Thursday, September 11, 2008

RESTORING THE RULE OF LAW AfterDowningStreet: "U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, Chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, will hold a hearing on Tuesday, September 16, on 'Restoring the Rule of Law'. During the hearing, the Subcommittee will hear testimony from legal and historical experts on what steps the next president and the next Congress must take to repair the damage done by the Bush Administration to the rule of law. The hearing is an effort to provide the next president with a full range of recommendations for reestablishing appropriate checks and balances in a variety of areas, including warrantless wiretapping, interrogation standards, detention policy, abuse of executive privilege, excessive government secrecy, violations of privacy and misleading Congress." New book coming up: In Debt We Trust. Change is in the air: Guardian: "Although Brown has all but ruled out a windfall tax on energy companies, it turns out that his rightwing Italian counterpart has had no qualms about introducing one of his own. It is known as the Robin Hood tax, and, according to Berlusconi, it's gone down a storm. 'We resorted to this in order to do something about the balance sheets of those companies that have profited from rises in gas and oil prices in particular,' Berlusconi said." Nader: "When Members of Congress or the Administration or the corporate CEOs or the empirically starved right-wing ideologues start whining about regulation the right-wing echo chamber goes wild. When the absence of adequate regulation lets an industry wreak havoc, Congress and the Administration meekly admit a bit of regulation might have averted disaster. The corporate CEOs, expelled with their lucrative golden parachutes, have 'no comment'. The taxpayers, who are too often the guarantors of last resort and who are stuck with the tab, are asking each other why their public watchdogs were asleep at the switch. The Washington merry-go-round is something to behold. As the recent headlines note, the Federal Government has taken over the giant companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) is using the legal process of a 'conservatorship' to 'stabilize' Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Talk about regulation! We and others have been telling members of Congress, government regulators and members of the media about the structural and operational problems of Fannie and Freddie for years. In 1991, lawyer Tom Stanton, a former colleague, warned about the risks and non-regulation of Fannie and Freddie in his prophetic book - A State of Risk (Harper Business). In May of 1998, we even held a conference dedicated to Fannie and Freddie." Profits are privatized and losses are socialized. That's capitalism. By the way, you did know that Nader is again running for president, did you? 11:13:49 AM

© Copyright 2008 Hetty Litjens.