Waiting For The Other Shoe To Drop, And Here It Comes Now!

8 years seems a little tough for expressing your freedoms

Stop the Oil Speculators

Here's an excerpt from Nader.org that explains why the price of a barrel of oil has nearly tripled in the past 18 months:

"...Historically, oil has been afflicted with the control of monopolists. From the late nineteenth century days of John D. Rockefeller, and his Standard Oil monopoly, to the emergence of the “Seven Sisters” oligopoly, made up of Standard Oil, Shell, BP, Texaco, Mobil, Gulf and Socal, to the rise of OPEC representing the major producing countries, the “free market” price of oil has been a mirage. Despite the breakup of the Standard Oil company by the government’s trustbusters about 100 years ago, selling cartels and buying oligopolies kept reasserting themselves.

In an ironic twist, the major price determinant has moved from OPEC (having only 40% of the world production) and the oil companies to the speculators in the commodities markets. What goes on in the essentially unregulated New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX)—without Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) enforced margin requirements, and, unlike your personal purchases, untaxed—is now the place that leads to your skyrocketing gasoline bills. OPEC and the Big Oil companies reap the benefits and say that it’s not their doing, but that of the speculators. Gives new meaning to “passing the buck.”

Deborah Fineman, president of Mitchell Supreme Fuel Co. in Orange, New Jersey, summed up the scene: “Energy markets have been dictated for too long by hedge funds and speculators, who artificially manipulate the numbers for their own benefit. The current market isn’t based on the sound principles of supply and demand but it is being rigged by companies and speculators who are jacking up prices for their own greed.”

Harry C. Johnson, former banker who worked for many years inside Big Oil and ran his own small oil company in Oklahoma, blames the CFTC, the Department of Energy, the Administration, and Congress, as “asleep at the switch on an issue that is probably costing U.S. consumers $1 billion per day.”

He cites “some industry experts, who profit greatly from the high price of crude, and have stated openly that the worldwide economic price of crude, absent speculators, would be around $50 to $60 per barrel.

Imagine, our government is letting your price for gasoline and home heating oil be determined by a gambling casino on Wall Street called NYMEX. The people need regulatory protection from speculators and an excess profits tax on Big Oil.

In addition, a sane government would see the present price crises as an opportunity to expand our passenger and freight railroad capacity and technology.

A sane government would drop all subsidies and tax loopholes for Big Oil’s huge profits and other fossil fuels and promote a national mission to solarize our economy to achieve major savings from energy conservation technology, retrofitting buildings, and upgrading efficiency standards for motor vehicles, home appliances, industrial engines and electric generating plants.

Those are the permanent ways to achieve energy independence, reduce our trade deficit, create good jobs that can’t be exported and protect the environmental health of people and nature.

Those are the reforms and advances that a muscular consumer, worker and small business revolt can focus on in the coming weeks.

What say you, America?"

Hey, Democratic Congress: YOU SUCK!

Glenn Greenwald counts the ways and provides numerous examples of Democratic complicity in the crimes of our corrupt administration on his fantastic Bastille Day post -

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/index.html: "In the 2006 mid-term elections, Americans handed The Democratic Party a sweeping, staggering, and historic victory -- as the GOP was removed from power and Democrats given control over both the House and Senate. It marked only the third time in the last 60 years that there was a change in control of the Congress. The Democrats defeated six GOP Senators, and picked up 31 House seats. Six Governorships switched from the GOP to the Democrats. Not one single Democratic incumbent in Congress and not one Democratic Governor lost -- only the second time in U.S. history in which one of the major parties failed to defeat even a single Congressional incumbent from the other party.

Since that overwhelming Democratic victory, this is what the Democratic-led Congress has done:

• Repeatedly funded -- at the White House's insistence -- the Iraq War without conditions;
• Defeated -- at the White House's insistence -- Jim Webb's bill to increase the intervals between deployments for U.S. troops;
• Defeated -- at the White House's insistence -- a bill to restore habeas corpus, which had been abolished by the Military Commissions Act, enacted before the 2006 election with substantial Democratic and virtually unanimous GOP support;
• Enacted -- at the White House's insistence and with substantial Democratic and virtually unanimous Republican support
-- the so-called Protect America Act, vesting the President with extreme new warrantless eavesdropping powers;
• Overwhelmingly approved the Senate's Kyl-Lieberman Resolution, to declare parts of the Iranian Government a "terrorist organization," an extremely belligerent resolution modeled after those which made "regime change" the official U.S. Government position towards Iraq;

• Deleted from a pending bill -- at the direction of the House Democratic leadership and at the insistence of the White House -- a provision merely to require Congressional approval before the Bush administration can attack Iran;
• Overwhelmingly enacted -- at the White House's insistence, and with substantial Democratic and virtually unanimous GOP support -- the "FISA Amendments Act of 2008," to vest the President with broad new warrantless eavesdropping powers and to immunize lawbreaking telecoms, all but putting an end to any chance for a real investigation and judicial adjudication of the Bush administration's illegal NSA spying program;
• Confirmed, with the indispensable support of two key Democratic Senators, Bush's nominee for Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, despite his support for radical Bush theories of executive power and his refusal to oppose torture;
• Stood by passively and impotently while Bush officials flagrantly ignored their Subpoenas and refused to comply with their investigations."

Democratic Congress Complicit in Crimes of the Century

Emperor Bush, center, is applauded by members of Congress and his cabinet, after signing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, (FISA), Thursday, July 10, 2008, in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington. From left are, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, obscured in shame, Vice President Darth Cheney, Separatist Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., the Emperor Supreme, and House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio.

That's what yesterday's vote amounts to- a cover up of surveillance crimes. Barack Obama supported the bill, Hilary Clinton did not support it. Glenn Greenwald provides details on his July 9th post: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/index.html

Congress votes to immunize lawbreaking telecoms, legalize warrantless eavesdropping

The Democratic-led Congress this afternoon voted to put an end to the NSA spying scandal, as the Senate approved a bill -- approved last week by the House -- to immunize lawbreaking telecoms, terminate all pending lawsuits against them, and vest whole new warrantless eavesdropping powers in the President. The vote in favor of the new FISA bill was 69-28. Barack Obama joined every Senate Republican (and every House Republican other than one) by voting in favor of it, while his now-vanquished primary rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, voted against it. John McCain wasn't present for any of the votes, but shared Obama's support for the bill. The bill will now be sent to an extremely happy George Bush, who already announced that he enthusiastically supports it, and he will sign it into law very shortly.

Today's coverup of surveillance crimes and Barack Obama

What we learned in December, 2005 that George Bush and the telecoms were doing -- listening in on the private conversations of American citizens without warrants -- is a felony under clear U.S. law, punishable by up to 5 years in prison and/or a $10,000 fine for each offense. Anyone can go read the section of FISA -- right here -- that says that as clearly as can be:

A person is guilty of an offense if he intentionally -- (1) engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute; . . .

An offense described in this section is punishable by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than five years, or both.

It was also as clear a violation of the Fourth Amendment as can be. For the Government to invade our communications with no probable cause showing to a court is exactly what the Founders prohibited as clearly as the English language permitted. But today, the Democratic-led Congress -- with the support of both John McCain and Barack Obama -- will cover-up those crimes. Law Professor and Fourth Amendment expert Jonathan Turley was on MSNBC's Countdown with Rachel Maddow last night and gave as succinct an explanation for what Democrats -- not the Bush administration, but Democrats -- will do today. Anyone with any lingering doubts about what is taking place today in our country should watch this:

Son of Message Force Multipliers

GAO, DOD inspector general to investigate Pentagon’s propaganda program

Last Thursday, the House passed an amendment to the defense authorization bill mandating that the Defense Department and the GAO investigate the Pentagon’s propaganda program, which was first revealed by The New York Times on April 20. The Times reports today that the DoD inspector general has announced an investigation and GAO has already started one:

The inspector general’s office at the Defense Department announced on Friday that it would investigate a Pentagon public affairs program that sought to transform retired military officers who work as television and radio analysts into “message force multipliers” who could be counted on to echo Bush administration talking points about Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo and terrorism in general. […]

The G.A.O. said it had already begun looking into the program and would give a legal opinion on whether it violated longstanding prohibitions against spending government money to spread propaganda to audiences in the United States. […]

The inspector general’s office said its inquiry would specifically look at whether special access to Pentagon leaders “may have given the contractors a competitive advantage.“