Obama: All US Troops Out of Iraq by End of Year

Friday 21 October 2011
Obama: All US Troops Out of Iraq by End of Year
Mike Ludwig, Truthout: "President Obama announced today that all US troops in Iraq would be withdrawn by the end of the year. The final drawdown will leave behind thousands of private security contractors and State Department employees. While onlookers in Washington were expecting today's announcement, the official end of the Iraq war is bittersweet for Americans who opposed the costly, bloody conflict in the first place."
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Ellen Brown | Can the Fed Prevent the Next Crisis by Eliminating Interest on Student Loan Debt?
Ellen Brown, Truthout: "Among the demands of the Wall Street protesters is student debt forgiveness.... Commentators say debt forgiveness is impossible. Who would foot the bill? But there is one deep pocket that could pull it off - the Federal Reserve."
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Some Unsolicited Advice to the Democratic Party: Cave to Occupy Wall Street Movement
J.A. Myerson, Truthout: "Dear Democratic Party: ... You have never had the type of political cover you have now, and you never will again. Stick a big middle finger up in the direction of Wall Street, fire your revolving-door-begotten staffers, declare yourself now and forever the party of working people, and be done with it."
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Is a Flat Tax Fair?
Dave Johnson, Campaign for America's Future: "Conservatives are always pushing for a 'flat tax.' So simple, but it turns out it is a simple trick, a scam to enrich the 1%, like so much else that conservatives are selling. Don't fall for it - it means taxes will go up for the 99% of us who aren't really, really rich."
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UN Panel Calls for Inquiry Into Qaddafi's Death
Nick Cumming-Bruce, The New York Times News Service: "The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called on Friday for an inquiry into the death of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi amid conflicting accounts of how the Libyan dictator met his end and video that appeared to show him alive after his capture.... In the laws of war there is an obvious difference between someone killed in combat or crossfire, or a captive being executed or summarily shot down."
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How the Austerity Class Rules Washington
Ari Berman, The Nation: "In September the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), a bipartisan deficit-hawk group, held a high-profile symposium urging the Congressional 'supercommittee' to 'go big' and approve a $4 trillion deficit reduction plan over the next decade."
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Robert Scheer | Let Them Eat Keller
Robert Scheer, Truthdig: "Funny, he doesn't look like Marie Antoinette. But when former New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller asks his readers if they are "bored by the soggy sleep-ins and warmed-over anarchism of Occupy Wall Street," it displays the arrogance of disoriented royal privilege.... Perhaps his contempt for anti-corporate protesters was honed by the example of his father, once the chairman of Chevron. In any case, it is revealing, given the cheerleading support that the Times gave to the radical deregulation of Wall Street that occurred when Keller was the managing editor of the newspaper."
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On the News With Thom Hartmann: Republicans Block Jobs Bill, and More
In today's On the News segment: Republicans proved they'd rather protect billionaires from a one-half of one percent tax increase than keep 400,000 teachers, firefighters, and cops on the job; the Chamber of Commerce has spent over $4 million lobbying for legal impunity for corporations in just the last three months; the New York Civil Liberties Union calls on the New York Police Department to stop its unlawful surveillance of Occupy Wall Street; the Murdoch media empire could be crumbling, and more.
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The Chamber Spends More Than $4 Million in Just Three Months Lobbying for Corporate Immunity to the Law
Ian Millhiser, ThinkProgress: "Lobbying disclosure forms for the third quarter of 2011 are due tonight, and corporate America's tort reform lobby has so far topped the list of the most profligate spenders.... 'The U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform is topping that list, reporting shelling out nearly $4.2 million in July through August of this year' ... Often at the Chamber's urging, the Supreme Court has empowered corporations to force consumers and workers into a privatized, corporate-owned arbitration system that overwhelmingly favors corporate parties."
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How Can We Rouse Police and Other Protectors of the Corporatocracy - "Guards" of the Status Quo - to Join the OWS Rebellion?
Bruce E. Levine, AlterNet: "Police, teachers, the corporate press, mental health professionals - the guards of the system - are given small rewards to pacify and control the population.... Guards must deal with the reality that history looks unkindly on those who "just followed orders." And guards must be given confidence that there are revitalizing satisfactions and new community that will emerge for them when they join the revolt of the guards."
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US Military Paid $1.1 Trillion to Contractors That Defrauded the Government
Mike Ludwig, Truthout: "The Pentagon has paid $1.1 trillion to hundreds of defense contractors and their parent companies that have defrauded the government over the past ten years, according to a Department of Defense report released Thursday.... The Department of Defense reported that it has sanctions in place and several contractual and administrative "remedies" are available to deal with contract fraud, but the report admits that 'it is unclear, however, that these remedies are sufficient.'"
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BUZZFLASH DAILY HEADLINES

Consistent with the Wall Street standard operating procedure of privatized profits and socialized risks, the Bank of America has allegedly transferred $75 trillion dollars in potentially toxic derivatives to enable the money to be covered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) .
What does this mean in plain English?
It means that we, the taxpayers, are once again insuring the casino gambling financial bets of another bank too big to fail. So, while the Tea Party and the Republicans in Congress rail about cutting taxes, they are saying nary a word about taxpayers covering the shady financial gambling of big banks. The potential loss of $75 trillion, insured by government money, dwarfs budget deficit "austerity" talks.
And the Bank of America - although it is the largest US bank in total financial assets according to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) - is not a good investment for taxpayers right now, even though it recently showed a profit on paper. According to Bloomberg:
Moody's Investors Service downgraded Bank of America's long-term credit ratings Sept. 21, cutting both the holding company and the retail bank two notches apiece. The holding company fell to Baa1, the third-lowest investment-grade rank, from A2, while the retail bank declined to A2 from Aa3....
Bank of America's rating is now four grades below the one Moody's assigned to JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), the biggest U.S. bank by deposits at midyear, and a level below the rating given to Citigroup Inc. (C), the third-biggest. Bank of America is the only U.S. lender that lacks a rating of A3 or higher among the five firms listed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency as having the biggest derivatives books.
So the free market isn't really "free." Wall Street depends upon hard-working Americans to keep them from the negative results of taking bad risks in an effort to turn large profits and big bonuses. If you own a small business and take such risks and they fail, you go bankrupt. If you run a Wall Street bank "too big to fail," average Americans cover your losses. Call it Wall Street socialism.
Ominously, in regards to that $75 trillion dollars that we are now backing with our dollars, a Reuters columnist recently wrote a commentary headlined, "Is Bank of America preparing for a Chapter 11?"
It would be great to go to Vegas and have all your gambling debts covered by the house. That's the Wall Street way - and the US government is the house.
The taxpayers are holding up Wall Street, not the other way around.
Mark Karlin
Editor, BuzzFlash at Truthout
Time to Move from Occupy Wall Street to Prosecute Wall Street
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Taxpayer Funds Supporting Massive, Corporate-Controlled Surveillance Regime in Lower Manhattan
Read the Article at PrivacySOS.org
This Church Is Divesting Millions From Bank of America
Read the Article at GOOD
GOP Debate Crowd Cheers Idea That Jobless Are to Blame for Their Plight
Read the Article at The Washington Post
Federal Lobbyists for Big Oil Say Conversation With Deficit Supercommittee Members Has Been "Very Productive"
Read the Article at The Political Carnival
Bachmann's New Hampshire Team Quits
Read the Article at Time
Obama Still Flush With Cash From Financial Sector, Despite Overtures to Occupy Wall Street
Read the Article at The Washington Post
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