … youngsters and Independents and even Pubs … she’s reduced us to a party of bickering, back-biting and innuendo — we look petty and it ain’t over yet. Ralph Nader stands to benefit the most from this kind of spectacle. Swell.

With many people in this country hesitant to elect either a woman OR a person of color … I’ve heard all those descriptive words from the neighbors, trust me … did we need to tread this kind of competitive low-road again? Find out just how far we HAVEN’T come? Is electing either a woman or a man of color in this nation so easy a task that we can afford to get jiggy with it? Hil is the woman who decried the tactic of “personal politics” … did I miss something here as regard character assassination? Is that only reprehensible when it’s applied to her?? I wonder if Hillary ever lays in bed at night and counts the cost [groan!!] her tactics could produce for the planet. I’d like to think so, but her behaviors seem to indicate that instead she’s just reviewing good memories of her attendance at the Bilderberg Group conferences or perhaps fretting about the heavy losses her contributors in the Carlyle Group have recently sustained.

Ah, well — darkness before the dawn. Let’s get all the crap up so we can detoxify.

Here’s a collection of dots I’m sure you can appreciate. They work as a piece, so read them that way. A couple of reads on our competence economically lead to a Greg Palast piece following the politics in Spitzer’s downfall — these are all ‘follow the money’ articles, in essence; even the ones that include religion and war [12 billion borrowed bucks a month for warring] — the Fundy’s wouldn’t have a voice in this unless the money trail justified it. The links in this preamble are truly excellent reads, as well — much more than a days news in this post.

The next president will be hampered by economics — and the damage done to our status of ’superpower’ is irreparable at this point. The Russians, Chinese and even the Saudis have recently told us to put a sock in it as we’ve complained about their human rights records and fiscal maneuvering … we’ve lowered our ethics to become just like them. And when you hear about major nations coming together compassionately to forgive ‘third world’ countries their debt, remember … nobody is going to do that for us … the unborn will pay for Bush’s crime. The shining city on a hill isn’t shining anymore — and nobody running in this campaign can restore the sparkle; but slowing the rot to reassess is worth your thoughtful vote*.

Jude

* Voting is still a major concern, of course — in New York, for instance, Obama didn’t get ANY votes in 80 precincts including Harlem’s 70th Assembly District … on what planet can THAT happen? He won the Texas caucus, by the way, and the most delegates … and now Edwards delegates are shifting his way.

George Speaks, Badly
GAIL COLLINS, New York Times
March 15, 2008

Watching George W. Bush address the New York financial community Friday brought back many memories. Unfortunately, they were about his speech right after Hurricane Katrina, the one when he said: “America will be a stronger place for it.”

“You’ve helped make our country really in many ways the economic envy of the world,” he told the Economic Club of New York.

You could almost see the thought-bubble forming over the audience: Not this week, kiddo.

The president squinched his face and bit his lip and seemed too antsy to stand still. As he searched for the name of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia (”the king, uh, the king of Saudi”) and made guy-fun of one of the questioners (”Who picked Gigot?”), you had to wonder what the international financial community makes of a country whose president could show up to talk economics in the middle of a liquidity crisis and kind of flop around the stage as if he was emcee at the Iowa Republican Pig Roast.

We’re really past expecting anything much, but in times of crisis you would like to at least believe your leader has the capacity to pretend he’s in control. Suddenly, I recalled a day long ago when my husband worked for a struggling paper full of worried employees and the publisher walked into the newsroom wearing a gorilla suit.

The country that elected George Bush — sort of — because he seemed like he’d be more fun to have a beer with than Al Gore or John Kerry is really getting its comeuppance. Our credit markets are foundering, and all we’ve got is a guy who looks like he’s ready to kick back and start the weekend.

This is not the first time Bush’s attempts to calm our fears redoubled our nightmares. His first speech after 9/11 — that two-minute job on the Air Force base — was so stilted that the entire country felt like heading for the nearest fallout shelter. After Katrina, of course, it took forever to pry him out of Crawford, and then he more or less read a laundry list of Goods Being Shipped to the Flood Zone and delivered some brief assurances that things would work out.

O.K., so he’s not good at first-day response. Or second. Third can be a problem, too. But this economic crisis has been going on for months, and all the president could come up with sounded as if it had been composed for a Rotary Club and then delivered by a guy who had never read it before. “One thing is certain that Congress will do is waste some of your money,” he said. “So I’ve challenged members of Congress to cut the number of cost of earmarks in half.”

Besides being incoherent, this is a perfect sign of an utterly phony speech. Earmarks are one of those easy-to-attack Congressional weaknesses, and in a perfect world, they would not exist. But they cost approximately two cents in the grand budgetary scheme of things. Saying you’re going to fix the economy or balance the budget by cutting out earmarks is like saying you’re going to end global warming by banning bathroom nightlights.

Bush pointed out — as if the entire economic world didn’t already know — that Congress has already passed an economic incentive package that will send tax rebate checks to more than 130 million households. “A lot of them are a little skeptical about this ‘checks in the mail’ stuff,” he jibed. Jokejoke. Winkwink.

Then, after a run through of “ideas I strongly reject,” Bush finally got around to announcing that he was going to “talk about what we’re for. We’re obviously for sending out over $150 billion into the marketplace in the form of checks that will be reaching the mailboxes by the second week of May.

“We’re for that,” he added.

Once the markets had that really, really clear, Bush felt free to go on to the other things he was for, which very much resembled that laundry list for Katrina (”400 trucks containing 5.4 million Meals Ready to Eat — or M.R.E.’s … 3.4 million pounds of ice …”) This time the rundown included a six-month-old F.H.A. refinancing program, and an industry group called Hope Now that offers advice to people with mortgage problems.

And then, finally, the nub of the housing crisis: “Problem we have is, a lot of folks aren’t responding to over a million letters sent out to offer them assistance and mortgage counseling,” the president of the United States told the world.

But wait — more positive news! The secretary of Housing and Urban Development is proposing that lenders supply an easy-to-read summary with mortgage agreements. “You know, these mortgages can be pretty frightening to people. I mean, there’s a lot of tiny print,” the president said.

Really, if he can’t fix the economy, the least he could do is rehearse the speech.

The Rise of American Incompetence
We used to be the world’s most skillful entrepreneurs and managers. Now we’re laughingstocks. What happened?
Daniel Gross, Slate Magazine
Saturday, March 15, 2008

The dollar plunged to new lows against foreign currencies this week. There are plenty of reasons for its plunge, but at the most basic level, the dollar’s weakness reflects the world’s collective, two-thumbs-down verdict about the ability of the United States—businesses, individuals, the government, the Federal Reserve—to manage the global financial system and the world’s largest economy. Countries that outsourced their monetary policy by pegging domestic currencies to the dollar are having second thoughts. Kuwait last year detached the dinar from the dollar, and Qatar government officials last week said they were considering doing the same with their currency. International financiers are unnerved by the toxic combination of “misplaced assumptions about housing, a lack of necessary regulation and irresponsible use of debt with sophisticated financial instruments,” said Ashraf Laidi, currency strategist at CMC Markets.

Dissing American financial management is an affront to national pride tantamount to standing in Rome and asking, loudly, if Italians are able to make pasta. The United States invented the concept and practice of running large, complex systems. Along with baseball and deep-frying, management is one of our great national pastimes. The world’s first MBAs were awarded by pioneering yuppie factories such as the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. (Wharton’s founding in 1881 was quickly followed by the world’s first time-share summer houses in the Hamptons.) Henry Ford’s revolutionary assembly line was the gold standard in global manufacturing for decades. Contemporary American institutions stand for excellence in managing everything from supply chains (Wal-Mart) to delivery services (Federal Express and UPS).

Americans’ ability to manage complex systems has been the ultimate competitive advantage. It has allowed the United States to enjoy high growth and low inflation—a record we haven’t hesitated to lord over our foreign friends. The shelves in the business section of a bookstore in a mall in Johannesburg, South Africa, are stocked with the same volumes you’ll find in a Barnes & Noble in Pittsburgh, Pa.: memoirs by cornfed paragons of capitalism like Jack Welch, wealth-building advice from American money managers, large tomes on how Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller built global businesses from scratch.

But now, thanks to widespread incompetence, American management is on its way to becoming an international laughingstock. Faith in American financial sobriety has been widely undermined by the subprime mess. The very mention of the strong-dollar policy now elicits raucous bouts of knee-slapping in even the most sober Swiss banks. (How do you say schadenfreude in German?) Earlier this month, as oil hovered near $100 a barrel, President Bush complained to OPEC about high oil prices. OPEC President Chakib Khelil responded acidly that crude’s remarkable run had nothing to do with the reluctance of Persian Gulf nations to pump oil, and everything to do with the “mismanagement of the U.S. economy.” Since Bush’s plea, oil has gushed to $110 per barrel. (How do you say schadenfreude in Arabic?)

Americans abroad are constantly taunted by perceived failings of American management. America’s aviation system is now the butt of jokes because 9-year-olds have become accustomed to removing their Heelys before boarding a plane. As my family and I passed through the snaking security line in CancĂşn, Mexico’s airport last month, we were harangued by a security guard who encouraged tourists to sing along with him: “Please. Do not. Remove. Your shoes.”

The concern extends beyond airlines to America’s industrial complex. Doubtful of the ability of provincial American executives, with their limited language skills, to negotiate today’s global business environment, the boards of massive U.S. firms like Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, Alcoa, and insurer AIG have hired foreign-born CEOs. Carl Icahn, the 1980s corporate raider, has reinvented himself as a borscht-belt comedian/activist investor, who delights conferences and reporters with jokes at CEOs’ expense. On a recent 60 Minutes, Icahn complained to Lesley Stahl about the incompetence of American management. “I see our country going off a cliff, and I feel bad about it.”

Icahn is moping all the way to the bank. The market’s recognition of management failures gives him the opportunities to acquire companies on the cheap. But those of us who aren’t billionaire corporate raiders—which is to say pretty much all of us—must manage through this management crisis on our own.

Eliot’s Mess
The $200 billion bail-out for predator banks and Spitzer charges are intimately linked
Greg Palast
March 14, 2008

While New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was paying an ‘escort’ $4,300 in a hotel room in Washington, just down the road, George Bush’s new Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Ben Bernanke, was secretly handing over $200 billion in a tryst with mortgage bank industry speculators.

Both acts were wanton, wicked and lewd. But there’s a BIG difference. The Governor was using his own checkbook. Bush’s man Bernanke was using ours.

This week, Bernanke’s Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks’ mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.

Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers’ bordello: Eliot Spitzer.

Who are they kidding? Spitzer’s lynching and the bankers’ enriching are intimately tied.

How? Follow the money.

The press has swallowed Wall Street’s line that millions of US families are about to lose their homes because they bought homes they couldn’t afford or took loans too big for their wallets. Ba-LON-ey. That’s blaming the victim.

Here’s what happened. Since the Bush regime came to power, a new species of loan became the norm, the ’sub-prime’ mortgage and its variants including loans with teeny “introductory” interest rates. From out of nowhere, a company called ‘Countrywide’ became America’s top mortgage lender, accounting for one in five home loans, a large chunk of these ’sub-prime.’

Here’s how it worked: The Grinning Family, with US average household income, gets a $200,000 mortgage at 4% for two years. Their $955 monthly payment is 25% of their income. No problem. Their banker promises them a new mortgage, again at the cheap rate, in two years. But in two years, the promise ain’t worth a can of spam and the Grinnings are told to scram - because their house is now worth less than the mortgage. Now, the mortgage hits 9% or $1,609 plus fees to recover the “discount” they had for two years. Suddenly, payments equal 42% to 50% of pre-tax income. The Grinnings move into their Toyota.

Now, what kind of American is ’sub-prime.’ Guess. No peeking. Here’s a hint: 73% of HIGH INCOME Black and Hispanic borrowers were given sub-prime loans versus 17% of similar-income Whites. Dark-skinned borrowers aren’t stupid – they had no choice. They were ’steered’ as it’s called in the mortgage sharking business.

‘Steering,’ sub-prime loans with usurious kickers, fake inducements to over-borrow, called ‘fraudulent conveyance’ or ‘predatory lending’ under US law, were almost completely forbidden in the olden days (Clinton Administration and earlier) by federal regulators and state laws as nothing more than fancy loan-sharking.

But when the Bush regime took over, Countrywide and its banking brethren were told to party hearty – it was OK now to steer’m, fake’m, charge’m and take’m.

But there was this annoying party-pooper. The Attorney General of New York, Eliot Spitzer, who sued these guys to a fare-thee-well. Or tried to.

Instead of regulating the banks that had run amok, Bush’s regulators went on the warpath against Spitzer and states attempting to stop predatory practices. Making an unprecedented use of the legal power of “federal pre-emption,” Bush-bots ordered the states to NOT enforce their consumer protection laws.

Indeed, the feds actually filed a lawsuit to block Spitzer’s investigation of ugly racial mortgage steering. Bush’s banking buddies were especially steamed that Spitzer hammered bank practices across the nation using New York State laws.

Spitzer not only took on Countrywide, he took on their predatory enablers in the investment banking community. Behind Countrywide was the Mother Shark, its funder and now owner, Bank of America. Others joined the sharkfest: Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Citigroup’s Citibank made mortgage usury their major profit centers. They did this through a bit of financial legerdemain called “securitization.”

What that means is that they took a bunch of junk mortgages, like the Grinning’s, loans about to go down the toilet and re-packaged them into “tranches” of bonds which were stamped “AAA” - top grade - by bond rating agencies. These gold-painted turds were sold as sparkling safe investments to US school district pension funds and town governments in Finland (really).

When the housing bubble burst and the paint flaked off, investors were left with the poop and the bankers were left with bonuses. Countrywide’s top man, Angelo Mozilo, will ‘earn’ a $77 million buy-out bonus this year on top of the $656 million - over half a billion dollars – he pulled in from 1998 through 2007.

But there were rumblings that the party would soon be over. Angry regulators, burned investors and the weight of millions of homes about to be boarded up were causing the sharks to sink. Countrywide’s stock was down 50%, and Citigroup was off 38%, not pleasing to the Gulf sheiks who now control its biggest share blocks.

Then, on Wednesday of this week, the unthinkable happened. Carlyle Capital went bankrupt. Who? That’s Carlyle as in Carlyle Group. James Baker, Senior Counsel. Notable partners, former and past: George Bush, the Bin Laden family and more dictators, potentates, pirates and presidents than you can count.

The Fed had to act. Bernanke opened the vault and dumped $200 billion on the poor little suffering bankers. They got the public treasure – and got to keep the Grinning’s house. There was no ‘quid’ of a foreclosure moratorium for the ‘pro quo’ of public bailout. Not one family was saved – but not one banker was left behind.

Every mortgage sharking operation shot up in value. Mozilo’s Countrywide stock rose 17% in one day. The Citi sheiks saw their company’s stock rise $10 billion in an afternoon.

And that very same day the bail-out was decided – what a coinkydink! – the man called, ‘The Sheriff of Wall Street’ was cuffed. Spitzer was silenced.

Do I believe the banks called Justice and said, “Take him down today!” Naw, that’s not how the system works. But the big players knew that unless Spitzer was taken out, he would create enough ruckus to spoil the party. Headlines in the financial press – one was “Wall Street Declares War on Spitzer” - made clear to Bush’s enforcers at Justice who their number one target should be. And it wasn’t Bin Laden.

It was the night of February 13 when Spitzer made the bone-headed choice to order take-out in his Washington Hotel room. He had just finished signing these words for the Washington Post about predatory loans:

“Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.”

Bush, Spitzer said right in the headline, was the “Predator Lenders’ Partner in Crime.” The President, said Spitzer, was a fugitive from justice. And Spitzer was in Washington to launch a campaign to take on the Bush regime and the biggest financial powers on the planet.

Spitzer wrote, “When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners the Bush administration will not be judged favorably.”

But now, the Administration can rest assured that this love story – of Bush and his bankers - will not be told by history at all – now that the Sheriff of Wall Street has fallen on his own gun.

A note on “Prosecutorial Indiscretion.”

Back in the day when I was an investigator of racketeers for government, the federal prosecutor I was assisting was deciding whether to launch a case based on his negotiations for airtime with 60 Minutes. I’m not allowed to tell you the prosecutor’s name, but I want to mention he was recently seen shouting, “Florida is Rudi country! Florida is Rudi country!”

Not all crimes lead to federal bust or even public exposure. It’s up to something called “prosecutorial discretion.”

Funny thing, this ‘discretion.’ For example, Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, paid Washington DC prostitutes to put him in diapers (ewww!), yet the Senator was not exposed by the US prosecutors busting the pimp-ring that pampered him.

Naming and shaming and ruining Spitzer – rarely done in these cases - was made at the ‘discretion’ of Bush’s Justice Department.

Or maybe we should say, ‘indiscretion.’

The Children of Palestine and Israel are Cannon Fodder for the Rapture
Robert Weitzel, ThousandReasons
Saturday March 15, 2008

Safa Abu Saif, a 12-year-old Palestinian girl, was visiting a friend’s apartment when the bullet fired from an Israeli rifle slammed into her chest, punching a gaping exit wound in her back. No ambulance could reach her because of the fighting. Safa died in her father’s arms three hours after being shot.

Danielle Shafi, a 5-year-old Israeli girl, was killed by the bullet fired from a Palestinian rifle as her mother combed her hair in the child’s upstairs bedroom. Drenched in the blood of her wound, Danielle slowly stopped breathing and died in her mother’s arms minutes after being shot.

According to a United Nation’s report, 971 Palestinian and Israeli children were killed between September 2000—the beginning of the second intifada—and July 2007. Of those destroyed children, 854 were Palestinian. The intifada and the dying continue.

Safa and Danielle are two of the children whose lives the evangelical political action committee, Christians United for Israel, are willing to sacrifice on the alter of their fundamentalist eschatology in the hope of bringing about Armageddon and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Pastor John Hagee, televangelist to 99 million viewers and pastor of the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, established the CUFI in 2005 following the publication of his book, “The Jerusalem Countdown: A Warning to the World.” Hagee envisions CUFI as the Christian version the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel lobby whose political clout has a significant influence on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.

The late Molly Ivins, a Texas political commentator and author, described Hagee as a “pre-millennial dispensationalist, whose theology focuses on selected apocalyptic passages of the Book of Revelation.” In 1998, Hagee teamed up with Christian filmmakers to produce, “Vanished in the Twinkling of an Eye,” a docudrama about the tribulations following the Rapture.

Despite Pastor Hagee’s obvious interest in eschatology, he insists that CUFI’s support for Israel has nothing to do with end time prophecy. But in an unguarded moment in the intimate confines of his 50,000 sq. ft. multimedia chapel, Hagee set the truth free, “The judgment of the nations is going to happen as soon as Christ returns to earth. As soon as he sets up his throne on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, he’s going to rule the world with a rod of iron. That means he’s going to make the ACLU do what he wants them to . . .. We will live by the law of god, and no other law.”

The problem with Hagee’s version of the truth is the fact that the Temple Mount is Islam’s third most sacred site, upon which sits the al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock, the oldest extant Islamic structure in the world.

According to Judaism, the Mount is where the final Third Temple will be rebuilt before the coming of the Jewish Messiah. Unfortunately for CUFI, the Second Coming of Jesus is on hold until the temple’s completion, and that cannot happen until Islam is destroyed—Hagee’s holy grail.

Predictably then, the good pastor opposes any peace plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, supports Israel’s persecution and “imprisonment” of 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and advocates pre-emptive nuclear strikes against Iran. John Hagee lives, and CUFI exists, to light the fires of the Apocalypse using Israel as the match.

To get a candid look at CUFI and its members, journalist Max Blumenthal took his cameras to the CUFI’s Washington-Israel Summit held last July in the nation’s capital.

His video, “Rapture Ready: The Unauthorized Christians United for Israel Tour” opens with Blumenthal cornering disgraced former Republican House Majority Leader Tom Delay and asking him how important the Second Coming is in his support of Israel. The “Hammer” replied, “Obviously, it is what I live for. Really, I hope it comes tomorrow. Obviously, we need to be connected to Israel to enjoy the Second Coming of Christ.”

Blumenthal mingled with the 4,500 CUFI rank and file attending the Summit and asked their opinion on Armageddon and the identity of the Antichrist:

Q. “Are you looking forward to Armageddon?”

A. “I’m looking forward to Armageddon and the cleansing of the earth.”

Q. “Who is the Antichrist?”

A. “He will be a man of peace. So he will be one who has promoted peace for many years. The one who forces Israel into a peace treaty with the Arabs is the Beast.”

A. “Another reason that we support Israel is that we have a common enemy, the Muslims. We are fighting what is behind the Muslim people, which is Satan. Satan is actually the one who is trying to destroy the human race.”

After asking Pastor Hagee the “wrong” question during a Summit news conference, Blumenthal and his crew were escorted out of the building by off-duty police officers.

John Hagee is not without fawning friends in Washington. Presidential hopeful John McCain made a campaign stop at the Summit and admitted to the audience that, “It’s very hard trying to do the Lord’s work in the city of Satan . . .” House Minority Whip Roy Blunt followed McCain to the podium and assured the faithful that “This is a mission, this is a vision that I believe is a vision for God’s time.” Senator Joe Lieberman was there and described Pastor Hagee as an “Ish Elokim,” a man of God.

Never one to be left out of a well-attended Christian Right convocation, President Bush sent his best wishes, “I appreciate CUFI members . . . for your passion and dedication to enhancing the relationship between the United States and Israel. Your efforts set a shining example for others . . .”

Cultivating his friendship with the man who believes the U.S. will be in Iraq for the next one hundred years, Pastor Hagee endorsed—and hugged—John McCain for president at a news conference held at the Cornerstone Church. Senator McCain graciously accepted, saying, “I’m very honored by Pastor John Hagee’s endorsement today,” When asked about Hagee’s extensive writings on Armageddon, McCain responded that “all I can tell you is that I am very proud to have Pastor John Hagee’s support.'’

Considering the above, the following should not need to be said. Pastor Hagee’s right-wing Jewish allies will do well to consider that after Islam is destroyed and the Temple rebuilt and Jesus comes and raptures all “true believers,” all non-believers—including Jews—will be hunted down and converted or destroyed . . . that is, those few who survived the nuclear holocaust that was prayed for and schemed for by the “Ish Elokim” and the CUFI.

In the meanwhile, Palestinian and Israeli children will continue to die singularly or in small groups by the bullets and the bombs and the fire send their way on the wings of CUFI’s prayerful machinations.

War Stories Echo an Earlier Winter
Steve Vogel, Washington Post
Saturday, March 15, 2008

Grim-faced and sorrowful, former soldiers and Marines sat before an audience of several hundred yesterday in Silver Spring and shared their recollections of their service in Iraq.

The stories spilled out, sometimes haltingly, sometimes in a rush: soldiers firing indiscriminately on Iraqi vehicles, an apartment building filled with Iraqi families devastated by an American gunship. Some descriptions were agonized, some vague; others offered specific dates and locations. All were recorded and streamed live to the Web.

The four-day event, “Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan — Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations,” is sponsored by Iraq Veterans Against the War and is expected to draw more than 200 veterans of the two wars through tomorrow. Timed for the eve of the fifth anniversary of the war’s start next week, organizers hope the soldiers’ accounts will galvanize public opposition.

For some of the veterans speaking yesterday, the experience was catharsis.

Former Marine Jon Turner began his presentation by ripping his service medals off his shirt and tossing them into the first row. He then narrated a series of graphic photographs showing bloody victims and destruction, bringing gasps from the audience. In a matter-of-fact voice, he described episodes in which he and fellow Marines shot people out of fear or retribution.

“I’m sorry for the hate and destruction I’ve inflicted upon innocent people,” Turner said. “Until people hear about what is happening in this war, it will continue.”

Winter Soldier is modeled after a well-known and controversial 1971 gathering of the same name at which veterans of the Vietnam War gathered to describe alleged atrocities. John Kerry, then a young veteran, spoke at the Detroit event, which brought him to prominence. The soldiers’ claims sparked lasting enmity, which resurfaced during Kerry’s run for president in 2004.

The 2008 Winter Soldier will probably be no different. The event drew dozens of counter-protesters who were kept from the conference site at the National Labor College by a contingent of Montgomery County police. Although entrance to the event was limited to participants and the media, one protester managed to slip in and walked toward the stage, interrupting a speaker.

“Kerry lied while good men died, and you guys are betraying good men,” the man yelled. The protester was roughly hustled from the room by several men in red knit shirts and jeans — members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, who are providing security for the event.

Counter-protesters outside derided the event and were deeply skeptical of the claims being made inside. “We want absolute specifics,” said Harry Riley, a retired Army colonel who leads Eagles Up!. “This is too important to our nation. The credibility of our nation and the credibility of our soldiers are involved.”

Riley said those making allegations against the U.S. military should have to give sworn testimony instead of speaking at an antiwar conference.

Organizers said they have sought to verify the records of all soldiers speaking, including reviewing their service records and talking to other members of units. Some soldiers had videos and photographs, which were displayed yesterday on a large screen in the auditorium.

“The ubiquitous nature of video, photo and technology really sets this apart” from the original Winter Soldier, said Jose Vasquez, an IVAW member who directed the verification process. Organizers and speakers said Winter Soldier is not meant to vilify soldiers. Instead, they said, it is aimed at changing war policy.

“These are not bad people, not criminals and not monsters,” said Cliff Hicks, 23, a former 1st Armored Division soldier from Savannah, Ga., who spoke about his experiences in Iraq. “They are people being put in horrible situations, and they reacted horribly.”

A Defense Department spokesman said he had not seen the allegations raised yesterday but added that such incidents are not representative of U.S. conduct.

“When isolated allegations of misconduct have been reported, commanders have conducted comprehensive investigations to determine the facts and held individuals accountable when appropriate,” Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros said.

Yesterday’s panels included two sessions on “Rules of Engagement,” in which soldiers and Marines described in emotional and often graphic terms incidents in which they said unarmed and innocent civilians were killed.

Most of the stories involved Iraq, though some took place in Afghanistan.

Two former soldiers who served with the 1st Armored Division described an attack by an AC-130 “Spectre” gunship on an apartment building in southern Baghdad that they said took place Nov. 13, 2003.

“It was the most destructive thing I’ve seen, before or since,” said Hicks, one of the soldiers.

Adam Kokesh, a student at George Washington University who served with the Marine Corps in Iraq, said Marines were often forced to make snap decisions about whether to fire on civilians.

“During the siege of Fallujah, we changed our rules of engagement more often than we changed our underwear,” he said.

On the screen, a photograph showed him posing next to a burned-out car in which an Iraqi man was killed after approaching a Marine checkpoint.

“At the first Winter Soldier in 1971, one of the testifiers showed a picture like this and said, ‘Don’t ever let your government to do this to you,’ ” Kokesh said. “And still the government is doing this.”

At a session on shortcomings in veterans’ health care, audience members sobbed as Joyce and Kevin Lucey described the suicide of their son, Marine Cpl. Jeffrey Lucey, a death they blamed on his inability to get treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Mental health specialists were on hand to help speakers and audience members, and a workshop was offered on PTSD.

Those who spoke yesterday described the experience as intimidating.

“It was terrifying for me,” said Steven Casey, a former 1st Armored Division specialist from Missouri who also described the AC-130 attack. “I knew somebody needed to hear it. All I wanted to do is say what I saw. I’m not accusing anyone of a crime.”

The conference can be viewed at http://www.ivaw.org

Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan War Veterans Speak Out [Photo Essay]
Hundreds of veterans are testifying against war crimes this weekend in Washington, DC. Nina Berman shares their stories.
Nina Berman, AlterNet
March 15, 2008

[open this link to view video, Winter Soldier 2008]

An old woman killed for carrying groceries. Taxi drivers fired upon at will. A man shot dead for opening a door. Anyone carrying a shovel, speaking on a cell phone, standing on a roof, or wearing a green head band risked death.

“People were shot for simply walking down the street of their own city,” testified Marine Sgt. Jason LeMieux.

He was joined by several other soldiers and marines who testified to the daily horrors of occupation I Iraq and Afghanistan on the opening day of Winter Soldier, a 4 day event organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War, (IVAW) at the National Labor College in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Iraq veteran Steven Casey, appearing at his first public event, played a video from a house raid. A woman is screaming. The soldiers raided the wrong house. “Going to the wrong place, destroying the wrong place. This woman will never forget what happened,” said Casey about the humiliation and destruction he caused.

Marine Jon Turner spoke of his first kill. He called the person “the fat man,” and said he was an innocent. His commander celebrated the death. According to Turner, his commander would have given him or any other marine a 4 day leave pass, if his first kill had been by stabbing.

Staring into the audience of veterans, friends, and members of the press, Turner said, .”I am sorry for the hate and destruction I inflicted on innocent people. I am sorry for the things that I did. I am not the monster I once was. ”

He was not the only one to apologize. Many testifiers asked forgiveness for what they had done, had seen, had believed, and called for an immediate end to the occupation.

They challenged the notion that a tightening of the rules of engagement would have any effect.

“These are the consequences of sending young men and women to battle, “said Marine Lance Cpl. Vincent Emanuele.

Emanuele testified to mishandling of corpses saying when bodies were seen on the road, standard procedure was to drive over and smash them or if so inclined, take souvenir photographs. One picture of a decomposed body, ended up as a screen saver.

Perry O’Brien, a medic in Afghanistan, said during an interview, that
Bodies of dead civilians were used as practice cadavers for medics.

The sensational testimony cast a silence over the audience. People shook their heads, stared at the floor, trying to make sense of it.

Sometimes the grimmest stories were not the goriest. Small details cataloguing the daily indignities added up to a sickening picture.

Army veteran Steven Casey would ram his Bradley vehicle into buildings, or take out water lines. He remembers whooping and hollering on a roof top while watching a several buildings being destroyed in an air strike.

Army private Clifton Hicks remembers his friends throwing water bottles, MREs filed with shit, at passing Iraqis. He called it a childish game played in revenge and frustration.

Marine Cpl. Jason Washburn who served 3 tours in Iraq said,
“we would butt stroke them, jab them with muzzles, kick them.

One time there was a guy on a bicycle with a bag filled of groceries, and we smashed up his bicycle.”

In another incident he said, “We were ordered to guard a fuel station - and a bunch of people rushed to get fuel, and we jumped off the truck and charged at the Iraqis and we really beat the hell out of them with rifles, fists, feet, and so once they had fled, broken and bleeding, we mounted up our trucks and left.”

.Many soldiers in different units, deployed at different times and locations, spoke about carrying drop weapons and shovels that could be planted on people in order to make the dead look like they were insurgents.

This was commonly encouraged, but only behind closed doors,” said Washburn.

The panel testimony ended with videotaped stories of Iraqis who had been wounded or lost loved ones as a result of U.S. military action.

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

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