MyspaceBeatJacking Episode 4

And the Saga continues.....

Smart People in Charge of Science....now that's Novel....

Picking the best people for the tech and science positions, seems almost too smart for a President of the United States to do.... But that's what's happening under an Obama administration...

(CNN) — President-elect Barack Obama named his science and technology team Saturday with a pledge to ensure that “facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology.”

“It’s time we once again put science at the top of our agenda and worked to restore America’s place as the world leader in science and technology,” he said in his Saturday radio address, in an apparent offhand swipe at President Bush.

“It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient – especially when it’s inconvenient,” Obama said, adding that government support had been essential for the greatest scientific breakthroughs of recent history, like the development of the Internet.

“Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us."

Obama announced that Harvard University professor John Holdren will serve as assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Environmental scientist and marine ecologist Jane Lubchenco of Oregon State University was his pick for administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The president-elect also named Nobel Prize-winning Harold Varmus, a former Director of the National Institutes of Health, and Eric Lander of MIT and Harvard, a leader of the Human Genome Project, as co-chairs of the Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Time to snip it!

After posting this blog I was also given an argument against this study, please check this out as well..

http://www.circumcisionandhiv.com/2008/12/and-here-we-go-again.html


Studies Look at Health Benefits of Male Circumcision in Black, African Men

HIV risk appears to be lower among U.S. black men who have been circumcised and are considered at high risk of contracting the virus than among black men who have not been circumcised, according to a study published on Wednesday in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, Reuters reports. Two other studies in the journal also examine the benefits of male circumcision to prevent the spread of disease and infection.

For one of the studies, CDC researcher Lee Warner and colleagues looked at black men living in Baltimore and found that 10% of those who were at high risk of HIV and were circumcised had the virus, compared with 22% of those who were not circumcised.

According to the report, "Circumcision was associated with substantially reduced HIV risk in patients with known HIV exposure, suggesting that results of other studies demonstrating reduced HIV risk for circumcision among heterosexual men likely can be generalized to the U.S. context."

Ronald Gray of Johns Hopkins University and colleagues in an editorial accompanying the study noted that in the U.S., circumcision is less common among blacks and Hispanics. However, blacks and Hispanics are the most at-risk of groups for contracting the virus. "Thus, circumcision may afford an additional means of protection from HIV in these at-risk minorities," they wrote.

The American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend routine circumcision for infants, and as a result, Medicaid does not cover the procedure, according to the editorial. The editorial adds that "this is particularly disadvantageous for poorer African-American and Hispanic boys who, as adults, may face high HIV exposure risk" (Fox, Reuters Health, 12/17). The study is available online. The editorial also is available online.

http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/print_report.cfm?DR_ID=56166&dr_cat=5

Blackwater getting the boot!?!

According to the AP, a State Department advisory panel decided yesterday that Blackwater should no longer provide private security for U.S. diplomats in Iraq. The panel suggested Blackwater's license to operate in Iraq not be renewed next year.

This comes less than a week after the DOJ made public the manslaughter charges for five

Blackwater guards involved in the 2007 Nisour Sqaure shooting that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead.

Considering how much the Bush administration has defended Blackwater over the years, and considering the State Department just renewed Blackwater's contract last year and once granted immunity to those involved in the Nisour Square shooting, this is a major blow to this mercenary firm.

While President-elect Obama has said previously that the difficulty of banning Blackwater from Iraq outright would be replacing their guards with more U.S. troops, last week's high-profile indictment coupled with yesterday's advisory panel report no doubt raises the pressure to rid us of Blackwater and bring this war profiteer to justice.

Cheney Saddam......

Recently Vice President Dick Cheney gave an interview covering several topics from the invasion of Iraq to the torturing of people at good ole' G-Bay.....

Cheney Defends His Torture Policies

"I have been ... focused very much on whatwe needed to do to defend the nation."– Dick Cheney, December 15, 2008

Saddam Defended His Torture Policies

"I'm doing it for Iraq. I'm not defendingmyself. But I am defending you."– Saddam Hussein, December 5, 2005

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http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=1085

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KARL: Now, President Bush recently said that his greatest regret was that the intelligence was wrong on weapons of mass destruction. Is that your biggest regret?

CHENEY: No, I wouldn't -- I understand why he says that. I certainly share the frustration that the intelligence report on Iraq WMD generated but in terms of the intelligence itself, I tend to look at the entire community and what they've done over the course of the last several years. Intelligence -- it's not a science, it's an art form in many respects and you don't always get it right.

I think while I would mention that as a major failure of the intelligence community, it clearly was. On the other hand, we've had other successes and failures. I think the run-up to 9/11 where we missed that attack was a failure. On the other hand we've had great success since 9/11 in terms of what the intelligence community has contributed overall to the defense of the nation, to defeating al Qaeda, to making it possible for us to do very serious damage to our enemies.

KARL: You probably saw Karl Rove last week said that if the intelligence had been correct we probably would not have gone to war.

CHENEY: I disagree with that. I think -- as I look at the intelligence with respect to Iraq, what they got wrong was that there weren't any stockpiles. What we found in the after action reports, after the intelligence report was done and then various special groups went and looked at the intelligence and what its validity was. What they found was that Saddam Hussein still had the capability to produce weapons of mass destruction. He had the technology, he had the people, he had the basic feed stocks.

They also found that he had every intention of resuming production once the international sanctions were lifted. He had a long reputation and record of having started two wars. Of having brutalized and killed hundreds of thousands of people, some of them with weapons of mass destruction in his own country. He had violated 16 National Security Council resolutions. He had established a relationship as a terror sponsoring state according to the State Department. He was making $25,000 payments to the families of suicide bombers.

This was a bad actor and the country's better off, the world's better off with Saddam gone and I think we made the right decision in spite of the fact that the original NIE was off in some of its major judgments.

Myspace Beat Jacking Episode 3!

Still going! Feeling the all white, looks like an old Bad Boy video.....

www.myspace.com/myspacebeatjacking

www.youtube.com/myspacebeatjacking


www.myspace.com/streeztrumentals

President Bush ducks Flying Shoe

This is Hilarious!

But you gotta admit, bush got some quick moves! That would have hit dead center if it was Cheyney, or Mccain!




Iraq faced mounting calls on Monday to release the journalist who hurled his shoes at George W. Bush, an action branded shameful by the government but hailed in the Arab world as an ideal parting gift to the unpopular US president.

Colleagues of Muntazer al-Zaidi, who works for independent Iraqi television station Al-Baghdadia, said he "detested America" and had been plotting such an attack for months against the man who ordered the war on his country.

"Throwing the shoes at Bush was the best goodbye kiss ever... it expresses how Iraqis and other Arabs hate Bush," wrote Musa Barhoumeh, editor of Jordan's independent Al-Gahd newspaper.
Hundreds of Iraqis joined anti-US demonstrations to protest at Bush's farewell visit on Sunday to Iraq, which was plunged into a deadly insurgency and near civil war in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion.

The Iraqi government branded Zaidi's actions as "shameful" and demanded an apology from his Cairo-based employer, which in turn called for his immediate release from custody.

Zaidi jumped up as Bush was holding a press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Sunday, shouted "It is the farewell kiss, you dog" and threw two shoes at the US leader.

The shoes missed after Bush ducked and Zaidi was wrestled to the ground by security guards. He is currently being held by the Iraqi authorities, a source in Maliki's office said without elaborating.

Al-Baghdadia issued a statement demanding Zaidi's release "in line with the democracy and freedom of expression that the American authorities promised the Iraqi people."


"Any measures against Muntazer will be considered the acts of a dictatorial regime," it added.
But the government called for the channel to apologise, saying: "This action harms the reputation of Iraqi journalists and journalism in general."

Saddam Hussein's former lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi said he was forming a team to defend Zaidi and that around 200 lawyers, including Americans, had offered their services for free.

"It was the least thing for an Iraqi to do to Bush, the tyrant criminal who has killed two million people in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Dulaimi.

"Our defence of Zaidi will be based on the fact that the United States is occupying Iraq, and resistance is legitimate by all means, including shoes."

Zaidi's colleagues in Baghdad, where he had worked for three years, said he had long been planning to throw shoes at Bush if ever he got the chance.

"Muntazer detested America. He detested the US soldiers, he detested Bush," said one on condition of anonymity.

Soles of shoes are considered the ultimate insult in Arab culture. After Saddam's statue was toppled in Baghdad in April 2003, many onlookers pelted it with their shoes.

But young Iraqi woman Oum Mina said she didn't consider Zaidi a hero.

"Bush is our enemy. But when you invite your enemy into your home, you don't treat him this way. This could destroy the image of Iraqis."

Protestors in Sadr City, the bastion of radical anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, however, threw shoes at passing US military vehicles, while in the holy Shiite city of Najaf, the crowds chanted "Down with America."

"All US soldiers who have used their shoes to humiliate Iraqis should be brought to justice, along with their US superiors, including Bush," said Ali Qeisi, head of a Jordan-based Iraqi rights group.

"The flying shoe speaks more for Arab public opinion than all the despots/puppets that Bush meets with during his travels in the Middle East," said Asad Abu Khalil, a popular Lebanese-American blogger and professor at Stanislaus University in California at angryarab.blogspot.com
An Iraqi lawyer said Zaidi risked a miminum of two years in prison if he is prosecuted for insulting a visiting head of state, but could face a 15-year term if he is charged with attempted murder.

"We fear for his safety," said Muzhir al-Khafaji, programming director for the television channel, adding that Zaidi had been arrested before by the Americans and that there were fears that more of its 200 correspondents in Iraq would be detained.
But in Libya, a charity headed by Moamer Kadhafi's daugher Aisha announced it was going to award Zaidi an "order of courage" for his actions.

Busta Apologizes for "Arab Money"

Ok this has been a topic I have taken up everytime I've heard this song, wether on the radio or in the club. From the get go I thought that it was Disrespectful for Busta to have done this song, especially with the state of the world today. But just like hiphop to soak up this contraversial track, vs any lyrical spitting tracks busta has put out in his career, eventually someone had to speak out.... Enter Iraqi Born MC Narcicyst .......

Thanks to Reign from Def Sounds for the article

http://www.defsounds.com/news/Iraqi_rapper_gets_apology_from_busta_rhymes

Busta Rhymes' "Arab Money" has been the subject of controversy lately, as many in the Muslim community were upset about his supposed "mocking" of the culture in the hook of the song.
Iraqi-born MC, Narcicyst, was outraged at the lack of respect he felt was discrimintaing to his culture. Hours after an interview in which he voiced his displeasure, he received a phone from none other than Busta Rhymes himself. Speaking for over 30 minutes, Busta supposedly explained how he was only paying homage to the Arab culture.

“It was a thorough explanation and he was a very respectful man,” stated Narcicyst. “He explained to me his experience as an African-American man in the States and [it] seemed to me as an experience that I can correlate as an Arab being in the Middle East and having been displaced from my nation and seeing my country being bombarded in the media, being misrepresented.”

Since the apology, Narcicyst also agreed to pull the track he was going to release titled, "The Real Arab Money", which was a response to Busta's.

“This is an example of how two people can come together and create something bigger than them,” The Narcicyst concluded. “I’m a strong believer in truth and breaking stereotypes down and not allowing people to box you in. And this whole experience has been a huge eye opener for me. This is what Hip-Hop is about. Two brothers from another mother can come to a peaceful and just conclusion for all sides.”

I still say Busta should stop the album from being played, and be a bigger man, and we should no longer request it on the radio.....

Well that's just my 2 cents...

Myspace BeatJacking Part duex!

F.A.M.E. has released the second episode of the MyspaceBeatJacking Project!

Check it out!

Myspace beat Jacking Episode 2


Show some love and add the pages!

http://myspace.com/myspacebeatjacking
http://youtube.com/myspacebeatjacking

Shout out to Positive Black Business!

On Tuesday November 4, 2008, America experienced the most monumental feat in its history as Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States. On that night, minorities overcame the largest glass ceiling in this country’s history. Often times it is taught but not encouraged that with hard work “you can be whatever you want to be” however it was understood that the Office of the President was exclusively for white males, because until now it was.

Barack Obama’s accomplishment is not just his alone, it is an accomplishment for race relations in America, it is a testament to the many leaders and heroes who sacrificed their lives so that men and women would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

On Monday January 20, 2009 in Washington D.C President Elect Barack Obama will be sworn into office; it is the mission of Make It Happen Inc. to not only encourage but also transport individuals to experience this historic event. In order to subsidize the costs for this endeavor we have designed several t-shirts that support Barack Obama, his symbolism of change and evolution. Proceeds from each t-shirt purchased will ensure that someone will have the opportunity to be a part of history, and be inspired by what this day truly symbolizes. If you do not wish to purchase a t-shirt, we welcome monetary donations in any increment, which will be applied towards the costs of transportation for students and community members of Philadelphia to Washington D.C. on this historic day.

Make It Happen Inc. would like to thank you in advance for your support.
See you in D.C!

“This moment in history epitomizes the American Dream and proves with hard work and dedication, one can achieve their dreams.”

Cedric D. Shine



One of my fellow Bloggers and good friend is getting the world ready for the trip down to D.C. for the inauguration, and I'm sure much more coming down the line! Make sure to stop through and check out some of the designs!

http://nativenotes.net/makeithappen/

Myspace Beatjacking

Our boy F.A.M.E. is back at it again with this new Real Rap TV programming!


http://www.myspace.com/myspacebeatjacking


Myspace Beat Jack #1

Happy Thanksgiving

I just wanted to take a moment to wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving this year!

GO COWBOYS!

Blackwater..... War Profiteers??

Check out this new video from BravenewFilms.org

It Must be Nice to Be Bush's Boy......

Mad Scramble to hook up his people before he leave the office....

Just weeks before leaving office, the Interior Department's top lawyer has
shifted half a dozen key deputies -- including two former political appointees
who have been involved in controversial environmental decisions -- into senior
civil service posts.
The transfer of political appointees into permanent
federal positions, called "burrowing" by career officials, creates security for
those employees, and at least initially will deprive the incoming Obama
administration of the chance to install its preferred appointees in some key
jobs.

Similar efforts are taking place at other agencies. Two political hires
at the Labor Department have already secured career posts there, and one at the Department
of Housing and Urban Development is trying to make the switch.

Between March 1 and Nov. 3, according to
the federal Office of Personnel Management, the Bush administration allowed 20 political appointees to
become career civil servants. Six political appointees to the
Senior Executive Service, the government's most prestigious and highly paid
employees, have received approval to take career jobs at the same level.
Fourteen other political, or "Schedule C," appointees have also been approved to
take career jobs. One candidate was turned down by OPM and two were withdrawn by
the submitting agency.

The personnel moves come as Bush administration officials are
scrambling to cement in place policy and regulatory initiatives that touch on
issues such as federal drinking-water standards, air quality at national parks,
mountaintop mining and fisheries limits.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/17/AR2008111703537.html?hpid=topnews

Terrorist Fist Jab yo Ass outta here!

TV Newser has learned that Fox News anchor E.D. Hill is leaving the channel after her contract was not renewed:

TVNewser has learned veteran Fox News Channel anchor E.D. Hill will not be renewed when her current contract expires. Hill, who has been with Fox News for more than 10 years, will continue with the network for the next few months until her current deal expires.

SVP of Programming Bill Shine tells TVNewser that he "chose not to renew E.D.'s latest contract" but noted that "Hill has been a valued contributor to the success of FNC over the years, and we wish her all the best."

Hill gained notoriety several months ago when she referred to the "pound," "fist bump," or whatever you want to call the handshake that Barack Obama exchanged with his wife Michelle as a "terrorist fist jab."

"The Bailout Profiteers"

Naomi Klein: "The Bailout Profiteers"

AMY GOODMAN: World leaders from nearly two dozen countries met in Washington over the weekend to discuss plans to increase regulation of international financial activity. They acknowledged that a failure of market oversight in countries like the United States had precipitated the financial crisis.

Meanwhile, here at home, it’s been a month into the Bush administration’s more than $700 billion bank bailout. Last week, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson outlined a new bailout strategy intended to boost consumer borrowing and promote financing for companies that give out loans. President-elect Obama’s transition team is reportedly working on improving the management of the bailout come January 20th.

But that’s two months away and according to the Washington Post, with $290 billion already committed, the Bush administration has taken no action to fill congressionally-mandated independent positions to oversee how the bailout is used.

According to Naomi Klein’s latest article in The Nation, “The more details emerge, the clearer it becomes that Washington’s handling of the Wall Street bailout is not merely incompetent. It is borderline criminal.” The article is called “In Praise of a Rocky Transition.”

Naomi Klein, investigative journalist, author of The Shock Doctrine, joins us now from Toronto, Canada.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Naomi.

NAOMI KLEIN: Thanks so much, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: “Criminal”? Explain.

NAOMI KLEIN: Well, there’s a few elements now that are being described as illegal that we’re finding out. First of all, the equity deals that were negotiated with the largest banks and also some smaller banks, representing $250 billion worth of the bailout money, this is the deal to inject equity into the banks in—to inject capital into the banks in exchange for equity. The idea was to address the so-called credit crunch to get banks lending again. The legislation that enabled this was quite explicit that it had to encourage lending. Barney Frank, who was one of the architects of that legislation, has said that it violates the act if the money is not going to that purpose and is instead going to bonuses, is instead going to dividends, going to salaries, going to mergers. He said that violates the acts, i.e. it’s illegal. But what we know is that it’s going precisely to those purposes. It is going to bonuses. It is going to shareholders. And it is not going to lending. The banks have been quite explicit about this. Citibank has talked about using the money to buy other banks.

Then there’s other aspects of this that are borderline illegal. We found out that in the midst of the crisis, the Bush—the Treasury Department pushed through a tax windfall for the banks, a piece of legislation that allows the banks to save a huge amount of money when they merge with each other. And the estimate is that this represents a loss of $140 billion worth of tax revenue for the US government. Many tax attorneys who were interviewed by the Washington Post said that they felt that the way in which the Treasury Department went about this by unilaterally changing the tax code was illegal, that this had to be—this had to include Congress. Congress only found out about it after the fact.

There’s another piece of this puzzle that is also borderline illegal, which is that in addition to the $700 billion that we are discussing, the $700 billion bailout, there’s another $2 trillion that’s been handed out by the Federal Reserve in emergency loans to financial institutions, to banks, that actually we don’t really know who they’re handing the money out to, because, apparently, it’s a secret. They could be handing it out to a range of other corporations—I think they are—but they’re saying that they won’t disclose who has received these taxpayer loans, because it could cause a run on the banks, it could cause the market to lose confidence in the institutions that have taken these loans. Once again, that represents an additional $2 trillion.

The other thing that the Fed won’t disclose is what they have accepted as collateral in exchange for these loans. This is a really key point, because, of course, at the heart of the financial crisis is—are these so- called distressed assets. The value of these assets is enormously controversial. They may be worth very little. So if the Fed has accepted distressed assets as collateral in exchange for these loans, there’s a very good chance the taxpayers aren’t going to be getting this money back. So Bloomberg News has launched a lawsuit in federal court to find out who has received the loans and what has been accepted as collateral, because they believe that this lack of transparency is illegal. So that’s why we’re calling this the “trillion-dollar crime scene” or the “multi-trillion-dollar crime scene.” And they’re really challenging lawmakers to call them out, the Treasury is.

And I think, you know, Amy, the last time I was on Democracy Now!, we were talking about Henry Paulson’s original three-page proposal, the $700 trillion stickup, where he basically said, “Give me $700 trillion. Don’t ask any questions. I can never be challenged by any arm of government or any court of law.” Now, that aspect of the bailout was supposedly dealt with, and we were all reassured that there was going to be transparency, accountability, legality. But now we’re finding out that, in fact, Henry Paulson has achieved his original goal by stealth, because there is no accountability, and lawmakers are very hesitant to challenge this, because they’re afraid of causing a run on the banks, of causing more market instability. So, essentially, what the Bush administration has done is said, you know, “We dare you to challenge us and be responsible for the great depression.” And the Democrats, not known for their firm spines, have so far failed to challenge them in anything other than rhetoric.

AMY GOODMAN: And what’s very interesting about this, of course, as I talked to you before the election, but now the election is over, and the Democrats are not in a weaker position, but in a far more powerful position, and they are meeting this week.

NAOMI KLEIN: Right. They actually—they have a lot of leeway in which to act on this. You know, if Barney Frank means what he says, that this violates the act, then of course they can challenge the deals that have already been signed, these terrible equity deals that are so much worse than what Gordon Brown negotiated in Britain. I mean, let’s remember, Gordon Brown got voting rights at the banks that they bailed out, seats on the boards, 12 percent dividends for US tax—for UK taxpayers, as opposed to the five percent negotiated in the US and no voting rights and no seats on the board. Other thing Gordon Brown did is he got it in writing that the banks had to start lending, as opposed to Henry Paulson, who didn’t get it in writing, and the banks are not lending.

So, there is room to move, but, you know, the logic that has really gripped lawmakers is that they can’t rock the boat. And we hear this across the board, really, in the talk of, you know, who to appoint as Treasury Secretary, how to approach economic policy in this period. We hear all these phrases—you know, continuity, smooth transition. And really, that’s code for more of the same, because what the market wants is for there not to be tough regulation, is for the free money to keep flowing. What will upset the market, what will create a rocky transition, is if it’s clear that there’s a new sheriff in town, that they’re going to have to follow the law, that they’re going to cut off all of this corporate welfare, there’s going to be real accountability, real conditions attached to the money. You know what? The market really doesn’t want that.

Unfortunately for the market, voters have just voted for change. They voted for a candidate who really turned the election into a referendum on this economic policy of rampant deregulation. So you’ve really got a problem here. How do you reconcile the market’s desire for status quo with the voters’ demand for real change? There is no way to do that without a few bumps along the way. And I’m quite concerned that what we’re seeing from Obama’s team is an accepting of this logic that they need to give the market what it wants, which is continuity, smooth transition, which is really just code for more of the same. And when you hear names like Larry Summers being bandied about for Treasury Secretary, that’s feeding the market exactly what it wants, which is more of the same.

AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Klein, I wanted to go more to these—what you’re calling “borderline criminal” deals, the Washington Post revealing as part of the bailout, lawmakers changed Tax Code Section 382, which limits the kinds of tax shelters companies can use to—during corporate mergers, created to stop companies who avoid paying taxes by acquiring shell companies valued by the losses on their stocks. And then, going on in the piece, it says congressional aides admitted lawmakers agreed to keep the change hidden to avoid public outrage. Staffers with Senate Finance Committee chair, Max Baucus, a Democrat, reportedly asked that an administration briefing on the tax code change be kept secret. One congressional aide said, “We’re all nervous about saying this was illegal because of our fears about the marketplace. To the extent we want to try to publicly stop this, we’re going to be gumming up some important deals.”

NAOMI KLEIN: Right. I mean, this is—that’s an incredible statement, Amy, because really what they’re saying is, we can’t afford to enforce the law, because there is an economic crisis, that somehow, because there’s an economic prices, legality is a luxury that Congress can’t afford. That is a very scary statement. But this is what I mean by this logic that you have to—you know, the market, particularly a bear market, has the temperament of an ill-tempered two-year-old. I mean, it throws temper tantrums whenever it doesn’t get what it wants, whenever it is frightened. So it is really dangerous to pander to the tastes of the market in this period. It needs a little bit of tough love. That’s what people have voted for. But there will be a temper tantrum if there is a clear message that the law is going to be followed.

So, we find out that there has been this backdoor, illegal tax break handed over to the banks. And, by the way, Amy, this is an example, a classic example, of what I call disaster capitalism or the shock doctrine—right?—where the banks had been pushing for this tax break for many, many years, they weren’t able to get it through during normal circumstances, but in a crisis they push it through the back door when everybody is focused on—well, at the point that they pushed this through, which was September 30th, this was the worst of the economic crisis and people were focused on the collapse of Lehman, and they were focused on the fact that they couldn’t get the bailout legislation through. So nobody even noticed this until it was too late.

And so, this is what I mean by the strategy of the Bush administration, is now they are saying to Congress, “We dare you to stand in the way of these bank mergers, because if you do that”—because the tax break that they handed out is what encouraged a wave of bank mergers. And I really do think it is worth pausing to question this idea that what Treasury should be doing at this point is encouraging very large bank mergers, because one of the other problems that, you know, is at the root of this crisis, and certainly at the root of this unprecedented bailout, is that you have so many banks that are considered too big to fail, right? So why is it that we are not questioning this solution, the so-called solution to the crisis, which is creating even bigger banks, banks that will, once again, be too big to fail?

We’re really heading to a future where there will be, you know, three or four large banks, all of them too big to fail, which means that if they take more—they take more and more risks, which nobody is asking them not to. It’s important to understand that in exchange for the bailout money, the banks are not being told that they can’t carry the incredible leverage rates that we saw, for instance, at Bear Stearns, thirty-three to one. They aren’t being told that they can’t invest in these high-risk, complex financial instruments. They can still do whatever they want, but now they’re even bigger, which means that if they get themselves into trouble again, they will be bailed out again. So why is it that the government is cutting their taxes to encourage these mergers? The Democrats are saying, “Well, we can’t do anything now, because if we do, we will gum up these deals.” So I think we should question all of it. Across the board, I think the assumptions are faulty.

AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Klein, we have to break. but we’re going to come back to this discussion. I also want to talk to you about your piece in the Rolling Stone, “The Bailout Profiteers.” And after that, we’ll be joined by a former CIA analyst and the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights to talk about President-elect Obama’s transition team, when it comes to intelligence, deeply involved in the whole issue of the politicization of intelligence in the lead-up to war and in justifying the renditions. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. We’ll be back with Naomi Klein in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: […] We’re also broadcasting across Canada on community radio stations, where Naomi Klein is, in Canada, in Toronto, the award-winning journalist, syndicated columnist, author of the bestseller The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Her last piece in The Nation is called “In Praise of a Rocky Transition.” And the piece before that is in Rolling Stone; it’s called “The Bailout Profiteers.” Naomi Klein, lay them out.

NAOMI KLEIN: Well, what I do in the Rolling Stone piece is talk about the really uncomfortable parallels between what we saw in Iraq in the Green Zone and what we’re seeing in the US Treasury. It’s sort of the Green Zoning of the US Treasury. If we think about the way the Bush administration handled the occupation of Iraq, the working assumption was that everything that could be privatized, everything that could be outsourced, would be outsourced. And it has been very much a corporate war, as you well know. But at the same time, the handing out of the contracts in the early days was done very, very quickly, because, of course, there was this manufactured emergency that we all know was based on lies, in retrospect. But that was used, that state of emergency was used to justify no-bid contracts, to justify the fact that there was very little oversight of the contractors.

And we’re seeing all of this repeat now, but just on such a massive scale, such a larger scale. First of all, when Henry Paulson and Neel Kashkari, his deputy, announced the $700 billion bailout, they also announced that they would be outsourcing all of the work. They have handed out the work to many of the banks and Wall Street law firms that really created the crisis in the first place. But in the same way, there’s also been very little competition for these contracts. They were handed out very quickly. And at the same time, as we were discussing earlier, there is very little oversight over the process.

So, just to give you one example that I discuss in the Rolling Stone piece, there’s the general contractor, the really big contracting—it’s kind of the Halliburton of Treasury contracts—went to the bank, Bank of New York Mellon. Bank of New York Mellon, by the way, is one of the nine banks that got the equity deals, the cash injections in exchange for equity. And they are also very deep in this derivatives mess themselves, but they have been hired to handle a huge part of the bailout. So what I argue in the piece is that we actually have it backwards. It’s not the banks that have been partially nationalized; it’s Treasury that has been partially privatized by the very banks that created the crisis in the first place.

One of the things that’s really extraordinary about the Bank of New York Mellon contract is that, unlike the Halliburton contract or the Bechtel contract or the Blackwater contract, we actually don’t know how much it’s worth. It’s quite extraordinary. It’s redacted. The part of the contract that would tell taxpayers how much of their money is being given to this bank and how they’re calculating the payment for Bank of New York Mellon is all blacked out. I was reassured by Treasury three weeks ago that they would be disclosing that information within days. They still haven’t disclosed it.

Another contract that I look into in the Rolling Stone piece is for the first law firm that received a contract to advise Treasury on the equity deals, on those key equity deals that we’ve now found out are such bad deals, the ones that didn’t get it in writing that the banks were supposed to start lending, the ones that only got five percent dividends for US taxpayers when Britain got 12 percent. Well, the bank that got the—sorry, the law firm that got the contract to advise Treasury is called Simpson Thacher Bartlett. This is a Wall Street heavy-hitter firm. They’ve negotiated some of the largest bank mergers in recent years. And what we discovered in researching this piece is that Bank of—is that Simpson Thacher had represented seven of the nine banks that received the equity deals that they were advising Treasury on. And, you know, what’s important to understand is that these banks that Simpson Thacher represents on other matters represent far more of their revenue than US Treasury. So what I am arguing is that they are in a very large conflict of interest, because they really are a bankers’ law firm, not a public interest law firm.

AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Klein, can you talk about what is happening right now in Washington, what took place over the weekend, the meeting of the G20?

NAOMI KLEIN: Well, you know, this was an epic lost opportunity, Amy, because I think a lot of people assume, certainly assumed originally, that what would come out of this catastrophe, what would come out of this crisis, would be a re-examination of some of the thinking that has underpinned so much of economic policy in the past thirty years. And, as I said earlier, Barack Obama turned his election campaign into a referendum on the mania for deregulation and free trade and really less trickle-down economics. He said the idea of giving more and more to the people at the top and waiting for it to trickle down to the people below, and that really resonated with voters, and they elected him on that platform. And let’s remember, Amy, because this really is about democracy, that his campaign turned around when the economic crisis really hit Wall Street. He was losing ground to McCain when the crisis hit Wall Street, and Obama started using this language of really putting the ideology of deregulation on trial. That’s when his numbers turned around. That’s when he went on his winning streak that took him all the way to Election Day. And so, I think that there has been this assumption that, OK, now we’re going to fix it.

But if we look at what just came out of the G20 summit, it’s really been a reassertion of the very—this very ideology of deregulation. On the one hand, you have the statement that you started the program with, where the world leaders said that this crisis was born of the shadow banking industry, not enough oversight, not enough regulation, too much complexity. At the same time, when they talk about solutions, they’re calling for resurrecting the failed World Trade Organization talks that collapsed this summer. And we heard, if you recall, this summer, when the Doha talks collapsed, that globalization and the Washington Consensus were dead, because developing countries had rejected it.

The other thing that they’re calling for is a greater role for the International Monetary Fund. And it’s important to understand that the reason why the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization and the whole free trade agenda, generally, has been in collapse in recent years is because countries around the world are no longer willing to accept the conditions attached to joining this club, the conditions attached to an International Monetary Fund loan. In reasserting a greater role for the International Monetary Fund, in calling for the World Trade Organization talks to get back on track, these world leaders are actually calling for more financial market deregulation, more of the same.

I’ll give you one example: the Doha talks. Although much of the focus has been on agricultural subsidies, part of the Doha talks is about financial sector deregulation and the push, particularly from Britain and the United States, for countries like China and India to open up their financial services markets to US and British and European companies who want into these markets. And what’s really striking is that you hear this language of anti-protectionism, you know, that we can’t turn away from free trade. What this really means, Amy, is that Citibank and Barclays want to go into China, want to go into India, and they want to buy up Chinese and Indian banks, they want to get into these markets. But what’s so incredible in this moment is the hypocrisy, just the rampant hypocrisy, because Barclays and Citibank and all of the other banks that would benefit from this type of free trade are of course the very banks that are receiving massive state protection from their own governments in the form of the bailouts that we’ve just been discussing. So these sort of corporate welfare bums now want to use the language of anti-protectionism to go into other countries and buy up their assets, but, of course, they are being subsidized so heavily by their own taxpayers. So it’s a moment of high hypocrisy.

It’s also a moment of, as I said at the beginning, lost opportunities, because—just to give you one example, think about what these leaders could do if they really wanted to, in terms of collaborating to harmonize regulation, so that banks were no longer able to pit governments against each other for who could offer the lowest taxes, who could give them the best tax havens, who could offer the lowest regulation. There was just a hearing on Friday about hedge funds that Henry Waxman convened. And before those hearings, we heard from one of the wealthiest hedge fund owners in the country, Ken Griffin, who’s actually an Obama supporter. Ken Griffin, a billionaire hedge fund owner—he owns Citadel Investment—was asked by the committee whether he believed that hedge funds were sufficiently regulated and whether they should be more highly taxed. What Ken Griffin said was that if that happened, there would be even more jobs in the financial industry in the United States lost to Britain. And he talked about how his heart breaks when he goes to Canary Wharf in London and sees how many good jobs have been lost to Britain, which has, in many ways, lower—less regulation of hedge funds.

But what’s so striking about that, Amy, is that it would be so easy in this moment for the US government and the British government to actually harmonize their regulations so that they could—so that companies like Citadel Investment and other hedge funds would really have nowhere to run. And when you have a crisis like this, which so clearly shows the need for those types of regulations, when you have an election like there just was in the United States, where people have said clearly that this is a priority, the leaders have an opportunity to act and to close down these tax havens, to prevent this ability of governments to be pitted against one another, and have a race to the top as opposed to a race to the bottom. But they blew that opportunity, and they actually called for less regulation.

AMY GOODMAN: Just underscoring what you wrote on the whole issue of the difference in the bailouts, the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown extracting meaningful guarantees for taxpayers, voting rights on banks, seats on their boards, 12 percent in annual dividend payments to the government, a suspension of dividend payments to shareholders, restrictions on executive bonuses, a legal requirement banks lend money to homeowners and small businesses. Here in the United States, Washington Post reporting major US banks are on pace to spend more than half their bailout money on rewarding their shareholders. The thirty-three banks are set to receive some $163 billion in government bailouts; half of that sum will go to paying off shareholders over the next three years.

NAOMI KLEIN: Yeah, this bailout is really not a bailout at all; it’s a parting gift to the people that the Bush—that George Bush once referred to jokingly as “my base.” You know, in one of my columns recently, I likened it to what European colonial rulers used to do when they finally realized they had to hand over power; they would loot the treasury on the way out the door.

And the reason why there has been this dramatic change in policy just in recent days, where Henry Paulson has said, “OK, well, we’re not going to do what we originally had said at all,” which is use the bailout money to buy distressed assets, to buy bad debts, “Now we’re going to go from these equity deals with the banks to bailing out credit card companies”—the reason for that is that that first $250 billion was essentially money down the drain. They are admitting that it didn’t do what it was supposed to do, which was increase lending. So, now they’re making it up as they go along. It’s take three, take four, take five. But we’re supposed to somehow not notice that $250 billion, an astronomical sum, was just wasted, going to bonuses, going to shareholder payouts, going to CEO salaries. And now they’re trying another method to get lending going. But it really was the parting gift, Amy.

And if we think about what this money means, and this is—you know, this crisis isn’t over, and the same people who justified this bailout, who clamored for this bailout, are the very people who are going to turn around and say to Barack Obama, “We can’t afford for you to make good on your election promises. We can’t afford universal healthcare. In fact, we can’t afford what meager services Americans get in exchange for their tax dollars, like Social Security payments.” We’re already hearing this lowering of expectations now in the national discourse. So, the money—this really is, you know, reverse Robin Hood gone mad. The money has been given to the people who needed it least, and it’s going to be used to justify austerity measures imposed against those who need it most. It’s going to be used to justify cuts to food stamps. It’s going to be used to justify cuts to Social Security, to healthcare, let alone being used to justify why more ambitious plans for a national healthcare program, for green energy are not affordable. So people have to be ready for this. You know, the next shock is yet to come.

AMY GOODMAN: Your final thought, this, on the bailing out of the auto industry, the Big Three in Detroit, starting with General Motors?

NAOMI KLEIN: Well, obviously, it shouldn’t be a blank check. You know, I always think about what the International Monetary Fund does when developing countries come and ask for a loan. Think about what they’re doing right now. The International Monetary Fund says, “You want a loan? Well, here’s our list of conditions.” They used to call it structural adjustment. The same thing could be done to the auto industry. If they’re coming for a bailout, they should be structurally adjusted, and taxpayers should be playing IMF to the auto industry and insisting that they change the way they work, that they build green automobiles, that they protect jobs. It can’t simply be a blank check.

That said, what’s really disturbing is the way the Bush administration appears to be using the desire among Democrats to bail out the auto industry to horse trade the free trade deal with Colombia. You know, what we’re really seeing, Amy, is a resurrection of the entire free trade—discredited free trade agenda. This crisis being used—the shock of this crisis being used to resurrect all of these discredited deals. The Colombia free trade deal, the International Monetary Fund, the Doha round, they’re all coming back from the dead at precisely the moment that we should be actually burying, for good, this whole agenda of deregulation.

AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Klein, I want to thank you for being with us, award-winning journalist, syndicated columnist, author of the bestseller The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Her latest piece is in The Nation; it’s called “In Praise of a Rocky Transition.” Before that, in Rolling Stone magazine, and that’s called “The Bailout Profiteers.” This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. Naomi was speaking to us from the CBC TV studios in Toronto.

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Charles Hamilton, Mickey Factz & Cory Gunz “Sirius Radio” Freestyle

Liberal Pranksters Hand Out Times Spoof

By Sewell Chan / New York Times

Sorry, folks, the paper isn’t free. And the Iraq war isn’t over, at least not yet.

In an elaborate hoax, pranksters distributed thousands of free copies of a spoof edition of The New York Times on Wednesday morning at busy subway stations around the city, including Grand Central Terminal, Washington and Union Squares, the 14th and 23rd Street stations along Eighth Avenue, and Pacific Street in Brooklyn, among others.

The spurious 14-page papers — with a headline “IRAQ WAR ENDS” — surprised commuters, many of whom took the free copies thinking they were legitimate.

The paper is dated July 4, 2009, and imagines a liberal utopia of national health care, a rebuilt economy, progressive taxation, a national oil fund to study climate change, and other goals of progressive politics.

The hoax was accompanied by a Web site that mimics the look of The Times’s real Web site. A page of the spoof site contained links to dozens of progressive organizations, which were also listed in the print edition.

(A headline in the fake business section declares: “Public Relations Industry Forecasts a Series of Massive Layoffs.” Uh, sure.)

Gawker is reporting that the prank looks like the work of the liberal pranksters known as the Yes Men, who were the subject of a 2004 documentary film.

Later on Wednesday morning, the Yes Men issued a statement claiming credit for the prank. The statement said, in part:

In an elaborate operation six months in the planning, 1.2 million papers were printed at six different presses and driven to prearranged pickup locations, where thousands of volunteers stood ready to pass them out on the street.

Catherine J. Mathis, a Times spokeswoman, said: “This is obviously a fake issue of The Times. We are in the process of finding out more about it.”

Alex S. Jones, director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and a co-author of “The Trust,” a history of the family that controls The Times, said in a telephone interview that the paper should be flattered by the spoof.

“I would say if you’ve got one, hold on to it,” Mr. Jones, a former Times reporter, said of the fake issue. “It will probably be a collector’s item. I’m just glad someone thinks The New York Times print edition is worthy of an elaborate hoax. A Web spoof would have been infinitely easier. But creating a print newspaper and handing it out at subway stations? That takes a lot of effort.”

He added, “I consider this a gigantic compliment to The Times.”

There is a history of spoofs and parodies of The Times. Probably the best-known is one unveiled two months into the 1978 newspaper strike. A whole cast of characters took part in that parody, including the journalist Carl Bernstein, the author Christopher Cerf, the humorist Tony Hendra and the Paris Review editor George Plimpton.

And for April Fool’s Day in 1999, the British business executive Richard Branson printed 100,000 copies of a parody titled “I Can’t Believe It’s Not The New York Times.” Also that year, a 27-year-old Princeton alumnus named Matthew Polly, operating a “guerrilla press” known as Hard Eight Publishing, published a 32-page spoof of the newspaper.

Pakistan leader meets with Rice on missile strikes

By John Heilprin / Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS – Pakistan's president pressed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Wednesday to halt cross-border U.S. missile strikes targeting militants in his country's volatile tribal regions, the Pakistani foreign minister said.

"These drone attacks are unproductive, and they are contributing to alienation as opposed to winning people over," Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said in an interview after briefing reporters on the 20-minute meeting between Rice and President Asif Ali Zardari.

The U.S. military is believed to have carried out at least 18 missile attacks on suspected militant targets close to the border in Pakistan since August. The missiles are believed to be fired from unmanned planes launched in Afghanistan, where some 32,000 U.S. troops are fighting a resurgent Taliban insurgency.

The strikes also should be halted to avoid the inadvertent deaths of civilians, Qureshi said. "In fact, what is required is more sharing of intelligence information. What is required is building Pakistan's capacity to deal with insurgency," he said.

State Department officials declined to comment on the meeting.

President-elect Barack Obama's incoming administration presents a fresh opportunity for Pakistan to emphasize more dialogue and development, Qureshi said.

"We'll be discussing with them a more comprehensive strategy. Because Pakistan is of the view that military means is not the be-all and the end-all," he said.

The drone attacks topped the Pakistani concerns aired during the meeting between Rice and Zardari, he said. The two also talked about strategies for dealing with terror networks without inflaming anti-American sentiment and the financial crisis gripping Pakistan and the rest of the world, Qureshi said.

It was one of a series of high-level private talks at the U.N. on Wednesday. These bilateral meetings among world leaders, some including Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, occurred on the sidelines of a high-level U.N. interfaith conference organized by the King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

Rice also met behind closed doors with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Saudi king, two U.S. diplomatic officials said. The State Department declined to comment on those meetings, too.

The Audacity of Hope

CONGRATULATIONS AMERICA!

One More Day.....8 Years in the making....

A letter from Michael Moore....

Friends,

Tomorrow.

All of us.

You, me, and everyone we know.

Eight years is enough. Eight weeks was enough.

We have a chance to redeem this country, to prove we're better than this, that which Bush has made of us.

McCain is right about one thing: Barack Obama is the most liberal senator in the United States Senate. More liberal than Ted Kennedy. When was the last time you had a chance to send the MOST liberal senator to the White House? Trust me, it won't happen again in our lifetime.
Every vote is critical -- even in hard red states like Texas and Alabama; and true blue ones like New York, California and Michigan. Tomorrow, we need to create a massive popular vote that will give Obama a stunning mandate to return this country to we, the people. Let's write one for the history books and rocket Obama into the White House.

Expect trouble tomorrow. Stand your ground. Don't let some clerk turn you away. Make noise. Call the media if they won't let you vote. Let the Obama camp know. Check out his Voter Protection Center. Know where your polling place is.

Be careful inside the voting booth. The ballot still reads like a Sudoku puzzle. Be prepared for long lines. That's ok, you know how to bring the party with you! Make new friends. Plot your local revolution. The 28-year rule of Republicans (and Democrats who act like Republicans) is over. The Reagan Era dies tomorrow night. My God, I truly thought it would never end.

There are over a million of you on my list. Each of you know 5 or 10 people who may not vote. Offer to drive them to the polls. If they live across the country, call them and tell them how much it means to you that they go vote for Obama. Take your co-workers to lunch -- and to vote. Be creative. Come up with ways to convince the undecided to get their decided on and go vote. Make it fun. Lead the horse to water.

60 seats in the Senate!
30-seat increase in the House!
President Obama!

It's in your hands.

The Promised Land.

Yours,

Michael Moore

MichaelMoore.com

MMFlint@aol.com

Break from Politics . . . Cypher.....

This is just a hot one....... Ace Hood, Juelz Santana, Fabulous, Jadakiss!

Dozens Of Call Center Workers Walk Off Job In Protest Rather Than Read McCain Script

Dozens Of Call Center Workers Walk Off Job In Protest Rather Than Read McCain Script Attacking Obama
By Greg Sargent - October 27, 2008, 5:18PM

Some three dozen workers at a telemarketing call center in Indiana walked off the job rather than read an incendiary McCain campaign script attacking Barack Obama, according to two workers at the center and one of their parents.

Nina Williams, a stay-at-home mom in Lake County, Indiana, tells us that her daughter recently called her from her job at the center, upset that she had been asked to read a script attacking Obama for being "dangerously weak on crime," "coddling criminals," and for voting against "protecting children from danger."

Williams' daughter told her that up to 40 of her co-workers had refused to read the script, and had left the call center after supervisors told them that they would have to either read the call or leave, Williams says. The call center is called Americall, and it's located in Hobart, IN.
"They walked out," Williams says of her daughter and her co-workers, adding that they weren't fired but willingly sacrificed pay rather than read the lines. "They were told [by supervisors], `If you all leave, you're not gonna get paid for the rest of the day."

The daughter, who wanted her name withheld fearing retribution from her employer, confirmed the story to us. "It was like at least 40 people," the daughter said. "People thought the script was nasty and they didn't wanna read it."

A second worker at the call center confirmed the episode, saying that "at least 30" workers had walked out after refusing to read the script.

"We were asked to read something saying [Obama and Democrats] were against protecting children from danger," this worker said. "I wouldn't do it. A lot of people left. They thought it was disgusting."

This worker, too, confirmed sacrificing pay to walk out, saying her supervisor told her: "If you don't wanna phone it you can just go home for the day."

The script coincided with this robo-slime call running in other states, but because robocalling is illegal in Indiana it was being read by call center workers.

Representatives at Americall in Indiana, and at the company's corporate headquarters in Naperville, Illinois, didn't return calls for comment.

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/dozens_of_call_center_workers.php

Joe the Plumber....

Is it me or does Barack logic Bomb Joe? ...

Socialist???

- Republican presidential candidate John
McCain yesterday accused Democratic rival Barack Obama of favoring a socialistic economic approach by supporting tax cuts and tax credits that McCain says would merely shuffle wealth, not create it.

"At least in Europe, the socialist leaders who so admire my opponent are upfront about their objectives," McCain said in a radio address. "They use real numbers and honest language. And we should demand equal candor from Senator Obama. Raising taxes on some in order to give checks to others is not a tax cut; it's just another government giveaway."

McCain, though, has a health care plan girded with a similar philosophy. He proposes providing individuals with a $5,000 tax credit to buy health insurance. He would pay for his plan, in part, by considering as taxable income the money a person's employer spends on his or her health coverage.

McCain leveled his charge before a pair of appearances aimed at restoring his lead in critical battleground states. In both North Carolina and Virginia - states that President George W. Bush, a Republican, won in 2004 - McCain has surrendered the lead to Obama in various polls.

What's My America?

"I'm also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, 'Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.'

"Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim; he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian.

"But the really right answer is, 'what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?' The answer's 'no,' that's not America.

"Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president?

"Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, 'He's a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.' This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

"I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son's grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards -- Purple Heart, Bronze Star -- showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old.

"And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn’t have a Christian cross; it didn't have the Star of David; it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life." – Colin Powell on Meet the Press, October 19th, 2008

Privatized owned Cities........

When the government of the city of Sandy Springs in Georgia decided to bring in a multinational corporation to run all of the city's services -- with the exception of police and firefighting -- it effectively became the first fully privatized city in the world.

It's a trend that is already spreading fast, with four new cities launched in the last three years, all of them run by the same company, defense contractors CH2M Hill.

Watch part 2 of this special here.

CH2M HILL is a global provider of engineering, construction, and operations services for corporations, nonprofits, and federal, state, and local governments. The firm was named by Fortune magazine as number 54 of the top 100 companies to work for in 2008.^[1] The firm is headquartered in the Denver suburb of Meridian, Colorado, though the postal designation of nearby Englewood is commonly listed as the company's location in corporate filings and local news accounts. As of July, 2008 CH2M HILL employes 24,000 workers,^[2] and 2007 revenues totaled over $5.1 billion.^[3] The firm is entirely employee-owned,^[4] with an internal stock market that operates buy/sell events quarterly.

Inland GOP mailing depicts Obama's face on food stamp

By Michelle DeArmond / Press-Enterprise

RIVERSIDE, CA — The latest newsletter by an Inland Republican women's group depicts Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama surrounded by a watermelon, ribs and a bucket of fried chicken, prompting outrage in political circles.

The October newsletter by the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated says if Obama is elected his image will appear on food stamps -- instead of dollar bills like other presidents. The statement is followed by an illustration of "Obama Bucks" -- a phony $10 bill featuring Obama's face on a donkey's body, labeled "United States Food Stamps."

The GOP newsletter, which was sent to about 200 members and associates of the group by e-mail and regular mail last week, is drawing harsh criticism from members of the political group, elected leaders, party officials and others as racist.

The group's president, Diane Fedele, said she plans to send an apology letter to her members and to apologize at the club's meeting next week. She said she simply wanted to deride a comment Obama made over the summer about how as an African-American he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

"It was strictly an attempt to point out the outrageousness of his statement. I really don't want to go into it any further," Fedele said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "I absolutely apologize to anyone who was offended. That clearly wasn't my attempt."

Fedele said she got the illustration in a number of chain e-mails and decided to reprint it for her members in the Trumpeter newsletter because she was offended that Obama would draw attention to his own race. She declined to say who sent her the e-mails with the illustration.

She said she doesn't think in racist terms, pointing out she once supported Republican Alan Keyes, an African-American who previously ran for president.

"I didn't see it the way that it's being taken. I never connected," she said. "It was just food to me. It didn't mean anything else."

She said she also wasn't trying to make a statement linking Obama and food stamps, although her introductory text to the illustration connects the two: "Obama talks about all those presidents that got their names on bills. If elected, what bill would he be on????? Food Stamps, what else!"

Club Member Cries

Sheila Raines, an African-American member of the club, was the first person to complain to Fedele about the newsletter. Raines, of San Bernardino, said she has worked hard to try to convince other minorities to join the Republican Party and now she feels betrayed.

"This is what keeps African-Americans from joining the Republican Party," she said. "I'm really hurt. I cried for 45 minutes."

The Obama campaign declined to comment. It's the campaign's policy to not address such attacks, said Gabriel Sanchez, a California spokesman for the campaign.

The newsletter prompted a rebuke from another African-American member of the organization, which is well recognized in the community for its philanthropy and efforts to register and turn out voters in the Rancho Cucamonga and Upland areas.

Acquanetta Warren, a Fontana councilwoman and member of the women's group, said the item is rude and requires a public apology.

"When I opened that up and saw it, I said, 'Why did they do this? It doesn't even reflect our principles and values,' " said Warren, who served as a Republican delegate to the national convention in September and is a regional vice chairwoman for the California Republican Party. "I know a lot of the ladies in that club and they're fantastic. They're volunteers. They really care -- some of them go to my church."

Warren forwarded an electronic version of the newsletter to the California Republican Party headquarters, where officials also were outraged Wednesday and denounced the illustration.

Hector Barajas, the party's press secretary, said the party chairman likely will have a conversation with Fedele, and Barajas will attend the statewide California Federation of Republican Women conference this weekend in Los Angeles to handle any news media there to cover the controversy.

Obama in Turban

The newsletter is not the first such episode Barajas has had to respond to this week. The Sacramento Bee on Wednesday posted an image it said was captured from the Sacramento County GOP Web site that showed Obama in a turban next to Osama bin Laden.

It said: "The difference between Osama and Obama is just a little B.S." The site also encouraged members to "Waterboard Barack Obama," a reference to a torture technique. The Sacramento County party took down the material Tuesday after being criticized.

Mark Kirk, a spokesman for the San Bernardino County GOP chairman, said he expects Chairman Gary Ovitt to also have a talk with Fedele and to attend the group's local meeting next week to discuss the issue with members, although the county GOP has no formal oversight role over the club. Kirk said these kinds of depictions hurt the party's ongoing efforts to reach out to minorities.

"It's very damaging and we're going to take steps to correct this," Kirk said. "Unfortunately, I don't know what you do to correct ignorance like this, but we will do what we can."

Assemblyman Bill Emmerson, R-Redlands, and state Sen. Bob Dutton, R-Rancho Cucamonga, both criticized the illustration as inappropriate and irresponsible.

Dutton pointed out that his wife, a member of the club, is of Mexican heritage and has battled criticism that the Republican Party is not the party for minorities. The club's newsletter undercuts efforts to rise above racism, he said.

"Bias and racial comments and even suggestions are frankly what weakens us as a people. I think we as Americans need to rise above that," he said.

Emmerson said he was extremely offended and sickened by the newsletter.

Barbara O'Connor, director of the Institute for the Study of Politics and the Media at Cal State Sacramento, said it's imperative that people speak out about these kinds of depictions no matter how small the organization. She praised Raines for doing so.