Fold/Spindle/Mutilate 2.1

By Ring of Fire

Last Sunday, the pastor in the church I attend prayed for Barack Obama. That pastor prayed that Obama would have the strength and wisdom to guide America. I’m certain that the majority of that congregation agreed that we should all pray for Obama’s success. It made me proud to be a member of that church during that prayer.

I wish Rush Limbaugh had been there. Because the week before Limbaugh made the statemenLast Sunday, the pastor in the church I attend prayed for Barack Obama. That pastor prayed that Obama would have the strength and wisdom to guide America. I’m certain that the majority of that congregation agreed thatt on his radio show that he hoped that Obama’s efforts to pull America through these dark days would fail. His words were: “I hope Obama fails. Somebody’s got to say it.” He went as far as telling his lockstep listeners that he was angry at Republicans who are pulling for Obama to succeed.

I’m pretty sure there are preachers all over this country leading congregations in prayers that make the same plea my pastor made last Sunday. And I’m comfortable knowing that the power of those prayers are much stronger than the repugnant hate talk of an aging radio host in search of a bigger audience.

It’s important to consider the specifics of what Limbaugh is hoping for in Obama’s failure. Eight million Americans lost their homes to foreclosure during the Bush years. Perhaps if Limbaugh could step out of his 25,000 square foot home and see the pain of a mother and father telling their children that they just lost their home, maybe then he would want Obama to succeed.

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by Muriel Kane

The super-secretive National Security Agency has been quietly monitoring, decrypting, and interpreting foreign communications for decades, starting long before it came under criticism as a result of recent revelations about the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. Now a forthcoming PBS documentary asks whether the NSA could have prevented 9/11 if it had been more willing to share its data with other agencies.

Author James Bamford looked into the performance of the NSA in his 2008 book, The Shadow Factory, and found that it had been closely monitoring the 9/11 hijackers as they moved freely around the United States and communicated with Osama bin Laden’s operations center in Yemen. The NSA had even tapped bin Laden’s satellite phone, starting in 1996.

“The NSA never alerted any other agency that the terrorists were in the United States and moving across the country towards Washington,” Bamford told PBS.

PBS also found that “the 9/11 Commission never looked closely into NSA’s role in the broad intelligence breakdown behind the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. If they had, they would have understood the full extent to which the agency had major pieces of the puzzle but never put them together or disclosed their entire body of knowledge to the CIA and the FBI.”

In a review of Bamford’s book, former senator and 9/11 Commission member Bob Kerrey wrote, “As the 9/11 Commission later established, U.S. intelligence officials knew that al-Qaeda had held a planning meeting in Malaysia, found out the names of two recruits who had been present — Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi — and suspected that one and maybe both of them had flown to Los Angeles. Bamford reveals that the NSA had been eavesdropping for months on their calls to Yemen, yet the agency ‘never made the effort’ to trace where the calls originated. ‘At any time, had the FBI been notified, they could have found Hazmi in a matter of seconds.’”

Former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer told PBS, “None of this information that we’re speaking about this evening’s in the 9/11 Commission report. They simply ignored all of it.”.

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Dear World:

We, the United States of America, your top quality supplier
of the ideals of liberty and democracy, would like to
apologize for our 2001-2008 interruption in service. The
technical fault that led to this eight-year service outage
has been located, and the software responsible was replaced
November 4. Early tests of the newly installed program
indicate that we are now operating correctly, and we expect
it to be fully functional as of noon on January 20. We apologize for
any inconvenience caused by the outage. We look forward to
resuming full service and hope to improve in years to come.
We thank you for your patience and understanding,

Sincerely,

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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by Larisa Alexandrovna

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By Robert Parry

When authoritarian forces seize control of a government, they typically move first against the public’s access to information, under the theory that a confused populace can be more easily manipulated. They take aim at the radio stations, TV and newspapers.

In the case of George W. Bush in 2001, he also took aim at historical records, giving himself and his family indefinite control over documents covering the 12 years of his father’s terms as President and Vice President.

It was, therefore, significant that one of Barack Obama’s first acts as President was to revoke the Bush Family’s power over that history and to replace it with an easier set of regulations for accessing the records.

Just as George W. Bush upon taking office in January 2001 immediately delayed the scheduled release of documents from the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, Obama wasted no time in reversing that policy by signing a new executive order on his first working day in office.

Eight years earlier, George W. Bush initially postponed the document release and then – after the 9/11 attacks – sought to extend the cloak of secrecy over those documents virtually forever.

Bush signed Executive Order 13233 on Nov. 1, 2001, granting the sitting President as well as former Presidents or ex-Vice Presidents – or their heirs – veto power over release of many documents.

In other words, Bush was giving himself and his family effective control over key chapters of 20 years of American history (his father’s eight years as Vice President and four years as President, and his own eight years as President).

Presumably at some point, that power would have passed to George W. Bush’s daughters, Jenna and Barbara, and to their progeny, giving the family a kind of dynastic control over how Americans would understand key events of an important national era.

Self-serving myths could become a substitute for accurate history – all the better to protect the Bush Family’s interests.

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Obama aide won’t rule out more money for bailouts

By Emily Kaiser and Kim Dixon

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama’s top economic adviser would not rule out on Sunday that more money may be needed to stabilize the U.S. financial system as a deep recession increases banks’ losses.

Lawrence Summers, head of the National Economic Council, also said there was no question that tax cuts passed under former President George W. Bush needed to be repealed, though he would not be pinned down on exactly when.

“We can make important progress and get started with the support that has been provided,” Summers said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” when asked whether taxpayers should expect another request for funding to shore up the financial system.

“What ultimately will be necessary is something that will play out over time.”

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said earlier that “some increased investment” may be needed beyond the $700 billion approved last fall.

The bailout fund was first pitched as a way to get bad assets off the banks’ books in the hope that doing so would help restore normal lending and get the economy going.

Instead, most of the money has gone to buy stakes in banks, and both Democrats and Republicans have complained that the cash was doled out with too few strings attached and insufficient oversight.

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BBC documentary takes on Obama’s plans for American health care system

by Nick Cargo

A January 19 episode of BBC One’s Panorama, the world’s longest running television documentary show, tackles the dismal state of health care in the United States, the lengths to which its estimated 45 million uninsured citizens will go to in pursuit of care, the pharmaceutical industry’s rigged pricing against the American patient, and the insurance industry’s efforts to deny care whenever possible.

The documentary opens in rural Kentucky, where people have driven within a 200-mile radius to wait in line in the early morning for a spot in line to see a volunteer doctor thanks to the efforts of Remote Access Medical, who originally set out to help people in the Amazon jungle, but now focus 60% of their time on Americans.

“The need is enormous,” said the organization’s founder Stan Brock. “We discovered…there are people here that need help just as much as they do in Guatemala or in the Amazon and all these other places we go to.”

President Obama faces a difficult task to deliver on his promises of change, the segment explains, the country divided between the “super rich” and the “new poor,” and lobbyists putting their power to work to prevent reforms from taking place. Also, 533 members of Congress, out of 535, have received campaign contributions from within the health sector.

“We plan on mounting a national campaign,” warned health insurance industry lobbyist Angela Hunter, “and what we hope to do is to, number one, get some articles in the newspaper explaining what the problems are that we see with the plan. Two: Educate lawmakers, people who are members of our organizations, their clients–to go and lobby members of Congress–call them on the phone, visit them in their offices, and to just do everything that we can possibly do to preserve the freedom of choice for individuals in health care in America.”

“It’s really a system of legalized bribery,” said Richard Kirsch of Healthcare for America Now. “As one congressman says, we’re the only people in the world who are expected to take money from strangers and provide nothing in return.”

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Newly imported cars fill the 150-acre site at the Toyota distribution centre in Long Beach, California

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Fallen Lehman Brothers Chief Executive Richard Fuld sold his $13.3 million mansion to his wife for just $100 last November, according to Florida real estate records.

The 62-year old executive, who could face civil lawsuits after overseeing the storied investment bank’s collapse into Chapter 11 proceedings last September, transferred ownership of the 3.3 acres seaside home to Kathleen Fuld on November 10, records show.

The couple had jointly bought the home for $13.75 million in March 2004, as first reported by Cityfile.com.

Fuld has been blamed for Lehman’s collapse on September 15 after it was weighed down by bad assets leading to the largest-ever U.S. bankruptcy when it was unable to find a buyer to come to its rescue.

He was widely criticized for not acting quickly enough to save the 158-year old bank.

Though Fuld told U.S. lawmakers he took full responsibility for his actions and felt “horrible about what has happened to the company,” he insisted he shared the blame with U.S. regulators and Congress.

Fuld, who was awarded $22 million in compensation in fiscal 2007, stepped down as Lehman chief executive at the end of last year and did not receive any bonus or severance when he left.

(Reporting by Yinka Adegoke)

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By JOHN MARKOFF

A new digital plague has hit the Internet, infecting millions of personal and business computers in what seems to be the first step of a multistage attack. The world’s leading computer security experts do not yet know who programmed the infection, or what the next stage will be.

In recent weeks a worm, a malicious software program, has swept through corporate, educational and public computer networks around the world. Known as Conficker or Downadup, it is spread by a recently discovered Microsoft Windows vulnerability, by guessing network passwords and by hand-carried consumer gadgets like USB keys.

Experts say it is the worst infection since the Slammer worm exploded through the Internet in January 2003, and it may have infected as many as nine million personal computers around the world.

Worms like Conficker not only ricochet around the Internet at lightning speed, they harness infected computers into unified systems called botnets, which can then accept programming instructions from their clandestine masters. “If you’re looking for a digital Pearl Harbor, we now have the Japanese ships steaming toward us on the horizon,” said Rick Wesson, chief executive of Support Intelligence, a computer security consulting firm based in San Francisco.

Many computer users may not notice that their machines have been infected, and computer security researchers said they were waiting for the instructions to materialize, to determine what impact the botnet will have on PC users. It might operate in the background, using the infected computer to send spam or infect other computers, or it might steal the PC user’s personal information.

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by Bill Gallagher

He had political pedigree and little else. He was a child of privilege and entitlement. His name, not his merit, brought him to Yale and Harvard where the affirmative action of legacy provided him slots denied to the more accomplished lacking his royal family’s wealth and heritage.

For him, life was like an elite box of chocolates where he always knew what he would get. Just ask daddy and it’s done. Do what you like, fail, and never face the consequences.

He cut in line to get into the Air National Guard and avoid the perils of a war he said he supported but others — those with no influence or money — should bleed and die for. He skipped officer candidate school, got a direct commission and become a pilot, just like daddy.

Duty quickly bored him. Neglect and dereliction marked his service. He has yet to explain his whereabouts for the entire year of 1972. He mothballed his flight suit and spent hard hours working on the Houston nightlife, snorting cocaine in the company of his dearest friend, Jack Daniels.

In business, he failed consistently. His MBA degree was of little use in the oil business as he bet on dry hole after dry oil. Bankruptcy would look bad on his resume, so his daddy’s friends consistently bailed him out.

In one of his business ventures, he used inside information to unload stock that was about to tank. He got caught. A friend of his daddy’s at the SEC slapped his hand and he promised he wouldn’t steal again from the other shareholders. The report on the dirty dealing remains sealed to this day.

He failed in his first flirt with politics, losing a race for a congressional seat. If only it ended there. But the family’s political gene is never recessive. Politics is power and power means money. We must protect our investments. Besides, the glory and comfort are fun.

His daddy’s run for the White House pumped up his campaign adrenaline and he chose to hang out with political thugs and right-wing religious leaders, a foretaste of his own climb to the top. Daddy had to settle in as Ronald Reagan’s Veep until his turn came later.

His boy wanted to cash in on his daddy’s success and have some of his own. Brain damaged and tired from decades of hangovers, he gave up the booze and found Jesus. But he never treated the demons and they still gripped his soul. He became a textbook dry drunk, no longer drinking but still lost in clouded thinking.

He was unyielding, inflexible, and extreme. The stinking thinking made him testy, prone to erratic behavior and mood swings. He followed his gut, resulting in delusions and deceptions. Single-mindedness and grandiosity drove him.

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Bush Repeals English Language

In what he hoped would be the capstone to his eight years as President, George W. Bush today signed an executive order repealing the English language.

Scrawling his name on the official document, Mr. Bush said that in abolishing English he had vanquished his “greaterest enemy.”

For Mr. Bush, the executive order represents the realization of a longstanding dream that began in 2001 when he declared an official War on Grammar.

The President followed up that declaration of war in 2003 when he signed an executive order cancelling the agreement between nouns and verbs.

Mr. Bush’s decision to repeal the English language could complicate matters for his successor, President-elect Barack Obama, who is scheduled to deliver his inaugural address tomorrow, presumably in English.

But thoughts of Mr. Obama seemed far away during today’s jubilant Oval Office ceremony, which Mr. Bush summed up in four words: “I can has legacy.”

Mr. Bush’s executive offer also drew high praise from a fellow Republican, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska: “Being that the English language can and has been used in confusing and also too in harming ordinary Americans, knowing that it no longer can or will be used in doing that is something positive that this is doing also.”

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(ed. note: The tariff on a Chinese made car is 2%, the tariff on Sugar cane based ethanol is $.50 cents per gallon )

People in the southern French district of Lozeyron are having a hard time swallowing US President George W. Bush’s parting gift:a tripling to 300 percent in import duty on their world-famous Roquefort cheese.

“Tonnes of produce are going to go up in smoke,” protested one of the seven local producers of the distinctive soft blue cheese. It was a hammer blow to the local region, he said.

The swingeing tariff increase, part of a longstanding trade row between the United States and the European Union, has effectively priced them out of the US market, say producers.

“The aim of the Americans is that there is not a gram of Roquefort sold in the United States,” said Philippe le Guen, who handles sales at Papillon, one of the best-known brands of the cheese.

His mark alone accounts for nearly 10 percent of total production, exporting 50 tonnes of Roquefort to the United States of a total 1,700 tonnes produced.

And with the world economy in trouble this latest US move has raised the spectre of a trade war.

Certainly people in the tiny village of Roquefort itself, which gave its name to the distinctive ewes’ milk cheese, are struggling to digest this latest decision by the US Trade Representative (USTR).

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More fines threatened

Reuters

The European Commission accused Microsoft on Friday of stymieing competition by bundling its Internet Explorer web browser with Windows systems, firing the latest salvo in an expensive, years-long battle with the software titan.

The executive arm of the European Union reached the preliminary view that the company, which controls roughly three-quarters of the web browser arena, had prevented rival browsers from competing and had infringed EU rules by abusing its dominant position.

It added that Microsoft had eight weeks to reply to a “statement of objections” sent to the company, in which it threatened to impose a fine on the US software giant if its preliminary findings were confirmed.

Microsoft has had to shell out more than $1bn in fines to the Commission in the past.

The Commission “sets out evidence and outlines its preliminary conclusion that Microsoft’s tying of Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system harms competition between web browsers, undermines product innovation and ultimately reduces consumer choice”, the EU executive said in a statement.

“If the preliminary views expressed in the statement of objection are confirmed, the Commission may impose a fine on Microsoft, require Microsoft to cease the abuse and impose a remedy that would restore genuine consumer choice and enable competition on the merits.”

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Stephen C. Webster

War is cruel. But sometimes, a story comes along that redefines what cruel really means.

Saturday morning, a Palestinian doctor who reports for Israel’s channel 10 television witnessed three of his daughters killed by Israeli bombs, even as his first moments of insane panic and grief were broadcast live.

Israeli officials said shells were dropped in response to sniper fire in the area.

Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Ashi is an uncommon man. A Palestinian who works for an Israeli hospital, Dr. Ashi has been giving Israelis daily reports on the military campaign in Gaza.

“No one can get to us,” he screamed in Arabic on a live phone call with a channel 10 anchor. “My God … My God …”

Dr. Ashi told the anchor his family had just been killed, and that he was “overwhelmed.”

“My God … My girls …” he cried. “Shiomi … Can’t anybody help us please?”

The news anchor asked Dr. Ashi where his house is, and cameras followed as the journalist frantically tried to employ his network of contacts to send help to the doctor. Shortly thereafter, the Israeli Army allowed a Palestinian ambulance to speed to his location.

Only one of al-Ashi’s daughters survived.

“Everybody in Israel knows that I was talking on television and on the radio,” said Dr. Ashi. “That we are home, that we are innocent people.

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by Jeremy Gantz

George W. Bush will leave the White House for good on Tuesday, but two controversial U.S. attorneys appointed by him have no intention of leaving the Justice Department.

U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan of Pittsburgh, a member of the conservative Federalist Society who is close to former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, pledged last month to remain in her post.

And U.S. Attorney Alice Martin of Birmingham, whose conduct has been the subject of repeated investigations by Congress and the Justice Department’s ethics office, several of which are still pending, will stay on in her post, The Daily Beast reported Friday.

“With the new administration approaching, [Martin] made clear her desire to hold on to her post as U.S. attorney for another year of prosecutions,” the Daily Beast wrote. “Her Kafkaesque argument: she is targeting corrupt Democratic politicians and investigating others. Therefore, her removal under these circumstances and replacement by an Obama appointee would be ‘unseemly.’”

Political appointees to the Justice Department traditionally tender their resignation when a new president moves into the White House; Buchanan and Martin would apparently rather be fired. Their contrariness is particularly notable given a brand-new internal Justice Department report that includes unprecedented details regarding the department’s politicized atmosphere.

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In two days, we enter a new Bush and Cheney-less era, though we’ll be living with their nightmarish legacy forever and a day. In response to change, all of us have to adapt — TomDispatch included. This site certainly won’t lose its focus on the world out there, the ongoing militarization of our country, the way we continue to garrison the planet, or the new military and civilian team of custodians and bureaucrats of empire just now being put in place to manage our ongoing wars. This coming week and next, for instance, the site will turn to the nightmare in Gaza, well covered indeed by the political blogosphere, while considering what, in the new Obama era, the future may hold in the Middle East; but TomDispatch will also (as today) aim to expand its domestic focus, while keeping a steady eye upon the economic devastation now roiling our country and planet. (By the way, on some Saturdays, including the next one, I’ll be having a surprise or two for TD readers, so keep your eyes peeled.)

Just as the Bush administration is handing off a host of foreign policy debacles to Barack Obama (including seemingly endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan), a woefully mismanaged economic bailout, and possibly a second Great Depression, so the outgoing president is leaving the new administration with a public education mess. There’s the much maligned and underfunded No Child Left Behind Act which is up for reauthorization this year. The cost of going to college is also rapidly spiraling out of control, as evidenced in a recent report in which every state except California received an “F” for college affordability. And at the same time, student loans are drying up as lenders, fearing economic disaster, scale back their programs.

With this in mind, the stakes are high for the incoming Secretary of Education and Obama pal Arne Duncan, who was received with striking warmth during his Senate confirmation hearings this week. As Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) put it, “Mr. Duncan, there is no question that schools across America can benefit from the same kind of fresh thinking that you brought to Chicago public schools. As you know very well, perhaps our greatest educational challenge is to improve the performance of urban and rural public schools serving high-poverty communities.”

Today, Andy Kroll skips the “applause” and the “warm reception.” Instead, he puts Duncan’s “fresh thinking” in Chicago under the microscope. The results may surprise. (To catch a TomDispatch audio interview with Kroll on the new Secretary of Education, click here.) Tom

The Duncan Doctrine

The Military-Corporate Legacy of the New Secretary of Education
By Andy Kroll

On December 16th, a friendship forged nearly two decades ago on the hardwood of the basketball court culminated in a press conference at the Dodge Renaissance Academy, an elementary school located on the west side of Chicago. In a glowing introduction to the media, President-elect Barack Obama named Arne Duncan, the chief executive officer of the Chicago Public Schools system (CPS), as his nominee for U.S. Secretary of Education. “When it comes to school reform,” the President-elect said, “Arne is the most hands-on of hands-on practitioners. For Arne, school reform isn’t just a theory in a book — it’s the cause of his life. And the results aren’t just about test scores or statistics, but about whether our children are developing the skills they need to compete with any worker in the world for any job.”

Though the announcement came amidst a deluge of other Obama nominations — he had unveiled key members of his energy and environment teams the day before and would add his picks for the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior the next day — Duncan’s selection was eagerly anticipated, and garnered mostly favorable reactions in education circles and in the media. He was described as the compromise candidate between powerful teachers’ unions and the advocates of charter schools and merit pay. He was also regularly hailed as a “reformer,” fearless when it came to challenging the educational status quo and more than willing to shake up hidebound, moribund public school systems.

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By Michael Calderone

Media executives must have been paying attention last week when President Bush declared a state of emergency for Tuesday’s inaugural.

CNN’s Washington bureau chief David Bohrman, for one, issued a “news emergency” of his own.

While Bush freed up federal funds, Bohrman made available satellite phones in the event of rolling cell phone blackouts. There will be cots and air mattresses for staffers camping out in the newsroom on Monday night, along with shower arrangements at a nearby health club. Staffers will be treated to a pancake breakfast prior to braving the bitter cold and bulging crowds.

“It’s the biggest event any of us have ever had to cover,” Bohrman said.

While there have been several massive Obama events this past year — Berlin, Denver, and Chicago’s Grant Park — the inaugural is proving to be the most complicated. Covering it requires dealing with a vast number of moving parts, among them the challenges for camera crews of literally moving around to cover the sprawling event. Much of Washington will resemble an occupied city, complete with closed streets, checkpoints, and a 40,000-plus security force.

Crowd size is the biggest variable for news executives, since coverage limitations increase as the number of onlookers grows: one million attendees present a certain set of challenges; two million, another. Those directing coverage will be watching in the days leading up for indications of how many people might show up, and start planning accordingly. An extra million people on Tuesday significantly increases gridlock and cuts down on the ability to move television correspondents, camera operators, newspaper reporters, photographers and bloggers.

Even seasoned professionals, accustomed to the crowds and pomp and circumstance of inaugurals past, express disbelief at the sheer crush of attention surrounding the moment Barack Obama plants his right hand on the Bible.

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By Greg Mitchell

NEW YORK In a remarkable statement one day before the birthday holiday for Martin Luther King Jr. — and two days before the inauguration of Barack Obama — the Meridian (Miss.) Star has, in an editorial, offered an apology for its past coverage of civil rights issues.

It closed: “There was a time when this newspaper – and many others across the south — acted with gross neglect by largely ignoring the unfairness of segregated schools, buses, restaurants, washrooms, theaters and other public places.

“We did it through omission, by not recording for our readers many of the most important civil rights activities that happened in our midst, including protests and sit-ins. That was wrong. We should have loudly protested segregation and the efforts to block voter registration of black East Mississippians.

“Current management understands while we can’t go back and undo some past wrongs, we can offer our sincere apology — and promise never again to neglect our responsibility to inform you, our readers, about the human rights and dignity every individual is entitled to in America — no matter their religion, their ethnic background or the color of their skin.”

In a front page story, editor Fredie Carmichael recalled, in a moving essay, that one of the three slain civil rights workers in 1964, James Chaney, hailed from Meridian. His lengthy piece recounted the episode — and its meaning today.

The full editorial follows. It is all at:

http://www.meridianstar.com

**

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The Mangusta 165, the world’s largest open yacht, which Mr Packer is selling

By Kathy Marks in Sydney

Even multibillionaires are feeling the pinch. James Packer, once Australia’s richest man, has reportedly put his $50m (£23m) yacht up for sale, postponed delivery of a $60m private jet and left a swimming pool complex at his family property half-built.

Mr Packer, 41, who inherited a fortune from his father, the media tycoon Kerry Packer, has seen the value of his assets halve in the past year, from $6bn to less than $3bn, according to the Sydney Sunday Telegraph. As a result, he is dismantling his playboy lifestyle. A three-level Mayfair apartment is also up for sale.

He launched his Mangusta 165 yacht, the Z Ellerston, in July, after a two-year wait for delivery. The world’s largest model of open yacht, at 165ft, it is sold with a complimentary Aston Martin and features nine bedrooms. Mr Packer has also deferred delivery of a Boeing Business Jet to 2010 to release some capital, the paper said. Mr Packer, who has divested himself of his father’s media interests and is focusing on creating a global casino empire, was listed as Australia’s third richest man last year. That marked the first time in 21 years that he or his father had not sat on top of the rich list.

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