Monday, November 28, 2011

A Brief History of the Transatlantic Counterjihad, Part IV

This is the fifth of an eight-part history of the Transatlantic Counterjihad. Links to the first four parts are at the bottom of this post.

Many thanks to the Counterjihad Collective for all its hard work on this project.




the Counterjihad Collective

IV. The Rosetta Stone Projects

Beginning in 2008, the Transatlantic Counterjihad has developed a streamlined system for the translation of texts and the subtitling of videos. The process we use has been dubbed the “Rosetta Stone Project”, in honor of the famous ancient Egyptian stele deciphered by Jean-François Champollion in 1822.

When an important article, essay, or speech is published, a move is initiated among the various Counterjihad groups to have it translated into as many languages as possible. The influence of the text can be greatly extended if it is spread in multiple languages, and gives the author a much wider audience.

If the text is needed for subtitling a video, the propagation of the resulting translations can multiply the impact of the original version far past its initial range. Generally speaking, the typical Internet user prefers videos over articles, and YouTube is particularly effective at the “viral” spread of video-based ideas.

The importance of any text or video is determined by reader responses. When a critical threshold is reached — say, requests for seven different languages — it triggers the convening of the Rosetta Stone Group, and word goes out to volunteer translators that their help is needed. Multiple translators are potentially available for all the major European languages, which increases the likelihood for a quick turnaround in any given project.

How did Sen. Feinstein get ATF gun trace data in violation of Tiahrt Amendment?

David Codrea, Gun Rights Examiner

November 28, 2011

Persons within the Department of Justice whose identities are not yet publicly known apparently broke the law by leaking firearms trace data to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, which she introduced in the Senate Judiciary Committee record in the hearing on Department of Justice oversight earlier this month.

“If I may,” Senator Feinstein requested at the beginning of her questioning of Attorney General Eric Holder (see webcast, at the 69:45 mark), I’d like to put in the record the official firearms trace data from the Department of Justice from 12/1/2006 to 2000…excuse me, 9/30/2011…this is guns [unintelligible] Mexico.”

Left unchallenged and unsaid is how Feinstein obtained the data, which is prohibited by the Tiahrt Amendment from being shared with anyone but law enforcement agencies and prosecutors, and only then in the course of a criminal investigation. That prohibition extends even to Senator Feinstein, as evidenced by the failed attempt earlier this year by Rep. Adam Schiff “ to allow Congressional committees to be included on the list of entities to which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms can disclose part or all of the contents of the Firearms Trace System database.”
While there is no reliable evidence that Sen. Feinstein knew she was improperly disclosing data she had been provided, a Senator so active in promulgating new gun laws not knowing existing ones is the most innocuous explanation if she did not. If that’s the case, it strongly implies someone at Justice used the Senator.

Per an anonymous congressional source:

MORE

Unbelievable: Reminds me of Dr. Robinson's "New Jersy Incident"

The New Jersey incident. What motivates bureaucrats.

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HSLDA

Farris defends major parental rights case (medical decisions) in Michigan

Who should make very difficult decisions for children? Parents or doctors?

In March of this year, 8-year-old Jacob Stieler was diagnosed with Ewing Sarcoma, a dangerous bone cancer. His parents took him to a highly-rated children’s oncology center in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Jacob had surgery to remove the tumor, which was followed by several rounds of chemotherapy. The treatment was incredibly difficult, and Jacob’s mom, Erin, told me that when she looked her son in the eyes, she knew in her heart that he simply could not survive many more rounds of these drugs.

Erin and Ken, Jacob’s mom and dad, joined by hundreds of others, prayed for Jacob and his complete recovery.



After all of these rounds of chemotherapy were completed, there was a PET scan done to check on the status of the cancer. There was no evidence of cancer detected in Jacob’s body. Jacob’s family and friends rejoiced in his healing—praising God for this wonderful outcome.

But the doctors wanted to give Jacob several more rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, despite the clean PET scan. When asked why they wanted to keep giving Jacob these incredibly dangerous drugs, the doctors replied that this was “the standard of care” for his illness.

Jacob’s parents begged the doctors to make an individual diagnosis, rather than simply following unbending standards. But the doctors were steadfast. All children with this cancer needed multiple rounds of these drugs—regardless of PET scan results, the doctors contended.

Jacob’s parents did extensive study of the side effects of the five different chemotherapy drugs that the doctor wanted to administer. And they believed that the risk of the drugs was far greater than the risk of recurrent cancer, since Jacob had a clean PET scan. They said no to the doctors. No more chemotherapy treatment for now.



But the doctors would not take no for an answer. They called child protective services in Jacob’s county and asked the agency to file charges against the family for medical neglect.

After looking into the matter, both the local CPS agency and the local prosecuting attorney refused to file charges. They believed that the parents were making reasonable decisions for Jacob.

The doctors still would not take no for an answer. They called higher authorities in the state level CPS agency. The doctors had to make several calls before they finally found someone who would agree with them.

As a result of all of these calls, the local CPS agency was pressured into filing medical neglect charges against the parents.

The local prosecutor still refused to take a case against the family, so the state level CPS officials hired an independent private lawyer to serve as the prosecutor against Ken and Erin Stieler.

A jury trial is scheduled for early January to determine if the doctors will be given the authority to take over the medical decision-making for Jacob.



When I heard about this case—and checked out the facts—I knew that I could not sit on the sidelines and watch this family be overrun and parental rights be trashed by well-meaning but overzealous doctors.

I recently flew to Michigan and took the depositions of all three doctors who were scheduled to testify against the family.

Jacob’s treating physician is the key.

I prepared for the depositions by obtaining copies of the official “package inserts” that the FDA requires all drug companies to give to physicians and patients. Undoubtedly, you have seen these inserts when you have picked up prescriptions for your children.

The inserts tell you several things:

  • Indicated uses—that is a list of the diseases for which there is evidence that the drug is a safe and effective treatment.
  • Warnings—these are strong cautions that indicate serious potential issues.
  • Side effects—these disclose all of the potential consequences that arise from taking the drug.
  • Approved for children—there is a specific disclaimer on many drugs that indicate whether the drugs have been proven to be safe and effective for children.

“Have all of these drugs been approved by the FDA as safe and effective for children?” I asked Jacob’s treating oncologist.

“Yes,” she replied, they have been FDA-approved for children.

According to the official package inserts that we were able to obtain, she is just flat wrong.

She wanted to continue to give Ifosfamide to Jacob.

The FDA disclosure for this drug says: “Pediatric Use: Safety and effectiveness in pediatric patients have not been established.”

The oncologist wanted to give Jacob a weeks’ worth of Etoposide.

The FDA disclosure says: “Pediatric Use: Safety and effectiveness in pediatric patients have not been established.”

The warning on the drug Doxorubicin says: “Pediatric patients are at increased risk for developing delayed cardiotoxicity.” This means that the drug can cause severe harm to a child’s heart—at even higher rates than it can in adults.

In fact, as it turned out, the treating doctor had never even seen, much less read, these official FDA-required package inserts. She did state that she had seen similar information from other sources.

Most of the drugs did not list Jacob’s form of cancer as an “indicated use.” This means that these drugs had not been tested and validated as safe and effective for this particular kind of cancer—even for adults, much less for children.

And then we get to the official warnings and side effects.

In addition to the strong warnings about “congestive heart failure” from Doxorubicin, other drugs the doctor wanted to give were known to have caused cancer—new forms of cancer—in patients being treated for an original cancer. Vincristine’s label is typical of these warnings: “Patients who received chemotherapy with vinchristine sulfate in combination with anticancer drugs known to be carcinogenic have developed second malignancies.” The warning labels say that sometimes these second cancers develop years after the treatment.

All five of the drugs that the doctors want to give Jacob are either known to cause other cancers or have not been fully tested.

Some of the other side effects for these drugs include:

  • Damage to the cranial motor nerves
  • Serious infections
  • Failure of boys to sexually mature
  • The inability to father children
  • Anorexia

It would take pages to recite all of the warnings and side effects.

Parental rights are increasingly being lost in the medical arena. I am beginning to wonder why physicians even bother asking for parental consent if they will just do an end run around the parents whenever it is convenient for them to do so.

This is not an easy case. It is not a case where a child has a current illness and the treatment is tested and proven to be safe and effective—those cases are easily resolved. The best evidence is that Jacob no longer has objective evidence of cancer. And not a single drug that the doctors want to give Jacob is FDA-approved for children for his kind of cancer.

This is a case where there must be a judgment call—a balancing of risks.

Who makes that call?

The doctor told me during the deposition that she thinks that she should make the call—for every child in this situation. And she would give the same answer every time, rather than making an individual judgment.

I can’t imagine a more clear case of the need for parental rights. This is a decision that requires the wisdom of God.

HSLDA was established to defend parental rights in the context of homeschooling. But the assault on parental rights comes to us on many fronts. This is why we have set up the Homeschool Freedom Fund to enable us to fight important cases for the broader principle of parental rights. Our regular membership fees do not stretch far enough to cover these kinds of cases. We truly need your help to be able to fight for the principles we all hold dear.

If you would like to stand with us in this critical battle for parental rights, I would ask you to send the very best gift you can to the Home School Foundation’s Homeschool Freedom Fund. All gifts to HSF are tax-deductible.

This trial is coming soon—we will send out email alerts if there is any change in the schedule.

Fighting a case of this magnitude is an expensive proposition. I hope you will be as generous as possible so that we may cover travel costs, local counsel, and deposition expenses—for this case and future cases where justice demands action to preserve freedom.

Our nation was founded upon the traditions of Western Civilization. This civilization was founded on the principles of the Word of God. God gives children to parents—not to the state, and not to doctors. In cases like this one, our legal system must remain steadfast in following the principle that God has delegated these kinds of decisions to parents, not to doctors, social workers, or courts.

Please pray for the Stieler family’s case and help as best you can. Thank you.



Sincerely,

Michael Farris
HSLDA Chairman

Nato 'ignored plea to stop attacks'

The Nato air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers went on for almost two hours and continued even after Pakistani commanders had pleaded with coalition forces to stop, the army has claimed.

Nato has apologised for the deaths in Saturday's incident and promised a full investigation.

The coalition has yet to give its side of the story, but unnamed Afghan officials have said that a joint Afghan-Nato force on the Afghan side of the border received incoming fire from the direction of the Pakistani posts, and called in air strikes.

Ties between Pakistan and the United States were already deteriorating before the deadly attack and have sunk to new lows since, delivering a major setback to American hopes of enlisting Islamabad's help in negotiating an end to the 10-year old Afghan war.

Army spokesman major general Athar Abbas said the Pakistani troops at two border posts were the victims of unprovoked aggression.

He said the attack lasted almost two hours and commanders had contacted Nato counterparts while it was going on, asking "they get this fire to cease, but somehow it continued".

MORE

FBI put pressure on Newsweek to keep details of PATCON Brown's Ferry Nuclear conspiracy quiet.

Sources tell Sispey Street that the home of John Matthews' daughter was broken into over the weekend and although a television, an X-box and a small steel lockbox containing papers and a handgun were stolen, the burglars left behind prescription pain medicine, cash, and other valuable items. It wasn't because the burglars didn't find them, for "the entire place was completely trashed, they even tore apart the beds and bedding," said one source. "It was as if they were searching for something they didn't find it," the source said.

Other sources tell Sipsey Street that private email files belonging to Matthews and people who have corresponded with him have literally disappeared from folders on home computers without explanation.

When I informed another DC source of mine of these developments, he commented, "Well, they're either looking for more documents they think Matthews has hidden or they are just trying to send a message that they can get to his daughter so he'd better shut up." The source then added, rhetorically, "Do you really think that the FBI ever gave up the black bag job as a tool of enforcement?" He paused, and added, "And I don't mean law enforcement."

More Curious Connections Emerge in Case of Couple Fined $7,200 for ‘Wake Up America’ Sign

Via The Dorkfish Express

Last week, The Blaze covered the story of Clara and Johnnie Russell and the massive fine ($7,200) levied against them for posting this sign on their property:

The more digging we do into this story, the more questions arise:

  • If the Judge in the case has ties to one side of the argument, why has she not recused herself?
The Judge who levied the huge fine has ties to at least one of the board members of the complaining HOA. These photos used to live on the Facebook page of Kathy Kornegay

Open letter to a climate charlatan

Vox Popoli
Verbatim Post
Willis Eschenbach calls out the foremost science scammer and "serial liar", Dr. Phil Jones:
Here’s my problem with all of this, Dr. Jones. You tried out a variety of claimed reasons for not responding to a request for your data. None of them were even remotely true. They were all intended to hide the fact that you didn’t know where the data was. Dave clearly spelled out the problem: “we don’t know which data belongs to which stations, right?”

You claimed that the data was out there on the web somewhere. You claimed you couldn’t send any of it because of restrictions on a few datasets. You claimed it came from GHCN, then you said from NCAR, but you couldn’t say exactly where.

You gave lots and lots of explanations to me, everything except the truth—that your records were in such disarray that you could not fulfill my request. It is clear now from the Climategate emails that some records were there, some were missing, the lists were not up to date, there was orphan data, some stations had multiple sets of data, some data was only identified by folder not by filename, you didn’t know which data might have been covered by confidentiality agreements, and the provenance of some datasets could not be established. The unfortunate reality was that you simply couldn’t do what I asked.

Rather than just saying that, however, you came up with a host of totally bogus reasons why you could not give me the data. Those were lies, Phil. You and David Palmer flat-out lied to my face about why you couldn’t send me the data.

Now, I’ve come to accept that you lied to me. Here’s what I think. I think you are a scientist, and a reasonably good one, who was hard squeezed by two things—the Peter Principle, and Noble Cause Corruption. When you began your scientific career, your sloppy record keeping didn’t matter much. And you didn’t want to be the record keeper in any case, you wanted to do the science instead, but you kept getting promoted and you ended up curating a big messy dataset. Then things changed, and now, climate decisions involving billions of dollars are being made based in part on your data. Disarray in your files didn’t make a lot of difference when your work was of interest only to specialists. But now it matters greatly, money and people’s lives are at stake, and unfortunately you were a better scientist than you were a data manager.

So when my FOI request came along, you were caught. You were legally required to produce data you couldn’t locate. Rather than tell the truth and say “I can’t find it”, you chose to lie. Hey, it was only a small lie, and it was for the Noble Cause of saving the world from Thermageddon. So you had David tell me the data was available on the web. You knew that was a lie. David, apparently, didn’t realize it was a lie, at least at first. You hoped your Noble Lie would satisfy me, that I would get discouraged, and you could move on.

But I asked again, and when I called you on that first answer, you thought up another Noble Lie. And when that one didn’t work, you invented another Noble Lie.

OK, so you are a serial liar. Like I said, I’ve made my peace with that. It used to rankle me, but not any more. I just accepted that you can’t be trusted and I moved on. I do have compassion for you, Dr. Jones. None of you guys set out to do the ugly things you ended up doing. You all got caught by Noble Cause Corruption, by the vision of being smarter than everyone else and of being the only people standing between us and global destruction. It’s heady, treacherous stuff.

I have been a victim of that same self-delusion myself. I understand the sweet seduction that arises from the conviction that your mission is of vital, crucial importance to the whole planet. However, I quit that kind of nonsense around the time the sixties wound down … but again I digress. I have compassion for your position, and I was, although not satisfied, at least at ease with the outcome.

So if I made my peace with you, why am I writing this letter now?

I’m writing because in response to the new Climategate 2.0 email release, over at the UEA website, you have a new post in which you are up to your old tricks, trying to peanut-butter up the cracks in your stories.
Again, I repeat: there is no global warming outside of the usual range of temperature fluctuations caused by natural process. Contra all the climacaustal predictions, there has been no global warming at all for the last decade. There being none, it is not caused by human activity. What is described as "climate science" is not science, but corrupt government-funded scientific fraud and the greatest science scandal in the history of science.

If you still believe in "anthropogenic climate change" at this point, you obviously possess far more blind religious faith than the average illiterate religious fundamentalist.

After Request for Refund, City of Richmond Announces Audit of Tea Party Group

Via Don

Despicable little Collectivists.
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Remember a few weeks back when a Tea Party group in Virginia made a fuss about fees they paid the city for meeting space? Their argument, with which I agree, was that it was unfair for them to be charged thousands of dollars in fees when the city of Richmond was allowing occupiers to use public land without permits:

It’s not fair, the City of Richmond’s picking and choosing whose first amendment rights trump someone else’s first amendment rights and we thought – well that’s fine, then they can refund our money. If that’s how they’re going to run the city then they owe us our fees back.

Two weeks after this complaint hit the local papers, the Tea Party group received notice that they were being audited:

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Combat Veterans for Ron Paul 2012

Via Oathkeepers

In May of 2007, the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team deployed to the Konar Province of Afghanistan. The 2/503rd Infantry Battalion occupied the Pesche River Valley, which is the mountainous tribal region along the Pakistani border where the Russian military was pushed out in the 1980’s. I was an active duty soldier who served there until our deployment ended in August of 2008. While we were there, ABC’s “Nightline” ran a special about one of our platoons, calling the area “the most dangerous place on Earth.” The White House and DOD (Department of Defense) publicly proclaimed that we were at the tip of the spear of the Afghanistan campaign in the “War on Terror.”

During this deployment, our Unit dropped more ordnance than any other unit in any other area in Iraq or Afghanistan. Journalist Tim Hetherington of Vanity Fair covered part of our experience which led to the Oscar-nominated documentary, “Restrepo.” Tim would later be killed covering the U.S. intervention into Lybia. Many of the soldiers he covered would come home to find that they had been so affected by combat experiences, they could no longer function as average members of society. Many would go back to Afghanistan again, or to Iraq… again. Some of them had already been to both… again… and again… and again. Some would choose to take their own lives. I came home with a combat-related disability and was honorably discharged via medical retirement. American forces were pulled out of the Korengal Valley in 2010. That whole region of Afghanistan is still in chaos as of this writing.

The Cadillac Black - Album Teaser 1 & 2

Via The Southern Nationalist Network


Down to the River


"I'm Southern"

Stop Internet Censorship Bill

There certainly hasn’t been any lack of attempts by the U.S. government -- elected Representatives and Senators, and White House -- to try to regulate/control the Internet in this session of Congress. It seems a new cybersecurity bill pops up at least once a week. The latest one catching all the attention is the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), H.R. 3261. SOPA is a beefed-up version of the failed Protect IP Act.

Whereas SOPA is heavily supported by Hollywood producers, the recording industry, and large media companies and their lobbyists as a way to protect their copyrighted material, SOPA's opponents include major Internet giants like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as civil liberties groups, Tea Party groups, and investors.

Under the proposal any website, including search engines like Google, could be forced to delist whole domains on the basis of a copyright claim by a content provider. Internet Providers would be forced into monitoring websites that contain user-generated content because embedding and posting and sharing videos, etc., could be a violation of SOPA. This would be a severe limiting of the currently used and understood Fair Use doctrine. Unauthorized streaming would become a felony. And SOPA could eliminate the alternative media so prevalent on the Internet for simply unknowingly embedding unauthorized videos or links; perhaps even quoting from copyrighted material would be enough to “delist” the domain name of the website.

David Ulevich, an expert in Internet security calls the legislation “dangerous” for three reasons: 1) “there is no way to censor only illegal content without harming legitimate uses on sites as well,” 2) it will create a firewall to “censor websites similar to those countries we criticize for the same behavior,” and 3) it will "burden companies with an onerous level of liability for all user-generated content.”

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) said this about the bill: "It could set a precedent for further control and censorship of the Internet by foreign governments, and risk the fragmentation of the global domain name system.” Reporters Without Borders said the bill is “clearly hostile to freedom of expression.” While a Harvard Business Review blogger stated the bill would “give America its very own version of the Great Firewall of China,” because of the imposition of content filtering and blocking without any independent judicial control. That’s right. According to a C-Net analysis of the bill, SOPA “would let content owners bypass cops, courts, and any semblance of due process, and ‘disappear’ entire Web domains like some kind of privatized secret police force.”

The bill, so broadly written, is a danger to Internet freedom, has devastating penalties that are rather disconnected from alleged violations of the bill, could certainly kill any new e-commerce or normal Internet usage, issues rather vague requirements to Internet Service Providers, and has the potential for International consequences that could result in court challenges by foreign countries, all because the measure is so completely out of sync with the current Internet structure and how it operates.

The Internet has become an incredible force that promotes free speech and alternative views and information. Also, according to a "Dear Colleague" letter written by Representatives Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) on November 8, 2011: "Online innovation and commerce were responsible for 15 percent of U.S. GDP growth from 2004 to 2009, according to the McKinsey Global Institute." However, after reviewing SOPA, many venture capitalists say there is no way they would invest money in the Internet under the risky conditions SOPA would impose.

Speak out about Internet censorship by contacting your Representative and Senators immediately, as this bill is sure to see more action before the end of the year. It is a government-interference Internet bill of great magnitude that would in fact destroy the Internet as we now know it, creating a new bureaucracy with the U.S. Government as the Internet police.

Thanks,

Your friends at The John Birch Society

Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, SC

Tom is down there visiting his daughters and trying to convince the city to open fire on Ft. Sumter again........
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First USA Politician to Call for the Discharge of All Muslims from the Military

Via The Scottcarp Dream


Tower Defense and Aerospace Factory Workers Party at Lunch

Ron Paul Educates Newt Gingrich on The Patriot Act

I fought for Virginia

Barney Frank not running for re-election

A little gift from heaven today.
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Democratic Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts does not intend to seek re-election in 2012, his office said Monday, closing out a career of more than three decades in Congress capped by last year's passage of legislation imposing new regulations on Wall Street.

Frank, 71 and a lifelong liberal, won a House seat in 1980 was one of the first lawmakers to announce that he is gay. He scheduled an early afternoon news conference in Newton, Mass., to make a formal announcement of his retirement plans.

Sixteen other Democrats have announced plans not to seek new House terms in 2012, compared with six Republicans.

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Senators look to repatriate 1804 commandos of Tripoli

For years, the Navy has been reluctant to reclaim the remains of its first 13 commandos, who perished in a failed raid on Tripoli Harbor in Libya in 1804 — but pressure has been growing in Congress to force it to do just that.

A final showdown could happen this week in the Senate, where Sen. Dean Heller, Nevada Republican, has offered an amendment to compel the Navy to bring home the mangled bodies of the 13, who died while trying to destroy a pirate fleet during the Barbary Wars.

But the Navy is quietly resisting, telling senators that it would prefer to leave the bodies in the two different burial locations.

“These servicemen are currently buried in poorly kept mass graves far away from the country they served and died defending,” Mr. Heller said. “Bringing them home and giving these men a proper military burial will allow their families and other Americans an opportunity to better remember the sacrifices they made for our great nation.”

That repatriation is even a real option is a major turn of events, made possible by politics.

For much of the past few decades, the chances were stymied by the turbulent U.S. relationship with Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi, who alternately ran cold, then hot, then cold toward the idea, which was being pushed by descendants of the commandos.

But the Gadhafi regime now has been overthrown, and the repatriation effort has the support of the two national heavyweight veterans groups, the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

But the Navy stands in the way.

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On this day 70 years ago, Arab leader Haj Amin al-Husseini officially meets with Adolf Hitler to discuss “the Jewish problem”

I've posted about it before, but this surfaced today.
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On this day 70 years ago, Arab leader Haj Amin al-Husseini officially meets with Adolf Hitler to discuss “the Jewish problem”

Haj Amin al-Husseini, Mufti of Jerusalem was the “most prominent Arab” figure in Palestine during the Mandatory period

Pictures

Secret Fed Loans Helped Banks Net $13 Billion

Roundabout via Matthew

The Federal Reserve and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest bailout in U.S. history a secret. Now, the rest of the world can see what it was missing.

The Fed didn’t tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day. Bankers didn’t mention that they took tens of billions of dollars in emergency loans at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy. And no one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed’s below-market rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue.

Saved by the bailout, bankers lobbied against government regulations, a job made easier by the Fed, which never disclosed the details of the rescue to lawmakers even as Congress doled out more money and debated new rules aimed at preventing the next collapse.

A fresh narrative of the financial crisis of 2007 to 2009 emerges from 29,000 pages of Fed documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and central bank records of more than 21,000 transactions. While Fed officials say that almost all of the loans were repaid and there have been no losses, details suggest taxpayers paid a price beyond dollars as the secret funding helped preserve a broken status quo and enabled the biggest banks to grow even bigger.

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The Future of the Obama Coalition

Via Tom

For decades, Democrats have suffered continuous and increasingly severe losses among white voters. But preparations by Democratic operatives for the 2012 election make it clear for the first time that the party will explicitly abandon the white working class.

All pretense of trying to win a majority of the white working class has been effectively jettisoned in favor of cementing a center-left coalition made up, on the one hand, of voters who have gotten ahead on the basis of educational attainment — professors, artists, designers, editors, human resources managers, lawyers, librarians, social workers, teachers and therapists — and a second, substantial constituency of lower-income voters who are disproportionately African-American and Hispanic.

It is instructive to trace the evolution of a political strategy based on securing this coalition in the writings and comments, over time, of such Democratic analysts as Stanley Greenberg and Ruy Teixeira. Both men were initially determined to win back the white working-class majority, but both currently advocate a revised Democratic alliance in which whites without college degrees are effectively replaced by well-educated socially liberal whites in alliance with the growing ranks of less affluent minority voters, especially Hispanics.

The 2012 approach treats white voters without college degrees as an unattainable cohort.