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Cuomo Takes on The Money Party
Bank of America Looks Like First of Many
"This merger (Bank of America and Merrill Lynch) is a classic example of how the actions of our nation’s largest financial institutions led to the near-collapse of our financial system," said Attorney General Cuomo. "Bank of America, through its top management, engaged in a concerted effort to deceive shareholders and American taxpayers at large. This was an arrogant scheme hatched by the bank’s top executives who believed they could play by their own set of rules. In the end, they committed an enormous fraud and American taxpayers ended up paying billions for Bank of America’s misdeeds." (Image)
New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo
Andrew Cuomo's complaint filed in the New York Supreme Court, County of New York against the Bank of America and two former top executives has the potential to push that too big to fail entity off the edge of a very steep cliff. The charges of massive fraud are based on a compelling and exhaustive filing on February 4.
A trial will likely involve testimony by the current Bank of America CEO and President Brian Moynihan against defendants Kenneth Lewis, the bank's former CEO and board chairman, former chief financial officer (CFO) Joseph L. Price, and the bank itself. Price is currently in charge of BofA's credit card division.
In tea party address, Palin stokes the anti-rights fire
Mary Shaw
On February 6th, Sarah Palin gave the keynote address at a tea party convention in Nashville.
As expected, I disagreed with just about everything Palin said. However, there was one part of her speech in particular that really got my blood boiling: She propagated the lie that the would-be Christmas airline bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, stopped talking after he was read his Miranda rights. The right wing likes to use that talking point to further their belief that terrorism suspects deserve no rights.
The Washington Post described that portion of her speech as follows:
"Serving up fiery rhetoric with a broad smile, she attacked the administration's policies on the economy and on national security, assailing in particular the decision to read Miranda rights to the man accused of attempting to bomb a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day.
'Treating this like a mere law enforcement matter places our country at great risk because that's not how radical Islamic extremists are looking at this,' Palin said to thunderous applause. 'They know we're at war, and to win that war we need a commander in chief, not a professor of law standing at the lectern.'"
American Empire - Part One
By Timothy V. Gatto
I stopped trusting the United States a long time ago. I find it very hard to believe anything that comes from the federal government. I am convinced that both major political parties have the same agenda; world domination. I also believe that Congress has lost most of the power reserved for it by the United States Constitution. The Bush administration greatly expanded Executive Branch power, especially in the area of military operations. The Authorization for the Use of Force passed in 2002 had a stipulation that the Executive Branch must report to Congress every 60 days on how the AUOF was being used. (Public Law 107-243, Oct 16, 2002). This practice to my knowledge is not being followed by the Obama Administration in violation of the law. This means that the President, by not informing Congress on the use of force covered by the authorization every 60 days, is guilty of breaking the law. This gives the President carte blanche to use military force without any supervision by Congress in violation of the War Powers Act and the Constitution. I believe that this wanton disregard for the law is far more dangerous to our republic than President Clinton having oral sex with an intern for which he was impeached by the House of Representatives. The American people seem to be learning deceit from the top down.
Time for an American Intifada?
by Jeff Gates
During the 1960 Christmas season, Americans flocked to the theaters to see Exodus, a 3-1/2 hour epic film featuring handsome freedom fighters and a riveting romance amidst the heroic triumph of Jewish Destiny over Arab Evil Doers. Set against a Yuletide backdrop of Biblical prophecy, moviegoers marveled as exiled Jews returned to their fabled promised land, a staple of popular culture to which Americans are first exposed as children in “Sunday school.”
Many moviegoers failed to realize that Exodus was not fact but fiction. Even now, few Americans realize the storyline was adapted for the screen from a 1958 novel by Leon Uris. The biggest bestseller since Gone with the Wind—a novel set during the Civil War of the 1860s—the film adaptation was directed by Hollywood icon Otto Preminger. The blockbuster’s stars included a young Paul Newman with his leading lady a blond Eva Marie Saint.
Walk a Mile...
By Sheila Samples
I know you need your sleep now, I know your life's been hard. But many men are falling, where you promised to stand guard. ~~Leonard Cohen
My friend Bernie says he's suffering from Afghanistan information exhaustion. "During all those months that Obama was dragging his feet about escalating the war in Afghanistan, did you ever get the impression," he asked, "that foxes were in the hen house, chickens were squawking and running around crazily, wolves were tearing the foxes to pieces, and farmers were shooting wildly into the coop with no regard for the innocent?"
Why the CIA is the World's Number One Terrorist Organization
by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy
The time has come to abolish the CIA --t into a thousand pieces --as JFL had promised! Its leadership should be dismissed and investigated. Where there is probable cause, CIA members should be investigated and tried for crimes against humanity.
The CIA, itself a ruthless, terrorist organization inspires terrorism in response. In some cases, notably the CIA and al Qaeda, the relationship between the CIA and terrorism is symbiotic. The CIA perpetuates an "American Holocaust", the deaths of some 6 million people from its inception to the year 1987. For as Long as the CIA Exists, the US will never be safe from terrorism. It has long been time to realize JFK's dream of smashing the CIA into a 'thousand pieces'.
CIA operations follow the same recurring script. First, American business interests abroad are threatened by a popular or democratically elected leader. The people support their leader because he intends to conduct land reform, strengthen unions, redistribute wealth, nationalize foreign-owned industry, and regulate business to protect workers, consumers and the environment. So, on behalf of American business, and often with their help, the CIA mobilizes the opposition. First it identifies right-wing groups within the country (usually the military), and offers them a deal: "We'll put you in power if you maintain a favorable business climate for us." The Agency then hires, trains and works with them to overthrow the existing government (usually a democracy).
--Steve Kangas, A Timeline of CIA Atrocities
Human Rights Abuses in Israel and Occupied Palestine
by Stephen Lendman
Founded in 1972, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) is its leading human and civil rights organization through activities involving litigation, legal advocacy, education, and public outreach. Each year it publishes an annual report covering flagrant violations, positive trends, if any, and "significant human rights-related processes" affecting Israelis and Palestinians.
Its latest December 2009 one is examined below, discussing "a disturbing (government-sponsored) trend that has (gained) currency in Israel over the past year - both in public discourse and sometimes in practice - to make human rights conditional: on fulfilling some obligation, having financial means, or belonging (or not belonging) to certain groups." For example, free expression is targeted, and Israeli Arabs threatened, denied equality, education, employment, and their citizenship without "declaring loyalty" to Israel - in other words, on condition they abandon their national identity, culture, language, and historic heritage that's the equivalent of asking Jews to renounce Judaism.
The Real World: Tehran
By Keith Johnson
CIA... no reason to doubt that they are engaged in flooding drugs into Iran
Kill ‘em all, and let God sort ‘em out - Anonymous
As the drums beat against the backdrop of a U.S. military buildup in the Persian Gulf, war with Iran seems more inevitable than it does likely. But does Iran pose a real threat to our national security or are they being used as a convenient scapegoat to divert the American people’s attention away from an impending financial collapse here at home?
War has always been used as a good exit strategy from the economic turmoil our banking masters create for us. Both world wars were initiated to face down fiscal meltdowns and it appears likely that they are using that same strategy to justify a third. But don’t expect to hear any mention of that once the shelling begins. It will be all about Ahmadinejad and the fictitious nuclear weapons program he has stashed away in his basement. That’s right! Same lie…different guy.
The Precautionary Principle
Gary Kohls
The Precautionary Principle says that a culture, a business or an individual should err on the side of caution when new chemicals, technologies, food additives, drugs, etc are introduced into the environment – and only then when there is absolute proof that the substances are not dangerous to the environment, which includes humans, animals, the water supply, the soil and the air.
Therefore, when a new product that has the potential to adversely affect the environment (even years or decades into the future) is proposed for marketing, the Precautionary Principle demands that adequate and aggressive study by agencies totally independent of Big Business) be undertaken until it is proven to be totally safe.
Mr. Obama, You Need to Forcefully Take the Lead
By Emily Spence
Mr. President,
It is easy to understand that you are beholden to corporate interests in a number of diverse ways, which could limit your sense of options relative to unrestrained fossil fuel use. Yet, we, all together, cannot face run-away climate change, weak support for constructive energy programs, unbridled economic growth, barely regulated free trade, ever expanding resource wars, critical resource depletions (involving water, minerals, oil and so forth), high extinction rates for multitudinous species, overall environmental ruin, increasing overpopulation, grossly inequitable sharing of global wealth and other dire conditions, and all of which are interconnected, without your forcefully taking the lead to address them and doing so in a holistic tough fashion.
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