♪♫ Yvonne Shine's Global Ghetto ♫♪

...Uh huh, I'm Back....

noreply@blogger.com (US Princess) — Wed, 30 May 2012 22:57:00 +0000

I promise I'll do better, but I've been busy....

"Noah Knew" "Blow Ye the Trumpet"

noreply@blogger.com (US Princess) — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 23:59:00 +0000

Joel 2:1 ¶ Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the LORD cometh, for [it is] nigh at hand;

Times been tough for you? Have life situations been extremely stressful? Are you wondering why there is no relief to be found in churches, no matter their denomination? Are you constantly dealing with trial after trial, with no relief in sight?

Well, it is because God is preparing the world for judgment:
"For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. Matthew 24:21.
The Great Tribulation lasts 23 years, from May 21, 1988, when the Holy Spirit was removed from all churches, to May 21, 2011. Seven thousand years (see 2 Peter 2:8) after God destroyed the world with a great flood, which occurred according to the Hebrew calendar, "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, (Genesis 7:11)" which is May 21, 2011 on our calendar, God will bring judgment on the world. Are you ready?

A great number that no man can number will come out of this great tribulation:  Because we only have a few months left, and because God has instructed true believers to sound the trumpet, all posts made here until May 21, 2011, will be posts that deal with the most serious matter of anyone's life:
A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, [even] to the years of many generations.  A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land [is] as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them. Joel 2:2-3
I do not want anyone's blood on my hands: Ezekiel 33 -
2 Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman:

3 If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people;

4 Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head.

5 He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul.

6 But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take [any] person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand.

It is going to happen; God always warns before bringing destruction.

Noah and his family knew. Genesis 6:13, 22:
And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.

Abraham and Lot knew: Genesis 18:23-Genesis 19:16:
23 And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?

24 Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that [are] therein?

25 That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?

26 And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.

27 And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which [am but] dust and ashes:

28 Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou destroy all the city for [lack of] five? And he said, If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy [it].

29 And he spake unto him yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty found there. And he said, I will not do [it] for forty's sake.

30 And he said [unto him], Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: Peradventure there shall thirty be found there. And he said, I will not do [it], if I find thirty there.

31 And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord: Peradventure there shall be twenty found there. And he said, I will not destroy [it] for twenty's sake.

32 And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy [it] for ten's sake.
33 And the LORD went his way, as soon as he had left communing with Abraham: and Abraham returned unto his place.

12 ¶ And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides? son in law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring [them] out of this place:

13 For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the LORD; and the LORD hath sent us to destroy it.

14 And Lot went out, and spake unto his sons in law, which married his daughters, and said, Up, get you out of this place; for the LORD will destroy this city. But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons in law.

15 ¶ And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.

16 And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the LORD being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city.
The people of Nineveh knew, repented and were saved. (Read the book of Jonah)

And now we know.
Before their face the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness. Joel 2:6
The Latter Rain

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EBible Fellowship
And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Revelation 7:14

ARRA, NELP -- Hope and Help for Surviving the 21st Century Depression

noreply@blogger.com (US Princess) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 04:58:00 +0000

“It is murder, psychologically to deprive a [person] of a job or an income. You are in substance saying to them that they have no right to exist. You are in a real way depriving them of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, denying in their case the very creed of their society.” — Martin Luther King, Jr., The Trumpet of Conscience, 1967

In what has officially been labeled the Great Recession that is, said to have begun in December 2007--at least one major economist sounded the alarm as early as September 2006-- nearly 20% of the US work force remains unemployed or underemployed. Last month, the US unemployment rate "surprised" analysts and the federal government when it hit 10.2% last month. Millions of us are sinking deeper and deeper into the economic miasma. Some economists expostulate that this recession's jobless recoverty is a carry-over from the jobless recoveries of the late 20th and early 21st century recessions; most agree that it will get worse before it gets better.

The US jobless rate is getting bleaker as evidenced by the following:

In September, 2009, the latest month available, the number of job openings was only 2.5 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Estimates, as of November 10, 2009. In other words, there are at least 10 job-seekers for each available job. As NELP Board of Directors Chair Beth Shulman testified before the US Senate Finance Committee on Sept. 15, 2009:

“[T]he crisis of job loss and joblessness is severe and continuing. Employers are still shedding tens of thousands of jobs each week, and unemployment is likely to exceed 10% by the end of this year and remain high through at least 2010. . . . Now is not the moment to pull the plug on America’s jobless workers or to deal a body blow to the nation’s nascent economic recovery."

Seven weeks after the US House of Representatives passed an incomplete HR 3548, a few seemingly decent senators tweaked the bill to include every unemployed person in every state, the US Senate finally passed the third "emergency" unemployment extension since November 2008. President Obama immediately signed it into law November 6. While it isn't retroactive--November 8 began the first benefit week, and while the sunset date for millions of jobless who have yet to reach the next UI benefits tier is set to expire by the end of 2009, millions of unemployed who have survived months without income of any kind breathed a sigh of frustrated relief as we find ourselves and our families either homeless or at the precipice of homelessness.

I'll be posting resources for the unemployed as I discover them and, in some cases, posting the assistance i may or may not receive through the programs.

National Employment Law Project ("NELP")

I like these people, though I've never met them.
Imagine having free online access to attorneys who specialize in employment law and labor. Imagine that they spend their days lobbying for living and minimum wages, workplace standards employment, immigrant work issues, economic and workforce development, wage and hour protections, and unemployment insurance. Now breathe deeply and give thanks that, each day, Christine Owens, Andrew Stettner, Annette Bernhardt, Maurice Emsellem, and their expert legal team are the compassionate eagles working for UE benefits-exhausted you in the hallowed halls of congress pro bono (without cost). NELP attorneys have committed their careers to representing tens of millions in the US the labor force. Most excellent lobbyists for the millions of us under- and unemployed persons. If you are not already registered, go to http://www.unemployedworkers.org/ and do so.

Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program

On February 17, 2009, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which includes $1.5 billion for a Homelessness Prevention Fund. Funding for this program, called the Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program (HPRP), is being distributed based on the formula used for the Emergency Shelter Grants (ESG) program.

I am currently seeking their help but, because of EDD's extremely slow update of their "computer system," I am unable to totally access the program until I receive a notice of determination of eligibility for benefits. I am working on it.

For additional information on the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), please visit HUD's ARRA page, or http://www.recovery.gov/.

Things That Need Saying

A self-described employed conservative commenter on the last blog I posted said that I should cease and desist from sitting before the computer blogging and "get off my a** and look for a job." Because, you know, obviously if I am posting a blog every month or two, I must not be looking for work. . . . My only comment to them is whatever.

To generate income, from time to time, I will be writing blog ads and including advertising links on Global Ghetto. I need money and dough is dough.

When Elected Officials Do Nothing . . .Updated

noreply@blogger.com (US Princess) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:32:00 +0000

"If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich." *

UPDATE: As of Wednesday, October 21, 2009, the majority democratic Senators continue to pay lip service to the passing of HR 3548 the bill that would extend benefits to the nearly one million who have exhausted theirs and have absolutely zero income, some for more than 3 months now. As for the opposition party, after several democratic senators took to the chamber floor on Monday, ostensibly urging "swift" passage of the extension, and reading what in another world at another time would have been moving and compassionate letters from consitutents, the minority republican senators continued ignoring the bill, using their floor minutes to discuss various and sundry other bills now in the senate, including the hallowed health care bill. Meanwhile, we continue to fall farther behind in our rent and/or mortgages and other utilities bills.

To illustrate how massive ineptness has permeated all levels of government in its epic failure to service We the People, I received a notice in the mail from Los Angeles County that my food stamp benefits would end on October 31, 2009, because I had not submitted the Q7, a quarterly report that I completed and returned in the enclosed county stamped and addressed envelope three weeks to the day that I received the notice. I called the District Office and was told not to remail the form because the "mail was slow" and they "were behind in processing the forms because of Columbus Day and the furlough days." So, because of adminstrative problems unrelated to recipients in anyway, the recipients are the ones who are penalized. Because I had no bus fare, not even one thin dime, I had to walk to the office to turn in a duplicate report.

On Tuesday, October 20, 2009, ABC World News with Charles Gibson ran a feature on poverty, and the statistics they gave were staggering. The main reason that poverty is climbing so fast and so quickly in the US? You guessed it: Rising unemployment. "Next year it will be worse, no question," said Ron Haskins, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a former White House and congressional advisor on welfare issues. "One of the main causes is rising unemployment and the numbers we have now is only through 2008."

Yet, the Neros of the Senate continue to fiddle while their constituents burn.

Government at all levels--county, municipal, state and federal--is an unmitigated travesty and does not serve the people it is supposed to, and does not care that it doesn't serve them.

7.1 million Americans 65 and older live in poverty, 3 million more than the previous estimate.
27 million people between the ages of 18 and 64.
13.3 million children live in poverty.

Remember, these are 2008 numbers. By the time the 2010 census begins next year, many who have slipped into poverty this year may be homeless and thus unable to participate in the census program.

Like over 15 million others in the US these days, I am unemployed. I have been unemployed since December 2007.

As with 100s of thousands around the nation, even my federal extension benefits have dried up; I received my last check the last week of August, and now have no income.

In July, when the National Employment Law Project (NELP) released a press statement warning that Americans were already running out of their only source of income in a worsening jobs market, the US Congress promised they would address the problem upon their return from their usual August recess that lasts until the Tuesday after Labor Day.

On September 22, 2009, the US House of Representatives passed HR 3548, an "emergency" bill to extend benefits, with only one potential snafu--the bill only covered the 27 states whose unemployment rates measured 8.5% or above in the previous 3 months. Still, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, assured the jobless and the income-less that the US Senate would take up the legislation "very, very quickly." Yet it was not until Thursday, October 8, 2009, two weeks after HR 3548 passed in the House, that a much better amendment to the bill ensuring extended benefits to all 50 states moved from the Senate Finance Committee. Reid introduced it to the floor for unanimous consent and Senator Jon Kyl, R-AZ and Senate minority whip, objected, and the bill was prevented a quick vote

The following week, the bill was again introduced by Senator Debbie Stabenow, D-MI, whose state's unemployment rate is the highest in the nation at 15% or so, with strong rebukes for stalling the bill delivered by Senator Dick Durbin, D-IL, majority whip, and Senator Sherrod "Columbo" Brown, D-OH. None of them prevailed, and Senator Stabenow's introduction was immediately objected to by Senator Orrin Hatch, R-UT, who was later quoted as saying that he was ""irritated" at the flack his party is receiving from media and the unemployed who are without income.

Meanwhile, families around the country are being evicted from their apartments, losing their homes to foreclosure, having their cars repossessed, unable to buy the necessities like food and diapers for their children, and are generally sliding below the poverty line. We 15 million jobless are competing for 3 million jobs.

While the Senate was unable to pass the emergency unemployment extension either by unanimous consent or forced floor vote, they did manage to pass the following:

Debated and marked up the health care reform bill
Passed a $636 billion defense spending bill
Passed a bill appropriating $32 billion to the Department of the Interior
Passed a $4.6 billion bill to fund both congressional houses, including pay raises for staffers.

Those are just the bills they passed in the week that the emergency UI benefits extension bill moved out of committee and to the floor. Didn't think federal government officials could be more callous? Then continue reading.

In the weeks since the House passed HR 3548 and the US Senate dithered, President Obama's economic advisors not only declared that we were now coming out of the ~~depression~~ recession, in a speech last week, President Obama celebrated the Dow reaching 10,000 for the first time in a year, Goldman-Sachs and Citigroup each reported earnings of over 3 billion in the last quarter, while as of September 30, national unemployment climbed to 9.8%.

Recently in a BBC interview, Nouriel "Dr. Doom" Roubini who, in 2006, predicted severe global economic downturn, warned:

"The real economy still looks very weak" and officials are already "planting the seeds of the next crisis."
Roubini expressed concern for the growing gap between the "bubbly and frothy" stock markets and the real economy and that investors appear to be betting that good times are around the corner. Roubini does not share investors' optimism. "The crisis is not yet over," the New York University professor said. "I see an economy where the consumers are shopped out, debt burdened, they have to cut back consumption and save more. The financial system is damaged... and for the corporate sector I don't see a lot of capital spending because there is a glut of capacity." Property prices have already declined sharply. According to the National Association of Realtors, the national median has dropped almost 13% from a year ago to $177,700 (£110,100). Roubini believes that the "froth" in the markets is engineered by the Federal Reserve and the government which has been pumping cash into the economy to dampen the pain of the recession. "There is a wall of liquidity chasing assets," he said. "But I think that there is a growing gap between the asset prices and the real economy."

While the Neros of the Senate fiddle, NELP calculates that 7,000 unemployed persons a day are losing their only source of income. While the president, Wall Street and the banksters celebrate a return to business as usual, economists who can be trusted say that the unemployment situation is not likely to improve until late 2010, if then, and the official jobless rate is likely to top 10% by that time. In September, employers continued shedding jobs. California, the 8th largest economy in the world, continues to see its job losses climb. According to the California EDD, nearly 40,000 jobs were shed in this state alone. Nationally, employers dumped over 260,000 jobs, meaning that these are jobs that no longer exist.

This is what happens when massive greed and corruption run throughout the financial system, with the assistance and complicity of elected officials, while the same elected representatives--who are supposed to serve the people--pay meager lip service to helping the less fortunate. The US Senate clearly demonstrates that now is not the time to come to the aid of their destitute countrymen, since those most desperately in need of aid aren't corporate lobbyists and don't have the cash to funnel large amounts of money to their campaign funds.

"Economic policy can result from governmental inaction as well as governmental action." *

* President John F. Kennedy

California EDD Unemployment Division: First Time Claimant? Exhausted Both Extensions? On the Verge of Cataclysmic Financial Collapse? Don't Call Us!

noreply@blogger.com (US Princess) — Tue, 05 May 2009 21:11:00 +0000

(And We'll Contact You When We're Good and Ready!)

Unemployed Californians who have exhausted both the second and third unemployment extensions are entangled in further debillitating experiences in their attempts to receive the Fed Extension allocated to the state through President Obama's $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

At 11.2%, our state's unemployment numbers are at its highest since the early 80s such that the trigger for the state's eligibility to receive the Federal Extension--fully paid for by the Feds with absolutely no contributions from California businesses--kicked in before the ink was dry on the President's signature.

Can't blame the governor either since he too signed the Assembly bill on March 27, 2009, immediately after its passage in the state legislature. Most claimants on their second extension have already received their last week's check the week ending April 11, 2009.

But we can and should blame the extremely poor service delivery by EDD because, despite the governor's allocation of funds to improve service by hiring new workers, increasing office hours, etc., EDD remains totally unprepared for this extension just as for the first and second extensions. What's more they could care less that many are on the verge--if they haven't already arrived--of having their utilties disconnected, being evicted, and just generally unable to do anything for their families because they don't even know if they're going to receive further meager biweekly checks.

While the number of those who, to quote EDD, "may be eligible" for this third extension "of up to 20 weeks" is said to be anywhere from 75,000 to a half million, as of May 5, 2009, few if any have been notified of their eligibility, let alone received claim forms.

Unfortunately, calling EDD gets destitute claimants absolutely nothing. If you are fortunate enough to get through, unfortunately the chance of getting any information, let alone correct information is virtually null and void. Most of California's long term unemployed have already lost their homes, and their sense of worth is being hammered into the ground by the epic failure of EDD.

No one can tell you a thing. Call EDD Director Patrick Henning's office and they know nothing. Call EDD's Public Affairs office and they know nothing. Call the general EDD number and they know nothing. Sure you can visit their web site, but you can't trust a word printed there. What's more, if and when you get someone on the phone, in a multitude of instances you are treated as if it is your fault that you cannot find work and are collecting UI.

At first, they claimed on their web site that notifications would go out beginning mid-April. Didn't happen so they changed their web site and their phone recording to reflect the beginning of May, with the warning that there was no need to call them as they will not only contact you regarding eligibility, they would also file for you, if you are eligible.

The ambiguity of these flex messages could send anyone who's on the edge clear over it when they hear the canned voice say that the caller may be eligible to receive up to 20 weeks.

See, that is not what the bill says--most of those who exhausted both extensions are probably eligible for the Fed Extension, and will receive 20 weeks, not up to 20 weeks.

Not that EDD is a class act for first time claimants; they labor--if you want to call it that--in epic failure, no matter the circumstances.

California EDD =

The Good, the Bad, the Funny - and the Heinous

noreply@blogger.com (US Princess) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 21:23:00 +0000

The Good: Hilda Solis Sworn in as Secretary of the Department of Labor

Even better that the AFL-CIO used their bargaining power to push for her confirmation, probably well aware that stall tactics (an anonymous Republican senator held up the vote) by the oppositional/obstructionist party was meant to delay Congressional voting on the Employee Free Choice Act. Speaking of EFCA, media toadies should cease and desist from using 'card check' as a discrediting euphemism. These days, oppositional party talking points ain't working at. all.

Now that Secretary Solis has been seated, California District 32 is no longer in limbo, and the district can seek a replacement who will, hopefully, be as successful and competent in representing their district as former Assemblywoman Solis. It's a tall order.

As important is what may very well be the start of a much needed organized labor revival. While it may not be a fortuitous time to invest in the stock market, it is an excellent time for employees to have the unfettered right to form unions, if they choose. Perhaps more importantly, this is also an excellent time to reform existing unions into better 21st century models. It's time for them to clean up their act and move into a more progressive group think.

Reassessment of the labor movement is long over due as well, and union leaders should be taking a good hard look at the way they function - and make pretty big changes - once and for all ridding themselves of many 20th century old school notions on how locals are run.

There is a huge void that organized labor will be called upon to fill in these troublesome economic times. The choice of super Latina Solis for labor secretary is a huge clue that labor is undergoing major changes.

Obama's successful grassroots campaign should demonstrate to labor leaders that winning unions are members-driven; that the movement is only as strong as its members. The time for top down management, rather than bottom up cooperation is pretty much over. Our quasi-apocolyptic financial mess, caused by the shenanigans of banking and Wall Street wheeler dealers, has changed the work dynamic, since management at the highest levels of these institutions proved colossal failures in their fiduciary duties using avaricious and deceptive practices. These guys gambled away the futures of peoples all over the globe, and are still lining their pockets. This is a great opportunity for union management to show other institutions how to achieve ethical success through acting in their members' interests.

The Funny: President Obama, Rio Beaches and Amazon Rain Forests

Obama banters with Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva:

Foreign leaders hoping to have good chemistry with U.S. President Barack Obama may want to take a lesson from Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
The Brazilian president, a charismatic former union leader, hit it off with the former Chicago community organizer at a White House meeting on Saturday with banter about verbosity and, of all things, getting lost in the Amazon.
In his opening remarks to reporters in the Oval Office, Lula said he expressed sympathy to Obama for the many crises the United States faced.
Eliciting laughter from journalists, he said he told Obama what he told Brazilians at rallies back home:
"I'm praying more for him than I pray for myself. Because with just 40 days in office -- to suffer and to face such a terrible crisis the U.S. is facing today, I don't want to be in his position."
Obama, who has been in office 54 days, offered a quick response, "You sound like you've been talking to my wife."
It didn't stop there. After a particularly lengthy response to a question about divisions in the G20 grouping of major developed and emerging economies, Obama apologized for getting wordy -- and found he had a soulmate of sorts.
"Sorry to take so long on the answer," Obama said.
"That's not a problem, Mr. President," Lula replied. "We all talk too much."
Lula smoothed over tensions between the two countries on ethanol tariffs by offering Obama a special ride when he comes for a visit.
"When President Obama comes to visit Brazil, I'm going to ask him to get inside a car that is run by a flex-fuel engine and he will feel very comfortable," Lula said.
Obama, who noted he once had that type of vehicle, said he was looking forward to a trip.
"Because I'm somebody who grew up in Hawaii, I felt it was very important that I at least go to Rio, where I understand the beaches are pretty nice," Obama said.

A Brazilian journalist suggested to the Democratic president that he start a visit in the Amazon forest.
"You know, I would love a trip to the Amazon," Obama said.
"I suspect that the Republican Party would love to see me travel through the Amazon -- and maybe get lost."

The Bad: "I hope the president fails."

He who shall never - ever - be named or linked to on GG continues his treasonous mouthing off.

The Ugly: Bailout #3 for Insurer AIG and Zombie Bank Citigroup

The Obama administration got to shake up Citigroup's Board of Directors, replacing most with more independents not affiliated with Wall Street, as well as getting about 40% of preferred stock into the ownership of US taxpayers.

Some are saying that the multinational AIG, an umbrella company for over 200 global corporate entities, is too big to fail.

AIG recently posted a fourth quarter loss of $60 billion, the biggest quarterly loss in history and the equivalent of about $460,000 a minute.
The U.S. government has already pledged around $150 billion in an effort to save AIG, once the biggest insurer by market value, whose global reach may have made it too big to fail. "The government really does not have the option of letting AIG totally blow up," said Robert Haines, senior insurance analyst at CreditSights. "Hopefully, the third bailout will be the charm," he said. "The counterparties on most of the book are (European) banks that would be hammered if the U.S. walked away."

Now comes word that after receiving over $170 billion - yes, BILLIONS - in taxpayer funded bail out funds, AIG will pay $165 million - yes, MILLIONS - in executive bonuses.

"Big US Banks Insolvent"

noreply@blogger.com (US Princess) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 01:37:00 +0000

The either not so brilliant or accomplished prevaricator, Timothy Geithner, our newly confirmed US Treasury Secretary, unveiled a not terribly detailed new plan for rescuing our banking and financial system that continues Paulson's legacy of throwing good money after bad. In fact, except for the name change - instead of TARP, it is now called the Financial Stability Trust - plans for the next $350 billion do not address the simple fact that our biggest banks - Citigroup, BofA, Wells Fargo, et al. - are insolvent and, perhaps, should either be allowed to go the way of the former Washington Mutual or be nationalized.

Nouriel "Dr. Doom" Roubini: "Time to Nationalize Insolvent Banking Systems" - The very cumbersome U.S. Treasury proposal to dispose of toxic assets - that was presented by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner today - can be best understood (subject to the large fog of uncertainty about its many details) as combining taking the toxic asset off the banks’ balance sheet with providing government guarantees to those private investors that will purchase them (and/or public capital provision to fund a public-private bad bank that would purchase such assets). But this plan is so non-transparent and complicated that it received a thumbs down by the markets as soon as it was announced today as all major US equity indices went sharply down.

The main problem with the Treasury plan . . . is the following: . . . since the government knows that no one in the private sector would buy those most toxic assets at 60 cents it may have to promise a guarantee (formally or informally by putting capital into a public-private bad bank that will receive extra lending from the private sector) to limit the downside risk to private investors from purchasing such assets. But that implicit or explicit guarantee would be hugely expensive if you need to induce private folks to buy at 60 what is worth only 20 or even 11. So the new Treasury plan may end up being again a royal rip-off of the taxpayer if the guarantee is excessive given the true value of the underlying assets. And if instead the implicit or explicit guarantee is not excessive (if the public-private bank truly tries to discover the value of such assets as in the formal Treasury proposal) the banks need to sell the toxic assets at their true underlying value that implies massive writedowns that will uncover the insolvency of such banks. i.e. the emperor has no clothes and a true valuation of the bad assets – without a huge taxpayers’ bailout of the shareholders and unsecured creditors of banks – implies that banks are bankrupt and should be taken over by the government.

Thus all the schemes that have been so far proposed to deal with the toxic assets of the banks may be a big fudge that either does not work or works only if the government bails out shareholders and unsecured creditors of the banks.

Dr. James K. Galbraith, Economist: "Big Banks Insolvent" - The Treasury of the United States [should] conduct a meticulous audit of the assets that underlie the securities that they’re expecting to take off the banks’ books, so that we, the taxpayer, can have an idea of what, if anything, these securities are worth[.]

[T]he little bit of checking that has been done appears to reveal that a very large fraction of these securities contain, on the face of it, misrepresentation or fraud in the files. And so, we are looking at an asset which nobody, no outside investor doing due diligence on behalf of a client for whom they have some responsibility, would touch. And that is the issue. That’s the problem.
If that is indeed the case, then I think it’s fair to conclude that the large banks, which the Treasury is trying very hard to protect, cannot in fact be protected, that they are in fact insolvent, and that the proper approach for dealing with them is for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to move in and take the steps that the FDIC normally takes when dealing with insolvent banks.

Martin Wolf, Chief Economic commentator, Financial Times: "Why Obama’s new Tarp will fail to rescue the banks" - a sizeable proportion of financial institutions are insolvent: their assets are, under plausible assumptions, worth less than their liabilities. The International Monetary Fund argues that potential losses on US-originated credit assets alone are now $2,200bn (€1,700bn, £1,500bn), up from $1,400bn just last October. This is almost identical to the latest estimates from Goldman Sachs. In recent comments to the Financial Times, Nouriel Roubini of RGE Monitor and the Stern School of New York University estimates peak losses on US-generated assets at $3,600bn.
Fortunately for the US, half of these losses will fall abroad. But, the rest of the world will strike back: as the world economy implodes, huge losses abroad – on sovereign, housing and corporate debt – will surely fall on US institutions, with dire effects.
Personally, I have little doubt that the second view is correct and, as the world economy deteriorates, will become ever more so. But this is not the heart of the matter. That is whether, in the presence of such uncertainty, it can be right to base policy on hoping for the best. The answer is clear: rational policymakers must assume the worst. If this proved pessimistic, they would end up with an over-capitalised financial system. If the optimistic choice turned out to be wrong, they would have zombie banks and a discredited government. This choice is surely a “no brainer”.

The new plan seems to make sense if and only if the principal problem is illiquidity. Offering guarantees and buying some portion of the toxic assets, while limiting new capital injections to less than the $350bn left in the Tarp, cannot deal with the insolvency problem identified by informed observers.

The Devil's in the Economic Details ... and in the Treasury and Commerce Departments?

noreply@blogger.com (US Princess) — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 21:32:00 +0000

Essentially, I remain President Obama's loyal supporter -- after all, as of today, he's only been president 19 days. Yet I harbor a queasy uneasiness and I'm nursing disturbing thoughts that there seems to have been a complete breakdown in the vetting of cabinet nominees, and that more than a few of his cabinet choices are, well, puzzling as well as troubling. Outwardly, it appears that backroom deals (see Clinton, Hilary), cronyism and nepotism still reign as the norm rather than the exception in the Obama Administration, despite the President's repeated campaign promises of openness and trustworthiness. Admittedly, I'm on the 'what the devil's going on' train regarding certain cabinet appointments:

1. During his confirmation hearings, Geithner further mastered doublespeak when discussing the dollar, which makes him an even more ridiculous choice for Treasury Sec, as were the choices of Rubin and Summers as White House Econ Advisers. Equally ridiculous are the Obama Administration's absurd assertion that his nominees, especially Geithner, are the ONLY folk capable of filling their appointed positions, supremely tainted though they are. Forget the questionable tax stuff and the forced apology about them, the fact that Geithner was NY Federal Reserve president during the years of Wall Street criminality should have disqualified him right there. Maybe what the Administration means is that Geithner and those of his ilk are the only ones capable of continuing the fiscal madness that created the global financial crisis in the first place. Or maybe they mean that they may as well appoint a failed financial head since the previous administration helped Geithner, et al., to create a financial system so bogus and screwed up that it's completely irreparable.

2. Larry Summers, author of deregulatory bills during the Clinton administration that helped create the global financial mess, is also a poor choice to be anywhere near this White House at this juncture in time. Most people forget that, as president of Harvard, he went down in infamy for saying that innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers. Wasn't sexist to me, but it upset one particularly feminist at Harvard. Ezra Klein, our main source for this week's blog entry, is reporting that Summers and Paul Volcker, whom President Obama just chose to head his Economic Recovery Advisory Board, are having tense times.

Volcker "blames Obama’s National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers for slowing down the effort to organize the panel of outside advisers" and is irritated that "Summers isn’t regularly inviting Volcker to White House meetings and hasn’t shown interest in collaborating on policy or sharing potential solutions to the economic crisis."

These guys aren't in any way contrite; they know that their greed and their failed deregulatory policies have already broken the global financial system, with no hope of repairing it, and they have long been desensitized to average Americans' struggles for survival.

3. Judd Gregg at Commerce has clearly shown that he doesn't believe there should be a Commerce since he sponsored a bill in the Senate that would have abolished the department had it not been voted down. Given this, why did President Obama appoint him, even conceding to this man that a republican would take his place in the US Senate? What is this all about?

4. The Blue Dog Democratic Governor Bredesen of Tennessee is rumored to be frontrunner to replace Daschle as the HHS nominee. Why? Bredesen made his money during the managed care revolution as CEO and founder of HealthAmerica, which acquired and ran HMOs. During the late-80s, the good Blue Dog gov made nearly $50 million when he sold HealthAmerica to MaxiCare Health Plans. In the 90s, he teamed up with the former CFO of HealthAmerica to form a company similar to his past HMO management company, Coventry Corporation. CC later merged with Principal Health Care to become Coventry Health Care. Until 2007, CHC was a Fortune 500 managed care provider, although -maybe- Bredesen was no longer involved. Bredesen is also partially responsible for gutting TennCare, the state's low income health care provider. This would be a very strange choice for a president who campaigned on nationalizing health care, particularly since Bresden's nomination carries the same questions vis a vis lobbyists' money and influence as those that ixnayed Daschle, just as Geithner's dubious business acumen should have disqualified him.

5. While there are those who claim he is a nice enough guy, Leon Panetta was never a good choice for CIA director. The proof of my assertion became increasingly evident at his confirmation hearings where he got in some pretty good practice for his future Top Spy deception skills while being questioned by crazy Kit.

As for Geithner, Rubin, and Summers, the New York Times' Frank Rich agrees with me:

Key players in the Obama economic team beyond Geithner are also tied to Rubin or Citigroup or both, from Larry Summers, the administration’s top economic adviser, to Gary Gensler, the newly named nominee to run the Commodity Futures Trading commission and a Treasury undersecretary in the Clinton administration. Back then, Summers and Gensler joined hands with Phil Gramm to ward off regulation of the derivative markets that have since brought the banking system to ruin. We must take it on faith that they have subsequently had judgment transplants.
Obama’s brilliant appointees, we keep being told, are irreplaceable. But as de Gaulle said, “The cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men.” You have to onder if this team is really a meritocracy or merely a stacked deck. Not only did Rubin himself serve on the Obama economic transition team, but two of the transition’s headhunters were Michael Froman, Rubin’s chief of staff at Treasury and later a Citigroup executive, and James S. Rubin, an investor who is Robert Rubin’s son.
A welcome outlier to this club is Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman chosen to direct Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. But Bloomberg reported last week that Summers is already freezing Volcker out of many of his deliberations on economic policy. This sounds like the arrogant Summers who was fired as president of Harvard, not the chastened new Summers advertised at the time of his appointment. A team of rivals is not his thing.
Americans have had enough of such arrogance, whether in the public or private sectors, whether Democrat or Republican. Voters turned on Sarah Palin not just because of her manifest unfitness for office but because her claims of being a regular hockey mom were contradicted by her Evita shopping sprees. John McCain’s sanctification of Joe the Plumber (himself a tax delinquent) never could be squared with his inability to remember how many houses he owned. A graphic act of entitlement also stripped naked that faux populist John Edwards.
The public’s revulsion isn’t mindless class hatred. As Obama said on Wednesday of his fellow citizens: “We don’t disparage wealth. We don’t begrudge anybody for achieving success.” But we do know that the system has been fixed for too long. The gaping income inequality of the past decade — the top 1 percent of America’s earners received more than 20 percent of the total national income — has not been seen since the run-up to the Great Depression.

Meanwhile, exceptional cabinet picks, such as Labor secretary nominee Representative Hilda Solis, CA-32, are anonymously being held hostage by a cowardly republican or two without, it would seem, a peep from the spineless jellyfish that is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, or even anyone in the White House.

I'm just saying . . . .

Random Thoughts and Swift Kicks

noreply@blogger.com (US Princess) — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 21:57:00 +0000

Heh.

Over on Guardian UK, editor Julia Finch gives good read, naming names as she lists the Wall Street crooks, bankers, politicians, etc. who comprise the 25 people at the Heart of the Meltdown, along with "six more who saw it coming" --

Andrew Lahde
A hedge fund boss who quit the industry in October thanking "stupid" traders and "idiots" for making him rich. He made millions by betting against sub-prime.

John Paulson, hedge fund boss
He has been described as the "world's biggest winner" from the credit crunch, earning $3.7bn (£1.9bn) in 2007 by "shorting" the US mortgage market - betting that the housing bubble was about to burst. In an apparent response to criticism that he was profiting from misery, Paulson gave $15m to a charity aiding people fighting foreclosure.

Professor Nouriel Roubini
Described by the New York Times as Dr Doom, the economist from New York university was warning that financial crisis was on the way in 2006, when he told economists at the IMF that the US would face a once-in-a-lifetime housing bust, oil shock and a deep recession. He remains a pessimist. He predicted last week that losses in the US financial system could hit $3.6tn before the credit crunch ends - which, he said, means the entire US banking system is in effect bankrupt. After last year's bail-outs and nationalisations, he famously described George Bush, Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke as "a troika of Bolsheviks who turned the USA into the United Socialist State Republic of America".

Warren Buffett, billionaire investor
Dubbed the Sage of Omaha, Buffett had long warned about the dangers of dodgy derivatives that no one understood and said often that Wall Street's finest were grossly overpaid. In his annual letter to shareholders in 2003, he compared complex derivative contracts to hell: "Easy to enter and almost impossible to exit." On an optimistic note, Buffett wrote in October that he had begun buying shares on the US stockmarket again, suggesting the worst of the credit crunch might be over. Now is a great time to "buy a slice of America's future at a marked-down price", he said.

George Soros, speculator
The billionaire financier, philanthropist and backer of the Democrats told an audience in Singapore in January 2006 that stockmarkets were at their peak, and that the US and global economies should brace themselves for a recession and a possible "hard landing". He also warned of "a gigantic real estate bubble" inflated by reckless lenders, encouraging homeowners to remortgage and offering interest-only deals. Earlier this year Soros described a 25-year "super bubble" that is bursting, blaming unfathomable financial instruments, deregulation and globalisation. He has since characterised the financial crisis as the worst since the Great Depression.

Stephen Eismann, hedge fund manager
An analyst and fund manager who tracked the sub-prime market from the early 1990s. "You have to understand," he says, "I did sub-prime first. I lived with the worst first. These guys lied to infinity. What I learned from that experience was that Wall Street didn't give a shit what it sold."

Meredith Whitney, Oppenheimer Securities
On 31 October 2007 the analyst forecast that Citigroup had to slash its dividend or face bankruptcy. A day later $370bn had been wiped off financial stocks on Wall Street. Within days the boss of Citigroup was out and the dividend had been slashed.

I don't understand or like President Obama's Treasury pick, Timothy Geithner, and I don't believe he should be confirmed as Secretary of the Department of the Treasury. My reasons? Although a supposed financial genius, he cheated on his employee payroll taxes, then only paid the principal and not the 4-5 years interest when his duplicity was discovered during vetting, and he was president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, as derelict in his duty to prevent Wall Street's rampant greed and fraud as former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan. He's just been confirmed and is already making heinous pronouncements. Don't look for much to change -- the banks will continue their shenanigans, stealing TARP money with little, if any, governmental oversight, while more people continue to lose their jobs and their homes. In a nation of 300 million people, how can he be the only one most qualified to help us out of this economic miasma. Something in this milk just ain't clean. I absolutely hate Obama's treasury choice.

There's an anonymous GOP senator holding up the confirmation of President Obama's Labor Secretary nominee, Hilda Solis. Aside from the fact that California's 32nd district assemblywoman is a champion of the people rather than money and corporations, the main reason for the delay is to hold up the vote on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) which, once it is passed, will give every employee in the private sector the right to form a union for living wages and benefits. Solis is a huge champion of Organized Labor and the Employee Free Choice Act. On the other hand, Organized Labor leaders continue to be MIA with their support for the Act when they should be launching media events to promote it. But then, I felt that Organized Labor as a whole should have been much more publicly supportive of the auto industry and the UAW.

Although I supported her, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg proved herself not ready for political prime time during media appearances, and handled her bid to be named NY senator very poorly. But then appointed NY Governor Paterson made the whole process a spectacle, and his choice leaves a lot to be desired by this Independent Progressive. As I posted on Daily Kos, if he leans anymore right than he has these last few weeks, he'll be changing parties any day now. Check out his near-draconian neo-conservative budget proposal for New York State.

Al Giordano of The Field also gets it right; without naming names, left wing bloggers were instrumental in scuttling Kennedy-Schlossberg's bid, allowing Paterson to appoint blue dog Dem, Kirsten Gillibrand.

Herrrre's Jay Leno:

“[N]ow that Barack Obama’s president, Michael Jackson said he’s thinking about being black again.”
“While Barack Obama was in the inaugural parade the other day, he was wearing what the Secret Service called a bullet-resistant suit. Did you see that? The suit was made out of what they call ‘bullet resistant material.’ You know, here’s my question, the man’s the president. Spend a couple of bucks, go the extra yard, get the ‘bullet proof’ suit. Okay?”
“He’s really getting tough. Yesterday, President Obama issued an executive order banning gifts from lobbyists, any gifts to anyone serving in his administration. In fact, today they went down and removed the gas pump that Exxon installed in Dick Cheney’s office.”
“The Senate has confirmed Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. That means Hillary will be fourth in line for the presidency, after vice president, speaker of the house, and president pro-tem of the Senate, she is next. Which means they’re going to need extra security to protect the vice president, speaker of the house, and senate pro-tem of the Senate.”
“Caroline Kennedy, who was hoping to fill in Hillary Clinton’s vacant Senate seat, has now taken her name out of contention. She’s out of it. New York Times reports that the reason Caroline Kennedy dropped out is because of housekeeper and tax issues. Dropped out ’cause of tax issues. The good news, she’s still eligible to be treasury secretary.”

President Barack Hussein Obama

noreply@blogger.com (US Princess) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 02:08:00 +0000

"God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou, who has brought us thus far along the way, thou, who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee, lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee.

Shadowed beneath thy hand, may we forever stand true to thee, oh God, and true to our native land.

We truly give thanks for the glorious experience we've shared this day.

We pray now, oh Lord, for your blessing upon thy servant Barack Obama, the 44th president of these United States, his family and his administration.

He has come to this high office at a low moment in the national, and indeed the global, fiscal climate. But because we know you got the whole world in your hands, we pray for not only our nation, but for the community of nations.

Our faith does not shrink though pressed by the flood of mortal ills.

For we know that, Lord, you are able and you're willing to work through faithful leadership to restore stability, mend our brokenness, heal our wounds, and deliver us from the exploitation of the poor, of the least of these, and from favoritism toward the rich, the elite of these.

We thank you for the empowering of thy servant, our 44th president, to inspire our nation to believe that yes we can work together to achieve a more perfect union.

And while we have sown the seeds of greed -- the wind of greed and corruption, and even as we reap the whirlwind of social and economic disruption, we seek forgiveness and we come in a spirit of unity and solidarity to commit our support to our president by our willingness to make sacrifices, to respect your creation, to turn to each other and not on each other.

And now, Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance.

And as we leave this mountain top, help us to hold on to the spirit of fellowship and the oneness of our family. Let us take that power back to our homes, our workplaces, our churches, our temples, our mosques, or wherever we seek your will.

Bless President Barack, First Lady Michelle. Look over our little angelic Sasha and Malia.
We go now to walk together as children, pledging that we won't get weary in the difficult days ahead. We know you will not leave us alone.

With your hands of power and your heart of love, help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nations shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid, when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around. . .

(LAUGHTER)

. . . when yellow will be mellow. . .

(LAUGHTER)

when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen."

AUDIENCE: Amen.

LOWERY: Say Amen.

AUDIENCE: Amen.

LOWERY: And Amen.

AUDIENCE: Amen.

How fitting that the Reverend Joseph Lowery, as he began his benediction at the inauguration, invoked the lyrics of James Weldon Johnson's "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing."

Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears have been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, Our God, where we met Thee;
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand.
True to our GOD,
True to our native land

Foreign Policy: The Top 10 Stories You Missed in 2008

noreply@blogger.com (US Princess) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 22:47:00 +0000

It's been a rough weekend. On Friday, ten or fifteen minutes after debarking a bus in West Hollywood, I realized that I'd left my Stone Mountain Cargo purse on the bus. So far, I haven't recovered it, although I am hopeful.

Meanwhile, as you know, there's been a dual celebration happening since the beginning of last week, what with Dr. King's national birthday holiday celebration today, and the inauguration of our first black president, Barack Hussein Obama, tomorrow, January 20, 2009. I will post my thoughts on the moment within the next 24-48 hours, however; as is tradition here on Global Ghetto (check the archives for previous years), I'm posting Foreign Policy's Top 10 Stories Missed in 2008. Enjoy.

1. The Surge in Afghanistan Starts Early

Along with reducing troop levels in Iraq, President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to dramatically increase the U.S. presence in Afghanistan in a strategy similar to the “surge,” which proved so effective in reducing violence in Iraq. Although the wisdom of such an approach will surely be hotly debated in the coming months, the truth is that the Afghanistan surge has, to a certain extent, already begun. In the first half of 2008, the Bush administration boosted U.S. forces in Afghanistan by more than 21,000, or nearly 85 percent, with significant increases in the presence of Air Force and Marine personnel. Even reluctant NATO members have pledged to kick in a few thousand troops.

The United States has also been on a building spree, planning a $100 million airfield expansion in Kandahar and a $50 million prison facility near Bagram Air Base. In requesting supplemental funding from Congress to build a $62 million ammunition storage facility near Bagram, the Army said the base “must be able to provide for a long term, steady state presence which is able to surge to meet theater contingency requirements.”

Of course, counterinsurgency is about more than just boots on the ground and new facilities. In Iraq, efforts to reach out to tribal leaders and nationalist insurgents and turn them against local elements of al Qaeda were crucial. U.S. commanders have shied away from taking similar steps in Afghanistan, but President Hamid Karzai has been pushing for exactly this type of engagement, holding a jirga of tribal leaders in Kabul and even reaching out to Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. So, if Obama takes office with a plan to pacify Afghanistan through more troops and reaching out to local leaders, he might well discover that he already has a head start.

2. Colombian Coca Production Increases

Coca is a serious destabilizer—keeping Colombia’s rebels armed and the country’s progress in check. But after almost a decade, U.S.-assisted efforts to reduce the crop’s production in Colombia haven’t just failed; they’ve been downright counterproductive. Plan Colombia was meant to improve security, stamp out drug cultivation, and improve law and order after a decades-long conflict with leftist militants. But coca cultivation rose 15 percent between 2000 and 2006, an October 2008 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) study found. A separate U.N. study found that in 2007 alone, the area of land hosting coca crops rose 27 percent. To put it mildly, something is not working.

Coca, the base crop for cocaine, has funded the operations of various paramilitaries and the rebel group FARC for decades. Although Colombian military operations have severely hampered FARC’s activities during the last several years, the drug trade continues apace. Aerial spraying and manual eradication have had temporary effects, but coca farmers tend to grow the lucrative crop again because there’s rarely an equally profitable alternative. The GAO reckons that many farmers have moved to more remote areas to avoid the eradication efforts. Meanwhile, the market value of coca rose by roughly $450 per kilogram in 2007 to more than $2,000.

The United States has spent $6 billion on Plan Colombia, but Colombia still supplies 90 percent of U.S. cocaine. Time for a rethink on the drug war?

3. The Next Darfur Heats Up

The conflict in Darfur still may not be getting the attention it deserves, but another crisis in Sudan threatens to become the country’s newest humanitarian catastrophe. The flash point is Southern Kordofan, a state created in 2005 to encompass the Nuba Mountains, just north of the autonomous southern zone. Central government forces, South Sudanese forces, and local groups are all arming and recruiting troops with the hope of securing victory in the upcoming local elections. As the Small Arms Survey, a research organization, documented in August, “[D]iscontent … is turning to anger, and many now view war in the Nuba Mountains as inevitable.”

The storm brewing in Nuba country looks much like the ongoing tempest in Darfur. The Nuba, a tribal group comprising more than 50 indigenous African ethnicities, have long been marginalized under Sudan’s Arab-dominated government, and many took up arms against it during the 1980s civil war. When a peace agreement ended the North-South conflict in 2005, many Nuba felt the Southern Sudanese government sold them out to the North in order to gain oil concessions. Now, their patience is running thin. The International Crisis Group (ICG) reported in October that hundreds have died in disputes over land and grazing rights in recent years. As in Darfur, violence has broken out between Nuba farmers and Arab nomads, both of whom covet the same fertile land.

With national elections scheduled for 2009, forces on all sides are accused of seeking support through intimidation and strategic ethnic cleansing. Government forces in the region have grown dramatically, and Arab supremacy movements, similar to those that spawned the janjaweed militias in Darfur, are springing up.

It all looks ominously familiar. “When you look at what’s failed to happen in Darfur,” warns Mark Schneider of ICG, “you don’t have a lot of confidence that Sudan is going to deal with this any better.”

4. The United States Helps India Build a Missile Shield

The controversy over U.S. missile defense these days tends to focus on Russia’s increasingly strident objections to proposed U.S. installations in Eastern Europe. But a more volatile situation might be brewing farther east. On Feb. 27, 2008, after two days of meetings in New Delhi, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates quietly announced negotiations between the United States and India to develop a missile defense program on Indian soil. Although still in its early stages, a missile shield on the subcontinent could have long-term implications for U.S.-China relations and regional stability.

Just as proposed U.S. rocket interceptors in Poland stoke tension between the United States and Russia, a U.S.-facilitated missile shield in India could become a flash point for great-power struggles for decades to come. The plans are likely to add to fears in Beijing that the United States is attempting to temper China’s growing influence in Asia. Gates’s trip to New Delhi was part of a tour of three of the region’s democracies—India, Australia, and Indonesia—which could be used to counter China’s regional ambitions if relations with the United States turn frosty. Even more troubling, an Indian missile shield risks triggering a crisis in the nuclear rivalry between India and Pakistan.

The biggest winner? Probably Lockheed Martin. The defense contractor has already entered into talks with the Indian military about selling the country its Patriot missile defense system. “The US has spent billions of dollars” developing the Patriot system, said Lockheed Martin Vice President Dennis Cavin last January. “We reckon that India need not spend so much money on developing its own system when we can help.”

5. Russia Makes a Play for Africa

China’s recent adventures in Africa have been well-publicized, as have the West’s attempts to keep up. Now add one more player to the mix: Russia is moving into Africa in a big way, snatching up gas and oil deals, with an eye on winning even greater leverage over the global energy market.

In September, Russia’s state-controlled energy monopoly Gazprom obtained gas concessions in Nigeria, which is thought to hold one of the world’s largest natural gas supplies. In addition to offering such development-aid carrots as electricity generation, Gazprom agreed to help the West African country fund a 2,700-mile trans-Saharan pipeline to Europe.

Gazprom, in a joint venture with Italy’s Eni, is also looking to finance a pipeline from Libya that would carry natural gas under the Mediterranean. Russia offered to buy all Libyan gas and some of its oil exports. If the deal goes through, it would give Russia complete control over supply to the European Union. Russia has additional deals in Algeria, Angola, Egypt, and the Ivory Coast worth $3.5 billion and expected to be operational by 2010.

But it’s not just pipelines Russia wants—it’s also hearts and minds. Russia has canceled $20 billion in African debt and recently announced a $500 million aid package for African countries with no strings attached. Russia helped prevent sanctions on Zimbabwe from passing the U.N. Security Council a few months after Zimbabwe was opening a tourism office in Moscow.

All this has Europe very worried. If Russia controls natural gas supplies from the east—through Gazprom’s holdings in Central Asia—as well as the south, that would leave Europe surrounded, with little room to find alternative energy supplies. It was no coincidence that the EU offered $21 billion for the trans-Saharan pipeline just after the Georgia-Russia war. Let the great games begin.

6. Greenhouse Gas Comes from Solar Panels

Think switching to solar energy will make you green? Think again. Many of the newest solar panels are manufactured with a gas that is 17,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide in contributing to global warming.

Nitrogen trifluoride, or NF3, is used for cleaning microcircuits during the manufacture of a host of modern electronics, including flat-screen TVs, iPhones, computer chips—and thin-film solar panels, the latest (and cheapest) generation of solar photovoltaics. (Time named the panels one of the best inventions of 2008.) Because industry estimates suggested that only about 2 percent of NF3 ever made it into the atmosphere, the chemical has been marketed as a cleaner alternative to other higher-emitting options. For the past decade, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has actively encouraged its use. NF3 also wasn’t deemed dangerous enough to be covered by the Kyoto Protocol, making it an attractive substitute for companies and signatory countries eager to lower their emissions footprints.

It turns out that NF3 might not be so green after all. “NF3 has a potential greenhouse impact larger than … even that of the world’s largest coal-fired power plants,” according to a June 2008 study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine. Because NF3 isn’t covered by Kyoto, few attempts have been made to measure it in the atmosphere. But last October, scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography reported that four times more NF3 is present in the atmosphere than industry estimates suggest, and its concentration is rising 11 percent a year.

Compared with the damage caused by CO2 emissions, NF3 remains a blip because far less of it is emitted. But Ray Weiss, who led the Scripps team, thinks that, unless regulations require more complete greenhouse gas measurements, more unpleasant surprises will be in store. With NF3, he says, “We’re finding considerably more in the atmosphere than was expected. This [gas] won’t be the only example of that.”

7. Shanghai Steel Fails Basic Safety Tests

Shanghai’s futuristic skyline—the city has more than 900 high-rises, with hundreds more under construction—is one of the most potent symbols of China’s economic rise. But the materials undergirding all that growth might be shakier than anyone can imagine. In March, the English-language Shanghai Daily reported that fully half of the steel sold to construction companies in Shanghai’s wholesale markets failed basic quality tests. Nearly a quarter of the tested samples failed tension tests, meaning structures built with them would not be able to withstand earthquakes and would be more likely to decay over time.

Of the 52 batches of steel tested by the Shanghai Industrial and Commercial Administrative Bureau, 27 were too light to meet China’s legal standards. Some batches were nearly five times lighter than the legal standard, meaning that they were less than the weight of iron, steel’s primary ingredient. “If your steel is less than the weight of iron, that’s pretty incredible,” says Christopher Earls, professor of civil engineering at Cornell University. “That means you’re replacing the iron with something else, so what you have isn’t really steel at all.”

The bureau ordered construction sites using the inferior steel to halt work, but, troublingly, did not publicly reveal where it was being used. Adam Minter, a Shanghai-based journalist who blogged the story after it broke, asked, “What will happen to twenty-year home mortgages taken out on Shanghai apartments which will only last—structurally—for ten years? At some point, I’m pretty sure this is going to become an issue.” After the collapse of substandard schoolhouses during this year’s Sichuan earthquake, tremors of which were felt in Shanghai, the prospect of something similar happening to an urban high-rise isn’t an issue anyone should take lightly.

8. Aid to Georgia Finances Luxury Hotel in Tbilisi

In September, the United States pledged $1 billion in aid to Georgia to help the country recover from its August war with Russia. The money was intended to “help Georgia sustain itself,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said. With several Georgian towns badly damaged by Russian bombing and 20,000 refugees from South Ossetia still unable to return home, there were seemingly many worthy causes for all that cash. So why was $176 million of the aid money earmarked for loans to businesses—including $30 million to a real estate developer for a luxury hotel: the 127,000-square-meter Park Hyatt in downtown Tbilisi, an area that was not at all damaged in the war? The 183-room, five-star hotel will include 70 luxury condominiums, a fine-dining restaurant, conference facilities, and a health spa with juice bar.

The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the U.S. government agency facilitating the loan, is also financing a $40 million office building across the street from the Georgian Parliament building and a $10 million renovation of a historic building into a convention center. The loans, OPIC President Robert Mosbacher told Eurasianet, were “a clear, unequivocal signal about the confidence we [the U.S. government] have in the future of this country.”

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s ill-advised military operation in South Ossetia might have been a disaster for many of his people, but thanks to Uncle Sam, it seems to have turned out just fine for Tbilisi’s real estate developers.

9. For the First Time, U.S. Citizen Convicted of Torture Abroad

Since 1994, the U.S. Department of Justice has had the right to prosecute U.S. citizens on U.S. soil for crimes of torture committed abroad. But it wasn’t until a highly unusual case this year that the law saw its first conviction. Charles “Chuckie” Taylor Jr., son of the former Liberian president, was convicted of torture, conspiracy, and possession of a firearm by a federal grand jury on Oct. 30. War crimes clearly run in the family. His father is currently on trial at The Hague.

The younger Taylor was born in Massachusetts and retained his U.S. citizenship after moving to Liberia when his father took office. He committed his crimes as head of the Anti-Terrorist Unit (known as the “Demon Forces”) of his father’s government from 1999 to 2002. Although his task was officially to protect Liberian officials, in practice, prosecutors said, Taylor tortured opposition members and political opponents using irons, hot wax, knives, electronic shockers, and firearms.

This case is the first application of the U.S. federal extraterritorial torture statute, passed in 1994 following the U.S. ratification of the U.N. Convention Against Torture. Human rights advocates hope it won’t be the last. Crucially, the law also gives the Justice Department authority to prosecute other countries’ citizens on U.S. soil for torture committed abroad. Several groups are pushing for prosecution of past human rights violators from Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Haiti now residing in the United States.

Some speculate it could even open the door to prosecutions of Bush administration officials for engaging in torture overseas. “You would have to be able to prove that the individual official specifically was doing that,” explains Mark Schneider of the International Crisis Group. “Is it possible that law could do that? I think so.”

10. American Company Sells ‘Sonic Blasters’ to China

After the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, the United States took action by imposing a strict arms embargo on China. So how, exactly, was it legal for a U.S. company to sell China a powerful tool to incapacitate and injure protesters in advance of the Olympic Games in Beijing?

Reporting from a Beijing police equipment expo in April, journalist David Hambling noticed a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) produced by California-based American Technology Corporation (ATC) on prominent display. The LRAD works by emitting from a dish high-energy acoustic waves that are said to be, at close proximity, louder than a jet engine. It is capable of reaching 150 decibels, enough to incite panic, inflict pain, and even cause hearing loss among large crowds.

But is it a weapon? ATC euphemistically describes it as a “directed-sounds communications system,” but in a November 2008 article in Maritime Reporter and Engineering News, the company’s vice president boasted of how the U.S. Navy was increasingly using LRAD devices to “prevent terrorist incidents” and repel Somali pirates. When the embargo was enacted, such devices didn’t even exist. It remains to be seen whether nonlethal crowd-control systems will be included in future arms-control agreements.

The Chinese definitely have the LRAD, but as far as anyone knows, they haven’t employed it yet. Nor were there reports of its use during the Summer Olympics. Using dangerous sound weapons on peaceful protesters might seem draconian, but that, too, depends on the alternatives: “I also came across photos of the Chinese police practicing with flamethrowers before the Olympics, so LRAD would have let protesters off lightly,” says Hambling.

noreply@blogger.com (US Princess) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 04:26:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (US Princess) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:05:00 +0000

"Our Economy is Very Sick; Badly Damaged,"

President-Elect Obama admitted today during a meeting with Republicans and the Obama team of economic advisers on Capitol Hill.

"Americans need action now." - President-Elect Barack Obama, 01/05/2009

The president-elect is meeting on the hill today and tomorrow with Congressional leaders from both parties, to discuss the best and quickest way that Congress can create and pass a $700 billon to $1 trillion dollar economic stimulus bill, including a $300 billion tax cut for the disappearing middle class, the working poor, and small business owners. Obama had hoped the bill would be ready for his signature a day or so after his January 20, 2009 inauguration but, given how slowly the wheels churn on Capitol Hill, chances of the bill being ready so soon was scuttled within weeks of the president-elect's original pronouncement. However, many on Capitol Hill expect to pass the massive stimulus bill, with the President signing it into law, by the middle of February.

Isaac vs. Ishmael in the Gaza Strip

Within days after the 6-month cease-fire agreement expired between Israel (descendants of Isaac) and Palestine (descendants of Ishmael), missiles burst in the twilight glean of the Gaza Strip. As of today, January 5, 2009, Israel has now deployed ground soldiers in Gaza, and reports say that the Strip is now divided into two.

There's lots of fingerpointing on both sides - Israel claims that Hamas constantly launched missiles during the cease-fire, while Hamas is claiming the opposite. As for reaching out to obtain a truce, given the US total lack of moral authority after the dismal foreign policy record of the Bush Administration, what with the Iraq invasion, among other administrative blunders, the world is waiting for the Obama administration to try to smooth things out.

Obama has a lot on his plate.

Last Minute Auto Industry Bailout by Bush Administration

A few days before Christmas, the Bush Administration allocated approximately $17 billion of the Trouble Asset Relief Program's $700 billion Wall Street bailout taxpayer money to the 3 automakers to keep them solvent through February 2009. Just before the New Year, GMAC, the lending arm of General Motors, got a shot in the arm to the tune of $4 billion, in an effort to pump up the lender's credit-granting ability to virtually broke consumers. The auto industry as a whole is down around 30% to 40% in sales since 2007, and there doesn't seem to be any way to stop the bleeding. While some people may be able to afford a new automobile, consumer confidence is extremely low, as evidenced by dismal retail sales during the holiday season.

May the New Year be prosperous . . .

noreply@blogger.com (US Princess) — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 21:26:00 +0000

Iraqi journalist Muntazer Al-Zeidi chunks shoes at lame duck President G. W. Bush during farewell news conference in Baghdad

"Soles of shoes are considered the ultimate insult in Arab culture. After Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled in Baghdad in April 2003, many onlookers beat the statue's face with their soles."

The journalist was thrown to the floor as he shouted insults to the president, and later arrested. "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq," Al-Zeida shouted as he was hustled from the room. Reports say that he is being held by Iraqi police for possible criminal acts, and to determine whether he was paid. Some reports say that Al-Zeida is also being tested for drugs and alcohol.

noreply@blogger.com (US Princess) — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 05:39:00 +0000

Hold On to Your Pennies - It's Going to be A Very Long and Bumpy Ride!

Salulations (condolences?) to President-Elect Barack Obama on his historic victory. Bless his heart, he's got quite a mess to straighten out, hasn't he? Best wishes to him, his family - and to us. We're in a quagmire that won't easily be remedied in the next two to four years.

Congressional Refusal to Assist Automotive Industry Equals Union Busting Move?

At first I didn't get the reason that Congress is sweating the Three Blind Mice (TBM) of the US Automobile Industry. I mean, look, what they're asking for is a drop in the bucket compared to the trillions of dollars of good money that was summarity thrown at the thieves in the temples on Wall Street, at insurance companies (looking at you AIG), and in banking, despite massive taxpayer/voter protests against it. Barney Franks, Chris Dodd and Nancy Pelosi in essence said that we didn't know what we were doing but they did, and that the massive outlay was a necessity to save the economic union.

And not one Congress Critter, whether democratic or republican, chastised those criminal AIG, banking and investing thugs for rolling up in their individual corporate jets, yet no less than FOUR democrats had the unmitigated gall to throw up this bit of subterfuge when the TBM got their beg on. When the lie was sold and parroted by pundits that the average hourly wage for auto workers is $80 per hour, it became crystal clear to me: Given the great chance that the Employee Free Choice Act guaranteeing that employees in the private sector can organize and form a union will be passed early next year, and given that unions are virtually the only way that the average US workers is guaranteed a living wage, the major objections we're hearing from Congress Critters is clearly a union busting move.

US corporations haven't valued the average worker, and haven't been willing to pay them their comparable worth in years. Corporate management has been top down, over priced and criminally incompetent for at least two decades, yet those who work for us - the Congress Critters - treat them as though they are hallowed angels.

Know this though - If even one of the three US automakers are allowed to go kerplunk, not only will unions be even less prevalent and relevant despite the Employee Free Choice Act, but the US can officially and proudly wear the crown of the greatest empire of consumers and non-producers in the modern era. As it is, China and Japan pretty much own us anyway.

For my money, what's fair for the goose is fair for the gander - no doubt all of the corporate raiders who are begging for taxpayer dough while getting huge bonuses and salaries ought to be fired, and that includes the TBM as well as the banking criminals. Penalizing the blue collar automotive workers for the sins of their corporate execs is as foolish as not holding the banking and investment firm thieves accountable for the greedy, reckless ponzi scheme they ran.

Finally, when monetary sums like $700 billion, $840 billion and a trillion dollars are being thrown around, you gotta wonder why $25-$36 billion divided three ways creates such congressional and national havoc. Often, the obvious isn't the most significant.

noreply@blogger.com (US Princess) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 01:04:00 +0000

The Madness Continues - Eight Years of Sociopathy in the Executive Branch - We're happy to see y'all go!

Two remarkable media events will go down in infamy under the date November 12, 2008.

First was the press conference held this morning by Treasury Secretary King Henry Paulson - he of the "we need $700 billion to prop up Wall Street, and we need it now!" fame from last September. During the conference, an arrogant and borderline beligerent Paulson said with no uncertainty that he was changing the rules of the bail out - our great majority Democratic Congress critters gave him this authority.

Anyway, King Henry said that he would no longer buy up bad mortgage assets which, as John Brinsley and Robert Schmidt wrote on Bloomberg.com:

"[Is] an acknowledgement that the pitch he made to Congress for the bailout hasn't delivered what was promised. Paulson sold the Troubled Asset Relief Program as a way to rid bank balance sheets of illiquid mortgage assets, and he may encounter resistance from Congress for the remaining $350 billion after using most of the first half to buy bank stakes . . .

Lawmakers will "put his feet to the fire,'' said Kevin Petrasic, a former official at the Office of Thrift Supervision, now an attorney with the Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker law firm in Washington. "I'm not sure how you get around dealing with what is clearly the congressional intent."

Charles Grassley of Iowa, ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said the shift makes "you wonder if they really know what they're doing." Grassley, in a letter to Paulson and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke, raised the possibility Congress could block appropriation of the remaining $350 million under the rescue package.
"Congress can act any time to revoke the Treasury's authority," Grassley said. "They will be watched and they will be questioned."
"I will never apologize for changing a strategy or an approach if the facts change," [said] Paulson [who] also said [that] the department is also considering having companies that accept new taxpayer funding get matching private capital. Buying "illiquid'' mortgage-related assets -- the reason the program was established a month ago -- is no longer being considered. "We will continue to examine whether targeted forms of asset purchase can play a useful role,'' he said.

My take? Treasonous, sociopathic destructive robber barons that they are, Shrub and Paulson's plan to loot the Treasury, leaving no operating funds for Obama and Congress, is going swimmingly. By his very tone this morning, Paulson almost bumrushes President-Elect Obama into appointing a Treasury Secretary sooner rather than later, if for no other reason than to watch his foolishness.

The other notable sociopath of the day is lame duck President Shrub who, when interviewed by CNN, only snidely mentioned the Mission Accomplished banner on the USS Lincoln back in 2001 (he seems to have forgotten perpetrating a fraud by dressing in full fighter pilot drag, including helmet), only copping to a few public-relations gaffes many years ago. No moral compass, no self-introspection, no inner reflections with this guy. He smirked about standing on "principles" and about his wife telling him that, as president, he needed to watch what he said (yep, his wife, not his chief of staff, or anyone from the White House staff), i.e., "wanted dead or alive" but he had no regrets and, like King Henry, issued no apologies for breaking our economy, ruining our alliances with countries around the globe, GITMO, Abu Gonzalez, Dummy Rumsfeld, Abu Ghraib, illegal wiretapping Americans, including the intimate calls of our military personnel, let alone anointing himself the decider without a heart or a brain.

"The [Mission Accomplished] sign was hung on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, when Bush landed on the carrier wearing a flight suit to declare that major combat operations in Iraq were over. That speech has since served as a rallying point for critics of Bush's policies in Iraq.

Bush also cited other regrets in the CNN interview, which was conducted aboard the U.S.S. Intrepid in New York after a Veterans Day ceremony.

"I regret saying some things I shouldn't have said,'' Bush said. He cited comments he made after the Sept. 11 attacks, when he said of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden: "I want justice. There's an old poster out West that said, 'Wanted, dead or alive.'''

He also said he regretted telling Iraqi insurgents in 2003: "There are some who feel like that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring 'em on.''"

Meanwhile, here are a few economical facts that will also go down in history for today's date:

The Dow Jones Industrial closed at 8,282.66, losing 411.30 points.
Nasdaq closed at 1,499.21 down 81.69.
Standard & Poor 500 at market close was 852.30, down 46.65.

But that ain't all. The big 3 U.S. automakers are on the verge of closing, and the lame duck is at odds with Pelosi and Reid on whether to rescue them or not, never mind that NOT rescuing them in some form (I don't agree with a loan or bail out a la AIG - you see where that's gotten us) will create a massive unemployment statistic throwing another 3 million people into the jobless mix.

I'm just saying . . . . We need smarter, more compassionate and better people because they ain't it. Thankfully, help is on the way, and in 68 or so days, things will look better once Obama's holding the reins.

noreply@blogger.com (US Princess) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 15:50:00 +0000

He Talked the Talk and Walked the Walk - How We the People Won the 2008 Election - AND IT AIN'T OVER - WE AIN'T FINISHED YET!

"Barack Obama performed 9 points better than John Kerry among urban whites." ~ Nate Silvers, 538.com
Politico.com:
[Barack Obama] won 43 percent of white voters.
96 percent of black voters supported Obama; [a]s in past years, black women turned out at a higher rate than black men.
50% of [the] suburban vote went to Obama.
54 % of young white voters supported Obama. In the past three decades, no Democratic presidential nominee has won more than 45% of young whites.
Obama performed slightly worse with white women, 39% of voters, than Al Gore did in 2000. Obama compensated for the drop-off in white female support with the strong 41% support from white men. [U]ntil Tuesday’s election, no Democrat since Carter had earned more than 38%of the white male vote.
Hispanics, who as in 2004 were 8% of voters, went for Obama by more than 2-to1, 67% to 30%, marking a roughly 10-point drop-off in Republican Hispanic support, compared to Bush’s performance in 2004.
Obama ... won 84% of those Democrats who backed New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the hard-fought presidential primaries.
White independents, a fifth of voters, roughly split between the major party candidates, which has not occurred in a two-man race in three decades.” ... Obama earned the same level of support as John F. Kerry in 2004 — 47%.
Pew Research Center:
We overcame cynicism and the apathy of the masses but, make no mistake - we've can't in no ways get tired because there's a huge amount of work yet to do, and the heavy lifting must be done by We the People.

"I can't do this alone," Obama repeatedly exhorted us over the long, arduous campaign season. At change.gov, the new website established just a day or so after the November 4 election, the Obama Administration has already begun its We the People inclusivity.
"The story of of this campaign is your story. It is about the great things we can do when we come together around a common purpose."
Open Government
It’s Your America: Share Your Ideas
The story of the campaign and this historic moment has been your story. Share your story and your ideas, and be part of bringing positive lasting change to this country.
An American Moment: Your Vision
Start right now. Share your vision for what America can be, where President-Elect Obama should lead this country. Where should we start together?
The Agenda
President-Elect Obama and Vice President-Elect Biden have developed innovative approaches to challenge the status quo in Washington and to bring about the kind of change America needs.
The Obama Administration has a comprehensive and detailed agenda to carry out its policies. The principal priorities of the Obama Administration include: a plan to revive the economy, to fix our health care, education, and social security systems, to define a clear path to energy independence, to end the war in Iraq responsibly and finish our mission in Afghanistan, and to work with our allies to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, among many other domestic and foreign policy objectives.
Apply for a Job
This website is designed to provide prospective applicants with information to help them apply for positions in the Obama-Biden Administration. President-Elect Obama will make appointments throughout the federal government. Some positions will require Senate confirmation while others will not. Some appointments will be made during the transition process and others during the early part of the new Administration.
Applicants for any of these non-career positions - whether in the White House or in any Federal Department, Agency or Commission - should use this website, as applying on-line is the fastest and most accurate way to get your information to us. (If you are interested instead in a career, civil service position with the federal government, you should proceed to the Office of Personnel Management website at http://www.usajobs.gov.)/
If you apply for a position now, you will not need to apply again after January 20th. Applications submitted now to the Obama-Biden Transition Project will be retained and considered by the Office of Presidential Personnel after President-Elect Obama takes office.
Application Process:
Please complete and submit the on-line Expression of Interest Form below. Within a few days, you will receive an email with a link to a more complete on-line application.
Upon submitting your full on-line application you will receive an e-mail acknowledgment.
If and when you are considered for a specific position, you will be asked to fill out additional forms, including financial disclosures, and be subject to other reviews which may include FBI background checks.
As a Constitutional Law scholar, Obama seems sincerely interested in restoring our Constitution to
"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Get up, stand up - stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up - don't give up the fight!
~ Bob Marley and The Wailers
This is our call, this is our time - no more cynicism, no more apathy, no more 'they' versus 'we.' This is our government - of the people, by the people and for the people. We elect our representatives and by so doing, hire them to work for us. Stay involved. Continue to let our voices be heard. Change truly does begin from the ground up, at the grassroots level, with We the People.

Roll up your sleeves, Americans! Whether we're Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, Indian, Muslim, Christian, Gay, Straight, Republican, Democrat, Independent, Redneck, Militant, Supremacist, young, old, employed, unemployed - whoever we are and whatever our circumstances, persuasion and beliefs, the time has come to collectively transform our country, to begin anew the building of a more perfect union.
Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
~ Langston Hughes, 1902-1967

noreply@blogger.com (US Princess) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:35:00 +0000

AN ODE TO THE LEGACY OF GEORGE W. BUSH

He broke the voting and election process two elections in a row.

He broke the Justice Department.

He broke the NATO Agreement.

He broke the Geneva Convention.

He broke the global financial system.

He broke the rules of engagement for war.

He broke the rules of international diplomacy.

He broke the middle class and stomped on the poor.

He broke the banks.

He broke Wall Street.

He broke the Constitution.

He broke the GOP.

He broke the Congress.

He broke American grammar - the nouns, the verbs, the adverbs, the adjectives, the infinitives, the conjunctions, et al.

He broke the trust of the American people.

Today's the day when we take back our country from the brokenness that this man and his fascist regime has wrought.

Today's the Day -

Tuesday, November 4, 2008.

noreply@blogger.com (US Princess) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 22:30:00 +0000

"Economically Distressed"

Regarding the downturn in the economy and the "economically distressed" - a euphemism for the working poor and those who want to work, but are unable to find gainful employment after losing their jobs.

Michael Zweig and Steven Greenhouse on Democracy Now!:

MZ: [N]obody wants to be poor. Nobody wants to be called poor or low-wage. So when we started out talking about the working poor or low-wage workers, we came, in the course of conversations with these workers, to understand that maybe it would be better to find another way to talk about it. So that’s why we came up with this formulation “economically distressed,” which really talks about the content of their lives, rather than something which might get turned into an epithet.

So, these economically distressed workers are people whose incomes are so low that they can’t get out of the bottom of their own housing market in their area for a family of their size without spending more than 30 percent of their income to do that. And the federal standard is 30 percent. You shouldn’t spend more than 30 percent of your income on housing. Otherwise you won’t have enough money for everything else that you need. So that’s how we look at the problem.

And we found that in the United States, it’s almost 21 percent of the labor force are people who are in this economically distressed status, and it varies. In metropolitan areas, it’s higher. Here in New York—I just have the numbers just here—it’s in New York metropolitan area, 29.4 percent of the families and households in the New York metro area are economically distressed. And it goes as high as—in Miami, it’s 32.4 percent. So, in Los Angeles, it’s 31 percent. So we’re talking about really a lot of people who are in a very, very serious situation.

SG: First, the phrase “working class” is kind of forbidden from political talk in the United States, because it’s—people are going to be accused of being class warriors. So, unfortunately, that phrase is rarely used. But I think, you know, the catch phrase is the middle class, and they’re both focusing on the middle class. But we have this ever-expansive definition of what the middle class is: people from $20,000 a year to $200,000 a year.

But I think, you know, the silver lining in the current crisis is that, you know, finally, after years of ignoring what’s happening to the nation’s workers, the candidates are starting to talk to some of these issues: foreclosures, high debt levels, the large number of uninsured. I think Obama, you know, has come up with some plans where he’s really trying to address the freeze on foreclosures to pump billions of dollars into investment and infrastructure into green industries. And McCain, in his own way, is also trying to do it, you know, mainly in the traditional Republican way of tax cuts, tax cuts. And he’s hoping that there’ll be a trickle down from investors and entrepreneurs down to help workers.

We need major change in our nation; it will take a monumental, collective effort to put things on the track again. Next Tuesday's election is extremely important, not only from a presidential standpoint but also to gain majority seats in both the House and the Senate. There's work to be done and everyone must pitch in.

If you haven't already done so, on Tuesday, November 4, 2008, no matter how long the lines,

V O T E !!

noreply@blogger.com (US Princess) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:02:00 +0000

Former National Security Adviser Schools Lipless Joe Regarding Retired General Colin Powell's Endorsement of Obama

Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski was born in Warsaw, Poland and advised both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations prior to serving as NSA Adviser to President Jimmy Carter. In some circles, Brzezinski is known as the Democrats' answer to the Republicans' Henry Kissinger.

noreply@blogger.com (US Princess) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 20:47:00 +0000

The Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times Break with Tradition to Endorse Obama!

"The Los Angeles Times, breaking a decades-long policy of not endorsing any candidate for president, threw its support behind Barack Obama today. The editorial will appear in print this weekend, but went online this afternoon.
Just minutes later, the Chicago Tribune made an even more historic move, also backing Obama, its home state senator, and explaining: "This endorsement makes some history for the Chicago Tribune. This is the first time the newspaper has endorsed the Democratic Party's nominee for president." It said it was "proud" to make this choice.
E&P had predicted this outcome earlier this week based on the tone of a series of recent Times editorials. The paper, traditionally Republican, had stopped endorsing following the Nixon era.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
On Dec. 6, 2006, this page encouraged Obama to join the presidential campaign. We wrote that he would celebrate our common values instead of exaggerate our differences. We said he would raise the tone of the campaign. We said his intellectual depth would sharpen the policy debate. In the ensuing 22 months he has done just that.
Many Americans say they're uneasy about Obama. He's pretty new to them. We can provide some assurance. We have known Obama since he entered politics a dozen years ago. We have watched him, worked with him, argued with him as he rose from an effective state senator to an inspiring U.S. senator to the Democratic Party's nominee for president.We have tremendous confidence in his intellectual rigor, his moral compass and his ability to make sound, thoughtful, careful decisions. He is ready.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Our nation has never before had a candidate like Obama, a man born in the 1960s, of black African and white heritage, raised and educated abroad as well as in the United States, and bringing with him a personal narrative that encompasses much of the American story but that, until now, has been reflected in little of its elected leadership. The excitement of Obama's early campaign was amplified by that newness. But as the presidential race draws to its conclusion, it is Obama's character and temperament that come to the fore. It is his steadiness. His maturity.
These are qualities American leadership has sorely lacked for close to a decade. The U.S. Constitution, more than two centuries old, now offers the world one of its more mature and certainly most stable governments, but our political culture is still struggling to shake off a brash and unseemly adolescence. In George W. Bush, the executive branch turned its back on an adult role in the nation and the world and retreated into self-absorbed unilateralism.
John McCain distinguished himself through much of the Bush presidency by speaking out against reckless and self-defeating policies. He earned The Times' respect, and our endorsement in the California Republican primary, for his denunciation of torture, his readiness to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and his willingness to buck his party on issues such as immigration reform. But the man known for his sense of honor and consistency has since announced that he wouldn't vote for his own immigration bill, and he redefined "torture" in such a disingenuous way as to nearly embrace what he once abhorred."

Read the rest at the link above.

noreply@blogger.com (US Princess) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:20:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (US Princess) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 20:00:00 +0000

The Choice: New Yorker Magazine Editors Endorse Obama

During the brouhaha surrounding July's 'satircal' New Yorker article depicting Senator Barack Obama as an Osama-loving, flag-burning Muslim, few people took the time to read the most excellent article inside the magazine, and more's the pity, since the article showed Obama to be a shrewd, politician who keeps his eyes on the prize in every election contest.

Today, though, the editors of the New Yorker published a scathing attack on the Republicans, Bush, McCain, his temperament and his extremely poor judgment in choosing the Governor of Alaska, laying out the reasons why he is unfit to be president, while heartily endorsing Obama.

The New Yorker Endorsement

First, the Editors gutted the Bush Administration like Sarah Palin would skin and gut a caribou or moose:

The incumbent Administration has distinguished itself for the ages. The Presidency of George W. Bush is the worst since Reconstruction, so there is no mystery about why the Republican Party—which has held dominion over the executive branch of the federal government for the past eight years and the legislative branch for most of that time—has little desire to defend its record, domestic or foreign. The only speaker at the Convention in St. Paul who uttered more than a sentence or two in support of the President was his wife, Laura. Meanwhile, the nominee, John McCain, played the part of a vaudeville illusionist, asking to be regarded as an apostle of change after years of embracing the essentials of the Bush agenda with ever-increasing ardor.

The Republican disaster begins at home. Even before taking into account whatever fantastically expensive plan eventually emerges to help rescue the financial system from Wall Street’s long-running pyramid schemes, the economic and fiscal picture is bleak. During the Bush Administration, the national debt, now approaching ten trillion dollars, has nearly doubled. Next year’s federal budget is projected to run a half-trillion-dollar deficit, a precipitous fall from the seven-hundred-billion-dollar surplus that was projected when Bill Clinton left office. Private-sector job creation has been a sixth of what it was under President Clinton. Five million people have fallen into poverty. The number of Americans without health insurance has grown by seven million, while average premiums have nearly doubled. Meanwhile, the principal domestic achievement of the Bush Administration has been to shift the relative burden of taxation from the rich to the rest. For the top one per cent of us, the Bush tax cuts are worth, on average, about a thousand dollars a week; for the bottom fifth, about a dollar and a half. The unfairness will only increase if the painful, yet necessary, effort to rescue the credit markets ends up preventing the rescue of our health-care system, our environment, and our physical, educational, and industrial infrastructure.

Next, they eviscerate Shrub and McCain on the Wall Street meltdown, the two wars, and the humongous global economic crisis caused by their free market 'triumphalism':

President Bush’s successor will inherit two wars and the realities of limited resources, flagging popular will, and the dwindling possibilities of what can be achieved by American power. McCain’s views on these subjects range from the simplistic to the unknown. In Iraq, he seeks “victory”—a word that General David Petraeus refuses to use, and one that fundamentally misrepresents the messy, open-ended nature of the conflict. As for Afghanistan, on the rare occasions when McCain mentions it he implies that the surge can be transferred directly from Iraq, which suggests that his grasp of counterinsurgency is not as firm as he insisted it was during the first Presidential debate. McCain always displays more faith in force than interest in its strategic consequences. Unlike Obama, McCain has no political strategy for either war, only the dubious hope that greater security will allow things to work out. Obama has long warned of deterioration along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and has a considered grasp of its vital importance. His strategy for both Afghanistan and Iraq shows an understanding of the role that internal politics, economics, corruption, and regional diplomacy play in wars where there is no battlefield victory.

Now they decimate McCain for his cynicism in choosing the Alaska governor as his running mate while hailing Obama for his fine choice of Senator Joe Biden:

Perhaps nothing revealed McCain’s cynicism more than his choice of Sarah Palin, the former mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, who had been governor of that state for twenty-one months, as the Republican nominee for Vice-President. In the interviews she has given since her nomination, she has had difficulty uttering coherent unscripted responses about the most basic issues of the day. We are watching a candidate for Vice-President cram for her ongoing exam in elementary domestic and foreign policy. This is funny as a Tina Fey routine on “Saturday Night Live,” but as a vision of the political future it’s deeply unsettling. Palin has no business being the backup to a President of any age, much less to one who is seventy-two and in imperfect health. In choosing her, McCain committed an act of breathtaking heedlessness and irresponsibility. Obama’s choice, Joe Biden, is not without imperfections. His tongue sometimes runs in advance of his mind, providing his own fodder for late-night comedians, but there is no comparison with Palin. His deep experience in foreign affairs, the judiciary, and social policy makes him an assuring and complementary partner for Obama.

Finally, their ringing endorsement of Barack Obama:

We cannot expect one man to heal every wound, to solve every major crisis of policy. So much of the Presidency, as they say, is a matter of waking up in the morning and trying to drink from a fire hydrant. In the quiet of the Oval Office, the noise of immediate demands can be deafening. And yet Obama has precisely the temperament to shut out the noise when necessary and concentrate on the essential. The election of Obama—a man of mixed ethnicity, at once comfortable in the world and utterly representative of twenty-first-century America—would, at a stroke, reverse our country’s image abroad and refresh its spirit at home.
[Obama's] ascendance to the Presidency would be a symbolic culmination of the civil- and voting-rights acts of the nineteen-sixties and the century-long struggles for equality that preceded them. It could not help but say something encouraging, even exhilarating, about the country, about its dedication to tolerance and inclusiveness, about its fidelity, after all, to the values it proclaims in its textbooks.

At a moment of economic calamity, international perplexity, political failure, and battered morale, America needs both uplift and realism, both change and steadiness. It needs a leader temperamentally, intellectually, and emotionally attuned to the complexities of our troubled globe. That leader’s name is Barack Obama.

The full article is a must-read.

noreply@blogger.com (US Princess) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:42:00 +0000

In Memoriam

Paul Leonard Newman,

January 26, 1925 - September 26, 2008

U.S. Dollar - 1863 to 2008

noreply@blogger.com (US Princess) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 20:47:00 +0000