The Big Six banks are shorting the American Dream By Jerry Mazza

By Jerry Mazza
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted at Online Journal
www.jerrymazza.com
April 26, 2010

The Big Six investment banks, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, are “shorting the American Dream,” according to economist Simon Johnson and entrepreneur James Kwak in an interview on April 16, “Financial Regulation and Regulatory Capture” on Bill Moyers Journal. Here’s a summary of the big and important ideas and issues on the table.

First, Simon Johnson is a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, now teaching at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. James Kwak is a former management consultant at McKinsley & company, co-founder of the successful software company, Guidewire, and presently studying law at Yale Law School. Together Johnson and Kwak run the economic website BaselineScenario.com. To boot, they have written a new best seller, 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown.

Larry Wilkerson: Tyranny & Politics of Fear, Loyalty to Israel vs. US

by Sibel Edmonds
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
originally published by Boiling Frogs Post
26 April, 2010

Exclusive Interview: Tyranny & Politics of Fear, Loyalty to Israel vs. US

Boiling Frogs Post presents an exclusive interview with Colonel Larry Wilkerson on the tyrannical presidency and politics of fear, Israel’s interests versus US interests and the question of loyalties, and more:

As a card carrying member of the Likud Party, whose interest did Douglas Feith really serve?

Is our current situation due to incompetent leadership or venal leadership exploiting politics of fear?

Our Complex by Cindy Sheehan

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http://www.buzzflash.net/story.php?id=1090426

by Cindy Sheehan
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox
April 26, 2010

“Before the war is ended, the war party assumes the divine right to denounce and silence all opposition to war as unpatriotic and cowardly.” — Robert “Fighting Bob” M. La Follette

Something “funny” happened on my way to Madison, WI, yesterday.

I am in Madison to speak at an event against the “War Party” and its wars. I was to speak on how to do this outside of War Party Politics—based on my history of peace activism and my independent run against Nancy Pelosi in 2008. On the way here, I was informed that the room was withdrawn because of “security concerns” because I am one of the speakers.

Getting down to the bottom of this is not easy. The student organizing this event here on the ground, Steve, was told on Friday that the organizers would have to put on some security because I have made “controversial efforts” in the past. There is no basis for any security, because there have been no threats of violence against me. The sponsors could not afford the hefty cost of the security, so the inside event was canceled.

Senate probe: Goldman misled clients, nation — and made billions

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

By Greg Gordon and Chris Adams
McClatchy
April 26, 2010

WASHINGTON — Goldman Sachs reaped “billions and billions of dollars” by betting on a housing market crash in 2006 and 2007, but the secret wagers put the firm in conflict with the interests of clients who were still buying its risky mortgage securities, Senate investigators said Monday.

[…]

via Senate probe: Goldman misled clients, nation — and made billions | McClatchy

Stimulator: How to overthrow the Government + 500 Years of Resistance!

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

subMedia

stimulator

April 25, 2010

This week:
1. Kyrgyzstan: It’s Nice!
2. Red Shirt Valet
3. Capitalism must die!
4. Evo’s inconveniences
5. It’s not Mine
6. Taseko’s dirt lake
6. The Coup
7. 500 Years of indigenous resistance times two

Empower The People by Ralph Nader

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http://www.buzzflash.net/story.php?id=1090421

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

The Nader Page
April 26, 2010

Dear President Obama, Senator Schumer and Senator Shelby:

On the eve of the portentous Senate debate over the extent to which the financial industry is to be so as to avert future megacollapses on the backs of taxpayers, workers and consumers, a great gap has been left unattended.

That gap pertains to the continued powerlessness of the investors and consumers—the people who bear the ultimate brunt of Wall Street’s recklessness, avarice and crimes and who have the greatest interest in strong regulatory enforcement.

Among all the amendments filed for the upcoming Senate debate, only amendment number 29, introduced by Senator Schumer, provides a facility to establish an independent non-governmental non-profit Financial Consumers’ Association (FCA).

Behind the Arizona Immigration Law: GOP Game to Swipe the November Election by Greg Palast

by Greg Palast
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.gregpalast.com
forTruthout.org
April 26, 2010

Our investigation in Arizona discovered the real intent of the show-me-your-papers law.

[Phoenix, AZ.] Don’t be fooled. The way the media plays the story, it was a wave of racist, anti-immigrant hysteria that moved Arizona Republicans to pass a sick little law, signed last week, requiring every person in the state to carry papers proving they are US citizens.

I don’t buy it. Anti-Hispanic hysteria has always been as much a part of Arizona as the Saguaro cactus and excessive air-conditioning.

What’s new here is not the politicians’ fear of a xenophobic “Teabag” uprising.

The New Secessionists by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
April 26, 2010

Acts of rebellion which promote moral and political change must be nonviolent. And one of the most potent nonviolent alternatives in the country, which defies the corporate state and calls for an end to imperial wars, is the secessionist movement bubbling up in some two dozen states including Vermont, Texas, Alaska and Hawaii.

These movements do not always embrace liberal values. Most of the groups in the South champion a “neo-Confederacy” and are often exclusively male and white. Secessionists, who call for statewide referendums to secede, do not advocate the use of force. It is unclear, however, if some will turn to force if the federal structure ever denies them independence.

Real Sustainability Not Advanced by One Earth Day By Robert S. Becker

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By Robert S. Becker
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
rbecker@cal.net
April 26, 2010

With all the Earth Day brouhaha, you’d think the old planet would be out of the endangered, environmental woods – at least those few healthy, sustainable ones not under siege.  Media venues small and large declared all the “great progress,” implying light at the end of the eco-tunnel.  But Earth Day didn’t come close to the macro bedrock, focusing instead on positive but micro dimensions, like recycling, select endangered species, or buying greener products.

All good, all not close to enough.  When do we in earnest confront what once was called the “Population Bomb,” now linked to an equally dire problem, the Climate Control Bomb, itself spawned by the ever-growing Industrial Pollution-Eternal Growth Bombs?