Past News Articles
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| In all of elected Washington, representatives are closest to the people and they know a vote for this outrageous measure is going to end the careers of some colleagues--maybe many of them. This time, the dissenters can claim principle and say they are voting with the folks, while also voting to save their own hides. It adds another deep shock to the system, both in politics and economics, but what an invigorating moment for democracy. |
| The rate of suicides among-active duty soldiers is on pace to surpass both last year's numbers and the rate of suicide in the general U.S. population for the first time since the Vietnam war, according to U.S. Army officials. As of August, 62 Army soldiers have committed suicide, and 31 cases of possible suicide remain under investigation, according to Army statistics. Last year, the Army recorded 115 suicides among its ranks, which was also higher than the previous year. Army officials said that if the trend continues this year, it will pass the nation's suicide rate of 19.5 people per 100,000, a 2005 figure considered the most recent by the government. |
| The House braced for a difficult vote set for Monday on a $700 billion rescue of the financial industry after a weekend of tense negotiations produced a plan that Congressional leaders portrayed as greatly strengthened by new taxpayer safeguards. The 110-page bill, intended to ease a growing credit crisis, came after a frenzied week of political twists and turns that culminated in an agreement between the Bush administration and Congress early Sunday morning. The measure still faced stiff resistance from Republican and Democratic lawmakers who portrayed it as a rush to economic judgment and an undeserved aid package for high-flying financiers who chased big profits through reckless investments. |
| In what is by far the largest bank failure in U.S. history, federal regulators seized Washington Mutual Inc. late Thursday and struck a deal to sell the bulk of its operations to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. The collapse of the Seattle thrift, which was triggered by a wave of deposit withdrawals, marks a new low point in the country's financial crisis. But the deal, as constructed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., could hold some glimmers of hope for the beleaguered banking system because it averts any hit to the bank-insurance fund. |
| The Federal Bureau of Investigation's preliminary inquiries are focusing on whether fraud helped cause some of the troubles at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and American International Group Inc., according to senior law-enforcement officials. Pressure is building for the FBI and regulators to hold top executives accountable for the crisis that has crippled the nation's finance sector. |
| Yesterday, President Bush announced his $700 billion plan to buy out troubled financial institutions. Demanding enormous faith in his administration’s stewardship, the plan “would place no restrictions on the administration other than requiring semiannual reports to Congress, granting the Treasury secretary unprecedented power to buy and resell mortgage debt,” and to hire outside firms “to help manage its purchases.” Further, the proposal provides no oversight mechanism. Bush is demanding unprecedented control over billions of dollars — with no oversight. His history of mismanaging taxpayer dollars should make Americans skeptical of his buyout plan |
| Barack Obama's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee filed a lawsuit Tuesday accusing Michigan Republicans of a scheme to use mortgage foreclosure lists to challenge the voting eligibility of lower-income people who're likely to back Democrats in November. Michigan Republicans denied the allegation. Chairman James Carabelli of the Macomb County Republican Party blamed the suit on a "reckless" report on the Michigan Messenger, a liberal-leaning Web site. Carabelli said that the report misquoted him and that he'd take legal action Wednesday to clear his name. |
| Barack Obama on Monday mocked John McCain's promise to bring change to Washington, saying the Republican presidential nominee has marched loyally with President Bush and was out of touch with the economic distress of struggling Americans. "In 19 months he has not named one thing he would do differently from this administration on the central issue of this election," Obama said of McCain. "Not one thing. And we know that if we go down that path, that the next four years will look exactly like the last eight." |
| Lehman's demise marks the biggest investment bank implosion since Drexel Burnham Lambert's collapse nearly two decades ago and is likely to lead to heavy job losses among its 25,000-plus staff, some of whom were reportedly leaving the bank's Manhattan offices last night with boxes filled with personal belongings. Late Sunday, Bank of America, the United States's second-largest bank by asset size, and Merrill were close to a deal, thought to be valued at US$29 a share. Merrill shares have lost four-fifths of their value from the peak they reached last year, closing at US$17.05 on Friday. |
| Despite all the chatter about how “historic” Campaign 2008 has been, it is the McCain-Palin ticket that it is truly testing the limits, not of race or gender politics, but whether the United States is ready to enter into a new dimension of political lying. Until two weeks ago, it would have been hard to believe that any political figure would have had the audacity to step into the national spotlight by telling the bald-faced lies that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has. Yet, many Americans have embraced her enthusiastically and don’t want to hear anything negative about her. |
| After five years of war in Iraq, Marine suicides doubled between 2006 and 2007, and Army suicides are at the highest level since records were first kept in 1980. Reported suicide attempts jumped 500 percent between 2002 and 2007. Every year since 2004, when the Army sent its first Mental Health Advisory Team to Iraq to study the distressing rash of soldier suicides, and insisted in its final report that "relationship problems" were the root cause, I have tried to find sympathy for Col. Elspeth Ritchie, the Army psychiatrist who always seems to get stuck with the impossible task of announcing that the Army is sticking with that absurdity. For the first time this year, Ritchie has been allowed to add the screamingly obvious qualifier: "Lengthy and multiple combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan cause relationship problems, a leading factor in suicides." |
| With the most politically motivated vice-presidential pick in years, the Republican Party is trying to take full advantage of a convenient double standard they've set up. Under their rules, Republicans can exploit Sarah Palin's sexuality, but Democrats can no longer use the word "lipstick." When asked about Hillary Clinton and her campaign's claims that the media was sexist, Sarah Palin accused Clinton and her campaign of "whining." Now, the McCain campaign claims she is facing unfair scrutiny because she is a woman. A new favorite response of campaign spokespeople who don't have a better answer is "Would that question ever be asked of a man?" |
The world's biggest financial bail-out was staged by the American government in a bid to ease the global credit crisis. The country's two biggest mortgage companies were nationalised amid fears that their bankruptcy would have triggered an economic collapse. The multibillion-dollar rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - dwarfing the UK nationalisation of Northern Rock - will be funded by the American taxpayer. It represents a potential liability of $2,900 billion. The move was welcomed by mortgage experts in the UK, who said it should inject some confidence into the British housing market, which is suffering from the steepest fall in prices since the 1930s.
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| When political junkies flip through television stations on Sunday morning, they'll find policy-driven interviews with three of the four candidates on the presidential tickets — John McCain, Barack Obama and Joe Biden. They won’t, though, see Sarah Palin. Less than two months before voters hit the polls, Palin has yet to sit down for or even schedule an issues-oriented interview with any newspaper, magazine or television network. |
| PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere." THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere." |
| By rolling out the kids, the hockey-mom narrative, the small-town roots, the woman who got rid of the governor's jet and the governor's chef, Sarah Palin struck some populist chords that are likely to resonate with viewers from the other 49 states. But did the Alaskan persuade those watching that she was a potential president? I thought she was less effective in the second half, as she read the speechwriters' words mocking Barack Obama as all talk and no action. Does the former mayor of Wasilla really have the standing to criticize Obama as inexperienced? |
| There are 36 black delegates at the Republican convention here — fewer than 2% of the total and a sharp drop-off from 2004, a think tank reports. The GOP record was set with 6.7% black delegates in 2004. The Democratic Party, which has targets for minority representation, said a record 24.5% of delegates at its convention last week were black. That's about twice the percentage of blacks in the U.S. population, according to the Census Bureau. |
| A series of disclosures about Gov. Sarah Palin, Senator John McCain’s choice as running mate, called into question on Monday how thoroughly Mr. McCain had examined her background before putting her on the Republican presidential ticket. On Monday morning, Ms. Palin and her husband, Todd, issued a statement saying that their 17-year-old unmarried daughter, Bristol, was five months pregnant and that she intended to marry the father. |
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