BartBlog

Excerpt:
On Friday, almost two years after the financial meltdown that began on Wall Street and reverberated throughout the U.S. economy, a lawsuit has been filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against Goldman Sachs, alleging that the behemoth financial institution engaged in financial fraud.

According to the AP, the charges against Goldman relate to a complex investment tied to the performance of pools of risky mortgages known as collateralized debt obligations (CDOs).

In a complaint filed Friday, the Securities and Exchange Commission alleged that Goldman marketed the package to investors without disclosing a major conflict of interest: The pools were picked by another client, a prominent hedge fund that was betting the housing bubble would burst.

Goldman then sold the package to investors like foreign banks, pension funds and insurance companies, which would profit only if the bonds gained value.

The SEC said Goldman failed to tell investors that Paulson & Co, one of the world’s largest hedge funds, paid Goldman Sachs to structure a transaction in which it could take speculative positions against mortgage securities chosen by the fund, the commission said in a statement.

The focus of the SEC case, an investment vehicle called Abacus 2007-AC1, was one of 25 such vehicles that Goldman created so the bank and some of its clients could bet against the housing market. The deal, which took place during a massive mortgage meltdown in 2007 and as the country was about to fall into a brutal recession, was said to have cost investors around $1 billion. Paulson in turn bought insurance against the deal and when the securities later tanked, losing almost all of their value, Paulson has acknowledged reaping a $3.7 billion profit by betting against the housing market as it nose dived in 2006 and 2007.

The charges may unleash a torrent of lawsuits, and signal that the government is prepared to file more lawsuits related to the overheated market that preceded the financial crisis, experts said.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” said James Hackney, a professor at Northeastern University School of Law. “There are a lot of folks out there in different deals who played similar roles, and once it starts building steam, plaintiffs’ lawyers will figure out this is where the money is and there should be a lot of action.”

Part of the action in the coming months may come in the form of a financial reform bill that President Obama and congress is preparing to push through the House and Senate in what looks to become a heated battle on the scale of health care insurance reform.

Read more here: http://www.examiner.com/x-38220-Orlando-Independent-Examiner~y2010m4d18-SEC-files-lawsuit-against-Goldman-Sachs-for-financial-fraud

Excerpt:
As President Obama escalates the war in Afghanistan, and anywhere between 24 and 53 percent of your federal tax $’s are spent on defense, let’s not forgot about one of the boogeymen that got us in this mess in the first place. Where’s Osama Bin Laden?

Besides a tape that Bin Laden supposedly made a few months ago that was so poorly produced that even the corporate media gave it little attention, we have not heard much from the arch-nemesis of western capitalism. Thus far in 2010, a nuclear arsenal, 11 aircraft carrier strike groups, 14 Trident-class nuclear submarines, 21 B-2 stealth bombers, a $75+ billion intelligence network and about 100,000 troops on the ground in Afghanistan have failed to flush Bin Laden and his dialysis machine out of a cave.

Last November, staff members for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Democratic majority prepared a report at the request of the chairman, Sen. John Kerry. According to MSNBC, the report states categorically that bin Laden was hiding in Tora Bora when the U.S. had the means to mount a rapid assault with several thousand troops.

The report, however, seems to overlook the fact that bin Laden was suffering from diabetes, Hepatitis C, and an “untreated lung complication” and would have had to have “walked unmolested” out of the rugged mountains of Afghanistan under the surveillance of “thousands” of special operations troops with at least one kidney dialysis machine in tow. The report also does not mention that electricity to power a dialysis machine may be difficult to generate on the move through the mountains of Afghanistan.

The latest report also ignores numerous reports in both mainstream U.S. media and international media that bin Laden is probably dead. In Jan. 2002, Pakistani president Gen. Pervez Mushharraf said in an interview with CNN, “I think now, frankly, he is dead for the reason he is a … kidney patient.” The BBC reported on July 18, 2002 that the FBI’s counter-terrorism chief, Dale Watson, says he thinks Osama bin Laden is “probably” dead. Afghan president Harmad Karzai concurred when he said on CNN’s Late Edition on Oct. 8, 2002, “I would come to believe that [bin Laden] probably is dead.” Before Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, she also said bin Laden is dead. Janes reported in Dec. 2002 that “bin Laden was never on the annual list of Islamist extremists issued by the espionage and security services” of Israel.

With our economy in shambles, our deficit and national debt skyrocketing, our infrastructure crumbling and our military stretched to the limits, Americans must ask themselves: Is this one man really worth it, especially considering the real possibility that he may already be dead? Why is our military really in Afghanistan? Is it because of “terrorists” like Bin Laden or because of an oil and natural gas pipeline that was being planned when Harmed Karzai was a Unocal consultant? Is it possible that the U.S. government, with the help of the mainstream media, is scaring the American people into prolonging a war that can only have one outcome – exiting Afghanistan?

One thing is certain, if Osama bin Laden’s intent was to destroy this nation, he did a nice job of it – thanks to shortsighted leaders in this country that failed, and continue to fail to see the long term implications of a perpetual war for private energy company profits, or chasing what may amount to be nothing more than a long-dead boogeyman.

Read more here: http://www.examiner.com/x-38220-Orlando-Independent-Examiner~y2010m4d16-Osama-Bin-Laden-where-are-you

Hint: This won’t come as a surprise to most bartcop readers.

Excerpt:
Health care? Social Security? An economic stimulus bill? Wars? Bailing out Wall Street banks? Education? Our nation’s infrastructure? Each may be a good guess based on the issues that get attention in the mainstream media.

The correct answer may be that 53% of the federal tax being collected in 2010 has already been allocated for defense spending.

According to Philadelphia investigative journalist Dave Lindorff, writing for OpEdNews:

The 2011 military budget, by the way, is the largest in history, not just in actual dollars, but in inflation adjusted dollars, exceeding even the spending in World War II, when the nation was on an all-out military footing. Military spending in all its myriad forms works out to represent 53.3% of total US federal spending.

That would mean the military’s share of the approximately $3 trillion 2010 budget is about $1.6 trillion.

On the other hand, anyone can find a handy fact sheet posted on the white house’s web site that puts the department of defense’s share of the budget at a “mere” $708 billion, seemingly bringing the cost down to about 24 cents on the tax dollar.

So, who’s telling the truth? The answer is that both are, depending on how one looks at federal budget allocations.

Just like banks, airlines or a sleazy car dealer, the pentagon and white house’s invoice does not include hidden costs and amenities, but the final bill does. One of those is called supplemental spending.

A closer look reveals that the 2010 defense budget also does not include: spending on veterans affairs – that means VA hospitals, benefits, etc., for any ex-military personnel that are no longer on active or reserve status. The bill for that is $60 billion. That $60 billion does not include any public funds spent on veterans or immediate family that collect public benefits, such as social security.

Homeland security, judging by the title, can be added to the defense part of the check for approximately another $4.3 billion, bringing the bill to approximately $878.3 billion. So can NASA, for another $19 billion, since their primary function is deploying military satellites. And the National Intelligence Program for another (classified) amount, estimated at about $75 billion. Even the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gets billed separately at about $5 billion.

Without even considering the costs of foreign military aid to nations such as Israel, Pakistan, Egypt and Columbia, or the costs of purchasing services from private contractors such as Xe (formerly Blackwater) to provide security in occupied countries, or Halliburton to rebuild them, defense spending is already well over $900 billion.

Like all government spending, of course, the defense portion has to be financed, so when money is borrowed from whomever or wherever to pay for the $900+ billion check, add more interest to the approximately $250-400 billion in interest already owed through debt created by defense spending. The huge sum will be borrowed, mostly from China and Japan, to which the U.S. already owes $1.5 trillion.

Having trouble keeping up with your bill yet? That’s because it is designed that way. It gets even more complicated when you have to consider that Social Security expenditures are included in the overall budget, even though it is a trust that is raised and spent seperately from income taxes. What you pay by April 15, 2010 goes to the federal funds portion of the budget. That makes military spending seem smaller in comparison to overall government spending. That also easily puts the figure at about 53 percent.

No matter which figure you want to believe – the $1.6 trillion or the $708 billion, it may be enlightening to put that in two other perspectives.

Read more here: http://www.examiner.com/x-38220-Orlando-Independent-Examiner~y2010m4d13-Tax-Day-2010-Most-of-every-dollar-you-pay-in-federal-taxes-is-spent-on

Excerpt:

Over a year ago the Obama administration made headlines by announcing that the prison for detainees in Guantanamo Bay would be closed. Many organizations thought that signaled a reversal of the human rights and legal policies of the Bush administration.

In Sept., 2009, a NYC human rights attorney, Tina Foster, warned “the Obama administration has completely failed in delivering the change that was promised.”

Today, Guantanamo remains open and there is a new and improved version of a world where legal and human rights do not exist. It is known as Bagram air base in Afghanistan and President Obama received a warm welcome when he “rallied the troops” there last month.

With the recent expansion of the war in Afghanistan, Bagram will get busier, but not all will receive as warm of a welcome as the President did.

One of the detainees that died at Bagram after being tortured by U.S. interrogators was strung up by his wrists, and then beaten until his legs were “pulpified,” according to the military’s own autopsy reports obtained by the ACLU.

Opinion polls show support for Obama in waning, even in the wake of the passage of a compromised health care reform bill. The corporate media spins those poll results as a reaction from the right to Obama’s “far left” agenda. The truth is that most conservatives or Republicans never have, and never will, support anything that Obama does or does not do.

Obama’s dip in support more likely comes from the Democrats and progressives that voted for him, but are now disillusioned with the reality that the “change we can believe in” is really more of the same Washington politics. People like Tina Foster, who said last fall:

I voted and campaigned for Obama, like all the other folks here in the US who wanted to see this country recover from the illegal and unjust policies of the Bush administration. When I heard Obama’s announcement to close Guantanamo, I breathed a sigh of relief that perhaps this extremely ugly chapter of American history was finally being put to an end. Unfortunately, since then, the Obama administration has completely failed in delivering the change that was promised. For a time, we believed that perhaps it would just take the new administration time to shift its policies. The reality is that the Bush and the Obama administrations have the same position on the rights of detainees in Bagram.

The detention facility at Bagram is a clear example that little has changed in terms of human and legal rights since the Obama administration was elected. “The American way” once was that the guilt or innocence of any detainee can only be determined with a fair trial. It seems that no longer is and may never be the case again…with either political party in power.

Read more here: http://www.examiner.com/x-38220-Orlando-Independent-Examiner~y2010m4d10-Obamas-Guantanomo