Politics ~ Progressive

A confidential government report on the unfolding spill disaster in the Gulf makes clear the Coast Guard now fears the well could readily become an unchecked gusher shooting millions of gallons of oil per day into the Gulf. 

"A theory of change is the opposite of a theory of action - it works backwards from the goal, in concrete steps, to figure out what you can do to achieve it. To develop a theory of change, you need to start at the end and repeatedly ask yourself, "Concretely, how does one achieve that?" A decrease in the defense budget: how does one achieve that? Yes, you."

Sanders/Dodd Audit-The-Fed allows audit of TARP + TALF, but not FOMC, discount window operations, or agreement with foreign central banks. "Even the so called "independent" leftists, Kucinich and Sanders, have both capitulatied to the corporate, class markets and their class despotism, proving they are not real opposition leaders, but phony socialists, phony anti war activists." ~Eric Albert Schwing I read all three versions of the Sanders amendment carefully, and I believe Sanders made a good call if the decision was compromise with Dodd or have no amendment at all. The big differences with the compromise are: -Single audit covering December 1,2007 to May 2010 rather than open-ended audit until all bailout funds are recovered. -Specific parameters on the audit focusing on whether proper procedures were followed and what could be done to improve Fed governance. However it is not clear that the audit is limited to these items. -Fed website still must report lots of previously undisclosed details about the bailout measured-who got what and why. ~bmull

http://bit.ly/cYfyar http://www.demos.org/publication.cfm?currentpublicationID=26DFD0A0-3FF4-6C82-57090C737A9F0095

"Brown, Kaufman Introduce The Safe Banking Act Of 2010"

The evolution of the gutting of Audit-the-Fed bill

"Senator Bernard Sanders, independent of Vermont, has agreed to modify a proposal that would require public audits of the Federal Reserve in a potential compromise"

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell almost 1000 points in ten minutes today, wiping out $1 trillion in equity values as algorithmic trading by high-speed computers spun out of control.

Jamie Dimon is on the board of the NY Fed. He knows what they're up to. No matter what excuse Obama offers for opposing the Sanders amendment, there is no reasonable argument to be made for allowing the Chair of JP Morgan Chase to know what members of Congress cannot.

"If you were intentionally trying to chase the last of the individual investors from this market you couldn't have written a better script than "accidental trade vaporizes trillions in value from US stocks". People are just disgusted already."

"Excluding census hiring, jobs increase 224,000; jobless rate rises to 9.9%"

Employers add jobs (224,000); but jobless rate rises (to 9.9%)

Why didn't the White House back the break-up of big banks? | Mother Jones | #p2 http://bit.ly/awxeg3

"...compromise with the administration and the Fed would give Mr. Sanders and other critics of the central bank an opportunity to claim victory, while not breaking with the Fed's insistence that its monetary decisions be sacrosanct and insulated from political influence."

Volatile week on Wall Street ends with another slide: #p2 #finreg #econ http://nyti.ms/caoGkf

Can Greece pay its debts? What about Portugal or Spain? Can a new prime minister reduce Britain's gaping budget deficit? Will the crisis rocking Europe spread? And what about the American economy?

White House rhetoric doesn't match reality, despite their new "Older Americans Month": #p2 http://bit.ly/9kfb4V

"Both companies gambled, both companies lost, and both companies expect the taxpayer to clean up their mess."

"Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill"

The profound risk to our national and economic security posed by the prospect of the world's sudden loss of access to Persian Gulf oil contributed greatly to the strategic miscalculations and public deceptions that led to our costly invasion of Iraq...