Even after informing him that some people might try to make an issue of my participation, Mr. Checketts said he didn't much care.
"Are you aware of the firestorm this --" "Oh, yes, totally aware, Rush, and believe me, I wouldn't have approached you if I hadn't taken care of that. I would not have even come and asked you to be part of the group if I had not cleared your involvement with people at the highest levels of the National Football League."
Mr. Spitzer, there is no question what the federal government is doing with our money, and that is destroying our economy. So now the US Chamber of Commerce is a demon, to go along with the insurance industry. The US Chamber of Commerce is now being demonized by Democrats. They have to have a villain to advance everything because they cannot sell their ideas. They had to demonize me with false, fake, made-up quotes to protect their precious little National Football League as an outpost of racism and liberalism, which is what it is.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched a highly political nationwide PR campaign intended to relaunch capitalism itself.
Chamber officials repeatedly suggested that economic freedom in the United States is under attack.
"The free enterprise system, which has done so much for so many, is facing great challenges," Donohue said. "There are plans afoot to weigh down America's once vibrant capital markets with excessive regulations, and to raise taxes on our most productive citizens."
According to a Government Accountability Office report published earlier this year, 44 trucks and 220,000 gallons of fuel were lost due to attacks or other events while delivering fuel to Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan in June 2008 alone.
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Long a shunner of the spotlight, Dunn, who declined to comment for this article, would only sign on in April as an "interim" chief, with an end-of-the-year expiration date on her current tenure.
And the real reason, the real reason -- and there are many, many reasons that are valid, but the real reason -- that pressure was brought upon me by Sharpton and Jackson and DeMaurice Smith and the commissioner is that the Players Association is using my involvement in the Rams and this whole episode as a bit of leverage in their negotiations, the upcoming negotiations with the league and with the owners on a new collective bargaining agreement. That is what's really going on, and the Players Association... I don't know how many players know this, but Mr. Smith has let it be known that if he has to he'll bring the White House into this. He'll bring the Congressional Black Caucus into this.
But those people who enabled this event -- for their own racial reasons, for their own ratings, their own fundraising, their own face time, their own business reasons -- they're going to be just as unhappy as they were before this happened.
Limbaugh dropped from group bidding for St Louis Rams
Wed Oct 14, 2009 11:15pm EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Controversial conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh has been dropped from a group trying to buy the St. Louis Rams after several black NFL players objected and the league commissioner weighed in against Limbaugh's "divisive comments."
"It has become clear that his (Limbaugh's) involvement in our group has become a complication and a distraction to our intentions," said SPC Worldwide Chairman Dave Checketts, who is leading the bid to buy the National Football League team and keep it in St. Louis.
"We have decided to move forward without him and hope it will eventually lead us to a successful conclusion," Checketts said in an emailed statement.
Graham returned the fire with a grin, at times shouting over his most boisterous critics and telling some who questioned his Christianity and party loyalty that their minority conservative views wouldn't succeed without the political coalitions he said are necessary to serve the majority of Americans and attract enough votes in Congress.
"If you don't like it, you can leave," he said.
Wall Street Firms Dishing Out Record Pay
By Joseph Woelfel
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Employees at major U.S. banks and securities firms will receive about $140 billion in total compensation and benefits this year, a Wall Street Journal analysis has found.
The Journal reports workers at 23 top investment banks, hedge funds, asset managers and stock and commodities exchanges could expect to earn more than 20% from last year's $117 billion, while pay also will top the $130 billion in 2007, the peak year.
Still on the Job, but Making Only Half as Much
By LOUIS UCHITELLE
Published: October 13, 2009
NY Times
But now pay cuts, sometimes the result of downgrades in rank or shortened workweeks, are occurring more frequently than at any time since the Great Depression.
...total weekly pay for production workers, pilots among them, representing 80 percent of the work force. That index has fallen for nine consecutive months, an unprecedented string over the 44 years the bureau has calculated weekly pay, capturing the large number of people out of work, those working fewer hours and those whose wages have been cut. The old record was a two-month decline, during the 1981-1982 recession.
We're talking about an entirely Democrat electorate, or mostly Democrat electorate, some independents also, and so partisanship is itself not really at play there. And yet we found an incredibly powerful relationship between authoritarianism and whether you voted for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Specifically, the nonauthoritarians were very drawn to Obama, and authoritarians were very drawn to Hillary, especially after she started really playing up, directly or indirectly, her beer-drinking, white persona.
Taliban not main Afghan enemy
Few militants driven by religion, reports say
By Bryan Bender
Globe Staff / October 9, 2009
WASHINGTON - Nearly all of the insurgents battling US and NATO troops in Afghanistan are not religiously motivated Taliban and Al Qaeda warriors, but a new generation of tribal fighters vying for control of territory, mineral wealth, and smuggling routes, according to summaries of new US intelligence reports.
Some of the major insurgent groups, including one responsible for a spate of recent American casualties, actually opposed the Taliban’s harsh Islamic government in Afghanistan during the 1990s, according to the reports, described by US officials under the condition they not be identified.
“Ninety percent is a tribal, localized insurgency,’’ said one US intelligence official in Washington who helped draft the assessments. “Ten percent are hardcore ideologues fighting for the Taliban.’’
“The term [Taliban] has come to have a meaning far beyond what the United States should care about’’ militarily, said Frederick W. Kagan, a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute who is advising US military commanders.
America may pay Afghan fighters to ditch Taliban
Sunday Times, London 12 October 2009, 02:19am IST
Paying Taliban foot-soldiers to switch sides could spare US lives and save money, say its advocates.
A recent report by the Senate foreign relations committee estimated the Taliban fighting strength at 15,000, of whom only 5% are committed idealogues while 70% fight for money — the so-called $10-a-day Taliban. Doubling this to win them over would cost just $300,000 a day, compared with the $165 million a day the US is spending fighting the war.
The tactic was used to good effect in Iraq where the US put 100,000 Sunni gunmen on its payroll for $300 a month each.
Cost Cuts Lift Profits but Hinder Economy
By MARK WHITEHOUSE and TIMOTHY AEPPEL
OCTOBER 13, 2009
Wall Street Journal
U.S. stocks notched new 52-week highs again on Monday, thanks to corporate America showing better-than-expected profits.
In an ominous sign for the economy, much of the profit is being eked out through cost cuts. Executives say they are hesitant to reinvest such profits into their businesses. With large portions of their factories, fleets and warehouses sitting idle, some say they probably won't see reason to do so for a year or more.
That means job growth and any significant rise in business spending could be a long time coming. That creates a chicken-and-egg problem at a time when the unemployment rate is already nearly 10%: Without more jobs, U.S. consumers will have a hard time increasing their spending; but without that spending, businesses might see little reason to start hiring.
Already, the economy is being starved of investment it needs to nurture growth. Net private investment, which includes spending on everything from machine tools to new houses, minus depreciation, fell to 0.1% of gross domestic product in the second quarter of 2009, according to the latest government data. That's the lowest level since at least 1947.
* June 23: Khwaz Ali Mehsud, a senior deputy to Baitullah Mehsud, the top leader of the Taliban in Pakistan.
* July 3: Mufti Noor Wali, a suicide bomber trainer for the Taliban and al-Qaida.
* July 7: Kifayatullah Anikhel, a Taliban commander under Baitullah Mehsud.
* Aug. 5: Baitullah Mehsud, the Taliban chief in Pakistan.
* Sept. 7: Mustafa al Jaziri, a senior military commander for al-Qaida.
* Sept. 8: Maulvi Ismail Khan, a military commander in the Haqqani Network, a terrorist group responsible for major attacks in Afghanistan.
* Sept. 14: Najmuddin Jalolov, the leader of the Islamic Jihad Group, a breakaway faction of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. He was allied with al-Qaida.
* Sept. 14: Ilyas Kashmiri, the operations commander of the Harakat-ul-Jihad-Islami, a paramilitary organization active in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India, and the operations chief of Brigade 313, a coalition of several terrorist outfits.
Two years ago, an SEC investigation of another big accounting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers,found thousands of cases in which the firm's partners and senior employees had financial interests in companies the firm was auditing. PricewaterhouseCoopers agreed to take various steps to prevent a recurrence.
Attorney Laura Ellsworth represents a committee of creditors that are still seeking at least $1 billion from accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC, over allegations that auditors failed to disclose AHERF misconduct.
The creditors want the accounting firm to help repay AHERF's debt, but attorneys representing the firm have filed objections and denied any wrongdoing.
DDT Ban Takes Effect
[EPA press release - December 31, 1972]
The general use of the pesticide DDT will no longer be legal in the United States after today, ending nearly three decades of application during which time the once-popular chemical was used to control insect pests on crop and forest lands, around homes and gardens, and for industrial and commercial purposes.
An end to the continued domestic usage of the pesticide was decreed on June 14, 1972, when William D. Ruckelshaus, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, issued an order finally cancelling nearly all remaining Federal registrations of DDT products. Public health, quarantine, and a few minor crop uses were excepted, as well as export of the material.
U.N. seeks to ban DDT pesticide and still fight malaria
Wed May 6, 2009 11:38am EDT
OSLO (Reuters) - The United Nations announced a plan Wednesday to rid the world by around 2020 of DDT, an outlawed toxic crop pesticide still used to spray homes to fight malaria-spreading mosquitoes.
DDT is one of a "Dirty Dozen" chemicals banned by a U.N. 2001 Convention after it was found to be a toxin that can suppress the immune system. It is infamous for threatening bird populations by thinning eggshells.
But exemptions have been allowed in many developing nations because it so effective in killing mosquitoes.
Mr. Eric Kolchinsky is a former Managing Director at Moody's Corporation. He has worked in structured finance for over twelve years, eight of which were at Moody's. While at the rating agency Mr. Kolchinsky focused on rating collateral debt obligations, CDOs. He has also worked at Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and MBIA at their CDO groups. We welcome you this morning.
We'd also like to also introduce Mr. Scott McCleskey, was a Senior Vice President for Compliance at Moody's Investors Service from April 2006 until September 2008. In this role he was responsible for the organization's compliance with rules and regulations established by the SEC and other regulators.
Secondly, I found myself more and more frequently excluded from decisionmaking meetings concerning potential violations. I will note that this did not occur on each and every occasion but it did so with increasing frequency and in particularly important matters. This includes an examination conducted by the Securities and Exchange Commission which was handled by our legal department and by outside counsel. I was flabbergasted that I, the designated compliance officer, would be excluded from meetings with the SEC during an examination and was vocal in making this point.
...those bloggers need to take off the pajamas, get dressed, and realize that governing a closely divided country is complicated and difficult.
Calling 'Em Out: The White House Takes on the Press
By Michael Scherer Thursday, Oct. 08, 2009
TIME Magazine
So a new White House strategy has emerged: rather than just giving reporters ammunition to "fact-check" Obama's many critics, the White House decided it would become a player, issuing biting attacks on those pundits, politicians and outlets that make what the White House believes to be misleading or simply false claims, like the assertion that health-care reform would establish new "sex clinics" in schools. Obama, fresh from his vacation on Martha's Vineyard, cheered on the effort, telling his aides he wanted to "call 'em out."
The general in this war is [Anita] Dunn, 51, a veteran campaign strategist who arrived at the White House in May. She has been a force in Democratic campaigns since the late 1980s and helmed Obama's rapid-response operation during his run. At the White House, she has become a devoted consumer of conservative-media reports and a fierce critic of Fox News, leading the Administration's effort to block officials, including Obama, from appearing on the network. "It's opinion journalism masquerading as news," Dunn says. "They are boosting their audience. But that doesn't mean we are going to sit back."
Afghan warlords will fight if U.S. gives weapons
Jason Motlagh and Sara A. Carter The WASHINGTON TIMES
Originally published 04:45 a.m., September 22, 2009, updated 07:10 a.m., September 22, 2009
SHIBERGHAN, Afghanistan | Afghanistan's long-established warlords and tribal leaders are offering to step up their fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda if the United States sends them more money and weapons, reprising the role they played before 2001.
"If you support me, I will destroy the Taliban and al Qaeda," Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum told The Washington Times in an interview at his northern stronghold. "I don't want to be a minister, not even the defense minister. I need to be with my soldiers. Give me the task and I will do it."
More than two dozen other warlords still hold significant power in Afghanistan. They include provincial governors Atta Mohammed Noor, Gul Agha Sherzai and Ismail Khan.
Several of these former mujahedeen, as the anti-Soviet freedom fighters were known, said they also want a shift in U.S. strategy.
"Afghanistan and its people are the only ones who can truly defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda," said a former commander in the Northern Alliance who fought alongside Ahmad Shah Massoud against the Taliban.
The Weekly Standard’s Michael Goldfarb says that Think Progress's focus on conservative pundits shows that its impact, if anything, is waning.
“They’re a shameless bunch of lying, distorting, propagandists, which I respect, and I don’t know what MSNBC would do without them,” he says. “But I think the high watermark for Think Progress is long past.”
Rally seeks new direction for US
By Rhonda Bodfield
arizona daily star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 10.11.2009
About 6,000 people descended Saturday on Tucson Electric Park for the Tucson Tea Party event, billed as "Tucson's Last Stand." The event kicked off with Tucson Tea Party organizer Trent Humphries expressing his own brand of hope for the future: "I love the smell of freedom in the morning."
A petition to recall U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., was circulated out of the bed of a pickup truck. Another recall effort, this one aimed at Democratic Pima County Supervisor Sharon Bronson, was collecting signatures near the entrance of the park.
Thomas D. Young, who is organizing the Giffords recall, needs 83,000 signatures by January to launch the effort, though Giffords is up for re-election in November 2010.
"Something needs to change. Even if all this does is raise awareness and get people involved, that's a good thing."
The three Republican City Council candidates were in attendance, as was Brian Miller, who is challenging Giffords for her seat. Auto dealer Jim Click was there, as was Bill Arnold, the chairman of the public safety initiative, Proposition 200.
Kerik Readies for Trial Trifecta
Kerik, 54, has pleaded not guilty
Updated 9:54 AM EDT, Sun, Oct 11, 2009
Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik is beginning what could be a triathlon of federal trials.
Jury selection starts Tuesday in a corruption case that claims Kerik accepted renovations to his Bronx co-op in exchange for vouching for a company that wanted to do business with the city.
The 54-year-old Kerik has pleaded not guilty.
A second trial, on tax charges, and a third, in Washington accuses him of allegedly lying to White House officials vetting him for the Homeland Security secretary post in 2004.
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