Tens of Thousands of U.S. Guns Missing in Afghanistan

Sounds a lot like Iraq. And it is another argument for getting out of Afghanistan as well. It's bad enough that our troops have to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda but they are probably using our guns.

More than one-third of all weapons the United States has procured for Afghanistan's government are missing, according to a government report released Thursday.

The U.S. military failed to "maintain complete inventory records for an estimated 87,000 weapons -- or about 36 percent -- of the 242,000 weapons that the United States procured and shipped to Afghanistan from December 2004 through June 2008," a U.S. Government Accountability Office report states.

"Accountability lapses occurred throughout the supply chain," it says.

The Defense Department spent roughly $120 million during that period to acquire a range of small arms and light weapons for the Afghan National Security Forces, including rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

The military also failed to properly account for an additional 135,000 weapons it obtained for the Afghan forces from 21 other countries.

And if you need more convincing that we should get out of Afghanistan? Just ask the Russians:

Twenty years have passed since the Soviet Union ended its disastrous military venture in Afghanistan. Some Soviet veterans were traumatized by the war and refuse to talk about it, others reflect on the experience and draw lessons they say apply to NATO forces that have been fighting Afghan rebels since 2001.

On February 15, 1989, Commanding General Boris Gromov was the last Soviet soldier to leave Afghanistan, walking across the Friendship Bridge that connected that war-torn country with what was then Soviet Uzbekistan.

Nearly 15,000 soldiers, advisors, and other Soviet officials died during the war that Moscow launched in December 1979. Today, Gromov is convinced there are no military solutions to political problems in Afghanistan. He spoke at a recent Moscow news conference.

Gromov says force will accomplish nothing in Afghanistan, and notes that increasing or decreasing troop strength will only bring a negative result. The general says the best way to deal with Afghans is to reach an agreement with them.

[...]A complicating factor today, he says, is Afghanistan's burgeoning drug trade, which is funding the Taliban. This, he says, forces NATO to fight opium farmers and increases popular opposition to the alliance.

Like in Iraq, we don't have enough troops to rollback the enemy in Afghanistan:

Top US military officer Admiral Mike Mullen said on Tuesday more American troops were needed in Afghanistan as soon as possible to hold territory where insurgents have been routed.

Mullen told a news conference it was up to President Barack Obama to decide when to deploy additional troops to Afghanistan, but he said time was of the essence at what he called a critical period for the country.

During a visit to the Canadian capital to discuss the Afghan war among other issues, Mullen was asked about the possible reinforcement of the US mission as requested by the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan.

"The general had this request out for many months and those working through the request recognise that the sooner the better with respect to this," Mullen said.

He said 2009 was a crucial moment with elections scheduled later in the year and an increasingly violent insurgency in the south and east of the country.

"I'm hopeful that we can get them there as soon as absolutely possible, but, again, that's a decision for the president of the United States, not for me."

He said more US troops were needed to allow for development and aid projects to go ahead as insurgents were often moving back into areas where NATO forces had previously pushed them out.

"It's got to be enough forces to be able not just to clear, but we've got to have enough forces in there to hold, which we haven't had in the past," the US admiral said.

Is President Obama Clueless on National Security?

The new President has shown little interest when it comes to national security issues. And it ain't just the pressing issues having to do with the collapsing economy. And he doesn't seem to have many answers on that front either. But appointing a lobbyist to run the Pentagon raises serious questions about the President's commitment to change in Washington. But Lyon was only a tip of the iceberg. Previously, Mr.Obama had picked a political hack, Leon Panetta, as the new CIA Director. He kept Bush's Secretary of Defense. He chose another political hack, Hillary Clinton, as the Secretary of State. This suggests to me that we have a President who is willing to politicize national defense, much like his disastrous predecessor. And lets not forget what happened with Bush: 9-11 happened. And let's not forget that Clinton faced a World Trade Center attack just weeks into his presidency. Given this President's lack of national defense expertise, we expect another major attack on America:

The Senate voted 93 to 4 on Wednesday to confirm William J. Lynn III as deputy defense secretary, which will put a former military lobbyist in charge of day-to-day operations at the Pentagon.

The Senate Intelligence Committee, meeting in closed session, approved without opposition the nomination of Leon E. Panetta to head the Central Intelligence Agency, a committee spokesman, Philip LaVelle, said.

Mr. Panetta, a former congressman who was chief of staff for President Bill Clinton, has no direct intelligence-gathering or analysis experience. Mr. Obama said he was selected because of his managerial skills and ability to repair the agency’s relationship with Congress.

Not to mention the Obama administration's backsliding on his opposition to the fascist tactics of George W.:

Bad news today for people who were hoping that Barack Obama would roll back some of the imperial executive which Bush, Cheney and their wacky legal theorists built over the last eight years. The new administration's lawyers picked up a questionable legal theory from the old administration, that national security trumps due process of law.

The issue came up Monday in a court case where five former detainees are suing for Boeing helping with the Bush administration's "extraordinary rendition" program. The Bush administration had argued that the case should be dismissed because, as today's New York Times puts it, "even discussing it in court could threaten national security and relations with other nations."

Candidate Obama was rather critical of extraordinary renditions. So the judges hearing the case on Monday were a bit taken aback when governmental lawyer Douglas Letter declined an opportunity to change the government's argument in the case.

And he certainly doesn't know what to do with Afghanistan. A knowledgeable analyst of the war in that country would tell the new President that there is no winning there. But Barack will remain in Afghanistan because it is too political sensitive for the President to pull out. We will remain in a quagmire for years to come because Mr.Obama doesn't want to be soft on terror. Just like JFK didn't want to be seen as soft on Communism when escalated our involvement in Vietnam.

President Obama is facing a choice on whether to grant commanders’ requests for additional troops in Afghanistan before he has decided on his new strategy there.

While the decision is expected to be the first significant military move of his presidency, defense officials said that Mr. Obama could choose a middle ground, deploying several thousand more troops there in the coming months but postponing a more difficult judgment on a much larger increase in personnel until after the administration completes a review of Afghanistan policy.

The officials said that Mr. Obama may deploy one or two additional brigades, between 3,500 and 7,000 soldiers.

But he has other options, and several administration officials said it was also possible — though less likely — that he could postpone any deployments until after his review was complete. Such a move would not find much favor with commanders in Afghanistan, who have a standing request for an additional three brigades, or more than 10,000 soldiers.

It is also possible that Mr. Obama will fill the request for all three brigades, administration officials said.

Mr. Obama’s military commanders want additional brigades in place by late spring or early summer as part of an effort to counter growing violence and chaos in Afghanistan, particularly before presidential elections that are expected to take place there in August.

Robert M. Gates, the defense secretary, said Tuesday that he had presented options to Mr. Obama that “give him several ways of going forward,” and added that he expected a determination “in the course of the next few days.”

Referring to the additional brigades being sought by commanders, Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said Mr. Obama “could make a decision about none, one, two or all of them.”

Obama Florida Townhall Meeting Transcript (2-10-09)

Read the complete transcript here. Excerpts below:

OBAMA: You’ve seen a change in the economic conditions of your community.

You see, all too often in Washington, what happens is, is that people think in terms of numbers and statistics. They think about it in abstract terms.

But when we say we’ve lost 3.6 million jobs since this recession began, nearly 600,000 in the past month alone, when we say that Lee County has seen its unemployment rate go from 3.5 percent to nearly 10 percent in less than two years, when we talk about the plummeting home prices and soaring foreclosure rates that have plagued this area and the layoffs at companies like Kraft Construction and Chico’s (ph), companies that have sustained this community for years, we’re not just talking about faceless numbers.

We’re talking about families. We’re talking about some of the people in this town hall meeting today, your neighbors, your friends. We’re talking about people like Steve Atkins (ph), who joins us today with his wife, Michelle (ph), and their son, Bailey (ph), and daughter, Josie (ph).

Steve’s the president of a small construction company in Fort Myers that specializes in building and repairing schools, but work has slowed considerably, like it has across the board in the construction area. Now, he’s done what he can to reduce overhead costs, but he still has been forced to lay off half his workforce, which means that many of those people may now be trying to figure out how are they going to pay their mortgage, how are they going to pay for the basic necessities of life, which puts us on a downward economic spiral.

Steve and Michelle have made sacrifices of their own. They’ve sold their home and moved into a smaller one.

And that’s what this debate is about: folks in Fort Myers and all across the country who have lost their livelihoods and don’t know what will take its place, parents who’ve lost their health care and lie awake at night praying their kids don’t get sick, families who’ve lost the home that was the foundation of their American dream, young people who put that college acceptance letter back in the envelope because they can’t afford it.

(APPLAUSE) That’s what’s behind the numbers; that’s what’s behind the statistics; that’s the true measure of this economic crisis. Those are the stories I heard every time I came to Florida, because this isn’t new. When we were campaigning down here, before the election, I was hearing about Florida suffering the first recession that it had in 16 years.

We didn’t know then how deep it was going to go. Well, it’s gone deep. It’s gotten worse. And the stories that I’ve heard here in Florida and in Indiana and all across the country I carried with me to the White House.

(APPLAUSE)

I promised you back then that, if elected president, I would do everything I could to help our communities recover, that I would not forget. And that’s why I’ve come back here today to tell you how I intend to keep that promise to make communities like Fort Myers stronger.

(APPLAUSE)

So the situation we face could not be more serious; I don’t have to tell you that. We’ve inherited an economic crisis as deep and as dire as any since the Great Depression.

And economists across the spectrum have warned, if we don’t act immediately, then millions more jobs will disappear, the national unemployment rates will approach double digits, more people will lose their homes and their health care, and our nation will sink into a crisis that at some point is going to be that much tougher to reverse.

So we cannot afford to wait. We can’t wait and see and hope for the best. I believe in hope, but I also believe in action.

(APPLAUSE)

We can’t afford to posture and bicker and resort to the same failed ideas that got us into this mess in the first place.

(APPLAUSE)

That’s what the election was about. You rejected many of those ideas because you know they didn’t work. You didn’t send us to Washington because you were hoping for more of the same; you sent us there to change things. And that’s exactly what I intend to do as president of the United States.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: The problems that led us into this crisis are deep, they’re widespread, and so we’re going to have to do a lot of different things to get the economy moving again. We need to stabilize and repair our financial system.

We need to get credit flowing again to families and businesses. We need to stem the spread of foreclosures that are sweeping this country.

Obama Press Conference Transcript (2-9-09)

Read the complete transcript here. Partial below:

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. Earlier today in Indiana, you said something striking. You said that this nation could end up in a crisis without action that we would be unable to reverse.

Can you talk about what you know or what you're hearing that would lead you to say that our recession might be permanent when others in our history have not? And do you think that you risk losing some credibility or even talking down the economy by using dire language like that?

Obama: No, no, no, no. I think that what I've said is what other economists have said across the political spectrum, which is that, if you delay acting on an economy of this severity, then you potentially create a negative spiral that becomes much more difficult for us to get out of.

We saw this happen in Japan in the 1990s, where they did not act boldly and swiftly enough and, as a consequence, they suffered what was called the lost decade, where essentially, for the entire '90s, they did not see any significant economic growth.

So what I'm trying to underscore is what the people in Elkhart already understand, that this is not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill recession. We are going through the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

We've lost now 3.6 million jobs, but what's perhaps even more disturbing is that almost half of that job loss has taken place over the last three months, which means that the problems are accelerating instead of getting better.

Now, what I said in Elkhart today is what I repeat this evening, which is, I'm absolutely confident that we can solve this problem, but it's going to require us to take some significant, important steps.

Step number one: We have to pass an economic recovery and reinvestment plan. And we've made progress. There was a vote this evening that moved the process forward in the Senate. We already have a House bill that's passed. I'm hoping, over the next several days, that the House and the Senate can reconcile their differences and get that bill on my desk.

There have been criticisms from a bunch of different directions about this bill, so let me just address a few of them.

Some of the criticisms really are with the basic idea that government should intervene at all in this moment of crisis. Now, you have some people, very sincere, who philosophically just think the government has no business interfering in the marketplace. And, in fact, there are several who've suggested that FDR [President Roosevelt] was wrong to interfere back in the New Deal. They're fighting battles that I thought were resolved a pretty long time ago.

Most economists almost unanimously recognize that, even if philosophically you're -- you're wary of government intervening in the economy, when you have the kind of problem we have right now -- what started on Wall Street, goes to Main Street, suddenly businesses can't get credit, they start paring back their investment, they start laying off workers, workers start pulling back in terms of spending -- that, when you have that situation, that government is an important element of introducing some additional demand into the economy.

We stand to lose about $1 trillion worth of demand this year and another trillion next year. And what that means is you've got this gaping hole in the economy.

That's why the figure that we initially came up with of approximately $800 billion was put forward. That wasn't just some random number that I plucked out of -- out of a hat. That was Republican and Democratic, conservative and liberal economists that I spoke to who indicated that, given the magnitude of the crisis and the fact that it's happening worldwide, it's important for us to have a bill of sufficient size and scope that we can save or create 4 million jobs.

That still means that you're going to have some net job loss, but at least we can start slowing the trend and moving it in the right direction.

Now, the recovery and reinvestment package is not the only thing we have to do. It's one leg of the stool. We are still going to have to make sure that we are attracting private capital, get the credit markets flowing again, because that's the lifeblood of the economy.

And so tomorrow my treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, will be announcing some very clear and specific plans for how we are going to start loosening up credit once again.

And that means having some transparency and oversight in the system. It means that we correct some of the mistakes with TARP [Troubled Asset Relief Program] that were made earlier, the lack of consistency, the lack of clarity, in terms of how the program was going to move forward.

It means that we condition taxpayer dollars that are being provided to banks on them showing some restraint when it comes to executive compensation, not using the money to charter corporate jets when they're not necessary.

It means that we focus on housing and how are we going to help homeowners that are suffering foreclosure or homeowners who are still making their mortgage payments, but are seeing their property values decline.

So there are going to be a whole range of approaches that we have to take for dealing with the economy. My bottom line is to make sure that we are saving or creating 4 million jobs, we are making sure that the financial system is working again, that homeowners are getting some relief.

And I'm happy to get good ideas from across the political spectrum, from Democrats and Republicans. What I won't do is return to the failed theories of the last eight years that got us into this fix in the first place, because those theories have been tested, and they have failed. And that's what part of the election in November was all about.

Obama Indiana Townhall Transcript (2-9-09)

Read the complete transcript here. Partial below:

I don’t know if you guys have been noticing, but we’ve had a little debate in Washington over the last week or two about the economy. You know, we tend to take the measure of the economic crisis we face in numbers and statistics.

But when we say that we’ve lost 3.6 million jobs since this recession began, nearly 600,000 in the past month alone, when we say that this area has lost jobs faster than anywhere else in the United States of America, with an unemployment rate of over 15 percent when it was 4.7 percent just last year, when we talk about layoffs in companies like Monaco Coach and Keystone RV and Pilgrim International, companies that have sustained this community for years, we’re not just talking numbers. We’re talking about Ed. We’re talking about the people in the audience here today, people not just in Elkhart, but all across this country.

We’re talking about people who’ve lost their livelihood and don’t know what will take its place. We’re talking about parents who’ve lost their health care and lie awake at night praying their kids don’t get sick. We’re talking about families who’ve lost the home that was the corner, their foundation for their American dream, young people who put that college acceptance letter back in the envelope because they just can’t afford it.

That’s what those numbers and statistics mean. That is the true measure of this economic crisis. Those are the stories I heard when I came to Elkhart six months ago, and those are the stories that I carried with me to the White House.

I have not forgotten them. And I promised you back then that, if elected, I’d do everything I could to help this community recover, and that’s why I came back today, because I intend to keep my promise.

(APPLAUSE)

I intend to keep my promise. But, you know, the work is going to be hard. I don’t -- I don’t want to lie to people, and that’s why we’re having a town hall meeting. Because the situation we face could not be more serious.

OBAMA: We have inherited an economic crisis as deep and as dire as any since the Great Depression. Economists from across the spectrum have warned that, if we don’t act immediately, millions of more jobs will be lost.

The national unemployment rates will approach double digits, not just here in Elkhart, all across the country. More people will lose their homes and their health care. And our nation will sink into a crisis that at some point we may be unable to reverse.

So we can’t afford to wait. We can’t wait and see and hope for the best. We can’t posture and bicker and resort to the same failed ideas that got us into this mess in the first place.

(APPLAUSE)

That was what this election was all about: The American people rejected those ideas because they hadn’t worked.

(APPLAUSE)

You didn’t send us to Washington because you were hoping for more of the same; you sent us there to -- to change things, the expectation that we would act quickly and boldly to carry out change, and that’s exactly what I intend to do as president of the United States of America.

(APPLAUSE)

That’s why I put forth a recovery and reinvestment plan that is now before Congress. At its core is a very simple idea: to put Americans back to work doing the work America needs to be done.

Ed -- Ed said it better than anybody could. He said, look, folks in Elkhart, they want to work. Nobody’s looking for a handout. Everybody just wants to be able to get a job that supports a family.

And we’ve got the most productive workers on Earth.

(APPLAUSE)

We’ve got the best workers right here in Elkhart, who are willing to put in hard time and do whatever it takes to make sure a company succeeds, but they’ve got to have a chance.

The plan that we’ve put forward will save or create 3 million to 4 million jobs over the next two years, but not just any jobs, jobs that meet the needs we’ve neglected for far too long, jobs that lay the groundwork for long-term economic growth, jobs fixing our schools and computerizing our medical records to save costs and save lives, jobs repairing our roads and our bridges and our levees, jobs investing in renewable energy to help us move towards energy independence.

(APPLAUSE)

The plan also calls for immediate tax relief for 95 percent of American workers, so that you, who are being pinched, even if you still have a job, with rising costs while your wages and incomes are flat-lined, you’ll actually have a little bit of extra money at the end of the month to buy the necessities for you and your children.

Now, I know that some of you might be thinking, “Well, all that sounds good. But when are we going to see any of this here in Elkhart? What does all this mean to my family, to my community?”

And those are exactly the kinds of questions you should be asking your president and your government, and today I want to provide some answers. And I want to be as specific as I can.

Number one, this plan will provide for extended unemployment insurance, health care, and other assistance for workers...

(APPLAUSE)

... other assistance for workers and families who’ve lost their jobs in this recession. So if you’ve lost your job, for example, under existing law, you can get COBRA -- some of you have heard of COBRA -- but the only problem is, it’s so expensive, it doesn’t do you any good.

(APPLAUSE)

So what we’ve said is -- what we’ve said is, we will help subsidize people so they can keep -- at least keep their health insurance while they’re out there looking for a new job. This plan will also -- and what this means is, from the perspective of unemployment insurance, you will have an additional $100 per month in unemployment benefits that will go to more than 450,000 Indiana workers, extended unemployment benefits for another 89,000 folks who’ve been laid off and can’t find work, and job training assistance to help more than 51,000 people here get back on their feet.

CEOs Paying for Prostitutes with Company Credit Card: Video

This video (ABC) details a madam's (Kristin Davis) claim that some corporate CEOs paid for her prostitutes on the company credit card. She also claims that after her arrest prosecutors were not interested the names of those powerful business figures. I wonder why. I also wonder how much of that bailout money is going to pay for hookers.

Australia Wildfires: More Proof of the Global Warming Threat

Australia wildfires that have killed 84 people are more proof that global warming is a real threat.

Towering flames razed entire towns in southeastern Australia and burned fleeing residents in their cars as the death toll rose to 84 on Sunday, making it the country's deadliest fire disaster.

At least 700 homes were destroyed in Saturday's inferno when searing temperatures and wind blasts produced a firestorm that swept across a swath of the country's Victoria state, where all the deaths occurred.

"Hell in all its fury has visited the good people of Victoria," Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told reporters as he toured the fire zone on Sunday. "It's an appalling tragedy for the nation."

This from the Guardian:

Scientists are reluctant to link ­individual weather events to global warming, because natural variability will always throw up extreme events. However, they say that climate change loads the dice, and can make severe episodes more likely.

Some studies have started to say how much global warming contributed to severe weather. Experts at the UK Met Office and Oxford University used computer models to say man-made climate change made the killer European heatwave in 2003 about twice as likely. In principle, the technique could be repeated with any extreme storm, drought or flood – which could pave the way for lawsuits from those affected.

Bob Brown, a senator who leads the Australian Greens, said the bushfires showed what climate change could mean for Australia.

"Global warming is predicted to make this sort of event happen 25%, 50% more," he told Sky News. "It's a sobering reminder of the need for this nation and the whole world to act and put at a priority our need to tackle climate change."

Models suggest global warming could bring temperature rises as high as 6C for Australia this century, if global emissions continue unabated, with rainfall decreasing in the southern states and increasing further north. As if to demonstrate that, Queensland, in the north, is currently experiencing widespread flooding after rainfall of historic proportions.

More than 60% of Queensland has been declared a disaster zone in the worst floods for more than 30 years. Some 3,000 homes have been affected, and the main highway between Cairns and Townsville has been cut off.

The government is warning us about how bad it will be:

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued a strong warning that global warming will have "substantial human health impacts" within the next few decades. The warning came in a report released only days after the same agency declined to regulate global warming-causing greenhouse gases as pollutants under the Clean Air Act.

"Today typifies the climate-change schizophrenia in the Bush administration," said U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey, chair of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. "On one hand, government scientists are saying that global warming poses grave threats to our health and our welfare, and, on the other hand, [there] are White House political hacks following the oil industry's bidding to do nothing."

The EPA report warns that rising temperatures will cause air quality to worsen in Eastern cities, as well as more deaths among the elderly, the poor and inner-city dwellers during future heat waves.

"It's going to be hotter; it's going to be hotter sooner in the year than it was in the past," said co-author Kristie Ebi. Young people now living near Washington "[are] going to look back and think back about how nice the summers used to be," she said. "Within 20, 30 years, on average, the [public] should notice that it's warmer."

Global warming is also likely to lead to more frequent and powerful hurricanes, dwindling water supplies in the West, loss of coastal land to rising sea levels and storm surges, and the more rapid spread of food- and water-borne illnesses.

It's About the Infrastructure, Stupid

Rachel Maddow once again figures out what the politicians don't seem to understand. The solution to solving the economic crisis is investing in the infrastructure, which is collapsing. Barack needs to read this:

The economy is in crisis because people aren‘t buying enough stuff. There is supply, right? People make stuff that is to be sold and then there‘s demand. Demand is buying.

Right now, there‘s not enough buying. So, what they teach you in the very easiest semester of the very easiest economics class, because it‘s really easy to understand even if you are a total dunderhead about more completed macroeconomics stuff, what they teach is that the government can turn around an economic crisis that‘s caused by not enough demand—by making demand. Stimulating demand, they call it—economic stimulus.

On the continuum between rocket science and duh, understanding the concept of economic stimulus is closer to duh. It is not the most complicated policy idea. If no one else has anything to spend and the economy is collapsing because of it, the government should spend and it should try to spend in a way that gets everybody else spending, too. That‘s the whole kitten caboodle, that‘s the whole idea.

Last night, 90 percent of Senate Republicans voted for something they called an economic stimulus that had zero government spending in it. That‘s like calling a rack of lamb a fruit cocktail. That‘s a big meat tax cut there you, guys. But how about we get back to the idea of economic stimulus, you know, to save ourselves from having to eat cat food while we live in our cars for the rest or our lives?

It is reality check time here. Economic stimulus, most efficiently, is government spending. The most purely stimulative spending would probably be just to give envelopes full of cash to the poorest people in the country. Statistically, they‘d be the most likely to spend it.

In the absence of a political reality, that would make something like that possible, an almost ideal strategy is government spending, say, on infrastructure of which the American Society of Civil Engineers just said we could use $2.2 trillion worth. It‘s good jobs that can‘t be outsourced, immediately, that have the long-term benefit of dragging our country into the 21st century in terms of our ability to compete economically with the rest of the world.

As they said—duh. Not complicated. Ask your friendly neighborhood governors. They will tell you.

Joining us is Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell.

Governor Rendell, thank you very much for joining us tonight.

GOV. ED RENDELL, (D) PENNSYLVANIA: That was brilliant, Rachel.

Here's someone who really knows something about saving an economy and infrastructure:

At the age of 80, you’re about to bring out a new book, “Bold Endeavors: How Our Government Built America and Why It Must Rebuild Now,” an ode to the Erie Canal, the transcontinental railroad and other legends of American infrastructure.
I think this is a very important subject. At the same time, because it’s not Marilyn Monroe with the wind blowing, it’s not so easy to write about.

Until now, infrastructure has not been seen as the sexiest issue.
That’s right, because it’s such a terrible word.

Perhaps we need to revive the term “public works” or come up with a new coinage.
I’ve tried. I thought of calling my book “Rebuilding America.” That is kind of yuck.

You could also use a better name for the National Infrastructure Bank, which you’re trying to create, and which is not a bank.
I’ll be speaking about that on Feb. 22, at the National Governors Association conference in Washington.

We should point out that you’re the investment banker credited with solving New York’s fiscal woes in 1975 and saving the city from bankruptcy.
The New York City crisis was less dangerous than the current situation. Maybe for the first time in history, the U.S. is faced with doubts about its destiny. In less than 50 years, we have gone from the American Century to the American Crisis.

What do you make of President Obama’s $800-billion-plus stimulus package?
I totally support Obama, but I would argue in favor of a greater amount of infrastructure investment and probably fewer tax cuts. There should be less concern about rapid liquidation and greater emphasis on long-term investments.

The emphasis now seems to be on shoring up levees and making repairs to crumbling structures instead of building new ones.
Repairs are very important, as is new construction, and there should be a mix of both. If we have a major nuclear program in the next 25 years, for instance, then we have to do something about the infrastructure that goes with that, from creating an energy grid to dealing with nuclear-waste disposal.

This economist makes the case for a separate infrastructure spending package apart from the current bailout plan:

PRESIDENT OBAMA is the first urbanite in the White House since Teddy Roosevelt. He certainly knows the vital role that cities play in America. Yet despite the Chicagoan on Pennsylvania Avenue, infrastructure spending in the House stimulus bill follows a business-as-usual pattern that discriminates against density. The only way to break that pattern is to take non-repair-related infrastructure spending out of the stimulus, and craft a separate bill that looks beyond the current recession. Major infrastructure projects, especially in cities, cannot be done quickly.

Per capita transportation spending in the House stimulus package, including transit, is more than 50 percent higher in the 10 least dense states than in the 10 densest states, including Massachusetts. Yet America's highways and rails already make it easy to move goods and people across America's open spaces. The hard slog is getting across dense downtowns. Other elements in the stimulus package also favor farm over city. The subsidies for broadband infrastructure are unnecessary in already-connected cities. Access to the latest technologies is, after all, one reason for cities' economic success. The $6 billion for weatherizing homes will surely do more for rural America than for apartment dwellers. There is urban spending in the bill, but money spent rehabilitating public housing is not the transformative investment that will make cities more productive.

Infrastructure is the skeleton on which the economy hangs. In the 19th century, America built a great transportation network of rails and canals that enabled the wealth of the land to make its way east. America's 19th-century cities - Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh - were nodes on that network that grew along with it. In the 20th century, Americans built a highway system that decentralized urban areas. Brown economist Nathaniel Baum-Snow documents that with each extra interstate highway ray, cutting from suburb to city, central city population declined by about 10 percent relative to its suburbs. That suburban exodus reminds us that infrastructure can have far-reaching consequences. Serious, time-consuming planning is needed to make sure that adverse consequences are anticipated and minimized.

A visionary infrastructure strategy cannot fit into a stimulus package. For stimulus, speed is vital. The Big Dig took 21 years. Working in cities is particularly slow because it takes time to tunnel, and because community opposition holds up urban mega-projects. A need for speed will always create an anti-urban bias.

America needs both a stimulus package and new infrastructure, but combining the two in one bill is a mistake. Congress should eliminate any pretense that the stimulus plan is addressing long-run infrastructure needs, and leave in only those infrastructure expenditures, like rehabilitating decaying roads and bridges, that require minimal planning, public approval, and time to implement.

A separate infrastructure bill would take cost-benefit analysis seriously, and direct spending to the projects with the highest returns. This means breaking the infrastructure spending status quo. As the Office of Management and Budget's expectmore.gov website notes, highway infrastructure "funding is not based on need or performance and has been heavily earmarked." To reduce boondoggle projects, localities, particularly wealthier ones, should provide a significant share of the funding. Requiring locales to pony up their own cash helps ensure that new projects are really valued.

The role of cities is vital. According to County Business Patterns, 56 percent of America's wages are earned in the 22 mega-metropolitan areas with more than 2 million people each. A serious infrastructure bill would aid metropolitan areas, but ask for sacrifice in return for subsidy.

Local opposition has the ability to make projects slower, more expensive, and far less efficient. The train ride to New York would be much quicker if Connecticut had allowed the Acela line to run straight. Federal aid needs to be made contingent on efficient routes and limited cost overruns.

The cities that stand at the center of the economy need new infrastructure, but that can't be built in two years. To ensure an infrastructure plan that does not shortchange metropolitan America, major infrastructure needs to come out of the stimulus package and get a bill of its own.

But we've known for years about the infrastructure neglect but this criminally inept government has chosen to ignore the issue; just as they've ignored all the threats to our nation. Now it could be too late.

America's infrastructure is full of cracks, leaks and holes and is getting worse, according to an analysis by civil engineers that concludes the nation's transportation, water and energy systems have shown little improvement since they were given an overall grade of D-plus in 2001.

A report by the American Society of Civil Engineers released Thursday assessed trends over the last two years in the condition of 12 categories of infrastructure, including roadways, bridges, drinking water and energy.

The report blamed the deteriorating infrastructure on a weak economy, limited federal programs, population growth and the threat of terrorism, which diverted money to security.

"Americans' concerns about security threats are real, but so are the threats posed by crumbling infrastructure," Thomas Jackson, ASCE president, said in a statement. "It doesn't matter if the dam fails because cracks have never been repaired or if it fails at the hands of a terrorist. The towns below the dam will still be devastated."

There was no progress for schools, which received the worst grade — D-minus — from the engineers in 2001. The report said three out of four school buildings are inadequate. They estimate it will cost more than $127 billion to build new classrooms and modernize outdated schools.

Energy transmission earned a D-plus two years ago, and the engineers said the trend is getting worse. Investment in transmission fell by $115 million annually, to $2 billion a year in 2000 from $5 billion in 1975. Actual capacity increased by only 7,000 megawatts a year, 30% less than needed to keep up with power demand.

Roads didn't fare much better. "The nation is failing to even maintain the substandard conditions we currently have," the report said, adding that the average rush hour grew by more than 18 minutes between 1997 and 2000.

The engineers' report also saw no improvement on bridges, noting that 27.5% of U.S. bridges were structurally deficient or obsolete in 2000.

Transportation systems showed signs of decline, despite increased spending over the past six years. "Efforts to maintain the systems are outpaced by growth in ridership," the report said.

Economic Crisis not Just U.S. Problem

The pundits in the press and politicians seem not understand that the economic mess is not just an American problem. Washington seems to think that by them sending money (that we don't have) to Wall St. is the cure. The reality is that it could be beyond the control of the craven politicians in American, or in the West as a whole. The financial monster that has dominated the World for the last 2 decades is bigger than any one government and their ability to intervene. If any government has control it would be the Chinese rulers in Beijing. America, in particular, is a debtor nation that cannot pay it's bills alone. We depend on the unreliable and unpredictable Chinese. All Washington seems to be doing is pretending to act thus giving an illusion on doing something. If America really knew the truth we would march on the Capitol and string-up each member of Congress.

The auto industry's historic meltdown showed no signs of relenting in
January, with Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp. and Chrysler on Tuesday posting U.S. sales declines of more than 40% -- below even the lowest of Wall Street targets.

Toyota Motor Corp., on the brink of posting its first-ever operating loss, fared only slightly better as the entire global auto industry continues to suffer.

Worst in 27 years:

Ford (F.N) posted a 40 percent drop in January sales in the United States, the sharpest decline for the No. 2 U.S. automaker in 10 months of double-digit sales declines in the world's largest market for new cars and trucks.

Toyota (7203.T), the world's largest automaker, was hit with a 34 percent sales decline, a drop that underscores how the U.S. recession has tripped up even the industry's strongest players.

Sales for Nissan (7201.T) were off almost 30 percent.

The results from Toyota, Ford and Nissan on Tuesday were among the first from major automakers for a month expected to show overall sales near 27-year lows, extending a stretch of 15 months of consecutive auto sales declines.

America: Collapsing Like the Roman Empire?

Anderson Cooper asked recently whether America is collapsing like the final days of the Roman Empire. Most Americans would probably disagree. But the parallels are great. We have become an economic disaster. We're are broke with a crumbling infrastructure and fighting endless wars. And just like the Roman Empire are borders are unsecured and being overrun. This article is a rallying cry not an obituary:

COOPER: Well, as you all remember, there was a lot of talk during the campaign about fixing our infrastructure, but today a reminder that the government needs to do more than just talk. In a report card issued by the American Society of Civil Engineers, America's infrastructure earned the barely passing grade of D. From failing bridges to leaky water mains, the country's infrastructure is in such bad repair, the report estimates it's going to take five years and $2.2 trillion to fix it.

Tom Foreman tonight is "Keeping them Honest."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Anderson, Americans have witnessed dramatic infrastructure failures in recent years. It sounds boring, but it's really not. Think about the levee collapses in New Orleans during Katrina, all those lives lost, billions of dollars in damage done down there.

Think about what happened up in Minneapolis when that bridge fell down during rush hour; 13 people killed in 2007, a major commuter road shut down, as well. And then just a few weeks ago, here in Washington, D.C. -- nobody killed -- but a water main broke just outside of town and turned a road into river in seconds. Civil engineers have long warned of a tidal wave of these infrastructure problems. Barack Obama talked about it on the campaign trail too.

OBAMA: We can rebuild our electricity grid, put people back to work right now, rebuilding our infrastructure. Right now repairing and rebuilding our roads and our bridges and our schools. If we can spend $10 billion a month in Iraq, we can spend $10 billion here in the United States of America.

FOREMAN: The latest report card from the American Society of Civil Engineers is stark. Out of 15 systems we use every day for transportation, drinking water, garbage disposal, the highest grade was a C plus for the way we're managing solid waste, the vast majority as you can see got D's. Some particular points of worry, bridges out there: one in four structurally deficient or obsolete. Four thousand dams are considered in need of some kind of attention. Almost half high hazards because they could flood communities downstream.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN: And almost incredibly, think about this, the report found that we're losing seven billion gallons of clean drinking water every day through leaky pipes, public schools, parks, airports, railways, roads, and so much more since the last report card in 2005. The Society says almost all have grown worse and the cost of fixing them has only gone higher -- Anderson.

COOPER: All right, Tom, thanks.

The costs are not just financial, congested highways, fragile power grids, second-rate ports. Experts say that not only makes us less productive as a nation, it leaves us more vulnerable to terrorists. We're literally rotting from within. At $2.2 trillion or whatever the price tag almost triple President Obama's current economic stimulus package. The question is can we afford to fix it?

Let's dig deeper with Stephen Flynn, author of the book "Edge of Disaster" and a frequent guest on our program. This is not a sexy topic. It doesn't grab anyone in, but it's a national security issue.

STEPHEN FLYNN, AUTHOR "EDGE OF DISASTER": Well, it really is fundamentally one in that when our competitiveness is at stake, our safety and quality of life is at stake, but also our national security. The more brittle we are the more soft targets we essentially are. We get a three-for by investing in infrastructure: better economy, better quality of life, we actually improve our security. COOPER: And everyone sort of thinks -- I mean, I was surprised David Gergen said I think five percent of this thing is being spent on this kind of road building infrastructure. Everyone thinks the stimulus is really all about rebuilding this infrastructure in a massive way. It's really not yet.

FLYN: It's a very small down payment on what we really need to do. The big crisis we really haven't have talked about -- obviously the president in this campaign trail highlighted it. And it's been the first time in almost 30 years we started talking about our failing infrastructure. And I said we're like a generation who has inherited our grandparents' mansion and we decided to not do the upkeep anymore. Everybody's thinking it's a nice house but the wiring's gone to heck and the plumbing has gone bad. And not investing in it is a bit like not changing your oil on your car because you think it's a hassle and a little expensive.

COOPER: And both Democrats and Republicans haven't been doing this. I mean, this is not one...

FLYNN: Well, right now the debate in Washington is really almost the same old debate. It's simplistic to say it's just about jobs. There's no question this is an investment in our economy, and jobs over the long run will be produced by investing in this.

At the same time, this whole "this is robbing the taxpayer of his honest dollars." Well, you need infrastructure to be in an advanced society. Our grandparents and great-grandparents bequeathed to us the greatest legacy in terms of infrastructure since the Roman Empire. But this report today reads just like something that's going on in the eve of the collapse of the Roman Empire.

COOPER: The problem -- I read you said something that this is like in the last days of the Roman Empire. This is the kind of report card they would have gotten, which is a terrifying thought. In terms of how the money is being spent, though, it seems like we're kind of just throwing the money at the states and letting the states decide what the priorities are for their infrastructure. Is that the way it should be done?

FLYNN: Well, in the near term, moving money quickly, there are a lot of projects the states have got cleared because they got the environmental impact done. They're in the works but they ran out of cash. So getting cash into them probably makes sense as a Band-Aid.

But the real challenge, Anderson, we're not looking at the nation's infrastructure as a nation. It's a patchwork quilt, basically, of local projects. Some bridges are more important than others. Today we learned, yet again, 150,000 bridges in bad shape. There's probably a hundred of them more important than the other 150,000 that you don't have done. So where are they? We don't have a system in this country to even do this analysis. They pointed out levees...

COOPER: On a national level, we don't have a system?

FLYNN: There's nowhere you can say where are the top 100 bridges that are most broken...

COOPER: Really?

FLYNN: ... that we need to fix. Because historically, the federal government hasn't played that role; it's the states and governors that do it. So the solution going forward is that one of the things that certainly the president can do to get out ahead of this problem is to put together a bipartisan commission, get the input from the states, and prioritize with the expertise we have in this country, like the American Society of Civil Engineers, the National Academy of Science. We have shovel-ready expertise in the citizens in this country, the universities and so forth. We can do this.

The thing that is amazing is that we somehow decided that we can't afford to maintain an infrastructure that our forebears built with their sweat, with their equity, with their inventiveness, and not investing in it costs us a lot of money.

Is Caroline Kennedy the Democrats' Sarah Palin?

Caroline Kennedy will be the next Senator from New York (video below) despite not being qualified. That is why she is sounding a lot like Sarah Palin every time she opens or doesn't open her mouth. The press in NY is in a uproar that Ms. Kennedy is refusing to answer questions. Doesn't that remind you of the Alaska Governor during the recent presidential election? Pedigree rules in American politics. She doesn't have to answer questions. She is U.S. royalty, after all. Hillary Clinton had zero qualifications before she became a NY Senator. Now an equally unqualified person wants her job. And all because Ms.Kennedy is part of a powerful elite in America. Doesn't sound like what we fought against over 200 years ago when we became a democracy.

This from the BBC:

Caroline Kennedy's latest attempt to press her case to be the replacement for Hillary Clinton as a senator for New York has been widely criticised in the US media.

Ms Kennedy - daughter of former President John F Kennedy - broke weeks of silence on her bid, by giving a series of interviews at the weekend.

But she was criticised for being unknowledgeable on key policy areas, being unable to articulate why she was seeking public office for the first time - and even for possessing a verbal tic.

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Under the headline "Caroline Kennedy no whiz with words", the New York Daily News mimicked Ms Kennedy's speech pattern during the round of interviews.

"Caroline Kennedy, you know, might need, you know, a speech coach, um, if she, you know, wants, um, to be a senator," the paper said.

Totting up the number of "verbal tics" during its 30-minute interview, the paper counted "you know" more than 200 times... and added that "'um' was fairly constant, too".

Asked if President George W Bush's tax cuts on the wealthy should be repealed immediately, Ms Kennedy replied: "Well, you know, that's something, obviously, that, you know, in principle and in the campaign, you know, I think that, um, the tax cuts, you know, were expiring and needed to be repealed," the paper reported.

[...]
Columnist Michael Goodwin wrote: "The wheels of the bandwagon are coming off. Fantasy is giving way to inescapable truth. That truth is that Kennedy is not ready for the job and doesn't deserve it. Somebody who loves her should tell her."

[...]THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Associated Press said "Kennedy offered no excuses for why she failed to vote in a number of elections since registering in New York City in 1988".

"I was really surprised and dismayed by my voting record," she told AP. "I'm glad it's been brought to my attention."

AP reported that "since word of her interest leaked out in early December, Kennedy has faced sometimes sharp criticism that she cut in line ahead of politicians with more experience and has acted as if she were entitled to it because of her political lineage".

Natural disasters 'Killed over 220,000' in 2008

Natural disasters killed over 220,000 in 2008 worldwide. More evidence that global warming is having a devastating impact on the world. Governments, including in the U.S., need to begin taking in account the effect weather has on all our lives. More preventative measures must be taken. There has to be greater awareness and funding of programs that educate the public on preparedness. As for the naysayers, they will continue to ignore the overwhelming evidence of how global warming is impacting the planet.

Natural disasters killed over 220,000 people in 2008, making it one of the most devastating years on record and underlining the need for a global climate deal, the world's number two reinsurer said Monday.

Although the number of natural disasters was lower than in 2007, the catastrophes that occurred proved to be more destructive in terms of the number of victims and the financial cost of the damage caused, Germany-based Munich Re said in its annual assessment.

"This continues the long-term trend we have been observing. Climate change has already started and is very probably contributing to increasingly frequent weather extremes and ensuing natural catastrophes," Munich Re board member Torsten Jeworrek said.

Most devastating in terms of human fatalities was Cyclone Nargis, which lashed Myanmar on May 2-3 to kill more than 135,000 people and leave more than one million homeless.

Just days later an earthquake shook China's Sichuan province, leaving 70,000 dead, 18,000 missing and almost five million homeless, according to official figures, Munich Re said.

Around 1,000 people died in a severe cold snap in January in Afghanistan, Kyrgystan and Tajikistan, while 635 perished in August and September in floods in India, Nepal and Bangladesh.

Typhoon Fengshen killed 557 people in China and the Philippines in June, while earthquakes in Pakistan in October left 300 dead.

Six tropical cyclones also slammed into the southern United States, including Ike which, with insured losses of 10 billion dollars, was the industry's costliest catastrophe of the year.

In Europe, an intense low-pressure system called Emma caused two billion dollars worth of damage in March, while a storm dubbed Hilal in late May and early June left 1.1 billion dollars' worth.

The earthquake in Sichuan province was the most expensive overall single catastrophe of 2008, causing around 85 billion dollars worth of damage, helping to make the year the third most expensive on record, Munich Re said.

With 200 billion dollars' worth of damage, only 2005, when a large number of hurricanes slammed into the southern United States, and 1995, year of the Kobe earthquake in Japan, wreaked more destruction since records began in 1900.

According to provisional estimates from the World Meteorological Organization, 2008 was the tenth warmest year since the beginning of routine temperature recording and the eighth warmest in the northern hemisphere.

This means that the ten warmest years ever recorded have all occurred in the last 12 years, Munich Re said.

Israel Attack on Gaza A Prelude to Full War?

Israel's latest bombing of the Gaza Strip (video below) could be a preparation for full war with Hamas, reminiscent of the Lebanese invasion of several years ago. If something isn't done this could escalate to a World War. It could be the Israelis want a war before the Obama administration comes in. This neocon controlled White House would certainly support whatever Israel decided to do. President-elect needs to say more than just repeating the same line about there being only one President. This is very dangerous.

Goaded by Islamist guerrillas' cross-border attacks, Israel goes to war with a surprise aerial onslaught. Troops and tanks follow, to gain ground and pressure foreign powers into imposing a truce the Israelis can live with.

The strategy used by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for an offensive in Lebanon in 2006 could again be deployed against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

But there are big differences in the handling of the military operation in Gaza, which the Israeli air force started pounding on Saturday, and it is not clear how regional stability might benefit, let alone peace talks with Palestinians.

For now, Israeli officials sound satisfied with an operation in Gaza that shows few of the tactical mistakes of the 2006 war on Lebanese Hezbollah.

Fewer than half of Gaza's many dead are civilians, Israeli border towns were better prepared this time for retaliatory rocket fire and the Olmert government has not promised big victories.

International censure has so far been largely limited to urging a return to an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire that expired on Dec 19.

"Israel certainly underwent a lesson-learning process" after Lebanon, cabinet secretary Oved Yehezkel told Israel Radio.

Hamas has made a new ceasefire conditional on Israel ending an embargo on Gaza, and Israeli officials have hinted they also want new terms met -- such an end to arms smuggling by Hamas and the release of a captive soldier, Gilad Shalit.

It certainly looks like Israel intends on invading:

Israel called up 6,500 reserve soldiers and moved infantry and armored units to the Gaza border for a possible ground invasion. Some 280 Palestinians died in the first 24 hours of the campaign against Gaza rocket squads.

Most of the dead were Hamas police, but the airstrikes also claimed the lives of civilians, including a 15-year-old boy killed inside a greenhouse.

Unbowed by 250 Israeli airstrikes, militants fired dozens of rockets and mortars at border communities Sunday. Two rockets struck close to the largest city in southern Israel, Ashdod, some 38 kilometers (23 miles) from Gaza, reaching deeper into Israel than ever before. The targeting of Ashdod confirmed Israel's concern that militants are capable of putting major cities within rocket range. No serious injuries were reported in any of the attacks Sunday. One Israeli died in a rocket attack Saturday.

Despite the call for reserves, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said there were no plans to occupy Gaza. Speaking Sunday on "Meet the Press," Livni said the Israeli assault came because Gaza's Hamas rulers were smuggling weapons and building up "a small army."

Madoff $50 billion Scandal: Why we Shouldn't Bail out Wall St.

Wall St. financier Bernard Madoff ripped-off investors possibly at cost of $50 billion. Why should we bail out an industry that the government failed to regulate for years? We are in this mess because Congress allowed the profiters to run amok. The government, including Obama, should be working to bail out the economy not the crooks that got us in trouble.

Two major European-based banks said they have exposure worth billions of dollars to a US broker accused of a $50bn (£33bn) Wall Street fraud scheme.

Spain's largest bank, Santander, said one of its funds had $3.1bn invested in the firm run by Bernard Madoff.

France's largest listed bank, BNP Paribas, estimated its exposure to be more than $460m.

Mr Madoff has been charged with fraud, in what is being described as one of the biggest-ever such cases.

Correspondents say the case is likely to fuel uncertainty about the entire hedge fund industry.

Mr Madoff is alleged to have used money from new investors to pay off existing investors in the fund.

Investors are assessing their exposure to the alleged fraud Mr Madoff is said by prosecutors to have confessed to.

US Prosecutors say Mr Madoff, a former head of the Nasdaq stock market, masterminded a fraud of massive proportions through his hedge fund and investment advisory business.

A federal judge has appointed a receiver to oversee Mr Madoff firm's assets and customer accounts, while the 70-year-old banker has been released on $10m bail.

"While BNP Paribas has no investment of its own in the hedge funds managed by Bernard Madoff Investment Services, it does have risk exposure to these funds through its trading business and collateralised lending to funds of hedge funds," BNP said in a statement.

Santander said its exposure to Madoff was through its investment fund Optimal.

UK-based asset management firm Bramdean Alternatives accused US regulators of "systemic failures".

The firm saw its share value drop by over 35% after it revealed that about £21m - nearly 10% of its holding - was exposed to the New York broker.

"It is astonishing that this apparent fraud seems to have been continuing for so long, possibly for decades, while investors have continued to invest more money into the Madoff funds in good faith," the firm said.

"The allegations made appear to point to a systemic failure of the regulatory and securities markets regime in the US."

Where were the regulators?

Bernard Madoff’s investment advisory business, alleged to be a Ponzi scheme that cost investors $50 billion, was never inspected by U.S. regulators after he subjected it to oversight two years ago, people familiar with the case said.

The Securities and Exchange Commission hasn’t examined Madoff’s books since he registered the unit with the agency in September 2006, two people said, declining to be identified because the reviews aren’t public. The SEC tries to inspect advisers at least every five years and to scrutinize newly registered firms in their first year, former agency officials and securities lawyers said.

Madoff, 70, who had advised the SEC how to regulate markets and donated regularly to politicians, was arrested Dec. 11 and charged with operating what he told his sons was a long-running Ponzi scheme in the New York-based firm’s business advising rich people, hedge funds and institutions. His ability to avoid detection may fuel debate about the SEC’s effectiveness and the adequacy of its resources for policing money managers.

“Given what the SEC claims is the magnitude of the fraud, this is something you would hope an inspection would have uncovered,” said Mercer Bullard, a University of Mississippi law professor and former mutual-fund attorney at the SEC. “It’s hard to imagine a fraud of this alleged size not being accompanied by significant and pervasive compliance problems.”

Madoff is scheduled to appear in federal court in Manhattan on Dec. 19 at noon for a hearing in the SEC case, according to his lawyer, Ira “Ike” Sorkin, of Dickstein Shapiro LLP in New York.

“This is a tragedy,” said Sorkin, a former U.S. prosecutor and SEC enforcement lawyer. “We are going to fight through these events and try to minimize the losses as much as possible.”

[...]More than a decade earlier, in 1992, Madoff faced regulatory scrutiny as part of a lawsuit the SEC brought against two Florida accountants, whom it accused of raising $441 million while selling unregistered securities over three decades, according to SEC statements and a press report at the time.

Madoff told the Wall Street Journal at the time that he had managed the funds unaware they had been raised illegally. The SEC determined that the investors’ money was all accounted for, and didn’t accuse him of wrongdoing, according to the report.

President Obama on Meet the Press: Transcript (12-7-08)

President-elect Barack Obama appeared on Meet the Press (12-7-08) on Tom Brokaw's last show. Read the complete transcript and see the video here.

MR. BROKAW: Very nice to have you with us. As we saw in the opening, the world has gotten considerably worse since your election. There is no evidence that it's cause and effect, you should be happy to know. But, nonetheless, we now are officially in a recession. It's around the world, and most analysts think it's going to get worse before it gets better. Sixty-seven years ago this day, one of your predecessors, Franklin Roosevelt, faced Pearl Harbor.

PRES.-ELECT OBAMA: Right.

MR. BROKAW: What are the differences between his challenges and the ones that you face?

PRES.-ELECT OBAMA: Well, first of all, I think it's important for us to remember that as tough as times are right now, they're nothing compared to what my grandparents went through, what the "greatest generation" went through. You know, at this point you already had 25, 30 percent unemployment across the country, and we didn't have many of the social safety nets that emerged out of the New Deal. So there's no doubt that Franklin Roosevelt had to re-create an entire economic structure that had entirely collapsed, and we've got some strengths that he didn't, he didn't have.

But, look, if you look at the unemployment numbers that came out yesterday, if you think about almost two million jobs lost so far, if you think about the fragility of the financial system and the fact that it is now a global financial system, so that what happens in Thailand or Russia can have an impact here, and obviously, what happens on Wall Street has an impact worldwide, when you think about the structural problems that we already had in the economy before the financial crisis, this is a big problem and it's going to get worse. And, and one of the things that I'm constantly mindful of are all the people I met during the campaign who were already struggling before things got worse. You know, mothers and fathers who were working hard every day but didn't have health care, couldn't figure out how to send their kids to college. Now they're looking at pink slips, jobs being shipped overseas that devastate entire towns. And that's why my number one priority coming in is making sure that we've got an economic recovery plan that is equal to the task.

MR. BROKAW: Here's what you had to say a short time ago to the national conference of governors. It was kind of a reality check for them to put it in some kind of a context. Let's share that with our audience now, if we can.

(Videotape, Tuesday)

PRES.-ELECT OBAMA: We're going to have to make hard choices. Like the ones that you're making right now in your state capitals, we're going to have to make in Washington. And we are not, as a nation, going to be able to just keep on printing money; so, at some point, we're also going to have to make some long-term decisions in terms of fiscal responsibility and not all of those choices are going to be popular.

(End videotape)

MR. BROKAW: On this program about a year ago, you said that being a president is 90 percent circumstances and about 10 percent agenda. The circumstances now are, as you say, very unpopular in terms of the decisions that have to be made. Which are the most unpopular ones that the country's going to have to deal with?

PRES.-ELECT OBAMA: Well, fortunately, as tough as times are right now--and things are going to get worse before they get better--there is a convergence between circumstances and agenda. The key for us is making sure that we jump-start that economy in a way that doesn't just deal with the short term, doesn't just create jobs immediately, but also puts us on a glide path for long-term, sustainable economic growth. And that's why I spoke in my radio address on Saturday about the importance of investing in the largest infrastructure program--in roads and bridges and, and other traditional infrastructure--since the building of the federal highway system in the 1950s; rebuilding our schools and making sure that they're energy efficient; making sure that we're investing in electronic medical records and other technologies that can drive down health care costs. All those things are not only immediate--part of an immediate stimulus package to the economy, but they're also down payments on the kind of long-term, sustainable growth that we need.

Oscar De La Hoya's Latest Pay Per View Ripoff

Oscar De La Hoya is fighting in another Boxing pay-per-view ripoff. The Golden Boy has lost half his fights since 2003, and has lost 39 percent of fights since beating Oba Carr in May of 1999. Don't be a sucker. Save your money:

[...]the Golden Boy's ring pursuits mainly have been about ringing up the cash register. And he definitely has been successful in that arena.

De La Hoya is the most bankable star in boxing. He runs his own company, Golden Boy Enterprises, which includes his boxing promotions business, interest in several U.S. Spanish language newspapers, real estate holdings in California and New York and a charitable foundation.

This from eastsideboxing.com:

I’ve made no secret of my distaste for super-fights – carefully orchestrated farces that rely more on past glory and name recognition than real talent. The boxing press ignores more meaningful fights, the real boxing fans get ignored in favor of the mainstream, and everyone pays $50 for a disappointment.

[...]It Has Lasting Impact: If Oscar wins, he’ll continue avoiding legitimate threats like Forrest or Margarito. If Pacquiao wins, he WILL NOT stay at welterweight. He knows damned well that at 147 he’ll eventually run into actual entities like Margarito who are actually quite dangerous. Pacquiao will likely just slim down to lightweight again, albeit with a bigger paycheck and a reference on SportsCenter the next morning.

Likewise, Calzaghe-Jones promised nothing. Calzaghe said he would retire; Jones was a non-entity in the division who jumped over scores of worthier opponents. The fight should have happened back when Jones really mattered.

[...]You know what De La Hoya-Pacquiao is to me as a committed boxing fan? A middle finger.

If you really love boxing, that fight is not made for you. It’s a fight tailored to self-proclaimed boxing “experts” who ignore pugilism for 364 days of the year, then pretend like they follow it full-time.

From Examiner.com:

Despite his less than appealing record in the ring lately, (3 victories in his last 6 fights), Oscar De La Hoya has managed to keep himself in the sports spotlight, landing at least one colossal mega fight per year.

Many view this fight with high skepticism, partly because it pairs two fighters at totally opposite ends of the weight spectrum.

Oscar De La Hoya has spent his last 7 years fighting as a light middleweight, (154bs), while Pacquiao has spent his entire career 24 pounds (and far more) below.

The dynamics behind this fight make for a very intriguing affair, but in the end, it's clearly a lose, lose situation for the 'Goldenboy'.

If Oscar wins, pundits are gonna say that he beat the smaller guy that he had no business in the ring with.

If Oscar loses, that'll make him 0-6 against future hall-of-famers he faced who were also in their prime (Mosley twice, Mayweather, Hopkins, Trinidad, and then Pacquiao).

What makes it worst is that there is so much meaningful talent in their respective divisions, yet somehow in a recession driven economy, fans are being forced to shell out $55 to watch a fight that probably shouldn't be happening.

And Oscar has the nerve to try to warm the fight public up to a showdown between he and Ricky Hatton (140 lbs) in the summer of '09? Really?....

All of this mega fight stuff is probably good for these guys' pockets, but my parting question for those reading: "How much of it is actually good for the true fight aficionado that actually wants to see a substantive fight"?

I'm a junkie so I'll pay to watch the action, but at the end of the day, I'm not quite sure I totally buy the 'act'.

Do you?

Robbers in Drag Steal $102M in Jewel Heist

Armed Robbers in Paris, France got away with a Jewelry robbery worth $102 million (in U.S.). Some of the robbers were dressed as women (drag).

A bigger theft is going on in Washington:

Detroit automakers and the UAW made headway Thursday in their bid for government aid they say they need to survive, as key senators said they would consider approving at least some of the $34 billion the industry wants.

But the senators at the five-hour Senate Banking Committee hearing also made clear that any loans would come with strict conditions and might require that the carmakers prove by March 31 that they were making progress on their turnaround plans.

A few senators said bankruptcy should remain an option for General Motors Corp. or Chrysler LLC, but more said that letting the automakers fail would deepen the growing recession. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., who ran the hearing and would oversee any plan in the Senate, said that inaction "plays Russian roulette with the entire economy."

Still, he warned that getting a plan approved next week remains daunting.

"Nothing concentrates the mind like a death sentence, and we're looking at a death sentence if we don't respond intelligently and prudently," Dodd said.

Dodd and other Democratic leaders in Congress urged President George W. Bush late Thursday to use his powers under the $700-billion financial industry bailout to make emergency loans to the automakers, saying his administration had all the authority it needed to set strict rules over the industry in return for rescue.

The Bush administration has said the $700 billion needed to be spent on rescuing banks and other financial businesses, but Democrats cited new research showing that a collapse of the Detroit automakers and their suppliers could deliver a severe blow to credit markets.

"The failure of the Big Three would indeed have a major direct and negative impact on the financial sector, not just on the economy as a whole," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Dodd.

White House spokesman Blair Jones said late Thursday that the bailout was not meant for automakers and that Democrats can't agree on how to help the industry.

The tone of Thursday's hearing was markedly different from two weeks ago, when several senators suggested the auto industry might not be worth saving and criticized the automakers' chief executive officers for lackluster presentations and coming to Washington in corporate jets. On Thursday, the CEOs arrived in hybrid vehicles, including a prototype Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid that GM Chairman Rick Wagoner drove to the Senate office building.

Many on the committee, and the automakers themselves, said they favored government overseers with broad powers. One senator suggested such a position could require GM and Chrysler to merge -- an idea the two companies said could save up to $10 billion annually, and one of the CEOs did not oppose.

There were few conditions that the automakers suggested they would not agree to. Chrysler Chairman Bob Nardelli said he'd be willing to resign as part of a government-ordered merger, Wagoner said GM would even agree to file for bankruptcy if it could not prove progress on its survival plan by March 31.

"We're here today because we made mistakes, which we're learning from, and because some forces beyond our control have pushed us to the brink," Wagoner said. "And most importantly because saving General Motors and all this company represents is a job worth doing."

Ford CEO Alan Mulally also noted past mistakes, but contended that Ford was on the right path now, inviting senators "to visit us in Dearborn to kick the tires."

Republican Congresswoman Hangs up on Obama

Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida hung up on Obama and Rohm Emmanuel Twice. Ros-Lehtinen claims she thought she was being punked just like Sarah Palin was several weeks ago.

When President-elect Barack Obama called Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen at her South Florida district office Wednesday, she hung up on him.

'I thought: `Why would Obama want to call a little slug on the planet like me?' '' Ros-Lehtinen said.

A short time later, Rahm Emanuel, Obama's designated chief of staff, called. Ros-Lehtinen hung up on him, too.

''I thought it was one of the radio stations in South Florida playing an incredible, elaborate, terrific prank on me,'' Ros-Lehtinen said. ``They got Fidel Castro to go along. They've gotten Hugo Chavez and others to fall for their tricks. I said, 'Oh, no, I won't be punked'.''

Ros-Lehtinen was in Miami when she received Obama's first call about 1 p.m. on her cell phone from a Chicago-based number. The person on the line told Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican, that the President-Elect would like to speak to her.

A man, who Ros-Lehtinen said sounded like Obama, got on the line and congratulated her on her reelection and said he was looking forward to working with her as the ranking Republican member of the House Foreign Affairs committee.

The conversation lasted just a minute when Ros-Lehtinen cut Obama off, telling him she wasn't falling for the hoax and that he was a better impersonator than the guy on Saturday Night Live.

Then Emanuel called, and she hung up on him. It finally took Rep. Howard Berman, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, to persuade Ros-Lehtinen that the president-elect indeed wanted to talk to her.

''I asked Howard to tell me a private joke we share about colleagues in the House to make sure it really was him,'' Ros-Lehtinen said. ``When he did, I realized it was the real deal.''

Ros-Lehtinen said she then told Berman: ``I know this sounds very presumptuous, but please tell President-elect Obama he can call me now and I will take his call.''

Obama called back, and Ros-Lehtinen said she told him she ''wasn't playing hard to get,'' but thought it was a joke like Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin getting the call from someone pretending to be French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

This would be the second time in two days the people of Florida got punked. What is it about Conservative Republican women and the fear of getting punked.

Marc Ambinder is reporting that Jeb Bush is considering a run for the Senate to replace the retiring Mel Martinez:

Two sources close to Jeb Bush, including one who has spoken to the former Florida governor within the past few hours, say he is seriously considering a run for Senate now that incumbent Republican Mel Martinez has retired.


"He is receiving a lot of encouragement from both in and out of the state," an longtime Bush adviser said tonight. "He is going to take his time and approach this very methodically." Bush will weigh, according to this adviser, how a run would impact his family, his business, and whether the Senate would be the best platform for the causes he'd advocate -- education, immigration, GOP solutions to health care and energy.

Bush did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

If he decides to run, Republicans expect the field to clear for him. Maybe. Gov. Charlie Crist, with whom Bush has not had the warmest of relations, is said to be interested in moving to the Senate. Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum is weighing a bid, as is former state House Speaker Marco Rubio, Orange County executive Richard Crotty, and U.S. Rep. Connie Mack.

Via ThinkProgress, in an interview with NewsMax, President Bush's brother Jeb says the Republican party should not cave to a Democratic majority. Rather, they should set up a "shadow government" to provide a counter-agenda.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush tells Newsmax that the GOP must broaden its appeal to avoid becoming "the old white-guy party," and recommends that Republicans create a "shadow government" to engage Democrats on important issues as the incoming Obama administration seeks to enact its agenda.


In a wide-ranging interview with Newsmax, the popular former governor and younger brother of President George W. Bush said the 2008 election was neither "transformational" nor a landslide. For example, he noted that Barack Obama's significant fundraising advantage over John McCain played a key role in Democratic success this year.

Bush urged Republicans not to abandon their core conservative principles in favor of a "Democratic-lite" agenda. Still, the GOP does need to do some real soul-searching, he said.

Should the Auto Industry be Bailed Out?

Congress will once again consider whether it will bail out the auto industry. The other option being debated is bankruptcy for the big three. But even if they are "bailed out" is it any guarantee that these companies will survive. Isn't there a better solution? How about loans with strings attached? So far the bailing out of the financial markets has been a big flop.

The heads of the big three U.S. automakers are to testify before a U.S. Senate committee Thursday, to make the case for why the government should spend $34 billion to bail them out.

General Motors, Ford and Chrysler are reporting their worst sales in 26 years. GM and Chrysler say they may be out of business by February without government help.

But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, tells the Associated Press there are not enough Senate votes at this time to bail out the carmakers.

All three have submitted plans for rebuilding their businesses, severely hurt by the global recession, a lack of consumer credit, and selling large gas-guzzling cars many customers no longer want.

Along with promises to build more environmentally friendly hybrid and electric vehicles, the companies promise to cut jobs and slash executive pay and bonuses.

The United Auto Workers Union says it will renegotiate its contracts with the companies.

Ralph Nader has an opinion on all these bailouts:

In the past ten weeks, “government capitalism” has been a patsy, absorbing huge taxpayer dollars and liabilities to save an assortment of Wall Street financial corporations. Washington is guaranteeing a clutch of securitized mortgages and consumer loans and even guaranteeing, for the first time, 4 trillion dollars of money market funds.

The bailout of Citigroup illustrates the paucity of reciprocity. It is a sweetheart deal. With Citigroup’s co-executive. Robert Rubin rushing to Washington to structure the deal to save his bank and his own stock portfolio, the Bush regime took on $20 billion in preferred shares and put taxpayers at risk for over $300 billion in the big bank’s loan portfolio. Earlier in October, taxpayers were compelled to buy $25 billion in Citi preferred shares.

Whereas the Feds earlier took a potential 79% ownership of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to save those companies, for Citi the government only took 7.8% stake and left the management and board of directors intact.

Since these enormous bailouts and revisions of bailouts largely occur over weekends in frantic secret huddles between government officials formerly from Wall Street and their former colleagues from Wall Street, the actual agreements are not disclosed. They are considered official secrets, assuming they even have been finalized beyond mere memoranda of understanding.

Since all these deals, and more seem to be coming from other commercial and industrial pleaders, are general and appear to be open-ended, resourceful government capitalism can advance shareholder rights across the board and compel a variety of corporate reforms and accountabilities long-desired by progressives and conservatives alike.

[...]Let’s have a level playing field here and treat all corporate welfare demanders under equal procedural rules shaped on Capitol Hill. Remember the Constitution. It says all spending bills start with the House of Representatives and then go to the Senate and then to the President. Secret taxpayer bailouts by Executive Branch press releases are not what the framers had in mind when they wrote the Constitution.

With the installation of a new president and a new Congress next month, the process must be reversed and these White House-corporate “understandings” have to be reconsidered and, if maintained, revised.

This is a rare moment in American economic history. Just as the multinational corporations were about to complete the entrenchment of the corporate state in Washington, D.C., — what President Franklin Delano Roosevelt described in 1939 as a condition of fascism—their speculative greed, recklessness, mismanagement and de-regulatory license turned them into massive supplicants at the taxpayers’ trough.

The public does not think the bailing out of the auto industry is a good idea. They are right:

A national poll suggests that six in 10 Americans oppose using taxpayer money to help the ailing major U.S. auto companies.

Sixty-one percent of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey out Wednesday are dead set against the federal government providing billions of dollars in assistance for the automakers, with 36 percent favoring such a bailout.

The poll, conducted Monday and Tuesday, also indicates that a majority of Americans, 53 percent, don't think government assistance for the automakers will help the U.S. economy.

"Only 15 percent say that they would be immediately affected if the auto companies went bankrupt," CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said. "Seven in 10 say that a bailout would be unfair to American taxpayers."

In early November, polls indicated that nearly half the public supported federal assistance to the big automakers when this issue first came before Congress.