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TOKYO (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp , the world's biggest automaker, is to halt production at all its Japanese plants for a total of 11 days in February and March...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bob McCann, head of brokerage at Merrill Lynch & Co, announced his plans to leave the securities firm, just days after its acquisition by Bank of...
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Asian stocks edged up for a seventh day on Tuesday, boosted by hopes for a global economic recovery later in 2009, though the rising yen and...
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Oil was steady above $48 on Tuesday after rising 5 percent overnight, as Israel's deepening incursion into Gaza and a spat between Russia and Ukraine over gas...
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors asked a judge to jail accused swindler Bernard Madoff on Monday, saying he sent jewelry and other items worth more than $1 million to...
DETROIT (Reuters) - U.S. auto sales plunged by 36 percent in December led by outsized declines at Chrysler LLC, Hyundai Motor and Toyota Motor Corp as the battered industry closed...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Apple Inc Chief Executive Steve Jobs sought to soothe investor concerns about his health on Monday, saying his weight loss was caused by a hormone imbalance...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Top economists at the Allied Social Sciences Association's annual meeting have been searching -- in some cases, in vain -- for signs of life in the...
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Health insurer Cigna Corp said on Monday it will cut 1,100 jobs, or about 4 percent of its workforce, and consolidate certain operations as it...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve on Monday kick-started its latest unconventional program to boost the moribund economy, this time taking aim at the heart of the slumping housing...
Former Illinois attorney general Roland Burris, embattled Gov. Rod Blagojevich's pick to replace Barack Obama in the Senate, is no stranger to controversy.
Public fury over the governor's alleged misconduct has masked the once lively debate over Burris' decision to continue to prosecute, despite the objections of one of his top prosecutors, the wrong man for a high-profile murder case.
While state attorney general in 1992, Burris aggressively sought the death penalty for Rolando Cruz, who twice was convicted of raping and murdering a 10-year-old girl in the Chicago suburb of Naperville. The crime took place in 1983.
Candidate Jim Stork baked up more than ads for pie and coffee at his cafes when he aired commercials about his business during his bid for Congress in 2004, according to federal election officials.
Advertisements for Stork's Bakery and Café were essentially campaign pieces paid for with bakery dollars -- skirting federal rules that ban corporate donations in elections, the Federal Election Commission ruled. Read More...
Rick Pearson and Ray Long : Chicagobreakingnews.com
In a display of political bravado, disgraced Gov. Rod Blagojevich today appointed former Illinois Atty. Gen. Roland Burris to the U.S. Senate, challenging national Democratic leaders to reject the appointment of an African-American to the seat that propelled Barack Obama to the White House.
The defiant move tests the resolve of Senate Democrats who said they would not admit anyone appointed by Blagojevich, who is facing impeachment after being accused of trying to sell the Senate seat for personal gain. And it reveals to a nation celebrating Obama's victory the underbelly of Chicago's race-based political scene.
The Washington Post has an informative article about U.S. Senator Jim Webb's plans for political reform. While Sen. Webb has some laudable goals, like focusing on incarcerating violent criminals rather than drug addicts and the mentally ill, it seems unlikely that the proposals will go anywhere, due to the 'law-and-order' (read: throw everyone in prison) mentality that seems so prevelant in Washington and elsewhere. For example, Virginia State Senator and candidate for attorney general Ken Cuccinelli said that Webb's values, at least on issues of crime and imprisonment, are out of line with the values of the people of Virginia and are more emotional than rational. Apparently, Mr. Cuccinelli has such a powerful grasp of the 'will of the people' of Virginia (a vague, collectivist notion) that he need not consider what the U.S. Constitution has to say on the matter, or, barring that, what commonsense and years of drug-war failures make abundantly clear. One would have to believe that a least some of the people of Virginia, perhaps those imprisoned for simple marijuana possession, would chafe at being considered part of Cuccinelli's 'people of Virginia.' Or maybe he doesn't consider them at all?
Republican Party officials say they will try next month to pass a resolution accusing President Bush and congressional Republican leaders of embracing "socialism," underscoring deep dissension within the party at the end of Mr. Bush's administration.
Those pushing the resolution, which will come before the Republican National Committee at its January meeting, say elected leaders need to be reminded of core principles. They said the RNC must take the dramatic step of wading into policy debates, which traditionally have been left to lawmakers.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate Democrats said Tuesday they would refuse to seat the man Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has picked to succeed President-elect Barack Obama, saying that the taint of scandal would follow the new senator to Washington.
"Anyone appointed by Gov. Blagojevich cannot be an effective representative of the people of Illinois and, as we have said, will not be seated by the Democratic Caucus," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and his deputy, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, said in a statement.
Former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris told the Illinois Senate president early Tuesday of Blagojevich's decision to appoint him. Read More...
On his third day in office President Grant revoked two pardons that had been granted by President Andrew Johnson. President Nixon also undid a pardon that had been granted by President Lyndon Johnson. There may be other examples of this, as these two have somewhat accidentally come up in a discussion focused on numerous examples of presidents undoing pardons that they had themselves granted, something the current president did last week. (See http://pardonpower.com ). In 2001, President George W. Bush's lawyers advised him that he could undo a pardon that President Clinton had granted.
Much of the discussion of this history of revoking pardons deals with the question of whether a pardon can still be revoked after actually reaching the hands of the pardonee, or after various other obscure lines are crossed in the process of issuing and enforcing of the pardon. If President Bush issues blanket pardons to dozens of criminals in his administration for crimes that he himself authorized, he will probably -- with the exception of Libby -- not even name them, much less initiate any processes through which they are each formally notified of the pardons. He will be pardoning people of crimes they have not yet been charged with, so the question of timing is something you are unlikely to have to worry about (except perhaps with Libby).
Virtually none of the discussion of these matters ever addresses the appropriateness or legitimacy of the pardons involved or of the revoking of them. The history would appear to establish that you will have the power to revoke Bush's pardons. I want to stress that you will also have a moral responsibility to do so and a legal requirement to do so. Morally and legally, you have no choice in this matter. When you take the oath of office, you will be promising to faithfully execute the laws of the land. Through Article VI of our Constitution, the Geneva Conventions and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment are the supreme laws of this land. Those laws bind you to prosecute violations, including torture and other war crimes of which Bush, Cheney, and their subordinates are guilty and which Bush is likely to try to pardon.
On June 15, 2007, Ron Paul introduced HR 2755: Federal Reserve Abolition Act. There were no co-sponsors, no further action was taken, and the legislation was referred to the House Committee on Financial Services and effectively pigeonholed and ignored.
It's a bold and needed measure to "abolish the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal reserve banks, to repeal the Federal Reserve Act, and for other purposes."
The bill provides for management of employees, assets and liabilities of the Board during a dissolution period, and more as follows:
it designates the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to liquidate Fed assets in an orderly and expeditious manner;
transfer them to the General Fund of the Treasury after satisfying all claims against the Board and any Federal reserve bank;
assume all outstanding Board and member bank liabilities and transfer them to the Secretary of the Treasury; and
after an 18-month period, submit a report to Congress "containing a detailed description of the actions taken to implement this Act and any actions or issues relating to such implementation that remain uncompleted or unresolved as of the date of the report."
On November 22, "End the Fed" protests were held in 39 or more cities nationwide (including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, DC), but you'd hardly know it for lack of coverage. Attendee demands were simple and emphatic:
end a private banking cartel's illegal monopoly control over the nation's money supply and price;
return that power to the US Treasury as the Constitution mandates;
end a fiat currency system backed by the waning full faith and credit of the government; and
return the country to a sound, hard currency monetary system.
"End the Fed! Sound Money for America!" is their slogan, and writer and US policy critic Webster Tarpley puts it well:
"....the privately owned central bank....has been looting and wrecking the US economy for almost a hundred years. We must end a system where unelected, unaccountable cliques of bankers and financiers loyal to names like Morgan, Rockefeller, and Mellon set interest rates and money supply behind closed doors, leading to de-industrialization, mass impoverishment, and a world economic and financial depression of incalculable severity."
In theory, the Fed was established to stabilize the economy, smooth out the business cycle, manage a healthy, sustainable growth rate, and maintain stable prices. In fact, it failed dismally. It contributed to 19 US recessions (including the Great Depression) and significantly to the following equity market declines that accompanied them as measured by the Dow or S & P 500 average - the S &P's inception was 1923; it became the S & P 500 in 1957:
(We urged them to become influential in politics, and that's exactly what they did.)
On Saturday, December 6, 2008, the Republican Party of Los Angeles County (RPLAC) met at the Ronald Reagan State Office Building in Los Angeles to choose its leadership for the next two years. After a brief but intensive parliamentary battle with the entrenched leadership, control was wrested away by a newly formed coalition of those who were anxious to re-dedicate and re-energize the Party along traditional Republican principles and strategies. Ron Paul and Ed Griffin of Freedom Force International have urged their supporters to become active in political parties. That's exactly what happened in Los Angeles, dramatically demonstrating that it can be done.
Linda Boyd had been the Chairman of RPLAC for six years, and many felt it was time for her to leave and for the Republican Party to get back to its roots of: limited constitutional government, fiscal responsibility, sound monetary policy, Second Amendment rights, strong national defense, a non-interventionist foreign policy, personal freedom, and opposition to illegal immigration. Actually, the former Chairman supported all of these concepts, but , but the coalition felt the Party was languishing under the old leadership. It was not fielding candidates for many of the hundreds of political offices available, and it was not providing strong support for the ones who did run. Of the 26 Assembly Districts, there are now only 13 district offices open. Republicans were losing the majority of elections. They had not been getting enough money to be effective, and most of the money that was raised did not go to the individual districts or candidates. So, it was felt that it was time for a change.
Several Freedom Force members formed a coalition with followers of Ron Paul and formed a plan of action. Some, who had supported other alternative candidates for President, also joined the coalition. About 40 Angelenos took out papers to run for offices on the Central Committee. A majority (29) of these were elected in the June 3rd Primary. Fourteen more were write-in candidates. This unprecedented grass-roots action was the result of freedom-minded people deciding to quit complaining and quit following political leaders they did not like and, instead, offering themselves as leaders instead. That is the mission of Freedom Force.
At the RPLAC meeting on Dec. 6, (which is an election of County and District Officers who decide how the party is run), a Temporary Chairman was elected to conduct the business of the Organizational Meeting that day. Linda Boyd's choice for Temporary Chairman was defeated 39 - 54. The new Temporary Chairman asked who wanted to be Chairmen of the Credentials, Nominating, Resolutions and By-Laws Committees. As Freedom Force members were unknown to him, he selected Chairmen he had known; however, when he asked who wanted to be members of those two most important committees, he picked two volunteers who were Freedom Force members.
Mike Connell's untimely death will haunt Karl Rove and the Republican Party. As the key witness in investigations into election fraud and the firing of US attorneys, Mike Connell informed investigators that he had received death threats.
Connell's testimony threatened to lead to the indictment of Karl Rove. Key allegations in the cases that were converging on Rove were to the effect that Connell was ordered to manipulate election returns in 2004 to deliver the presidency to George W. Bush instead of John Kerry who was leading the pre-election polls. A gifted IT expert, Connell was under investigation in the case of thousands of missing emails relevant to the probe into the politically motivated firing of US attorneys.
In both cases, Karl Rove is the prime suspect.
The timing of Connell's death recalls the untimely death of George De Mohrenschildt who was scheduled to be the star witness in the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in 1977. De Mohrenschildt was a close friend of Lee Harvey Oswald. In February 1977, De Mohrenschildt granted interviews in Europe to the effect that he had direct personal knowledge of the conspiracy to assassinate JFK. Upon De Mohrenschildt's return to the USA in March, he was subpoenaed by the HSCA and scheduled to meet with Lead Investigator Gaeton Fonzi. When Fonzi arrived at De Mohrenschildt's residency in Palm Beach he discovered that his key witness had died, apparently by 'suicide' only a short time before the two men were to have met.
De Mohrenschildt's death rocked the nation and was featured prominently on the front page of the New York Times. Other key witnesses in the HSCA were brutally assassinated or disappeared. Jimmy Hoffa, Sam Giancana and Johnny Rosselli were designated key witnesses for the HSCA, but they became victims of assassination before and during the Congressional hearings that gripped the nation in 1976-7. Congressman Richardson Preyer (D-NC) was one of the most outspoken members of the HSCA that found JFK had been killed as part of a conspiracy involving organized crime.
"Oddly", at the time of Carnahan’s fatal air crash Karl Rove was working for the Democratic Senator’s opponent, John Ashcroft.
When the brilliant progressive leader of the Senate, Paul Wellstone died in what some believe to be a suspicious air crash two years after Carnahan’s death, Rove was the chief political advisor to the Republican National Committee.
A new chapter in Rove’s saga may be emerging. During a recent appearance on the Today show the man known colloquially as ‘Bush’s Brain’ pledged to lead the fight against Michael Mukasey’s replacement, Attorney General Designate Eric Holder.
President-Elect Obama has pledged to avoid any witch-hunts, but the last time Karl Rove was seen he bore no resemblance whatsoever to a witch; a warlock, maybe, but not a witch.
Dr. Ron Paul is currently the Representative for Texas's 14th district in the United States House of Representatives. However, Paul's influence on American politics extends far beyond the boarders of Texas. He has run for president on two separate occasions, most recently in 2008. Paul is considered to be the leader of the "Ron Paul Revolution." His campaigns have been based around Republican ideals, but with a special emphasis on constitutionalist and libertarian values. In 2008, Paul was the only Republican candidate for President who opposed the Iraq War and other interventionist policies.
Michael Bendetson: Out of the 535 voting members of 111th United States Congress, only 14 are doctors. What inspired you to leave your lucrative medical practice to enter politics?
Ron Paul: It was concern that the country itself was going in the wrong direction. The government was getting bigger, personal liberties were being undermined, and the financial situation was quite bad. I [entered politics] more as a lark, just to speak out and not with the expectation of winning a seat. The odds were against me, however I did win. The first time I ran and the first time I won was in 1976. Overall, I sought office to help fulfill my desire to shrink the size of government, enhance personal liberties, and improve the economy.
MB: In October of 2002, you were one of the of 6 out of 224 Republican congressmen to vote against the Iraq War Resolution. Please elaborate about why you were so adamant in your dissent towards the bill six years ago and continue to oppose our involvement in Iraq today.
RP: We went to war based on lies. Lies, bad intelligence, and the interests of special interest groups were pushing our foreign policy. Also, [the Iraq War] had nothing to do with our national defense. Further, if the country goes to war, we [Congress] need to declare war. There were so many reasons: moral reasons, economic reasons, constitutional reasons, and practical reasons. I thought it was a complete waste and a violation against everything America stands for. As a result, I strongly opposed going in and I think if you make that bad of a mistake, you ought to get out as soon as possible.
The report outlines the paths that current geopolitical and economic trends may reach by the year 2025, in order to guide strategic thinking over the next few decades. The National Intelligence Council describes itself as the US Intelligence Community’s “center for midterm and long-term strategic thinking,” with the tasks of supporting the Director of National Intelligence, reaching out to non-governmental experts in academia and the private sector and it leads in the effort of providing National Intelligence Estimates.
The report was written with the active participation of not only the US intelligence community, but also numerous think tanks, consulting firms, academic institutions and hundreds of other experts. Among the participating organizations were the Atlantic Council of the United States, the Wilson Center, RAND Corporation, the Brookings Institution, American Enterprise Institute, Texas A&M University, the Council on Foreign Relations and Chatham House in London, which is the British equivalent of the CFR.[1]
Among the many things envisioned in this report to either be completed or under way by 2025 are the formation of a global multipolar international system, the possibility of a return of mercantilism by great powers in which they go to war over dwindling resources, the growth of China as a great world power, the position of India as a strong pole in the new multipolar system, a decline of capitalism in the form of more state-capitalism, exponential population growth in the developing world, continuing instability in Africa, a decline in food availability, partly due to climate change, continued terrorism, the possibility of nuclear war, the emergence of regionalism in the form of strong regional blocks in North America, Europe, and Asia, and the decline of US power and with that, the superiority of the dollar.
WASHINGTON – Former President Bill Clinton laid out a list of big-ticket donors to his foundation Thursday that is heavy with foreign governments and business interests sure to have a stake in the policies that Hillary Rodham Clinton carries out as secretary of state.
Saudi Arabia and other foreign governments gave at least $46 million, while corporate donors included the Blackwater security firm that protects U.S. diplomats in Iraq.
Iraq has arrested about 50 interior ministry officials for plotting a coup against the government, a senior Iraqi security official said on Thursday.
The New York Times had reported that up to 35 officials, including four generals, had been arrested by a counter-terrorism unit reporting to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Some of those arrested, connected to the Al Awda, or the Return movement, had been "quietly working to reconstitute Saddam Hussein's Baath Party" and were in "the early stages of planning a coup," officials told The Times. Read More...
Officials in Montgomery County in Ohio discovered this week that tabulation software used with touch-screen voting machines in the presidential election failed to count five votes in the city of Trotwood. The voting system in question is made by Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold Election Systems).
Montgomery County officials discovered that although the five votes were recorded to a memory card inside the voting machine, the votes weren't counted by the tabulation software when the memory card was uploaded to the tabulation server. Premier's Global Election Management System (or GEMS) is the tabulation software that counts votes from memory cards. Read More...
FRAN SPIELMAN AND ABDON M. PALLASCH : Chicago Sun Times
President-elect Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, refused to take questions from reporters this morning about whether he was the Obama “advisor” named in the criminal complaint against Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
The complaint states Blagojevich wanted a promise of a high-level appointment or some other reward for Blagojevich in exchange for Blagojevich naming Obama’s friend Valerie Jarrett to replace him in the U.S. Senate. Read More...
The governor accused of trying to sell Barack Obama's seat in the Senate faced growing pressure to resign yesterday as the president-elect called on him to step aside.
The call from Obama came as Rod Blagojevich turned up for work as usual 24 hours after the FBI arrested him at his home and accused him of setting a new low in corruption for his haggling over the price of a Senate seat.
Blagojevich, a Democrat, was released on bail later on Tuesday.
Prior to the general election this year, problems arose in Texas whereby voters who opted to cast straight-party tickets on electronic voting machines were losing their presidential votes when they touched their presidential candidate's name after selecting the straight-party option.
That issue has raised a new controversy in Dallas County because of how this action of voters is interpreted differently if the voters vote on a paper ballot or an electronic machine. Read More...
Jeff Coen, David Kidwell and Monique Garcia : Chicago Tribune
A source said today that Gov. Rod Blagojevich was taken into federal custody at his North Side home this morning. The U.S. attorney's office would not confirm the information, and a spokesman for the governor did not immediately return a phone call for comment.
A three-year federal corruption investigation of pay-to-play politics in Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration has expanded to include his impending selection of a new U.S. senator to succeed President-elect Barack Obama, the Tribune has learned.
President-elect Obama is vowing to watch spending carefully even as he plans to push for a stimulus package of $500 billion or more.
“We want to put money into health care modernization that can help us save money over the long term,” Obama said in response to a question at a news conference in Chicago on Tuesday. “We don’t want to continue programs that aren’t working and making people healthier. The same is true for education. The same is true with the Defense Department. The same is true in social spending.”
(CNN) – Saying that moving quickly is imperative, President-elect Barack Obama on Saturday offered an outline of his economic recovery plan to create 2.5 million jobs by 2011, saying American workers will rebuild the nation's roads and bridges, modernize its schools and create more sources of alternative energy.
"These aren't just steps to pull ourselves out of this immediate crisis," Obama said in the weekly Democratic address, posted on his Web site. "These are the long-term investments in our economic future that have been ignored for far too long."
Details of the plan are still being worked out by his economic team, Obama said, but he hopes to sign the two-year, nationwide plan shortly after taking office January 20.
Ok, I'm just blue-skying here, but "what if" Prez-Elect Obama were to ask Ron Paul to act as Treasury Secretary?
Some thoughts:
--He's a Republican. Not only that, but he's a Republican primary candidate who the rest of the contenders basically hated, mostly for his repeated statements about where the economy was headed (which pretty much were dead on). You've got a win-win for the Obama camp: "Across the aisle" with a guy who's been beaten up by the rest of the Republican establishment. Talking about having your cake and eating it too: Obama would be able to use the terms "Uniter" without becoming a caricature while lobbing a grenade into the middle of the RNC. Read More...
In the first two weeks since the election, President-elect Barack Obama has broken with a tradition established over the past eight years through his controversial use of complete sentences, political observers say.
Millions of Americans who watched Mr. Obama's appearance on CBS's 60 Minutes on Sunday witnessed the president-elect's unorthodox verbal tick, which had Mr. Obama employing grammatically correct sentences virtually every time he opened his mouth. Read More...
Two months before he leaves office, Sen. Chuck Hagel is increasingly unrestrained by political niceties.
Appearing at a forum at the Johns Hopkins School of Advances International Studies, the outgoing Nebraska Republican leveled harsh criticism at his own party, the lack of intellectual curiosity among some of his colleagues, the Bush administration's handling of nearly every aspect of governance and -- perhaps most bitingly -- the conservative radio voices that often dictate the GOP agenda.
"We are educated by the great entertainers like Rush Limbaugh," said Hagel, sarcastically referencing the talk radio host who once called him "Senator Betrayus." "You know, I wish Rush Limbaugh and others like that would run for office. They have so much to contribute and so much leadership and they have an answer for everything. And they would be elected overwhelmingly," he offered. "[The truth is] they try to rip everyone down and make fools of
Mike Connell's 
The timing of Connell's death recalls the untimely death of George De Mohrenschildt who was scheduled to be the star witness in the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in 1977. De Mohrenschildt was a close friend of Lee Harvey Oswald. In February 1977, De Mohrenschildt granted interviews in Europe to the effect that he had direct personal knowledge of the conspiracy to assassinate JFK. Upon De Mohrenschildt's return to the USA in March, he was subpoenaed by the HSCA and scheduled to meet with Lead Investigator Gaeton Fonzi. When Fonzi arrived at De Mohrenschildt's residency in Palm Beach he discovered that his key witness had died, apparently by 'suicide' only a short time before the two men were to have met.