|
|
Calling All CounterPunchers!
|
home / subscribe / donate / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events / faq
Calling All CounterPunchers!
Annual Fundraising AppealWe interrupt your regular reading habits to bring you the following important announcement: CounterPunch needs your financial support!
We're not in the habit of making idle threats and this isn't one. Either we meet our fundraising goal of $75,000 over the next three weeks or we'll be forced to drastically curtail the operation of our website. It's near the end of our year and the wolves are gathering at the door.CounterPunch's website is supported almost entirely by subscribers to the print edition of our newsletter. We don't clutter the site by selling annoying popup ads. We tried getting money out of Google, but they gave us the boot. We aren't on the receiving end of six-figure grants from big foundations. George Soros doesn't have us on retainer. And we don't sell tickets on cruiseliners.
The continued existence of CounterPunch depends solely on the support and dedication of our readers. And we know there are a lot of you. We get thousands of emails from you every day. Our website receives millions of hits and nearly 100,000 readers each day-and those numbers grow by the month. Of course, all these readers chew up a lot of bandwidth and that costs money.
Through the Iraq war, the daily traumas of the Bush administration, hurricanes, fires, the loss of Habeas Corpus, the bailout of Wall Street and the betrayals of the Democrats, many of you have found a refuge at CounterPunch and made us your homepage. You tell us that you love CounterPunch because the quality of writing you find here every day and because we never flinch under fire. We appreciate the support and are prepared for the fierce battles to come. And, if Obama manages win the Presidency, you know that CounterPunch--almost alone on the Left--will hold Obama and the Democrats to account.
Unlike many other outfits, we don't hit you up for money every month ... or even every quarter, like our friends at Antiwar.com. We only ask for your support once a year. But when we ask, we mean it. Please, use our secure server make a tax-deductible donation to CounterPunch today or purchase a subscription and a gift sub for someone or one of our award winning books (or a crate of books!) as holiday presents. (We won't call you to shake you down or sell your name to any lists--even Dick Cheney's.)
To contribute by phone you can call Becky or Deva toll free at: 1-800-840-3683
Onward,
Alexander, Jeffrey, Becky, Alya, Deva and Kimberly
CounterPunch
PO Box 228, Petrolia, CA 95558
|
Today's Stories October 31, 2008 Alexander Cockburn October 30, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Vijay Prashad Paul Craig Roberts Glen Ford Stanley Heller William Loren Katz Joshua Frank James McEnteer Felice Pace Jonathan Cook Reza Fiyouzat Website of the Day
October 29, 2008 Arno J. Mayer Eric Toussaint Matt Gonzalez Steven Conn Jonathan Cook Patrick Bond Ramzi Kysia Douglas Valentine Stephen Martin Margaret Dooley-Sammuli Amee Chew Website of the Day
October 28, 2008 James G. Abourezk Andy Worthington Gary Leupp Paul Craig Roberts Mike Whitney Gregory V. Button Ralph Nader P. Sainath Martha Rosenberg Charles R. Larson Website of the Day October 27, 2008 Michael Hudson Barbara Rose Johnston John Dinges Mike Whitney Mary Lynn Cramer Greenspan's Higher Power Alan Farago David Michael Green Andy Worthington George Wuerthner Niranjan Ramakrishnan Website of the Day October 24 / 26, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Ishmael Reed Mike Whitney Don Santina Scott Boehm Saul Landau Ron Jacobs Binoy Kampmark Linn Washington Jr. Nicole Colson Bernard Chazelle Brian Jones Christopher Brauchli Benjamin Dangl Val Strange Steve Early David Macaray Allison Kilkenny Richard Rhames Jim Bell Kris De Welde Barry Clemson Adam Engel Mark Scaramella Tuli Kupferberg Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 23, 2008 Allan J. Lichtman Todd Chretien John Ross Peter Morici Mats Svensson Marlene Martin Robert Jensen / Margaret Kimberley Deepak Tripathi David Morris Website of the Day October 22, 2008 Brian Cloughley Heather Gray Jeff Birkenstein Ralph Nader DC Larson David Swanson Keeanga-Yamatta Taylor Race and the Election: When the "Real" America Enters the Voting Booth Larry Everest Robert Fantina Martha Rosenberg Stephen Martin Website of the Day October 21, 2008 Vijay Prashad Paul Craig Roberts Corey D. B. Walker Steve Breyman Eric Toussaint Wajahat Ali Robert Weitzel Brendan Cooney Dave Lindorff Marqueece Harris-Dawson / Bob Wing Patrick B. Barr Omar Barghouti Website of the Day October 20, 2008 Michael Hudson Anthony DiMaggio Tariq Ali Uri Avnery Bill Quigley Ben Rosenfeld David Michael Green William S. Lind Chris Genovali Stephen Martin Howard Lisnoff David Yearsley Website of the Day October 17 / 19, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Pam Martens Paul Craig Roberts Mike Whtney Michael D. Yates Suzanne Smith Carl Boggs Ralph Nader Fidel Castro Dave Marsh Saul Landau Jo Guldi Kevin Zeese Larry Everest Steve Early David Macaray Ben Terrall Missy Beattie Don Monkerud Helen Redmond Dan Bacher Wajahat Ali Farzana Versey Vladimir Frolov Kim Nicolini Poets Basement Website of the Day
|
October 31, 2008 Senators Stevens Holds the Keys to His Own CellThe Future of Ted and SarahBy STEVE CONN Alaska Senator Ted Stevens is no fool. He asked for an early trial on his federal corruption changes to create a fall back position, if convicted, like the one he has in play right now. He has a better hand than most people realize. The vote on his seat is next Tuesday and nobody in Alaska or outside knows if he will win or lose. His “friends” in the national party and the Republican national candidates, including the Alaska governor, want him to resign. But he knows, and they know, he might win. Alaskans won’t forget the billions he has brought into the state. Losing Ted and his seniority and his ability to shovel federal dollars into the trough for Alaska will be like a six-month breakdown in the transAlaska pipeline, maybe worse. Still other Alaskans, especially newcomers, are embarrassed by the outside media’s focus on corruption in Alaska, Sarah Palin’s incompetence, and late night jokes about bridges to nowhere. Democratic candidate Mark Begich is no shoo-in. Outsiders don’t know about his own involvement with real estate kingpins and problems with public employees. Palin wants Stevens out so that she can appoint someone else -- just maybe Sarah Palin -- to run in a special election. This maneuver has its own complications. Thanks to 2004 voter initiative, prompted by Senator-then-Governor Murkowski’s appointment of his own daughter to fill the spot he left vacant, Palin may not be legally capable of an interim appointment. That also works in Steven’s favor. It would mean that an interim appointment would exist under the legal cloud of a court challenge until a special election. Or Alaska might have no sitting Senator in Steven’s spot, until a special election. If pundits are right, Palin can now command some attention from Republicans higher –ups in the party, even in the White House itself, to get what she wants. They may want her to run in a special election in Alaska or as Stevens’ quick replacement. Her popularity has fallen from the high sixty percents to the lower sixty percent, according to a poll funded by the IBEW but is still up there. She could feed on an Alaska backlash against the bad national press, as could Stevens. Bottom line- she may want a White House pardon for Stevens as much as Stevens’ even though there is no love lost between these two politicians. Stevens holds key to the next step in her political career. So here’s the deal Ted can demand. He resigns in exchange for the promise of a full Presidential pardon along with no federal prosecutions of his son, Ben, for a smelly fishery buy-in, tied to federal legislation dad secured, of his former staffer ,Trevor McCabe, for a suspect Seward land sale to the Alaska Sealife Center, paid for with a federal appropriation Stevens directed at the non-profit to buy the land) or, if Stevens has the balls, anyone else who drew on Stevens’ influence to get special favors from the Big Guy while he was under FBI scrutiny. He might also ask for a special room in the new federal archive in Anchorage for his public papers. His hand is that good and his balls are that big. Stevens knows he needs to work fast if he thinks he may lose the election next Tuesday. If he thinks he will win, he has until Inauguration Day. My guess is negotiations are happening right now. Senator Ted Stevens is wheeling and dealing, Sarah Palin is dialing in, and President George Bush is paying attention. Steve Conn lived in Alaska from 1972 until 2007. He is a retired professor, University of Alaska. His e mail is steveconn@hotmail.com.
|
Now Available from CounterPunch Books! The Inside Story of the Shannon Five's Smashing Victory Over the
RED STATE REBELS:
Edited by  Buy End Times Now! CounterPunch Books of the Crossroads: HOW THE IRISH INVENTED SLANG By Daniel Cassidy AMERICAN BOOK AWARD!  Click Here to Buy! Click Here for Dates & Venues Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz  Click Here to Buy! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal  Click Here to Order! How They Made a Killing on the War on Terrorism     
    
 Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont               CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed                   |
