5 Proposals to Combat 'Global Warming' That Should Make Us All Cringe

Taxing the air we exhale, rationing human necessities, a global one-child policy, geoengineering (high-altitude chemical spraying), and now nuclear war have all been proposed to combat global warming. Have climate theorists lost their marbles, or just their humanity?

Dees Illustration

Eric Blair
Activist Post

There has not been much middle ground found between global warming believers and the "it's a hoax" crowd. I started as a believer after watching An Inconvenient Truth. I struggled to even look into the alternative view because the establishment had so successfully made the deniers seem insane.

However, having now done extensive research, I can attest that the "hoax" crowd has just as much, if not more, compelling evidence on their side as believers do. Furthermore, most global warming deniers won't disagree that the climate is changing or shifting in some noticeable way, only that man-made CO2 is not the primary cause.

This article is not intended to debate the questions surrounding the man-made global warming theory, but rather the proposed "solutions." Most believers genuinely care about the environment and view deniers as selfish "takers" who care not for mother nature. This is not the case at all. In fact, I would argue that most deniers feel just as passionately about environmental issues as believers. The difference seems to be that deniers focus their energy on tangible and measurable problems in the environment like water, air and soil pollution, GMO food, excessive pharmaceuticals, chemical spraying, and results from oil spills and gas fracking to name a few.

None of these very real threats to human and environmental health are addressed by the global warming crowd, save for possibly air pollution. When one dissects the proposals to combat global warming, it seems clear that the environmental movement has been hijacked by CO2 propagandists for an ulterior motive. Even though hardcore believers seem to have a healthy distrust for bankers, corporations, and their puppet politicians, they have a very difficult time challenging the establishment's science or solutions pertaining to global warming. They seem too busy defending the theory to make the connection to what they're actually supporting -- which is a cabal of big banks, big oil, and big brother seeking further control of society by hyping unprovable environmental threats that they never actually intend to fix in the first place.

At the very least, eyebrows should be raised since “hacked” emails exposed that the science data had been manipulated to fit the theory. Alarm bells should go off when we learn that, as Vice President, Gore designed the proposed Cap and Trade system with Enron’s criminal CEO Ken “Kenny Boy” Lay years before the global warming theory had been introduced to the public. And for progressives, a full blown revolt should take place knowing that the scandalous international Banksters and Big Oil have shaped Cap and Trade to line their pockets. Finally, as with any modern legislative proposal, it is designed as a Robin-Hood-in reverse scheme where provisions appear to tax personal human choices, while major corporate polluters are exempt.

Regardless of what we believe about the man-made global warming theory, it certainly appears that the establishment's fix fits their problem-reaction-solution model of social engineering where many proposed solutions distort humanity's moral compass. Below are 5 proposals to combat global warming that should make all environmentalists and humanitarians cringe with embarrassment for supporting them:

1. Taxes to International Bankers: Does anyone still trust the international bankers after their wholesale looting of the general public? Do genuine environmentalists actually believe it's a good thing to have this criminal institution in charge of collecting and regulating carbon taxes. The thought of being forced to give more power and more money to the banks seems utterly foolish to support, no matter what environmental catastrophes we may face. The carbon market is almost entirely voluntary and is still in its infancy, yet there is already major financial fraud occurring which is par for the course for the banksters. We should be ashamed to promote them as any part of a solution.

2. One-Child Policies: After vilifying China's one-child policy since its inception, the Western world is now warming to the idea to combat CO2. In fact, Canada joined China in publicly calling for a Worldwide One-Child Policy during Copenhagen climate talks in 2009. Forcing this type of law on a previously free society will surely result in forced abortions and other horrific consequences. It is the epitome of tyranny for the State to take away such basic rights to life. It seems that the numerous heavyweights pushing this agenda are hell-bent on population reduction in spite of the global warming theory. If forcing your friends and neighbors into a one-child policy makes sense to you, you may have already lost your humanity to a theoretical fear.


3. Geoengineering: The AP reported during the 2010 Cancun climate talks that "we may need geoengineering as a 'Plan B,' if nations fail to forge agreement on a binding treaty to rein in greenhouse gases." Geoengineering (sometimes referred to as chemtrailing), is high-altitude chemical spraying. They are the unnatural crisscrossed long white trails left by planes that take days to dissipate. Their patents are high in nanoparticle aluminum and barium, both of which have been found in dangerously high concentrations in otherwise pristine locations. For decades this program was top secret, and environmental activists were called conspiracy theorists for questioning it. Now, it is being promoted as the savior to global warming, claiming the extremely poisonous chemicals reflect sunlight away from earth. To learn more about what you would be advocating for as 'Plan B' to stop global warming, please watch the very reputable new film What in the World are They Spraying?

4. Rationing: At the COP16 climate meeting in Cancun during record cold temperatures this winter "Some climate change experts say World War II-style rationing in developed countries may be needed to bring down carbon emissions to fight against global warming." We all know who is most affected by rationing: the average little citizen. I'm reminded of the character Winston Smith in 1984 getting his allotments of fabricated coffee and fuel-like alcohol while the controllers lived in the lap of luxury. Perhaps, if we're lucky, the State will take control of local farm harvests for rationed distribution circa the Soviet Union. Ahh, freedom is on the march with this proposal.

5. Nuclear War: Last, but certainly not least, the idea has been floated that a small nuclear war may save us from the global warming bogeyman. Yes, for the good of humanity and the environment, let's blow a couple of million people to smithereens and radiate thousands of square miles to force the cooling of the earth. This is not some fringe group proposing this, but instead NASA, the National Geographic and Ted Turner-owned Time magazines floating the idea. They say, "Models suggest that though the world is currently in a warming trend, small-scale war could lower global temperatures 2.25 degrees F for two-to-three years following war." It seems this scenario will do nothing to reduce CO2, but simply block and absorb heat from the sun. In fact, they admit it may add carbon into the atmosphere. If you can't tell how wrong this concept is on multiple levels then perhaps it's more appropriate to refer to you as a world-is-flat Neanderthal.

Despite differences in theories, can't we all agree that these proposals seem downright tyrannical, if not evil? They all seem to further crush the poorest among us, while eliminating basic individual rights, to openly promoting reducing the human population. And that means you too by the way. Believers won't be exempt from the darkest wrath of these proposals.

And worst of all, none of these proposals will do anything to solve authentic environmental degradation, or even CO2 concentrations for that matter. So, it's all right to believe any theory you wish, but just be more informed and honest when defending the establishment's proposed solutions. They are not designed or intended to protect you or the environment from global warming.

JPMorgan May Need Another $4 Billion For Legal Losses

According to CNBC’s Kate Kelly, JPMorgan has just released its 10-K and it reveals some shocking information.
Kelly says “JPMorgan [JPM 46.69 0.01 (+0.02%) ] has been named as a defendant in about 10,000 different law suits. And as a result, they could end up needing an additional $4.5 billion on top of what they’ve already set aside for legal losses."

What should you make of it?

Instant Insights with the Fast Money traders

Fast trader Karen Finerman is a JPMorgan shareholder but she isn’t concerned by these developments. "They talked about substantial legal costs in their last call," she says. "I don’t know this is materially different (than what they said)."

And looking at the burden per share, she adds, “there’s a tad under 4 billion shares outstanding so that’s about $1/share."

Joe Terranova wonders what it means for the dividend. “Do you believe it delays the reinstitution of the dividend?” he says. “I don’t know. But if they’re talking about exceeding their reserve, it could get delayed.”

Tim Seymour thinks it’s a big headline but he isn’t worried, either. He doesn’t feel $4 billion is all that much in the scheme of things. "And the fact that they're being more conservative on estimates of potential losses is not a surprise," he adds. He’s a buyer of weakness.

It’s Official: Bill Maher is a Racist

How long will Bill Maher get a pass on his racism and anti-Muslim Islamophobia? Is it acceptable because the targets are Arabs and Muslims and because Maher is a comedian from whom outrageous things are expected?

On his last show Bill Maher went on a speel undermining the Democratic character of Revolutions sweeping across the Arab world. Amongst his ludicrous statements he claimed “women can’t vote in 19 of 22 Arab countries,” that “women who have dated an Arab man, the results aren’t good,” that “Arab men have a sense of “entitlement,” etc. He also went onto forward the argument that “we are better than them,” justifying it by implying he is not a “cultural relativist.”

No, Bill might not be a “cultural relativist” but he sure sounds like a “cultural supremacist.” His factual accuracy about the Islamic and Arab world is akin to Robert Spencer’s. It is patently false that “19 of 22″ Arab states don’t allow for women to vote, a brief trip to Wikipidea would have disabused him of that false fact:

Global Economy? 23 Facts Which Prove That Globalism Is Pushing The Standard Of Living Of The Middle Class Down To Third World Levels

From now on, whenever you hear the term "the global economy" you should immediately equate it with the destruction of the U.S. middle class. Over the past several decades, the American economy has been slowly but surely merged into the emerging one world economic system. Unfortunately for the middle class, much of the rest of the world does not have the same minimum wage laws and worker protections that we do. Therefore, the massive global corporations that now dominate our economy are able to pay workers in other countries slave labor wages and import the products that they make into the United States to compete with products made by "expensive" American workers. This has resulted in a mass exodus of manufacturing facilities and jobs from the United States.

But without good, high paying jobs the U.S. middle class cannot continue to be the U.S middle class. The only thing that the vast majority of Americans have to offer in the economic marketplace is their labor. Sadly, that labor has now been dramatically devalued. American workers now must directly compete for jobs with millions upon millions of workers on the other side of the world that toil away for 15 hours a day at slave labor wages. This is causing jobs to leave the United States at an almost unbelievable rate, and it is putting tremendous downward pressure on the wages of millions of jobs that are still in the United States.

So when you hear terms such as "globalization" and "the global economy", it is important to keep in mind that those are code words for the emerging one world economic system that is systematically wiping out the U.S. middle class.

A one world labor pool means that the standard of living for the U.S. middle class will continue falling toward the standard of living in the third world.

We keep hearing about how the U.S. economy is being transformed from a "manufacturing economy" into a "service economy". But "service jobs" are generally much lower paying than "manufacturing jobs". The number of good paying "middle class jobs" in the United States is rapidly decreasing. So how can the U.S. middle class survive in such an environment?

What makes things even worse for manufacturers in the United States is that other nations often impose a "value-added tax" of 20 percent or more on U.S. goods entering their shores and yet most of the time we do not reciprocate with similar taxes.

But whenever someone mentions how incredibly unfair and unbalanced our trade agreements with other nations are, they are immediately labeled as a "protectionist".

Well, someone should be looking out for U.S. interests when it comes to trade, because the current state of the global economy is ripping the U.S. middle class to shreds.

Right now, the United States consumes far more wealth than it produces. This nation buys much, much more from the rest of the world than they buy from us. This is called a "trade deficit", and it is one of the most important economic statistics. The U.S. runs a massive trade deficit every single year, and it is wiping out our national wealth, it is destroying our surviving industries and it is absolutely shredding middle class America.

We cannot allow tens of thousands of factories to continue to leave the United States. We cannot allow millions of jobs to continue to be "outsourced" and "offshored". We cannot allow tens of billions of dollars of our national wealth to continue to be transferred into foreign hands every single month.

The truth is that the global economy is bad for America. The following are 23 facts which prove that globalism is pushing the standard of living of the middle class down to third world levels....

#1 From December 2000 to December 2010, the U.S. ran a total trade deficit of 6.1 trillion dollars.

#2 The U.S. trade deficit was about 33 percent larger in 2010 than it was in 2009.

#3 The U.S. trade deficit with China in 2010 was 27 times larger than it was back in 1990.

#4 The U.S. economy is rapidly trading high wage jobs for low wage jobs. According to a new report from the National Employment Law Project, higher wage industries accounted for 40 percent of the job losses over the past 12 months but only 14 percent of the job growth. Lower wage industries accounted for just 23 percent of the job losses over the past 12 months and a whopping 49 percent of the job growth.

#5 Between December 2000 and December 2010, 38 percent of the manufacturing jobs in Ohio were lost, 42 percent of the manufacturing jobs in North Carolina were lost and 48 percent of the manufacturing jobs in Michigan were lost.

#6 In Germany, exports account for approximately 40 percent of GDP. In China, exports account for approximately 30 percent of GDP. In the United States, exports account for approximately 13 percent of GDP.

#7 Do you remember when the United States was the dominant manufacturer of automobiles and trucks on the globe? Well, in 2010 the U.S. ran a trade deficit in automobiles, trucks and parts of $110 billion.

#8 In 2010, South Korea exported 12 times as many automobiles, trucks and parts to us as we exported to them.

#9 The U.S. economy now has 10 percent fewer "middle class jobs" than it did just ten years ago.

#10 The United States currently has 7.7 million fewer payroll jobs than it did back in December 2007.

#11 Back in 1970, 25 percent of all jobs in the United States were manufacturing jobs. Today, only 9 percent of the jobs in the United States are manufacturing jobs.

#12 In 2002, the United States had a trade deficit in "advanced technology products" of $16 billion with the rest of the world. In 2010, that number skyrocketed to $82 billion.

#13 The United States now spends more than 4 dollars on goods and services from China for every one dollar that China spends on goods and services from the United States.

#14 In China, working conditions are so bad that large numbers of "employees" regularly try to commit suicide. One major employer, Foxconn, has even gone so far as to install "anti-suicide nets" in an attempt to keep their employees from jumping off of their buildings.

#15 Wages for workers in China are incredibly low. For example, one facility in the city of Longhua that makes iPods employs approximately 200,000 workers. These workers put in endless 15-hour days but they only make about $50 per month.

#16 In Bangladesh, manufacturing workers toil in absolutely horrific conditions and make an average of about $38 per month.

#17 In Vietnam, teenage workers often work seven days a week for as little as 6 cents an hour making promotional Disney toys for McDonald's.

#18 Since 2001, over 42,000 manufacturing facilities in the United States have been closed.

#19 Half of all American workers now earn $505 or less per week.

#20 In the United States today, 6.2 million Americans have been out of work for 6 months of longer.

#21 8.4 million Americans are currently working part-time jobs for "economic reasons". These jobs are mostly very low paying service jobs.

#22 When you adjust wages for inflation, middle class workers in the United States make less money today than they did back in 1971.

#23 According to Willem Buiter, the chief economist at Citigroup, China will be the largest economy in the world by the year 2020, and India will surpass China by the year 2050.

Those that promote "free trade" can never explain how the U.S. middle class is going to continue to have plenty of jobs in the new global economy.

By merging our labor pool with the rest of the world, we have also merged our standard of living with the rest of the world. High unemployment is rapidly becoming "the new normal" in America, and wages are going to continue to decline in many, many industries.

Already, there are quite a few formerly great U.S. cities (such as Detroit) that are beginning to resemble third world hellholes. If something is not done about our massive trade imbalance, even more cities are going to follow Detroit into oblivion.

Unfortunately, most of our politicians continue to insist that globalism is good for our society. They continue to insist that we should not be worried that jobs formerly done by middle class American workers are now being done by slave laborers on the other side of the globe. They continue to insist that having 43 million Americans on food stamps is a temporary thing and that soon our economy will be better than ever.

Well, it is time to stop listening to the politicians that are promoting "the global economy". They are lying to us.

Globalism is great for nations such as China and it is helping multinational corporations make huge profits, but for the U.S. middle class it is an economic death sentence.

If you want an America where there are less jobs, where more Americans are on food stamps and other anti-poverty programs and where our cities continue to be transformed into deindustrialized hellholes, then you should strongly support the emerging global economy.

But if you care about the standard of living of the U.S. middle class and you want for there to be some kind of viable economic future for your children and your grandchildren then you had better start caring about these issues and doing something about them.

Please wake up America.

You Have More Money In Your Wallet Than Bank Of America Pays In Federal Taxes

REPORT: You Have More Money In Your Wallet Than Bank Of America Pays In Federal Taxes
Today, hundreds of thousands of people comprising a Main Street Movement — a coalition of students, the retired, union workers, public employees, and other middle class Americans — are in the streets, demonstrating against brutal cuts to public services and crackdowns on organized labor being pushed by conservative politicians. These lawmakers that are attacking collective bargaining and cutting necessary services like college tuition aid and health benefits for public workers claim that they have no choice but than to take these actions because both state and federal governments are in debt.

But it wasn’t teachers, fire fighters, policemen, and college students that caused the economic recession that has devastated government budgets — it was Wall Street. And as middle class workers are being asked to sacrifice, the rich continue to rig the system, dodging taxes and avoiding paying their fair share.
In an interview with In These Times, Carl Gibson, the founder of US Uncut, which is organizing some of today’s UK-inspired massive demonstrations against tax dodgers, explains that while ordinary Americans are being asked to sacrifice, major corporations continue to use the rigged tax code to avoid paying any federal taxes at all. As he says, if you have “one dollar” in your wallet, you’re paying more than the “combined income tax liability of GE, ExxonMobil, Citibank, and the Bank of America“:

[Gibson] explains, “I have one dollar in my wallet. That’s more than the combined income tax liability of GE, ExxonMobil, Citibank, and the Bank of America. That means somebody is gaming the system.”

Indeed, as politicians are asking ordinary Americans to sacrifice their education, their health, their labor rights, and their wellbeing to tackle budget deficits, some of the world’s richest multinational corporations are getting away with shirking their responsibility and paying nothing. ThinkProgress has assembled a short but far from comprehensive list of these tax dodgers — corporations which have rigged the tax system to their advantage so they can reap huge profits and avoid paying taxes:

- BANK OF AMERICA: In 2009, Bank of America didn’t pay a single penny in federal income taxes, exploiting the tax code so as to avoid paying its fair share. “Oh, yeah, this happens all the time,” said Robert Willens, a tax accounting expert interviewed by McClatchy. “If you go out and try to make money and you don’t do it, why should the government pay you for your losses?” asked Bob McIntyre of Citizens for Tax Justice. The same year, the mega-bank’s top executives received pay “ranging from $6 million to nearly $30 million.”

- BOEING: Despite receiving billions of dollars from the federal government every single year in taxpayer subsidies from the U.S. government, Boeing didn’t “pay a dime of U.S. federal corporate income taxes” between 2008 and 2010.
- CITIGROUP: Citigroup’s deferred income taxes for the third quarter of 2010 amounted to a grand total of $0.00. At the same time, Citigroup has continued to pay its staff lavishly. “John Havens, the head of Citigroup’s investment bank, is expected to be the bank’s highest paid executive for the second year in a row, with a compensation package worth $9.5 million.”

- EXXON-MOBIL: The oil giant uses offshore subsidiaries in the Caribbean to avoid paying taxes in the United States. Although Exxon-Mobil paid $15 billion in taxes in 2009, not a penny of those taxes went to the American Treasury. This was the same year that the company overtook Wal-Mart in the Fortune 500. Meanwhile the total compensation of Exxon-Mobil’s CEO the same year was over $29,000,000.
- GENERAL ELECTRIC: In 2009, General Electric — the world’s largest corporation — filed more than 7,000 tax returns and still paid nothing to U.S. government. They managed to do this by a tax code that essentially subsidizes companies for losing profits and allows them to set up tax havens overseas. That same year GE CEO Jeffery Immelt — who recently scored a spot on a White House economic advisory board — “earned total compensation of $9.89 million.” In 2002, Immelt displayed his lack of economic patriotism, saying, “When I am talking to GE managers, I talk China, China, China, China, China….I am a nut on China. Outsourcing from China is going to grow to 5 billion.”

- WELLS FARGO: Despite being the fourth largest bank in the country, Wells Fargo was able to escape paying federal taxes by writing all of its losses off after its acquisition of Wachovia. Yet in 2009 the chief executive of Wells Fargo also saw his compensation “more than double” as he earned “a salary of $5.6 million paid in cash and stock and stock awards of more than $13 million.”

In the coming months, politicians across the country are going to tell Americans that the only way to stave off huge deficit and balance the budgets is by gutting programs for the poor, eviscerating support for the middle class, eliminating labor rights, and decimating the government’s ability to serve the public interest. This is a lie. The United States is the richest country in the history of the world, and income inequality is higher now than it has been at any time since the 1920′s, with the top “top 1 percentile of households [taking] home 23.5 percent of income in 2007.”

It is simply unfair for Main Street Americans who’ve already been battered by one of the worst economic crises in our history to have to continue to sacrifice while the rich and well-connected continue to rip off taxpayers and avoid paying their fair share. That’s why a Main Street Movement consisting of Americans who are fed up with the status quo is rocking the nation, and one of its first targets should be tax dodgers like Bank of America and Boeing.

Update All across the country, Main Street Americans are protesting tax dodgers like Bank of America. A picture from one such demonstration (HT: @loril):

Update On its Twitter account, US Uncut notes that protesters outraged at Bank of America's tax avoidance shut down a major branch in Washington, D.C. today.

Update Hundreds of demonstrators descended on a Bank of America branch in San Francisco, some carrying signs mocking the bank's logo as "Bankrupting America" (HT: @jashsf):

Update One Uncut US demonstrator carried a sign that read: "I pay almost 1/3 of my measly income, Bank of America pays NOTHING?!!!" (HT: @allisonkilkenny):

Update This art school dropout in Maine was outraged at having to pay more taxes than Bank of America (HT: RawStory):

You Have More Money In Your Wallet Than Bank Of America Pays In Federal Taxes

REPORT: You Have More Money In Your Wallet Than Bank Of America Pays In Federal Taxes
Today, hundreds of thousands of people comprising a Main Street Movement — a coalition of students, the retired, union workers, public employees, and other middle class Americans — are in the streets, demonstrating against brutal cuts to public services and crackdowns on organized labor being pushed by conservative politicians. These lawmakers that are attacking collective bargaining and cutting necessary services like college tuition aid and health benefits for public workers claim that they have no choice but than to take these actions because both state and federal governments are in debt.

But it wasn’t teachers, fire fighters, policemen, and college students that caused the economic recession that has devastated government budgets — it was Wall Street. And as middle class workers are being asked to sacrifice, the rich continue to rig the system, dodging taxes and avoiding paying their fair share.
In an interview with In These Times, Carl Gibson, the founder of US Uncut, which is organizing some of today’s UK-inspired massive demonstrations against tax dodgers, explains that while ordinary Americans are being asked to sacrifice, major corporations continue to use the rigged tax code to avoid paying any federal taxes at all. As he says, if you have “one dollar” in your wallet, you’re paying more than the “combined income tax liability of GE, ExxonMobil, Citibank, and the Bank of America“:

[Gibson] explains, “I have one dollar in my wallet. That’s more than the combined income tax liability of GE, ExxonMobil, Citibank, and the Bank of America. That means somebody is gaming the system.”

Indeed, as politicians are asking ordinary Americans to sacrifice their education, their health, their labor rights, and their wellbeing to tackle budget deficits, some of the world’s richest multinational corporations are getting away with shirking their responsibility and paying nothing. ThinkProgress has assembled a short but far from comprehensive list of these tax dodgers — corporations which have rigged the tax system to their advantage so they can reap huge profits and avoid paying taxes:

- BANK OF AMERICA: In 2009, Bank of America didn’t pay a single penny in federal income taxes, exploiting the tax code so as to avoid paying its fair share. “Oh, yeah, this happens all the time,” said Robert Willens, a tax accounting expert interviewed by McClatchy. “If you go out and try to make money and you don’t do it, why should the government pay you for your losses?” asked Bob McIntyre of Citizens for Tax Justice. The same year, the mega-bank’s top executives received pay “ranging from $6 million to nearly $30 million.”

- BOEING: Despite receiving billions of dollars from the federal government every single year in taxpayer subsidies from the U.S. government, Boeing didn’t “pay a dime of U.S. federal corporate income taxes” between 2008 and 2010.
- CITIGROUP: Citigroup’s deferred income taxes for the third quarter of 2010 amounted to a grand total of $0.00. At the same time, Citigroup has continued to pay its staff lavishly. “John Havens, the head of Citigroup’s investment bank, is expected to be the bank’s highest paid executive for the second year in a row, with a compensation package worth $9.5 million.”

- EXXON-MOBIL: The oil giant uses offshore subsidiaries in the Caribbean to avoid paying taxes in the United States. Although Exxon-Mobil paid $15 billion in taxes in 2009, not a penny of those taxes went to the American Treasury. This was the same year that the company overtook Wal-Mart in the Fortune 500. Meanwhile the total compensation of Exxon-Mobil’s CEO the same year was over $29,000,000.
- GENERAL ELECTRIC: In 2009, General Electric — the world’s largest corporation — filed more than 7,000 tax returns and still paid nothing to U.S. government. They managed to do this by a tax code that essentially subsidizes companies for losing profits and allows them to set up tax havens overseas. That same year GE CEO Jeffery Immelt — who recently scored a spot on a White House economic advisory board — “earned total compensation of $9.89 million.” In 2002, Immelt displayed his lack of economic patriotism, saying, “When I am talking to GE managers, I talk China, China, China, China, China….I am a nut on China. Outsourcing from China is going to grow to 5 billion.”

- WELLS FARGO: Despite being the fourth largest bank in the country, Wells Fargo was able to escape paying federal taxes by writing all of its losses off after its acquisition of Wachovia. Yet in 2009 the chief executive of Wells Fargo also saw his compensation “more than double” as he earned “a salary of $5.6 million paid in cash and stock and stock awards of more than $13 million.”

In the coming months, politicians across the country are going to tell Americans that the only way to stave off huge deficit and balance the budgets is by gutting programs for the poor, eviscerating support for the middle class, eliminating labor rights, and decimating the government’s ability to serve the public interest. This is a lie. The United States is the richest country in the history of the world, and income inequality is higher now than it has been at any time since the 1920′s, with the top “top 1 percentile of households [taking] home 23.5 percent of income in 2007.”

It is simply unfair for Main Street Americans who’ve already been battered by one of the worst economic crises in our history to have to continue to sacrifice while the rich and well-connected continue to rip off taxpayers and avoid paying their fair share. That’s why a Main Street Movement consisting of Americans who are fed up with the status quo is rocking the nation, and one of its first targets should be tax dodgers like Bank of America and Boeing.

Update All across the country, Main Street Americans are protesting tax dodgers like Bank of America. A picture from one such demonstration (HT: @loril):

Update On its Twitter account, US Uncut notes that protesters outraged at Bank of America's tax avoidance shut down a major branch in Washington, D.C. today.

Update Hundreds of demonstrators descended on a Bank of America branch in San Francisco, some carrying signs mocking the bank's logo as "Bankrupting America" (HT: @jashsf):

Update One Uncut US demonstrator carried a sign that read: "I pay almost 1/3 of my measly income, Bank of America pays NOTHING?!!!" (HT: @allisonkilkenny):

Update This art school dropout in Maine was outraged at having to pay more taxes than Bank of America (HT: RawStory):

Sheep Won't Help Other Sheep: Sheep Get Slaughtered

Watch this video http://revolutionarypolitics.tv/video/viewVideo.php?video_id=14142

Iceland Channels Volcanoes to Win Europe's Energy-Supply Rac

Europeans left stranded at airports last year as an Icelandic volcano spewed ash across the continent may soon benefit from the power that seethes beneath the remote north Atlantic island.

Iceland is doing a feasibility study into building a 1,170- kilometer (727-mile) power cable to Scotland to send some of its untapped potential 18 terawatt-hours of geothermal and hydropower -- that’s enough for 5 million European homes. The project has the full backing of the government, Industry Minister Katrin Juliusdottir said in an interview.

“Icelanders live with earthquakes and volcanic activity but the benefits are that now we can monetize these powers,” said Valdimar Armann, an economist at Reykjavik-based asset manager GAMMA, who estimates annual clean-energy exports could reach about a tenth of the island’s $12 billion economy.

The island is trying to emerge from Europe’s biggest banking meltdown this century to restyle itself as one of the European Union’s main sources of renewable energy. The power cable, which would be the longest of its kind ever built, would come as the EU strives to reach its target of 20 percent clean energy by 2020. In about 20 years, Iceland’s energy revenue per capita may rival that in Norway, where oil income has made its $540 billion sovereign wealth fund the world’s second-biggest, Armann said.

The U.K. day-ahead spot price values 18 terawatt hours at 828 million pounds ($1.33 billion), according to data available on Bloomberg. Landsvirkjun, a state-owned utility that produces 75 percent of Iceland’s electricity, is driving the feasibility study for the $2.1 billion power-cable project.

Investors Upbeat

Investors are already more upbeat about Iceland’s prospects of recovery. The cost of insuring against an Icelandic default fell below Spain’s on Feb. 11, credit default swaps show. The island, the world’s fifth-richest per capita in 2007, still has a long way to go before it can restore its former wealth. Its 2008 banking crisis sent the krona down 80 percent against the euro offshore and shaved almost a fifth off disposable incomes the following year.

Iceland may also be unable to realize its geothermal dreams without some foreign investment. It costs $300 million to $400 million to generate each terawatt hour, according to Ragna Sara Jonsdottir, a spokeswoman at Landsvirkjun.

The government estimates that 75 percent of Iceland’s potential energy is undeveloped. Hydropower, fueled by the island’s glaciers, accounts for about 73 percent of electricity production, with geothermal generating about 27 percent. About 39 percent of the available geothermal energy, which taps the earth’s heat, is used to make electricity.

Budget Crisis My Ass! We Have a Refusal 2 Levy Adequate Taxes on Those that Can Afford it Crisis

The Battle of Madison, in addition to being about Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s desire to cripple his state’s public sector unions, is also at least ostensibly about budgetary matters. Walker wants to get those nasty teachers and other government workers to foot more of the bill for their retirements, right? Well … wrong actually. And one of the worst kinds of wrong, a factual error so broadly accepted by the journalists covering the story that it distorts everyone’s understanding of it.

[See photos of the Wisconsin protests.]

That’s the conclusion reached by Tax.com’s David Cay Johnston, who won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of tax loopholes with the New York Times in 2001. Johnston, in a must-read for anyone who has been following the Wisconsin battle (and the similar showdowns playing out in places like Indiana and Ohio, among others), points out that the notion of asking the workers to pay a “greater share” of their retirement is deeply inaccurate. He writes:

Out of every dollar that funds Wisconsin's pension and health insurance plans for state workers, 100 cents comes from the state workers.

How can that be? Because the "contributions" consist of money that employees chose to take as deferred wages – as pensions when they retire – rather than take immediately in cash. The same is true with the health care plan. If this were not so a serious crime would be taking place, the gift of public funds rather than payment for services.

Thus, state workers are not being asked to simply "contribute more" to Wisconsin' s retirement system (or as the argument goes, "pay their fair share" of retirement costs as do employees in Wisconsin' s private sector who still have pensions and health insurance). They are being asked to accept a cut in their salaries so that the state of Wisconsin can use the money to fill the hole left by tax cuts and reduced audits of corporations in Wisconsin.

By Robert Schlesinger

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2011/02/28/the-big-myth-in-wisconsin-gov-scott-walkers-union-busting-crusade

"The Financial Industry Has Become So Politically Powerful That It Is Able To Inhibit the Normal Process of Justice And Law Enforcement"

In his acceptance speech for winner for best documentary at the Oscars, director Charles Ferguson said:

Three years after our horrific financial crisis caused by financial fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail, and that’s wrong.

But none of the mainstream, corporate networks covered it. Not CBS, ABC, NBC or MSNBC.

Ferguson told Reuters:

“The biggest surprise to me personally and biggest disappointment was that nobody in the Obama administration would speak with me even off the record — including people that I’ve known for many, many years,” Ferguson said backstage.

He believes Americans, who lost homes and jobs in the millions because of shady mortgage lending and bank collapses, are disappointed that “nothing has been done.”

“Unfortunately, I think that the reason is predominantly that the financial industry has become so politically powerful that it is able to inhibit the normal process of justice and law enforcement,” said Ferguson.

For background on the subversion of justice to the powers that be, see this.

Indeed, as I have repeatedly pointed out, fraud is one of the main causes of the financial crisis. See this and this.

Even Bernie Madoff tells New York Magazine:

“I realized from a very early stage that the market is a whole rigged job. There’s no chance that investors have in this market.”

***

“The SEC,” he says, “looks terrible in this thing.” And he doesn’t see himself as the only guilty party on Wall Street. “It’s unbelievable, Goldman … no one has any criminal convictions. The whole new regulatory reform is a joke. The whole government is a Ponzi scheme.”

The economy cannot stabilize unless fraud is prosecuted. But the folks in D.C. seem determined to turn a blind eye to Wall Street shenanigans, and is now moving to defund the enforcement agencies like the SEC and CFTC.

And yet the large corporate media never covers this issue. An October 2009 Pew Research Center study on the coverage of the financial crisis found that the media has largely parroted what the White House and Wall Street were saying. (The mainstream media is also pro-war.)

In fact, the financial industry has become so politically powerful that it is able to inhibit the normal process of justice and law enforcement, and the American press.

Thom Hartmann: So...who is paid too much? Teachers or Banksters?

DNA "Genetic Patdown" Introduced to Airports by DHS

NetBio -- Rapid DNA Analysis Solutions

Nicholas West
Activist Post

A new level of invasive screening is scheduled for airports this summer: a portable DNA scanner to conduct on-site, real-time genetic testing.

This technology is being implemented under the cover of combating human trafficking, illegal immigration, and finding missing persons, but Richard Seldon of NetBio, creator of the scanners, clearly states that "DNA information has the potential to become part of the fabric of day-to-day life." In an interview with Katie Drummond who broke this story for The Daily, Seldon envisions additional applications in emergency rooms, food safety tests, and law enforcement.

DNA collection is actually nothing new, as the Pentagon has admitted that it currently has a DNA database with 80,000 suspected foreign terrorists on it, and growing daily. However, this collection apparatus has been secretly in place for Americans as well. Lawsuits are pending from families who uncovered a secret program to collect DNA from babies and store it in a military database. However, that was a secret that had to be uncovered. The fact that DNA screening is being rolled out openly marks a new level of blatant tyranny in America.

To a certain extent, DNA collection already has become part of the fabric of day-to-day life; police in America have had the authority to conduct warrantless searches since 2009 by taking blood and saliva during arrests, even from those not convicted of a crime. This has quickly morphed into DNA being taken through mandatory blood tests at DUI checkpoints in Florida.

It has been argued that DNA extraction is no different than taking fingerprints. This argument is patently absurd, due to the simple fact that fingerprints have no bearing on one's genetic information . . . or manipulation. It is the genetic information of individuals that has been the holy grail of all tyrannies as the endgame for their control grid.

The current focus on DNA extraction and databasing is a well-known globalist initiative stated by the UN to register every newborn. This initiative has the full support of globalist and population-control advocate, Bill Gates, who would like to see a universal birth registry which would presumably tie in to his universal vaccine program. Additionally, globalist behemoths such as the RAND Corporation have issued documents that identify an interest in biotechnology for the purpose of population reduction, cloning, and to "identify, understand, manipulate, improve, and control living organisms (including ourselves)."

It is important to note that the technology of tracking, tracing, and databasing innocent people right down to their blood is a top-down directive from federal agencies, not a legitimate scientific endeavor. Legitimate science researches ways to increase human potential and freedom, not use it as a system for identification and control. With the rise of nanotechnology as a federal initiative, we should strongly resist the collection of our life force to be used in any way that government-controlled science sees fit.

'Iran, Egypt, Syria can finish US'

Iran's Ambassador to Syria Ahmad Mousavi

Tehran's ambassador to Damascus says if Egypt and other Muslim countries join forces with Iran and Syria, US dominance and power will diminish.

In a meeting with Iran's Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari on Sunday, Ahmad Mousavi says relations between Tehran and Damascus “have foiled plots hatched by arrogant powers.”

“If Egypt and other Muslim countries stand beside Iran and Syria, the US will be finished,” Mehr News Agency quoted Mousavi as saying.

Sayyari, who is heading a high-ranking delegation of naval officials, is on a six-day visit to Syria.

“Contrary to the US measures taken to promote Iranophobia, the presence of Iran's Navy in the Suez Canal and [their] entrance into the Mediterranean Sea is not a threat to any country,” Mousavi added.

Two Iranian ships, Khark and Alvand, docked at Syria's Lattakia Port following their passage through the Suez Canal, a strategic international shipping route in Egypt, for the first time since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979.

The 1,500-ton patrol frigate Alvand is armed with torpedoes and anti-ship missiles, while the larger 33,000-ton supply vessel Khark has 250 crewmembers and can carry three helicopters.

On Friday, Sayyari signed a navy cooperation deal with his Syrian counterpart General Taleb al-Barri aboard Iranian vessel Khark.

MYA/HGH/MMN

Obama ups military aid to Arab League states

WASHINGTON — The administration of President Barack Obama has proposed an increase in U.S. military aid for several Arab League states.

The administration has submitted a proposed budget for fiscal 2011 that included military assistance increases for Bahrain, Libya, Morocco, Oman and Yemen. Officials said several Middle East countries also received forward funding over the last year as part of the Foreign Military Financing program.

Under the budget proposed by the State Department, U.S. military aid to Bahrain would increase from $8 million in fiscal 2009 to $19.5 million next year, Middle East Newsline reported. The U.S. Navy maintains its Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, regarded as the poorest of the six GCC states.

Oman would also see a significant increase in 2011. Officials said U.S. military aid would rise from $7 million in 2009 to $13 million in 2011.

U.S. military aid to Yemen would increase from $12.5 million in 2010 to $35 million in 2011. Officials said Yemen would receive a range of helicopters as well as special operations forces training.

Libya would see an increase in U.S. military assistance from $150,000 to $250,000 in 2011. Officials said the rise would enable U.S. military training of Libyan forces.

Morocco would receive a nearly three-fold aid increase from 2009. The North African kingdom would receive $9 million in U.S. military assistance in fiscal 2011, up from $3.6 million in 2009.

The U.S. military aid level for Egypt would remain at $1.3 billion in 2011. Israel would receive $3 billion, up from $2.775 billion in 2010.

The State Department recommended a reduction in U.S. military aid for Jordan, Lebanon and Tunisia. Jordan would receive $300 million in 2011, down from $335 million in 2009.

U.S. military aid to Lebanon in 2011 was allocated at $100 million, down from $159.7 million in 2009. Officials said the administration and Congress were concerned that U.S. weapons to Lebanon would end up with the Iranian-sponsored Hizbullah.

The biggest proportional decrease in U.S. military aid was allocated for Tunisia. The administration has asked for $4.9 million in military aid to Tunis, a drop of more than $10 million since 2010.

The State Department said the United States forwarded hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid over the last year. Officials said Israel received advanced funding of $555 million for fiscal 2010; Egypt, $260 million, and Jordan, $150 million.

100th Monkey

Oil spike to spoil US economy bubble

58% Favor Government Shutdown Until Spending Cuts Are Agreed Upon

Rasmussen Reports

As Republicans and Democrats in Congress haggle over the budget, most voters would rather have a partial shutdown of the federal government than keep its spending at current levels.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 33% of Likely U.S. Voters would rather have Congress avoid a government shutdown by authorizing spending at the same levels as last year. Fifty-eight percent (58%) says it’s better to have a partial shutdown until Democrats and Republicans can agree on what spending to cut. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

The partisan differences are striking. Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Democrats prefer avoiding a shutdown by going with current spending levels. But 80% of Republicans -- and 59% of voters not affiliated with either major party -- think a shutdown is a better option until the two sides can agree on spending cuts.

Read Full Article

Will The Death Of The Dollar Lead To The Birth Of A New World Economic Order?

There is no getting around it. The U.S. dollar is dying. U.S. government debt continues to grow at a very frightening pace and the Federal Reserve is now buying up most of the new debt that is being issued. At this point there is simply not enough money in the rest of the world to continue to feed the U.S. government's endless thirst for more debt so the Federal Reserve has had to directly intervene in order to keep the Ponzi scheme going. Other nations are rapidly losing faith in the U.S. dollar as they realize that there is simply no way that the U.S. government will be able to service this soaring debt for much longer. Even now we are watching the U.S. dollar rapidly fall against a vast array of hard assets. Virtually all major agricultural commodities have exploded in price over the past year, the price of gold is over $1400 an ounce again and last week U.S. crude oil prices topped $100 a barrel for the first time since 2008. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve continues to print dollars as if there is no tomorrow and the U.S. government continues to spend dollars as if the party is never going to end. Yes, we are most definitely witnessing the death of the dollar.

As a result of the decline of the dollar, U.S. consumers are really starting to see some substantial inflation at the supermarket and at the gas pump. In fact, the average price of gasoline in the United States increased 17 cents to $3.33 a gallon in just the past week, and more increases are expected in the weeks ahead.
Unfortunately, most Americans still don't understand that the monstrous debt that the U.S. government has accumulated has us on a road that is going to lead to economic ruin.
Back in the early 1980s, the U.S. national debt was considered a major national crisis and politicians were pledging to do something about it.
Well, they did something about it alright.
Today, the U.S. national debt is over 14 times larger than it was back in 1981.

Unfortunately, it is only going to continue to increase in size.
Entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare account for 58% of all U.S. government spending. Those are "sacred cows" politically and very few politicians will even talk about making cuts to those programs.
Defense spending accounts for another 20% of all U.S. government spending. This is another area that is very tough to cut politicially.
So that leaves only about 22% of the budget to cut. Sadly, that entire 22% could be eliminated from the federal budget and we would still be running an absolutely massive budget deficit.

Yes, we are in a huge amount of trouble.
So what are our politicians doing about it?
Well, over the past decade they have shown that they are very good at voting for increases to government spending but they are very poor at voting for cuts to government spending.
For example, during Barack Obama's first two years in office, the U.S. government added more to the U.S. national debt than the first 100 U.S. Congresses combined.
In fact, if Barack Obama has his way government spending is going to increase by another 50 percent over the next decade. In the new budget that Obama recently proposed, the U.S. government would spend 3.7 trillion dollars in 2012 and by 2021 the U.S. government would be spending a whopping 5.6 trillion dollars per year.

But when it comes to cutting the budget nothing ever seems to happen.
Right now, Republicans and Democrats are fighting tooth and nail over $61 billion in budget cuts.
But even if the Republicans get all of those cuts it would be just a drop in the bucket.
After all, what does it really matter if the U.S. budget deficit is 1.59 trillion dollars instead of 1.65 trillion dollars this year?
But listening to the Republicans and the Democrats blow hot air you would think that the fate of the world is at stake.
Meanwhile, our states are going broke as well. In fact, 30 U.S. states have borrowed a total of $41.5 billion from the federal government just so that they could continue paying out unemployment benefits.

California alone has borrowed $9.8 billion in unemployment benefit money from the federal government, and nobody is really quite sure when they will be able to quit borrowing more unemployment money from the U.S. government.
Things have gotten completely and totally out of control.
But if the U.S. government quits borrowing and spending money so feverishly it will cause a dramatic slowdown in the U.S. economy and nobody seems to want that.
Even with all of the crazy government spending that has been going on the U.S. economy is still on the verge of total collapse.
Unemployment continues to be absolutely rampant. In the United States today, approximately 14 million Americans are officially unemployed and 8.4 million more are working part-time for "economic reasons".

But the "official numbers" vastly understate the reality of the situation.
According to John Williams of Shadow Government Statistics, the real unemployment rate in the United States is now above 22%.
The federal government and the state governments are desperately trying to stimulate the economy back to life, but it doesn't seem to be working.
Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar continues to decline in value as government debt continues to mount.
Damon Vickers, the author of "The Day After The Dollar Crashes”, recently discussed this problem during an appearance on CNBC....

Did you notice how Vickers even used the term "new world order"?
The truth is that globalist institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank have been very busy discussing what the world is going to use as a global reserve currency after the death of the dollar.

Since World War 2, the world economic order has been centered around the United States and the U.S. dollar. But now all of that is changing.
The American economy is in the midst of a long-term decline and the U.S. dollar is slowly but surely dying. Already quite a few nations have started to move away from using the dollar in international commerce. The advantages that the U.S. has enjoyed from having the reserve currency of the world are about to disappear.
So what would a "new economic world order" look like?
Nobody knows for sure, but needless to say it wouldn't be as favorable for the United States as the current system is.
Most Americans have no idea how close we are to a radical transformation of the global financial system. The dominance of the U.S. dollar is rapidly fading. The financial stability that so many of us have taken for granted for so long is about to crumble.

Every single day your dollars become a little less valuable and at some point they are going to start to become much less valuable with each passing day. You might want to spend them on something real while you still can.

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/will-the-death-of-the-dollar-lead-to-the-birth-of-a-new-world-economic-order

Bank of America paid out 46 Billion for FRAUD MBS to PIMCO and Fed! MERS Fraud Mortgages!

EDIT - I had Million in the title - it is Billion!

Can we all together say...... "Ahhhh.. Poor Bank of America", they are getting it from all sides!

First people are standing up against the FRAUD Foreclosures and judges are ruling against them left and right.

Pimco and the New York Federal Reserve bank among many other hedge funds and investors of MBS (mortgage backed securities) were demanding their investments back from the fraudulent securities.

Bank of America was fighting it. Well it seems as of the end of 2010 they had paid 46 BILLION back to PIMCO - N.Y. Fed and others and they still have 10.7 BILLION of Claims against their MBS filed! That is HUGE! Also by those big entities demanding all that money, they pretty much know the game is up and the fraud is coming out in all ways. They are wanting out before the complete SHTF when it is disclosed ALL the MBS sold by MERS banks are fraud! One mortgage was put into multiple MBS bonds.

BOA has spent over one Billion more in litigation in 2010 than they had expected to (defending fraud foreclosures). Looks like they have booked more litigation fees in for this year (2011).

Wells Fargo has also had over 1 Billion in litigation fees in loss to the bank due to MERS fraud foreclosures!

Portions of Article:

Lawyers for borrowers said in court papers that firms including Bank of America also mishandled the servicing of loans, using flawed paperwork in hundreds of thousands of foreclosures.

When banks sell mortgages to investors or bundle them into securities, they typically offer “representations and warranties” in which they guarantee the accuracy of data backing the loans. Examples include borrowers’ income and the appraised worth of the home. If the information is proven wrong, the bank can be forced to buy back the loan or reimburse investors for the lost value.

The company is in talks with a bondholder group that includes Pimco, BlackRock Inc. and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, people with knowledge of the matter said last year. The group, which in October pressured the firm to repurchase loans, within 115 deals, amounting to about $46 billion, is now questioning 225 securitizations, Bank of America said last week.

Lawsuits from other investors are piling up. Allstate Corp., the biggest publicly traded U.S. home and auto insurer, in December sued over mortgage-backed securities. Bond insurers including MBIA Inc. and Ambac Financial Group Inc. have said Countrywide fraudulently induced the carriers to guarantee securities filled with defective mortgages.

So, lets keep all the banks having to spend money in litigation! STAND UP - DO NOT GET FORECLOSED ON BY FRAUD!

Angry electorate coldly voted to liquidate Fianna Fáil

FINALLY, THE tall grass parted. By God, but this was no rush job. It was a long time coming.

When the verdict came, it was crushing. Moreover, it was thoroughly considered.

For this is the new politics; history, tradition, old allegiances and overweening presumption hold no sway anymore.

The Irish people looked back in anger this weekend and then they coldly voted to liquidate the party that plunged their country into liquidation.

After decades of Fianna Fáil dominance, they turned and taught Fianna Fáil a devastating lesson: You call yourselves a national movement? Now, let us show you the real meaning of a national movement . . .

And with that, they emerged from the long grass and gutted the Soldiers of Destiny. Extraordinary.

Unthinkable, once.

The general election of 2011 will be remembered as the one which shattered another of the three great pillars of old Ireland. It was always a proud boast of the faithful multitude that they belonged to the Untouchable Trinity of the Catholic Church, Fianna Fáil and the Gaelic Athletic Association.

No more. Only the GAA remains, standing proud and rightly cherished.

FF big beast after big beast falling, as the ticker-tape pulsing across the bottom of television screens announced the end of political dynasties and shell-shocked household names watched stronghold constituencies desert them. It made for compulsive viewing.

The winners were almost overlooked as the compelling story of Fianna Fáil’s momentous meltdown unfolded.

But not in Co Mayo, where Enda Kenny led from the front, bringing home an unprecedented three running mates.

Fine Gael fought a brilliant election. Kenny, the underestimated man from Mayo, is now taoiseach-designate. He stepped into his new role on Saturday night with a refreshing humility and a pledge to restore public trust in the debased currency of Irish politics.

You could see how much he wanted the job. His energy and passion undeniable; his determination to make a difference an encouraging contrast to the jaded nature of what went before.

Given the level of public expectation surrounding him and the scale of the task facing his new government, it’s hard to know whether to feel happy or sorry for the man.

The Labour Party put in its best electoral performance ever, exceeding the seats won in the Spring Tide of the early 1990s. When Eamon Gilmore ties the knot with Kenny – don’t expect a long engagement – their union will produce a government of well over 100 TDs.

Labour’s campaign was a rollercoaster ride, from the high expectations of the “Gilmore for Taoiseach” days to a worrying slide in the opinion polls and a final-week rally that pulled them back to respectable territory.

Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams romped home in Louth as his party returned a record number of TDs and post-election Tricolours. They will be a major Opposition force, within touching distance of Fianna Fáil. How the two parties will rub along together on the very much depleted Opposition side of the Dáil will be a fascinating feature of the 31st Dáil. Drawing up the seating arrangements should be an entertainment in itself.

The Green Party won’t figure in those plans, as none of their TDs made it back.

Adding their considerable bulk to the fascinatingly diverse make-up of the Opposition will be a large assortment of Independent deputies from the right, the left and the whatever you’re having yourself wing of Irish politics. The stuffy and prissy powers that be in Leinster House must be having palpitations over the imminent arrival of the flamboyant likes of Luke Ming Flanagan and Mick Wallace.

Whatever else happens in the coming months or years, it won’t be boring in Dáil Éireann.

If it won’t be easy for Kenny and his incoming administration, heaven only knows what it will be like for Micheál Martin and his traumatised little band of Fianna Fáil survivors. No women in their ranks, the much vaunted Ógra generation almost wiped out, the party in a shambles at local level.

Dara Calleary, the only outgoing junior minister to retain a seat, began the fightback on Saturday night in Mayo.

“This is our darkest hour, but we will rebuild and I will roll up my sleeves and work for our party.” Fianna Fáil will regroup, but things will never be the same.

The shape of Irish politics is changed forever. And it was the people, no longer passive in the tall grass, who did it.

Congress eyes deal to avoid govt shutdown

© AFP Saul Loeb

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Congress faces a looming deadline this week to reach agreement on spending to avoid a federal government shutdown that could have chilling consequences for the US economy.

The current stopgap spending measure -- known as a "continuing resolution" or "CR" -- is valid through midnight Friday, and polarized lawmakers in the Senate and House of Representatives must agree on a compromise to replace it in order to keep funding the federal government.

All sides have said that they want to avoid a shutdown but a compromise has so far eluded members of Congress and both parties have been preemptively blaming each other.

A week ago, newly empowered Republicans voted to cut about $61 billion in government spending.

But Democrats in Congress and President Barack Obama's administration, while also vowing cuts, immediately criticized the plan as dangerous in a slow economy.

On Friday, Republican House leaders unveiled a two-week stopgap spending measure that would cut $4 billion dollars by reducing or scrapping programs and urged Senate Democrats to support it. Democrats appeared satisfied with the move.

"For the sake of our people and our economy, we cannot allow gridlock to prevail," Obama said in his weekly address as he urged both sides to reach a compromise.

He noted that both Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate have said they believed it was important to keep the government running while they worked on a plan to reduce the budget deficit.

Obama called for a "balanced approach to deficit reduction," arguing that "we can't sacrifice our future."

The consequences of a shutdown could be many: hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal workers, frozen social services and millions of tourists turned back at museum entrances.

Only the federal government's essential services, such as those linked to security, would continue to function as usual.

"We have a moral responsibility to address the problems we face. That means working together to cut spending and rein in government -- NOT shutting it down," House Speaker John Boehner said, according to excerpts of a speech he was due to deliver later before the National Religious Broadcasters association.

He said that the ballooning US public deficit exceeds $14.1 trillion, in what he called a "mortal threat" to the country.

The last time a similar game of budget brinksmanship played out between Republicans and Democrats, in late 1995 and early 1996, the government closed for 21 days.

Then president Bill Clinton, whose party had been routed in mid-term elections just as Obama's was, turned the crisis against the Republicans, successfully portraying them as irresponsible ideologues.

The shutdown turned public sentiment against the Republicans and helped Clinton get re-elected in November 1996.

Both sides are keenly aware of that history -- and its implications for the 2012 elections -- as they maneuver for advantage in the current showdown.

Senate Democrats have taken note of the fact that the Republicans' latest spending proposal has been shorn of some of the draconian measures contained in a bill that passed the House of Representative.

Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, for his part, said the new proposal provides "a clear path" to resolve differences before Friday's deadline.

Beyond any short-term agreement, both camps will need to clinch a deal to fund the federal government until the end of the fiscal year on September 30.

Democrats have been working on a proposal where they would agree to budget cuts starting this year, for the last seven months of the fiscal year.

© AFP -- Published at Activist Post with license