Blog Flux Directory Subscribe in NewsGator Online Subscribe with Bloglines http://www.wikio.com Blog directory
And, yes, I DO take it personally: 05/31/2009 - 06/07/2009
Mandy: Great blog!
Mark: Thanks to all the contributors on this blog. When I want to get information on the events that really matter, I come here.
Penny: I'm glad I found your blog (from a comment on Think Progress), it's comprehensive and very insightful.
Eric: Nice site....I enjoyed it and will be back.
nora kelly: I enjoy your site. Keep it up! I particularly like your insights on Latin America.
Alison: Loquacious as ever with a touch of elegance -- & right on target as usual!
"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it."
- Noam Chomsky
Send tips and other comments to: profmarcus2010@yahoo.com

And, yes, I DO take it personally

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Hark...! Is that the faint, half-strangled, rarely heard, but unmistakable whisper of accountability...? From the somnolent SEC...? Yikeys...!

could it be...?
S.E.C. Accuses Countrywide’s Ex-Chief of Fraud

Angelo R. Mozilo, the Bronx-born businessman who built Countrywide Financial into the nation’s largest mortgage lender before it was knocked down by the credit crisis, has been charged with securities fraud and insider trading in a civil suit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Citing e-mail messages in which Mr. Mozilo referred to Countrywide loan products as “toxic” and “poison,” S.E.C. officials said he misled investors about growing risks in the company’s lending practices from 2005 through 2007. During this time, he also profited by selling stock in the company, gaining $140 million.

“This is the tale of two companies,” said Robert Khuzami, enforcement director at the S.E.C. “Countrywide portrayed itself as underwriting mainly prime quality mortgages using high underwriting standards. But concealed from shareholders was the true Countrywide, an increasingly reckless lender assuming greater and greater risk.”

The suit also said David Sambol, former president of Countrywide, and Eric Sieracki, its former chief financial officer, concealed from investors the high-risk nature of the subprime loans that the company was making. Countrywide needed to maintain its position as the leading lender in a hot mortgage market, the S.E.C. said, and underwrote increasingly dangerous loans; all the while assuring investors that its loans were top quality.

now, let's nail us some more fraudsters...

Labels: , , , ,

Submit To Propeller



[Permalink] 0 comments

A call for reconciliation that's desperately overdue

but better late than never...
Obama Calls for New Beginning Between U.S., Muslims

In Cairo, president says no single speech can eradicate years of mistrust, adding that America and Islam share common principles of justice, progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.

it's worth pointing out that, no matter how disappointed i am in much of what obama hasn't done and apparently isn't GOING to do, i simply can't imagine john mccain extending a hand like this... and george bush...? yeah, when pigs fly out of my butt...

Labels: , , , , , , ,

Submit To Propeller



[Permalink] 0 comments

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

More on the domestic terrorism of the anti-choice movement

meanwhile, there's a flock of folks locked up in guantánamo who haven't been charged, have spent over seven years there, and have no prospect of being released... why...? "suspicion" of terrorism... what about these other folks...? aren't they to be "suspected" of terrorism too...? not that i recommend putting one more person into the perpetual detainee netherworld, but aren't we incredibly vulnerable to accusations of gross hypocrisy...?

jill filipovic in the guardian...

Not surprisingly, [George Tiller's] killer is strongly suspected to be affiliated with the "pro-life" movement. If that's the case, it makes Tiller the 10th person in the United States to be murdered by anti-choice terrorists.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Since 1977, there have been at least 17 attempted murders, 383 death threats, 153 incidents of assault or battery and three kidnappings [PDF] committed against abortion providers in North America. Tiller himself survived an assassination attempt in 1993.

Some pro-life groups are issuing statements of condemnation and attempting to paint this murder as the work of an extremist. But this latest act of terrorism is, sadly, not an anomaly. It is part of a clearly-established pattern of harassment, intimidation and violence against abortion providers and pro-choice individuals. And mainstream pro-life groups shoulder much of the blame.

Pro-life organisations routinely refer to abortion as "murder", a "genocide" and a "holocaust". They post the full names abortion providers on their websites, along with their addresses, their license plate numbers, their photos, the names of children and the schools those children attend (sometimes with helpful Wild-West-style "Wanted" posters offering $5,000 rewards).

When you convince your followers that abortion providers are the equivalent of SS officers slaughtering innocents by the millions, tell them that "it's all-out WAR" against pro-choicers and then provide the home addresses and personal information of the "monster" "late-term baby-killer" abortion providers you're supposedly at war against, you can't act surprised when those followers conclude that it's morally justified to use the information to kill doctors.

These are not fringe groups. Conservative television personality Bill O'Reilly called Tiller's clinic a "death mill", referred to Tiller as a "baby killer" who was "executing babies about to be born" and said Tiller was doing "Nazi stuff" for which he "had blood on his hands."

[...]

Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry, who had this to say about Tiller's assassination:
George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God. I am more concerned that the Obama administration will use Tiller's killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions. Abortion is still murder. And we still must call abortion by its proper name: murder.

Those men and women who slaughter the unborn are murderers according to the law of God. We must continue to expose them in our communities and peacefully protest them at their offices and homes, and yes, even their churches.

That's some definition of "peacefully protesting."

[...]

While individuals who self-identify as pro-life may be well-meaning and against violence, mainstream pro-life groups and the people who run them do not care about life, before or after birth. And while today anti-choice groups are half-heartedly condemning Tiller's murder, they continue to use the same outlandish and inflammatory rhetoric that inspired and enabled it.

Words mean things. Anti-choicers should certainly have every right to express their views, but they must also realise that actions have consequences and their rhetoric is not harmless. If you yell "Fire!" in a crowded theatre, it's reasonably foreseeable that people will panic and someone will be injured. And if you yell "Murderer!" "Baby-Killer!" and "Holocaust!" long enough, it's reasonably foreseeable that someone will take it upon themselves to make sure that vigilante justice is done (especially if you provide the name and address of the person who you claim is committing "genocide").

This was not the act of a lone extremist. It is one more act of violence to add to a long, long list of crimes committed by anti-choice terrorists, and it is the logical outcome of years of increasingly violent, dehumanising and threatening rhetoric and action on the part of supposedly mainstream pro-life groups.

why isn't action being taken against groups that incite to violence...? why isn't action being taken against bill o'reilly...?

Labels: , , , , ,

Submit To Propeller



[Permalink] 0 comments

Monday, June 01, 2009

Domestic terrorism

and i dare you to tell me it's not...
Abortion Provider Shot Dead In Church

George R. Tiller, the nation's most prominent provider of controversial late-term abortions, was shot and killed yesterday in the lobby of his Lutheran church in Wichita, where he was serving as an usher.

Labels: ,

Submit To Propeller



[Permalink] 0 comments

Waking up on Monday morning and checking out the headlines

hmmmmmm...
Filing Marks the End of Financial Independence for Industrial Icon

U.S. would own 60 percent of the new automaker under administration's restructuring plan, which company investors say unfairly favors the UAW.

Judge Approves Chrysler Sale

Approval of sale of assets to Fiat clears way for U.S. automaker to exit bankruptcy protection.

Air France Flight Missing

Jet, flying from Brazil to Paris with 228 people on board, hit strong turbulence, the airline says.


so, lemme see...

as taxpayers, we now own yet another major automobile manufacturer, in the not too distant future we'll be able to buy fiats in the u.s., and the air france flight from rio to paris is the same flight i took two years ago...

ok, so much for monday morning...

Labels: , , , , ,

Submit To Propeller



[Permalink] 0 comments