Bailout a Boon for Bankers from Truthdig

So, the government forks over a ton of money to flailing banks and, naturally, their customers (i.e., taxpayers) might expect to gain something from this helpful transaction as well, right? Guess again, customers.

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The New York Times:

At the Palm Beach Ritz-Carlton last November, John C. Hope III, the chairman of Whitney National Bank in New Orleans, stood before a ballroom full of Wall Street analysts and explained how his bank intended to use its $300 million in federal bailout money.

"Make more loans?" Mr. Hope said. "We're not going to change our business model or our credit policies to accommodate the needs of the public sector as they see it to have us make more loans."

rest http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20090117_bailout_a_boon_for_bankers/

OK, We're Just Going To Say It: Isiah Thomas' Brother Peed On A Church from Deadspin

As if Isiah Thomas didn't have enough trouble: His brother, Preston, has been arrested for the worst crime yet: unzipping right in front of The Lord.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

rest http://deadspin.com/5132232/ok-were-just-going-to-say-it-isiah-thomas-brother-peed-on-a-church

Vatican secret confession tribunal opens up from msnbc.com

The court handles sins so grave only the pope can grant absolution

The Associated Press

updated 8:07 p.m. CT, Wed., Jan. 14, 2009

ROME - One of the Vatican's most secrecy shrouded tribunals, which handles confessions of sins so grave only the pope can grant absolution, is giving the faithful a peek into its workings for the first time in its 830-year history.

The Vatican has long lamented that fewer and fewer Catholics are going to confession, the sacrament in which the faithful can receive forgiveness if they sincerely confess their sins to a priest.

To combat the decline, the so-called "tribunal of conscience" invited the public into the frescoed halls of its imposing 16th-century palazzo for a two-day conference that ended Wednesday.

Getting more people to go to confession
The aim was to explain what the Apostolic Penitentiary actually does, and thereby encourage more of the faithful to go to confession, said Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti, the tribunal's No. 2 official.

"Even though it's the oldest department of the Holy See, it's very little known — specifically because by its nature it deals with secret things," he said. "We want to relaunch the sacrament of penance."

By lifting the veil of secrecy surrounding the tribunal's work, the Vatican hopes to emphasize the fundamental role the sacrament plays in saving souls, the Vatican's No. 2, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, said in a paper delivered at the conference.

"Today it seems as though the sense of sin has been forgotten," he said.

Confessions of even the most heinous of crimes and sins — such as genocide or mass murder — are handled at the local level by priests and their bishops and are not heard by the tribunal.

Its work involves those sins that are reserved for the pope — considered so serious that a local priest or bishop is not qualified to grant absolution, said Cardinal James Francis Stafford, an American who heads the Apostolic Penitentiary.

Defiling the Eucharist among the sins
These include defiling the Eucharist, which Catholics believe is the body and blood of Christ. Stafford said this offense is occurring with more and more frequency, not just in satanic rites but by ordinary faithful who receive Communion and then remove the host from their mouths and spit it out or otherwise desecrate it.

Others include a priest breaking the seal of the confessional by revealing the nature of the sin and the person who sought penance, or a priest who has sex with someone and then offered forgiveness for the act.

These sins bring automatic excommunication from the church. Once absolution is granted, the excommunication is lifted, Stafford said.

A fourth type of case that comes to the tribunal involves a man who directly caused an abortion — such as by paying for it — who then seeks to become a priest or deacon, Stafford said.

"That is an irregularity and it means he should not receive the ordination without a dispensation from the pope," he said.

'Sacrament of penance is threatened'
Vatican officials frequently point to a study carried out by Italy's Sacred Heart University that found that 47 percent of people in Italy — a majority Roman Catholic country — never went to confession or did so a long time ago.

"We cannot hide that the sacrament of penance is threatened in this time of secularization," Girotti said. But he stressed that it remained "fundamental for salvation and the sanctification of souls."

For the most part, clerical sex abuse cases are handled by another Vatican office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which deals with more public issues of discipline and orthodoxy.

What makes the Apostolic Penitentiary unusual by Vatican standards is the speed with which it dispenses decisions, Girotti said — very often within 24 hours, or two to three days maximum.

The palazzo where it operates, in the heart of Rome's historic center, also houses two of the Vatican's other main tribunals, the Roman Rota, which decides marriage annulments, and the Apostolic Segnatura, the Holy See's highest court.

Taking up nearly an entire city block, it is just steps away from one of Rome's most profane piazzas — Campo dei Fiori, filled with bars catering to tourists and college-age Americans studying abroad.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28663430/

rest http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28663430/

Seven most horrible things about Bush presidency

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The remarkable thing about President George W. Bush wasn't that he was a horrible chief executive; it's that he was horrible in so many ways.

Contrary to the president's own assessment of his tenure earlier this week, it was an astonishing eight years - and not in a good way. The country suffered two recessions, and two shooting wars. The government botched its response to a brazen attack by terrorists on two cities, and then four years later utterly failed to react when another city was consumed by a natural disaster.

The president took on tyranny by embracing torture. He fought a war for freedom by trampling human rights. He enriched the already rich, excused their excesses, and then bailed them out of trouble and handed us the bill.

He politicized everything, promoted incompetents, and -- whenever things got tight -- appealed to our basest instincts of fear, greed, ignorance and hate.

Bush had all the luck of Jimmy Carter, the attention to detail of Ronald Reagan, the adaptability of Lyndon Johnson, the abiding respect for the Constitution of Richard Nixon, the humility of Teddy Roosevelt, the rhetorical skills of Calvin Coolidge, the fiscal restraint of Franklin Roosevelt, the cronyism of Warren Harding, and the overreaching idealism of Woodrow Wilson.

And his election had all the legitimacy of Rutherford Hayes'.

None of the disasters of the past eight years can be entirely blamed on Bush, of course. No president is all powerful, and Bush was handed some raw deals, especially in that first year with the recession and then the nightmare of 9/11. But other presidents - Lincoln, Roosevelt, and the incoming Obama come to mind -- have had to deal with worse. The test of greatness is what you do when faced with the impossible.

Here's my list of the seven worst things Bush did during his time in the White House.

7. Bush politicized parts of the government that should be nonpartisan. From NASA to the Justice Department, professionals were forced out or silenced if they departed from the true Republican way. What was good for the Republican Party trumped what was good policy for the nation. Every administration is political to some extent, but the Bush administration took it too far. When Paul O'Neill was forced out at Treasury, it was clear that every major decision would be determined by Karl Rove's calculus.

6. Bush squandered the budget surplus. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Bush had a near-religious faith in the ability of tax cuts to deliver prosperity. Tax cuts were the panacea that would cure all ills. Economy too strong? Cut taxes. Economy too weak? Cut taxes. Stock market falling? Cut dividend taxes. Investment weak? Cut capital gains taxes. But tax cuts didn't make the economy stronger; they merely blew a big hole in the budget. Now, when we could really use that surplus to pay for the bailouts and the stimulus, it's gone.

5. Bush comforted the comfortable and afflicted the afflicted. The Bush years were the ultimate test of trickle-down economics, the theory that says the government should favor the rich because the benefits will flow down to the rest of us. The results of that experiment are clear: We've had the weakest job growth since the 1930s. We've had the biggest increase in debt ever. We've had the highest share of national income going to profits since the 1920s. Income inequality has soared while our public and private investment has slowed to a trickle. Instead of building a fundamentally sound economy, Bush nurtured a Ponzi economy based on get-rich-quick schemes.

4. Bush rewarded incompetence. Because politics and personal loyalty were all that counted, Bush appointed incompetent people to vital jobs. He hired interns to run Iraq. He hired a horse expert to run the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He wanted to hire Harriett Miers to be a Supreme Court justice. Top jobs were reserved for sycophants, toadies and failures.

3. Bush lied us into war. Every argument for war against Iraq was a delusion, and hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost as a result.Saddam Hussein was not responsible for 9/11 in any way. He was not a danger to the United States. The Bush administration ignored or dismissed mountains of evidence that showed that Saddam was not building an arsenal of chemical or nuclear weapons. Bush rushed to war without giving diplomacy or weapons inspectors a chance. Later, administration officials blew the cover of a CIA employee whose husband told the truth, and then lied about their involvement.

2. Bush has exposed himself to war crime charges. By his own admission, Bush authorized interrogation practices that are illegal under U.S. and international law. His administration at best looked the other way and at worst ordered prisoners at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib to be tortured. Not only is torture an immoral and heinous crime against humanity, it is ineffective in the fight against terrorism. Nothing has given Osama bin Laden more support than Bush's immorality. And our nation's reputation has been tarnished, possibly forever.

1. Bush weakened our democracy. Bush has embraced a theory of dictatorship. Bush, under Vice President Dick Cheney's guidance, encouraged an imperial presidency answerable to no one. Working with a complacent Congress, Bush gutted the constitutional checks and balances that are supposed to keep any part of the government from growing too powerful or too corrupt. In the name of an endless war against an amorphous enemy, he canceled our most fundamental rights of habeas corpus and the right to be free from unreasonable government spying.

One final note: Bush had the opportunity to be a great president. After 9/11, the nation was as united as it had been since Pearl Harbor, and Bush rode a wave of popularity that he could have used to turn around the nation's politics, security and economy.

Instead of uniting us as he promised, he divided us instead

rest at http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/seven-most-horrible-things-about/story.aspx?guid={364DFD37-1A69-46D3-BA45-A24095FD1666}

The Joy of a Disaster Averted from Gawker

News of the emergency landing of US Airways Flight 1549 began as another grim disaster. But with those aboard quickly delivered from the freezing Hudson waters, this was, improbably, the crash with a happy ending.

rest http://gawker.com/5132519/the-joy-of-a-disaster-averted

Help The City Help The Homeless from Chicagoist

In case you hadn't noticed, it's coooold outside. While we're zipping up our North Face and lacing up our Timberlands to keep warm, don't forget that others are not so fortunate. The city's department of family services is trying to make sure they find warmth and shelter for Chicago's homeless. The city is encouraging everyone to dial 311 if they see someone in need of a place to stay, so they can direct them to one of the city's six warming centers during the day and to a bed at a shelter at night. City outreach workers will be making rounds to find people in need. Also be sure to check in on your elderly neighbors, especially those who live alone.

Oddly enough, despite the subzero temperatures and the rise in homelessness because of the economy, many of the city's 5,000 shelter beds are empty. And about the CTA's fight against "continuous riders," it looks like they're backpedaling on their statements that they weren't targeting the homeless.

Because of the extreme conditions, enforcement of the policy on buses and L trains is up to employee discretion, a CTA spokeswoman said.

While normally we'd be annoyed by the CTA's hypocrisy, we'll just be glad that a few more people will be warm tonight.

rest http://chicagoist.com/2009/01/15/in_case_you_hadnt_noticed.php

House Votes to Expand Children's Health Program from Truthout

Washington - Congress took the first small step Wednesday toward what Democrats promise will produce universal health care coverage for the first time in the United States under the new Obama administration. The doubts and disagreements that killed President Bill Clinton's efforts in 1993, they said, are giving way to powerful forces for reform.

    In passing an expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, twice vetoed by President Bush as too costly, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, declared, "40 days in Iraq equals one year of insurance for 10 million children. Certainly, we can afford to do that." The bill is set for Senate passage today, and President-elect Barack Obama said it will be among the first bills he signs, calling it "not just good economic policy, but a moral obligation we hold as parents and citizens."

rest http://www.truthout.org/011509HA

Gray Wolves to Lose Endangered Status from Truthout

The Bush administration will remove wolves in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Idaho and Montana from the endangered species list. Environmentalists hope Obama will reverse the action, or they'll sue.

    Washington - Bush administration officials said Wednesday that they would remove gray wolves in the Midwest and the northern Rocky Mountains from the endangered species list - the latest, but probably not last, chapter in the wolf's on-again, off-again federal protection.

rest http://www.truthout.org/011509EA

NOW | Our Oceans: What Could Happen from Truthout

The most recent NOW on PBS is available for free viewing: RIGHT NOW by clicking here.

    A rise in sea levels isn't the only impact global warming is having on the world's oceans. A growing body of evidence suggests that climate change is also affecting ocean currents and the chemistry of the seas, with potentially catastrophic results.

    This week, NOW travels deep into the oceans with scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) with help from other researchers for a firsthand look at this stunning sea change, and what we can do about it.

    "We've been aware of global warming for several decades now. We haven't taken any substantive action, and we're now what many scientists would call at tipping points," said Ruth Curry, an ocean scientist at the WHOI.

    In a simple experiment, using ice cubes, a beaker of water and a hot plate, Curry shows NOW's David Brancaccio how ice acts as a heat buffer in the oceans. When the ice melts, the buffer collapses, and may cause a rapid rise in ocean temperatures, with unpredictable results.

    Some ocean scientists believe that if action isn't taken quickly to address climate change, our oceans could face their biggest shock in 100 million years.

    The world's oceans face a global-warming catastrophe. President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to act quickly to fight climate change, but can his administration make a difference?

rest http://www.truthout.org/011509U

Israeli Strike Hits U.N. Complex in Gaza Strip from Crooks and Liars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y4OakRMghc

And so it goes:

As the Gaza death toll passed an estimated 1,000 people and concerns about the humanitarian situation inside Gaza grew, Egypt announced on Wednesday that it was making progress toward an interim cease-fire, with some officials predicting that one could be five to six days away. A senior Israeli defense official, Amos Gilad, arrived in Cairo on Thursday to continue the talks.

Also on Wednesday, nine Israeli human rights groups called for an investigation into whether Israeli officials had committed war crimes in Gaza. The groups say that tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza have nowhere to flee, the Gaza health system has collapsed, many people are without electricity and running water, and some are beyond the reach of rescue teams.

rest http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/israel-strike-hits-un-complex-gaza-st

U.S. Military Report Warns “Sudden Collapse” of Mexico Is Possible from cryptogon.com

Cryptogon subreddit participants are discussing this in relation to the North American Union.

Via: El Paso Times:

Mexico is one of two countries that "bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse," according to a report by the U.S. Joint Forces Command on worldwide security threats.

The command's "Joint Operating Environment (JOE 2008)" report, which contains projections of global threats and potential next wars, puts Pakistan on the same level as Mexico. "In terms of worse-case scenarios for the Joint Force and indeed the world, two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico.

"The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and press by criminal gangs and drug cartels. How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state. Any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone."

The U.S. Joint Forces Command, based in Norfolk, Va., is one of the Defense Departments combat commands that includes members of the different military service branches, active and reserves, as well as civilian and contract employees. One of its key roles is to help transform the U.S. military's capabilities.

Research Credit: ltcolonelnemo

rest http://cryptogon.com/?p=6251

White House interns forced to fill seats at final Bush press conference from Crooks and Liars

The White House has been in full "re-write history" mode the past few months, but even the brilliant Bush spinmeisters couldn't spin the fact that no one really cares about what Bush has to say anymore.

rest http://crooksandliars.com/silentpatriot/white-house-interns-forced-fill-seat

Erin Brockovich and Robin Greenwald: TVA Disaster Spreads Far and Wide

As a result of a 1.1 billion gallon spill of contaminated fly ash, there has been discussion, press reportage and blogging about the environmental disaster in eastern Tennessee Most of us have seen the pictures -- a 300+ acre area strewn with black and brown muck as far as the eye can see. Houses lifted off their foundations and thrown across the road, yards filled so high with ash that people can't leave their homes without stepping in it, roadways littered with the ash from trucks going to and from the site, and an eerie still where active life once existed. While this story continues to unfold -- as more samples are taken that delineate the true toxicity of this mess, as TVA makes plans to contain and abate the disaster -- there is a story that has not been told. It is a story that must be told. And that story is the lives of innocent bystanders that have been turned upside down by this avoidable disaster.

I learned of this disaster on the news just as we all did. Usually I receive an email from someone in the community where there has been an environmental problem. At first, it was all quiet. About 10 days after the tragedy I got the first email, then another one and another one and another one, and they kept coming. I also started receiving anonymous tips. It occurred to me that maybe more was going on than what I could gather from the news. With an invitation from the community, I decided to make the trip.

Let's be honest. Usually when I am called into an environmental disaster, I anticipate that industry isn't going to step up to the plate and do what's right by the people. Lawsuits almost always ensue; it would be foolish for me to walk into a situation like this without an attorney. Besides, I consult with two law firms in the United States: Girardi & Keese in Los Angeles and Weitz & Luxenberg in New York. I traveled to the area with an attorney, Robin Greenwald from Weitz and Luxenberg, along with some experts. In many instances such as this disaster, government agencies are absent due to lack of funds and can only rely on the information that industry gives them; and industry generally operates under concealment.

When I first arrived on the site, I was pretty quiet. It took a while to absorb what I was looking at. I knew there was a lake but an entire area was gone. I kept wondering "Where did the water go?" I couldn't decide if it looked more like a tornado had gone through, a mudslide, landslide, maybe a volcano erupted or a tidal wave. It is now a "moonscape." The landscape has completely changed. It is almost unidentifiable.

rest http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erin-brockovich-and-robin-greenwald/tva-disaster-spreads-far_b_157198.html

TAX DOLLARS DIVERTED TO TRANSPORT, PROTECT AIKMAN AND BUCK from ProFootballTalk.com

Apparently, Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin weren't the only duos recently entitled to the protection of the federal government.

Aikman/Buck received special treatment at our collective expense as well.

According to The Smoking Gun, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman of FOX received free transportation to and from games from the U.S. Marshals Service, an armed detail typically used to transport judges, witnesses, and federal prisoners. 

Maybe they were just trying to interview Mike Vick.

rest at http://www.profootballtalk.com/2009/01/12/tax-dollars-diverted-to-transport-protect-aikman-and-buck/

Category: Job Creation. Bush: Worst. President. Ever. from Daily Kos

As everyone who follows the news knows by now, unemployment was up again sharply in December. Totally expected, of course, and, as nearly every economist is saying, very alarming. For instance:

"These numbers, back to back, of more than a half million a month suggest that the U.S. economy is in a freefall," said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight. "It's scary, and it indicates that unless something is done and done quickly to turn this economy around, we're looking at an awful situation this year." ...

"This is unprecedented," said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com. "It's coast to coast. It's everywhere. There's really no refuge in this job market. There's no safe place."

Not so. Just over a week from now, George Walker Bush will be unemployed, and I suspect his bank account will provide a refuge. Thanks to the Supreme Court, Bush managed to get one of the slightly less than 3 million (net) jobs created during his eight years in office. That's 375,000 jobs a year, the most pitiful record since 1939 when the Bureau of Labor Statistics started collecting the numbers.

Not just the worst record ever, mind you. But far worse. During Dwight Eisenhower's two terms, only 438,000 jobs were generated annually. But the population was half what it is now. During Bill Clinton's two terms, 2.9 million jobs were generated each year.

rest http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/1/9/152744/0270/240/682161