Disaster in Iowa, Bush is MIA yet AGAIN

Source: Larisa Alexandrovna, at-Largely.

Nearly three years ago as people were drowning in NOLA, the so-called leader of this nation dashed eagerly from one side of the country to another -fund-raising for his party- without a moment’s care for his fellow Americans in their time of crisis. In fact, whenever a national crisis has occurred, Bush has been conspicuously absent. During the fourth or fifth day of the Katrina massacre and the missing leadership of this nation, I wrote the following:

We have no leadership, no captain at the helm as it were. We are, in effect, being led from disaster to disaster by a headless horseman run amok with stuffed pockets and an empty conscience.

We are here, again. This time in Iowa, where tens of thousands of Americans are without a home, many dead, many injured and once again, during this national crisis Bush is busy playing voodoo politics (This time in Europe).

Here is what is happening in Iowa:
More national guard troops deploy into disaster territory
Iowa in a drinking water emergency
Culver City, 36,000 homeless
Des Moines is mostly underwater
Death toll as of today at 20 (from what they have been able to determine in the chaos)
83 Iowa Counties declared disaster zones

Where is the god-damn president of this nation? After Bush was told on 9/11 that the nation was under attack, he did not even turn around to ask if the attack happened to be nuclear. He ate cake with John McCain while the people in and around NOLA died, begging for help. He is once again MIA in a time of crisis now. Is it that George W. Bush does not consider Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, and New York as part of the Union? I remember Kanye West saying “George Bush does not care about black people,” and thinking it probably right. But I have come to reconsider that opinion. It is not that George Bush does not care about black people in particular, he simply does not care about Americans. It is that simple. His legacy – on which he often opines with great pride – will be a single ground zero, like a crater the size of the moon, filled with ashes, bones, bodies, and the stench of lies and decaying flesh.

And the media? Well, you don’t even have to wonder. Tim Russert has passed and therefor all news will be suspended until further notice.

Bush Tries to Raid Salmon Disaster Funds

Good lord, I can’t wait for this rotten administration to be out of office.

Source: Dan Bacher, t r u t h o u t.

West Coast representatives and leaders of fishing groups are outraged over an attempt by the White House to yank $70 million in disaster funding from commercial and recreational fishermen in order to pay for the 2010 US Census.

The Bush administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on Monday, June 9, sent a proposal to Congress to amend the president’s budget and take back $70 million of the $180 million West Coast representatives had put into the farm bill for disaster assistance for fishermen devastated by fishing closures off California and Oregon and in Central Valley rivers.

West Coast Democrats reacted to the proposal by sending an angry letter to President Bush. They called “unconscionable” his proposal to deny the disaster funding to fishermen and use it to pay for a failed contract with the Harris Corporation. Harris, assigned to do the 2010 Census, was forced due to serious mismanagement to abandon its plans for using handheld computers to conduct the census and will have to conduct a costly paper census.

“This proposal is especially egregious when you consider that your administration’s water policies on all of the Pacific Northwest’s major salmon rivers are the reason this disaster funding is needed in the first place,” the letter said.

The representatives noted that three different courts have found the administration’s water plans for the Sacramento, Klamath and Columbia/Snake Rivers to be illegal and in violation of the Endangered Species Act.

“These failed policies have resulted in over 80,000 dead adult salmon in the Klamath River, record low returns to the Sacramento and Columbia/Snake River systems, two fishery disaster declarations issued by the secretary of commerce and two years of fishing closures impacting thousands of families and small businesses,” the letter continued. “The states of California, Oregon and Washington estimated this year’s closure alone will have a $290 million impact on these fishing communities. Scientists expect similar low returns to the Sacramento next year and another closed season for most of the West Coast.”

California Representatives Mike Thompson, Anna Eshoo, Doris Matsui, Lois Capps, Lynn Woolsey and Sam Farr; Oregon Representatives Peter DeFazio, Darlene Hooley, Earl Blumenauer and David Wu, and Washington Representatives Jim McDermott, Brian Baird, Rick Larsen and Jay Inslee signed the letter.

“To suggest that the money to pay for this contract mistake is diverted from emergency disaster payments is yet another blow delivered by your administration to the fishing families and small businesses in the Pacific Northwest,” they stated. “It is a clear sign that your administration is not committed to protecting these river systems and has no interest in helping the fishing communities and economies reliant on them.”

Dick Pool, president of Pro-Troll Fishing Products and coordinator of Water for Fish [www.water4fish.org], said news of the attempted raid of the disaster relief was “very distressing considering the devastating financial impact that the salmon fishing closure is having on the recreational and commercial fishing industries of California.”

“I’m not surprised to see Bush trying to take away needed money from our community,” said Mike Hudson, president of the Small Boat Commercial Fisherman’s Association and coordinator of the SalmonAid Festival that took place in Oakland on May 31 and June 1. “Through his actions over the last few years, he has told us time and again that we don’t matter to him. What would you expect from a man who wants to declare dams as natural structures and lets rivers run dry? That he would allow a dime to find its way into the pockets of hard-working people who oppose these dams, diversions and pollution of our waters?“

The Bush and Schwarzenegger administrations continue to blame “ocean conditions” for the sudden and unprecedented collapse of Sacramento River fall run chinook salmon, while a broad coalition of recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, Indian Tribes and conservationists contends that increased water exports from the California Delta and declining water quality play a major role in the collapse. The Central Valley fall chinook population has declined from over 800,000 fish in 2002 to under 60,000 this year.

The decline of the Central Valley fall run chinook parallels the collapse of four pelagic (open water) species – delta smelt, longfin smelt, juvenile striped bass and threadfin shad – in recent years. A panel of state and federal scientists has pinpointed changes in water exports as the No. 1 reason for the collapse, followed by toxics and invasive species.

More recently, two studies conducted by Richard Dugdale, a San Francisco State University oceanographer, contend that ammonia from Sacramento’s treated sewage discharge may be killing Delta smelt and other species (Stockton Record, June 11).

Fortunately, it is unlikely that the White House will be able to push Bush’s proposal through Congress, based on strong opposition from both Democrats and Republicans.

“This request is a slap in the face to the scores of salmon fishermen in Oregon who are struggling to make ends meet in the wake of the largest salmon closure in West Coast history,” said Senator Gordon H. Smith (R-Oregon). “Rest assured there will be a strong bipartisan effort to ensure that these cuts don’t go through.”

McCain: Habeas Corpus a Privilege not a Right

By Scott Ritsema, via War on You.

By now, it is widely known that the Supreme Court has weighed in on the debate over the rights of the prisoners at Gitmo. The court has stated that the detainees’ habeas corpus rights (the protection against an indefinite detention without charges and a trial) ought to be respected.

Referring to the human beings who are still being detained at Guantanamo Bay, McCain stated, “These are people who are not citizens. They do not and never have been given the rights that citizens in this country have” (emphasis added).

So our rights are given to us? Interesting.

I might ask McCain at the out-set, since you apparently believe that only citizens have rights (presumably “given” to them in the Constitution) where exactly in text of the Constitution does the Constitution give this right the right of habeas corpus?You won’t find it. The Constitution only puts limits on the removal of habeas corpus, which implies that human beings possess this right naturally, and that habeas corpus is not some peculiar civil privilege, such as welfare, or some right that only citizens have, such as voting in our elections.

Similarly, human beings possess the rights in the Bill of Rights naturally, and as such, government is prevented from infringing upon them in the first ten amendments to the Constitution. But the rights are not granted by the government or the Constitution; we already had the rights as human beings!

I recommend that McCain read the Declaration of Independence. He has admitted that he is ignorant of economics, so perhaps he needs to brush up on his political theory and History, as well.

The Declaration of Independence declares the self-evident truth that God gave us our rights and that we are “endowed by our creator” with “unalienable rights,” such as, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Unalienable. Can’t be taken away. God-given natural rights. This is extremely important. Pay attention.

You see, if governments have “given” you “rights,” well then guess who can take them away at their will. Governments! McCain’s dangerous philosophy of rights as privileges is a recipe for tyranny. Government gives us our liberty? Is he serious? Well then that makes the state our god.

In reality, when something is granted, it is not a right at all. Something that is granted is, by nature, a mere privilege that can be revoked upon the whim of the entity which granted it-in this case, government…a scary notion, indeed.

A right, on the other hand, is unalienably possessed by somebody because he is the rightful owner of his life, liberty, and property. His own body, his thoughts, his decisions to move about, his money and possessions, etc.

These rights are his naturally. They are his property.

Rights are rooted in ownership of the property in question, and this very concept is God-ordained, thus we say that our rights are “God-given.”

They are NOT granted by government. They are NOT merely a privilege of citizenship.

Under the American philosophy of government where our rights are natural, or God-given, we have the power of free action that is limited only by the equal rights of others. And only when we impede upon the rights of others can government legitimately intervene to punish the criminal aggressor…and it can only do that through due process (they have to prove your guilt in a fair, speedy, jury trial).

The right of habeas corpus has been recognized as a basic right since the Magna Carta.

McCain is reversing the progress of human rights 800 years.

It doesn’t take the great mind of an ACLU liberal to figure this out.

As Ronald Reagan said, “The very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.” McCain, once again, betrays conservative values of limited government and God-given property rights. His is the view that the state is supreme.

Liberty and justice for all. But for McCain…just the privileged few. Just pray that you stay in the good graces of an arbitrary McCain government, because where the government grants “rights,” it can take them away. So watch yourself dissenters…especially because McCain has a “volcanic temper.” Will the American people let this man be the next ‘decider’?

Nearly Half of Wall St. Bank Profits Are Gone

Source: LOUISE STORY, New York Times.

Only a year ago, Wall Street reveled in an era of superlatives: record deals, record profit, record pay. But a mere 12 months later, nearly half of the profits that major banks reaped during that age of riches have vanished.

The numbers are staggering. Between early 2004 and mid-2007, a period of unprecedented wealth on Wall Street, seven of the nation’s largest financial companies earned a combined $254 billion in profits.

But since last July, those same banks — Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley — have written down the value of the assets they hold by $107.2 billion, gutting their earnings and share prices. Worldwide, the reckoning totals $380 billion, much of which reflects a plunge in the value of tricky mortgage investments.

More downbeat news is expected this week, when several big banks, including the ailing Lehman Brothers, are scheduled to report results for the latest quarter. As the tally of losses keeps growing, many bank executives — and their shareholders — keep asking the same question: When will the pain end?

But the finish line just seems to keep moving further away. Even when the losses end, bank executives are looking toward a new era of lower returns, thinner profits and fewer jobs. Greater scrutiny from regulators is forcing Wall Street firms to reduce their use of leverage, or borrowed money, which had fueled profits in good times but backfired when the credit crisis struck last summer. Nearly every finance company is cutting jobs and battening down.

“They are going to have to build a new business model,” Richard X. Bove, a financial services analyst at Ladenburg Thalmann & Co., said of investment banks. “I do not believe those businesses have the ability to generate the kind of profit they did in recent years without all the leverage.”

The threats to the broader financial system have receded in large part because of the extraordinary government-led effort to rescue Bear Stearns. And Wall Street seems to have the ability to come back from just about any downturn with new ways to churn even greater riches. That new, new thing may already be brewing across Bloomberg terminals and trading desks.

For now, investors are not holding out hope. They have dumped bank stocks with each round of bad news, and recently the financial sector lost its perch atop the nation’s stock market. The combined value of technology shares, those darlings of yesteryear, has eclipsed that of financial stocks. And the energy sector is not far behind.

Lehman Brothers sent shock waves across Wall Street last week, when the bank disclosed that it expected to post a quarterly loss of $2.8 billion. The bank, which has been struggling to win back investors’ confidence, is scheduled to provide more details of those results on Monday.

Lehman executives gathered at the bank’s Manhattan headquarters over the weekend, fueling speculation that the bank might try to raise capital from investors or even seek a buyer. A Lehman spokeswoman declined to comment.

Lehman, which for months had assured investors that it was managing its risks well, said last week that the loss reflected $4.1 billion in write-downs of its investments.

Goldman Sachs is scheduled to report results on Tuesday, followed by Morgan Stanley on Wednesday. Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan and Merrill Lynch release results in July.

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are expected to have fared better than Lehman did in the latest quarter. They are more diversified than Lehman, which has traditionally focused on fixed income. And the two banks’ commodities traders may have profited handsomely in recent months as the prices for oil and foodstuffs have soared. Even so, many investors are anxious to see whether Goldman, which made money last year even as many of its rivals lost big, has continued to dodge trouble.

The latest round of results is likely to draw special scrutiny because Wall Street firms are disclosing capital levels under new international banking standards known as Basel II. And Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and UBS are also expected to suffer from the ratings downgrades recently issued for MBIA and Ambac, two bond reinsurers.

The more that banks take write-downs, the more they are, in a sense, shredding through the record profits they made when times were good. Citigroup, for example, has written down its mortgage and other loan investments by $37.3 billion or a full half of the handsome profits the global giant pulled in during the boom years.

Merrill Lynch, much smaller in size, has taken write-downs of $32.6 billion — or a whopping 153 percent of its profits from 2004 through last summer. Even if Merrill is given credit for the money it earned in the past year, the bank still had write-downs that translated into losses of $14 billion, and that is two-thirds of its profits in those three and a half years that ended with a pop last July.

“It’s a fairly unique situation, that you would give so much back,” said Alec Young, global equity strategist for Standard & Poor’s Equity Research. “The industry did enjoy real salad days over that period, but now the write-downs and losses have been so huge. It’s a significant percentage of the money generated.”

Even the winners in this cycle — JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs — have had to pull out giant erasers to work through their loan books. JPMorgan, which had the financial heft to buy Bear Stearns, wiped out 15 percent of recent profits by lowering the values of its loan and mortgage assets. At Goldman, the cost of such write-downs is so far 12 percent of recent profits.

The banks are supposed to be especially good at valuing all the lumps of loans and assets they own. That is why many a Wall Street bonus is based on estimates of hard-to-value dealings in arcane assets. The very mortgage bonds that are now being written down, in fact, led to hefty bonuses for bank employees before the good times ended.

Some analysts predict that independent brokerage houses will merge with commercial banks, if the government begins regulating them. That uncertainty leaves executives at these companies unsure of how to plan for the future, said David Trone, an analyst at Fox-Pitt Kelton Cochran Caronia Waller, who is predicting bank consolidation.

“We’re in a weird limbo now,” Mr. Trone said.

Call for bloggers to boycott AP

Source: Chris Floyd, Empire Burlesque.

Disassociative Disorder: Pushing Back Against AP’s Heavy Hand

As usual, our own webmaster and co-founder, Rich Kastelein (“il miglior fabbro“), has gotten way out in front on an important issue, setting up – in a matter of hours – a new website dedicated to the boycott of AP. The news service has trained its legal guns on bloggers who commit the shameless crime of, er, quoting AP stories, thereby giving the organization literally priceless recognition and publicity reaching millions of readers every day. AP seems to think that the newspapers, networks and other venues who desperately need the vast range of content provided by the service every day will suddenly cancel their contracts if some blogger quotes three paragraphs of an AP story somewhere. Well, corporate logic has never been famous for its rigor and coherence.

The boycott campaign urges bloggers to use other sources until AP calls off the dogs. My personal recommendation is McClatchy (formerly Knight-Ridder), which for years has been head and shoulders above any other American news service – and has now surpassed itself with a series laying bare the injustice and brutality of Bush’s Terror War gulag. (More on this later.)

So check out “UnAssociated Press” – and check off AP from your list of linkees until they lay off.