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Today's Stories August 2, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts The Return of the Robber Barons Robert Fantina Still Getting It Wrong: the NYT and Iraq Chris Floyd Chertoff, Chiquita and Death Squads Anthony Papa Drug Treatment isn't a Silver Bullet   August 1, 2007 Debbie Nathan More Secret Payments by Former NYT Reporter to Web Porn Star Surface in Nashville Courtroom Fred Gardner Ciao, Michelangelo Gary Leupp Why Iraq's Best-Loved Athlete Can't Go Home David Rosen America's Top 10 Political Sex Scandals Winston Warfield Is the Tillman Case Still a Coverup? Daniel McBride Lessons from Bomber Harris: If the US Strikes Pakistan Glen Ford The Corporate Plan to Crush Black Resistance Thomas P. Healy The Toxic Career of Indiana's Environmental Commissioner John V. Whitbeck The Five Percent Solution David Krieger Nuclear Weapons and the University of California Website of the Day The Tragic Story of Hisham Mohammed   July 31, 2007 Kathy Kelly Dancing in the Darkness: the Story of Abu Mahmoud Clancy Sigal The Ghosts of Passchendaele Paul Krassner Assholes of the Week: From Baby Doll to Cheney Joe DeRaymond Return to the Republic of Death? Diane Christian "Winning": What Bush Could Learn from the Shade of Achilles Chris Floyd Good News is No News: Why the Bush Adm. Buries Accounts of Extremist Recantations Ramzy Baroud Bush's Real Agenda in Palestine Alan Farago Battle for the Soul of Florida Fidel Castro In Spite of Everything: Reflections on the Pan American Games Dan Bacher The Fish Terminator: Schwarzenegger's Campaign to Build the Delta Canal and More Dams   July 30, 2007 Marjorie Cohn: Independent Counsel Time Patrick Cockburn Four Million Iraqis on the Run Peter Quinn Irish in America Uri Avnery A Warning to Tony Blair John Ross Zapatista Intergalatica Lands on Earth Ron Jacobs Free the San Francisco 8 David Vest Farewell, Old Friend: Another Legend of the Blues is Gone Jeffrey St. Clair T99 Nelson: Seduced by a Legend of the Blues Website of the Day Collateral Repair Project   July 28 / 29, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Now the NYT is Selling "Bloodbath" as a Rationale to Stay in Iraq Ralph Nader Rotten Justice Robert Fantina American Lies and Iraqi Nationalism Fred Gardner Prohibitionists Attack, Reformers Fundraise   Yves Engler Handwashing and the Bottomline   July 27, 2007 John Ross Bombing Pemex--or Not? Arthur Neslen Gaza was a Gas for Blair Dave Lindorff Declaring the US a Battlefield: Martial Law is Now a Real Threat Julene Blair The Environmentalist Within Christopher Brauchli Bush Uses Children as Shock Troops in His War on Socialized Medicine Jesse Hagopian Fund the Wounded, Not the War Charles Modiano Manufacturing a Villain: Sports Illustrated's Vilification of Barry Bonds Bill Day The Hollow Environmentalism of Leonardo DiCaprio Walter Brasch Leaders Afraid to Lead M.D. Mitchell Farm Based Camps Website of the Day Fighting Sarcoma   July 26, 2007 Kathleen Christison The Siren Song of Elliot Abrams Andy Worthington Why the Pentagon's Gitmo Study is a Joke Clancy Chassay How the Bush White House Seeks to Destroy Lebanon Marjorie Cohn Showdown Over Executive Privilege Susie Day Apartheid Americana David Price Tour de Witch Hunt: Drugs, Diaries and Purges Marie Trigona Argentina's "Dirty War" Crimes Trial: The Torturer Priest Norman Solomon Media Spin on Iraq: We're Leaving (Sort Of) William S. Lind How to Win in Iraq Natsu Saito Ward Churchill and the Regents at the University of Colorado John Stauber Netroots and the Iraq War: Does Ending It Matter to Them Anymore? Website of the Day Sticking It to the Man   July 25, 2007 Andy Worthington Gains and Losses at Gitmo Gary Leupp Bush Speechwriter, Michael Gerson, Calls for Attack on Syria Ray McGovern The Sad Decline of John Conyers Dr. Susan Block Bonobo Bashing in the New Yorker Joshua Frank Hillary's Neocon: the Imperial Vision of Richard Holbrooke Tina Richards What Harry Reid Doesn't Know About His Own Bill Ben Terrall Indonesia's Bloody Brand of CounterTerrorism Farzana Versey God Acquitted!: Lessons from the Case of Darwood Ibrahim Mohammad Ali Salih A Bomb in My Briefcase? Laura Carlsen A Strange Homecoming: Reflections on the First US Social Forum Ron Jacobs Come to Kennebunkport! Sunsara Taylor Knocked Up is F**ked Up Website of the Day Wal-Mart's Flip Flops: Feet Killers July 24, 2007 Saul Landau How to Walk in Bushtime Kathy Kelly The Plight of Iraqi Refugees in Jordan Russell Mokhiber The Michael Vick / George Bush Thing M. Shahid Alam Islam Now, China Then Patrick Cockburn and Anne Penketh Meeting in Baghdad Dave Lindorff Overcoming John Conyers Binoy Kampmark You Tube You Can't: Failure of a Medium Richard Neville Murdoch's Transplant: a Warning to the Wall Street Journal Cindy Sheehan We Must Move Beyond Politics as Usual Evelyn Pringle Anti-Depressants and Birth Defects: Why is the CDC Downplaying the Risks? Norman Solomon Media Corrections We'd Like to See CP Newswire Reading Harry Potter Not Sinful Website of the Day Sea Islands Black Heritage Festival   July 23, 2007 Andy Worthington Narcolepsy on Gitmo Detainees Uri Avnery A Trap for Fools Patrick Cockburn Turkish Prime Minister Threatens to Invade Northern Iraq Sousan Hammad The Children Without a Title John Walsh Todd Gitlin's Nader Fixation Harvey Wasserman Spinning Kashiwazaki: PR Flacks Rush to Aid of Crippled Nuke Martha Rosenberg The Life and Times of a Hog-Hanging Farmer Collin Baber Here Come the MRAPs: Resurrecting Apartheid Armor for Iraq Reza Fiyouzat Iran's Forgotten Anti-Nuke Movement Stephen Lendman Saving a President: Scare-Mongering and Executive Orders Website of the Day The Port Huron Project   July 21 / 22, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Giuliani and the Dogs of War Werther How to Read a National Intelligence Estimate Ralph Nader Atomic Blowback David Keen Buy Hard: How to Sell an Endless War Fred Gardner Karl Rove, Pothead: When Good Drugs Happen to Bad People Gary Leupp Edelman's Edict: Is Hillary "Reinforcing Enemy Propaganda?" Robert Fantina Fear in Iraq Saker The Future of Palestine: an Interview with Jonathan Cook Rannie Amiri Nasrallah in the Crosshairs: How will the Third Lebanon War Start? Mike Whitney The Crisis in Hedgistan Dr. Susan Rosenthal, MD The Hidden Injuries of Powerlessness: Linking Alienation and Dissociation Monica Benderman Facing the Truth Dan Bacher Deltagate: the Politics of Fish Kills Michael Baney Fujimori's Long Race From Justice Missy Beattie Here, There and Everywhere Ron Jacobs Tremble, Tyrants Adam Engel Radical Language: an Introduction Thomas Naylor California Split: an Open Letter to Schwarzenegger Poets' Basement Landau, Ford and Engel Website of the Weekend Surge in Action   July 20, 2007 Eliza Szabo Fatal Neglect: Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan Pam Martens Doctoring the News: CNN's Sanjay Gupta, Laura Bush and Merck Alan Farago Winners and Losers in the Housing Market Crash Harvey Wasserman Lies and Leaks: The Earthquake That Screamed "No Nukes!" Marjorie Cohn Iraqis will be the Deciders Dave Zirin White Noise and the Black Athlete Anthony DiMaggio American Public Opinion and Israel Scott Liebertz Oaxaca on Edge Linn Washington, Jr. British Cops Assault Rape Allegations Bill Piper / Anthony Papa Flying High?: The Political Junkets of Bush's Drug Czar Ramzy Baroud Bush's War Policy: When Time Heals Nothing Website of the Day The Prankster Art of Mark Jenkins   July 19, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Next Invasion of Iraq Remi Kanazi Is This Ben Gurion or Hell?: a Palestinian Adventure Through Israel's Largest Airport Winslow T. Wheeler The Surging Costs of the Iraq War Sharon Smith Democrats and Health Care: Behind the Rhetoric Dave Lindorff Killing Cabbies in Iraq Conn Hallinan Have Gun, Will Travel: Mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan D. K. Wilson The Michael Vick Case Pulls Back the Veil on Who We Really Are Joshua Frank Democrats as Leviathan: Another Step Toward War with Iran Norman Solomon The Ghost of Wayne Morse Russell Hoffman Rattling the Reactor: Quakes, Fires and Leaks at the World's Largest Nuke Ray McGovern Bush's Wooden Headedness Kills Website of the Day Protesting Power July 18, 2007 Brenda Norrell Spy Towers on the US Border Col. Dan Smith How the US Could "Lose" Saudi Arabia Martha Rosenberg Lord of Crookharbour: the Trial of Conrad Black Conn Hallinan Bombing and Spraying Afghanistan Binoy Kampmark The SIM Card Terror Case Patrick Bond / Rehana Dada Who Killed Sajida Khan? Tom Johnson The Long Road ... to Nowhere Paul Craig Roberts A Free Press or a Ministry of Truth? Bob Quellos Pushing the Poor Out of House and Home Felice Pace Falling for Lieberman's Iran Resolution Robert Weissman National Health Insurance: More Humane and More Efficient CP Newswire Shocking Report Showing Involvement of US Psychologists in Torture Website of the Day Gilad Atzmon Live!   July 17, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Just Another Day in Iraq: 100 Fathers, Mothers and Children Killed Marjorie Cohn Out of Control: Executive Power Plays Evelyn Pringle Inside Bush's FDA David Rosen Moral Hypocrisy on the Hill: the Christian Right, Sexual Scandal and the Pleasures of the Courtesan Susan Miller Width Matters: Displacement and Israel's Wall Franklin Lamb Did the UN Cave to Israel on Lebanon's Shabaa Farms? Don Monkerud Considering Victory in Iraq Harvey Wasserman Nuclear Surge Russell Hoffman Japan Dodges a Radioactive Bullet Dave Lindorff Feingold Turns to Dross Dave Zirin Reclaiming Sports as True Fiction Website of the Day Che at the UN: 1964   July 16, 2007 Gary Leupp Cheney Urges Bush to Strike Iran Ellen Cantarow The Untold Story of Iraqi Women Paul Craig Roberts Impeach Now Allan J. Lichtman The D.C. Madam's Public Service Dan Bacher Cheney and the Klamath: Was the Veep Behind the Nation's Worst Salmon Kill? Patrick Cockburn The Killing of Khalid W. Hassan Manuel Garcia, Jr. Property is Racism James Brooks AIPAC and Mahmoud Abbas: the Undemocratic Road to Defeat Liaquat Ali Khan The Judicial Crisis in Pakistan Julie Flint Suleiman Jamous in Limbo Website of the Day Free Suleiman Jamous!   July 14 / 15. 2007 Alexander Cockburn Support Their Troops? Andy Worthington Gitmo's Tangled Web: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Majhid Khan, Dubious US Convictions and a Dying Man Ralph Nader Lawlessness, Waste and Incompetence Robert Fantina The Illegalities of the Iraq War Ron Jacobs Architecture as Military Strategy Joshua Frank Eat, Fight, Screw, Pray: An Interview with Joe Bageant Conn Hallinan Guns, Foundations and Free Trade: How the Right Targets Africa Dr. Susan Rosenthal, MD War and Dissociation John Ross No En Nuestro Nombre!: a Letter to the Mexican Antiwar Movement Fred Gardner Who's Afraid of Cannabidiol? Rannie Amiri A Primer on Israeli Doublespeak Charles Modiano ESPN's Rap Sheet: Pacman as Black Man Anthony DiMaggio America's Parochial Press China Hand Executive Orders and Coercive Diplomacy Missy Comley Beattie Reprobate Rhetoricians Dr. James J. Murtagh, Jr. Harry Potter Battles Big Brother Kenneth Rexroth On Thomas More's "Utopia" Poets' Basement Engel, Davies and Orloski Website of the Weekend GOP Sex Hypocrites: a Slideshow

August 2, 2007 An Open Letter to Barney Frank The Toxic Mortgage Waste Crisis By ALAN FARAGO What’s not to like about Barney Frank, the tough talking Congressman from Massachusetts, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee? He is one of the smartest guys in the Democratic camp, a thick skin and a slight lisp that says, “Go ahead, test me. Make my day.” But Barney, you need advice. In good times, a tame federal regulatory atmosphere satisfies Wall Street and its massive campaign contribution capacity. A slap here, a slap there. For instance, committee hearings on biased lending practices. That's bread and butter stuff. The white shirts filter in and out of the hearing room and pay their fine. Fine. But Barney, the gathering momentum toward a credit meltdown in financial markets is swamping debate how to correct the vast inequities that have piled up across the nation as the late, great housing boom stifled common sense about the unabsorbed costs of growth. Actually, that debate has never happened in Congress. That debate needs to happen now. Jon Helsenrath in the Wall Street Journal (“Subprime mess is a new challenge for regulators", July 23) wrote: “A system designed to distribute risk also tends to breed it.” Correct. The risks to our communities from the bubble in housing markets led to a particularly American form of madness: the assertion by economists and national leaders that inflation was low at the very same time quality of life in urban areas was swamped by unabsorbed costs: inadequate infrastructure piling hundreds of billions of dollars on unwitting taxpayers, bad roadways, degraded wetlands, poor schools, to name a few. Breeding risk is what America’s fastest growing regions did throughout a housing boom whose promoters bucked reason, citizen outrage and complaints, multiplying debt like confetti and putting taxpayers under the yoke of foolishness. We want to get out from under the yoke, Barney. Can you help us? The cause of our national trouble is the market, largely unregulated, for financial derivatives related to housing mortgages. It is a beast with many faces: 10,000 unoccupied condos in downtown Miami, and, tattered, platted subdivisions in South Florida wetlands. The housing boom, now in cinders, deformed the purposes of government to serve political ends. It favored the massive swelling of unallocated costs of growth. The tail is wagging the dog. The House Financial Services Committee does not have to confront the builders’ lobby or their leashed companions: local elected officials who lean on every weak-kneed argument to support unsustainable growth. The Committee has to confront Wall Street. Now that the House Financial Services Committee is scrambling for things to do, focus on the causes of the multi-trillion dollar explosion of financial derivatives, largely without regulation, except for the mutual hand-washing of rating agencies, debt issuers and hedge funds, that swept aside concern for the environment, for wetlands, for the fabric of communities, and substituted a raft of entitlements, protections, supported by engineers and lobbyists and political enablers: the worst being those at the bottom of the legislative rung—local city and county commissioners whose hands are continually poised in the outward position and turned up. It is tempting to make Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stunt-doubles for Wall Street: let them take a beating today for their past fiscal transgressions by assuming the subordinate position as investment vehicles to absorb toxic mortgage waste created during the housing boom of the past decade. That is what is happening, now. Business Week reports: “Why Fannie and Freddie are Fidgety, the financial giants are loaded down with dicey loans and defaults increase." “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been cast as saviors in the housing drama that’s roiling the financial markets… After they stepped in to snap up billions of dollars in subprime loans earlier this year, some politicos declared the duo a point of strength.” Please, Barney, think about it: even if government sponsored entities could pull the nation’s real estate markets from where we are headed, in the end the American taxpayer will have to swallow the toxic waste of financial derivatives buried in failed financial institutions. Excesses of the building boom are still going on in places like Miami where local legislators are so accustomed to doing the bidding of the development lobby, they don't know any other way to behave: approving new development right into the teeth of market failure. Call Wall Street to account, now. Hold Congressional hearings on the trillion dollar array of financial derivatives and the market the risk breeders have created that cares not a whit about the costs it imposes on society. Now is the time for a reckoning about the brain-dead policies that lead to triumph of suburban sprawl, the explosion of unallocated costs of growth, and the massive risk in teetering credit markets. Think about the Congress for the New Urbanism, the leading organization “promoting walkable, neighborhood-based development as an alternative to sprawl.” “Countless communities across the country are suffering from the effects of formless sprawl. These communities need tools to combat traffic congestion, pollution, social and economic division, and loss of community interaction. Unfortunately, it is illegal to practice common sense new urbanist planning in many of these places.” It was the simple genius of Andres Duany, one of the CNU founders, to observe in his home city, Miami, that developers of suburban sprawl had gamed the zoning and building codes so that common sense vanished. And so did fiscal common sense. The structured debt debacle in housing markets is the reverse side of the costs of suburban sprawl. There is a growing attention to “explaining” how the US economy got to the point of a financial crisis in credit markets. Economists talk about “the Hy Minsky moment”: how the cycle of easy credit gathers momentum towards excess and implosion. Barney, it is common sense that the United States Congress should insist on innovations in banking regulations to codify the issuance of financial derivatives, providing incentives to make sure that the next building boom improves the shape of our communities and does not simply revive the failed models of growth that have enriched Wall Street and penalized Americans. This building boom is over, but the chorus who want Congress to protect public health, or wetlands and the environment, the hundreds of millions of Americans who want transit-oriented communities instead of the costs of suburban sprawl need help. The crash in housing markets is revealing an American landscape turned into a dump for toxic financial waste, furthering vast inequities in the wealth of society. We are your constituents. Barney, speak up, now. Alan Farago writes about the environment and politics. He can be reached at alanfarago@yahoo.com.

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