December 18, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
President-elect Barack Obama today named another three members of his overall economic team. Announcing appointments to financial regulatory positions, Obama pledged that “financial regulatory reform will be one of the top legislative priorities” in the early days of his administration. He spoke of the need to “crack down on the culture of greed and scheming that’s led us to this moment of reckoning”, warning repeatedly that failure to regulate properly has led to historic losses and a dangerously weak economic outlook.
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November 24, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Pres. George W. Bush has been planning a broad array of sweeping rules changes, related to environmental regulation of industry, and the protection of wildlife and unspoiled natural preserves. One rules change would open 2 million acres of protected parkland across three states to oil-shale development, which is one of the dirtiest, least efficient fuel production methods in the world.
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November 23, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
The media are ablaze with speculation about whether President-elect Obama will be able to “control the Clintons”, whether his stature is so monumental and secure, after an admittedly meteoric rise, that the vanquished senator from New York will devotedly voice his foreign policy and look good doing it, whether the White House will be infiltrated by “re-treads” from the Clinton years, whether the socialist bailouts of George W. Bush’s own red October are enough to give Obama a pass on the anti-supply-side dictates of a potentially necessary “new New Deal”.
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November 10, 2008 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
President-elect Barack Obama has been welcomed by Pres. Bush as the two confer on the work of governing, the process of transition, the inner workings of the residence and security issues. It is Obama’s 8th trip to the White House, his first to the Oval Office itself. Reuters reports that Bush and Obama “were expected to discuss the global financial crisis, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other challenges the Republican president will bequeath to his Democratic successor”.
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November 10, 2008 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
A new report —drawing from “More than a half-dozen officials, including current and former military and intelligence officials as well as senior Bush administration policy makers, [who] described details of the 2004 military order on the condition of anonymity because of its politically delicate nature”— says the United States has conducted more than a dozen secret special forces raids, across borders around the globe to target Al Qaeda or other terrorist-linked sites, since 2004.
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October 10, 2008 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
The United States is gripped by a massive financial crisis that has frozen credit markets, killed major banks, and pushed millions of families toward the dark day of home foreclosure. The stock market is suffering unbelievable declines, and people are asking, why don’t they stop selling? Can’t there be a concerted effort to restore confidence? One major part of the problem is employment and the middle class: the average household has actually seen their income decline by $2,000 since 2001.
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October 10, 2008 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
With talk of the entire nation of Iceland sliding into bankruptcy, CitiGroup threatening to file a multi-billion-dollar suit against Wells Fargo for upending its buyout of Wachovia, and an unprecedented coordinated “global” interest-rate cut failing to prevent a near 700-pt. selloff yesterday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has again dropped nearly 700 points in just 7 minutes of trading. At 7,900 points, the rate of decline is edging ever-closer to the 10% “circuit-breaker” threshold that would halt trading.
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August 29, 2008 :: staff :: One Comment
We meet at one of those defining moments - a moment when our nation is at war, our economy is in turmoil, and the American promise has been threatened once more. Tonight, more Americans are out of work and more are working harder for less. More of you have lost your homes and even more are watching your home values plummet. More of you have cars you can’t afford to drive, credit card bills you can’t afford to pay, and tuition that’s beyond your reach.
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June 2, 2008 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
The human rights group Reprieve has accused the United States government of using military ships as offshore prisons, to hold an unknown number of individuals detained in the war on terror (ranging from Africa to south and central Asia, and possibly southeast Asia). It names two specific vessels as likely involved, and suspects as many as 17 have been used in this way. The group has called on the US administration of Pres. George W. Bush to name all individuals held, their location, condition, reason for detention and to permit a normal criminal defense.
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August 14, 2007 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
When Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder asked Pres. Bush to “leave this world alone” in song, online viewers watching Lollapalooza via AT&T’s ‘Blue Room’ webcast were not able to hear it. The company cut the political lyrics from the webcast in what band-members, fans and net-neutrality advocates have called blatant censorship. AT&T blamed an outside contractor and apologized for the ‘mistake’.
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August 18, 2006 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
A federal judge in Detroit ruled early yesterday that Pres. Bush’s NSA surveillance program, which uses wiretaps implemented with no judicial oversight, is unconstitutional. The ruling strongly enforced the point that there are “no powers not created by the Constitution” rejecting the AG’s claim that the Congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force (in Afghanistan) as a legal platform for sweeping new domestic powers.
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December 16, 2005 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans visited the White House yesterday, where Pres. Bush announced his intention to follow through on plans to rebuild the devastated city. The mayor has been vocal in calling for action from Washington, where he says political “constipation” is putting the future of his city at risk. The President has promised federal funding for the rebuilding effort and has said the money will come, despite ongonig delays.
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