Measuring a political disaster, derivative securities now taking down the financial system, troubles for homeowners, but bankers get bailed out, Inflation problems need to be cleansed out of system, Bear Stearns saved to enrich JP Morgan, addressing the criminal monstrosity

Suzy Jagger
March 31, 2008
One of America’s leading banking associations has given warning that the United States faces a growing educational apartheid as some lenders withdraw from student loans amid new evidence that the credit crisis has spread across all types of borrowing.

Cites no evidence to substantiate claim
Paul Joseph Watson
Monday, March 31, 2008
Citing absolutely no evidence whatsoever, CIA boss Michael Hayden told NBC’s Meet The Press yesterday that Al-Qaeda is training new fighters that “look western” and could easily cross U.S. borders, in the latest attempt to re-focus the mammoth apparatus of anti-terror against the American […]

Search engine company has long been in bed with intelligence network
Steve Watson
Monday, March 31, 2008
Google is supplying the software, hardware and tech support to US intelligence agencies who are in the process of creating a vast closed source database for global spy networks to share information.

Rep. Ron Paul
These past few weeks have provided an unfortunate opportunity to discuss inflation. The dollar index has reached new all-time lows. The total money supply, M3, as calculated by private sources, is growing at a disturbing 17% rate. The Fed is pumping dollars into the economy at an alarming rate. Just […]

Monday, March 31, 2008
COLUMBIA - Governor Mark Sanford on Monday responded to the federal government’s REAL ID mandate, asking that our state’s citizens not be treated differently from other states that have laws on their books preventing the implementation of the national ID card program.

Erin McCormick, Christopher Heredia,Carolyn Jones
Sunday, March 30, 2008
A city nurse earned $350,000. A fire department battalion chief pulled in more than twice as much as the mayor. And a municipal park ranger took home $188,000 in overtime on top of his $71,000 salary.

By Larry Pratt
Sic Semper Tyrannis. I read that Latin phrase in the seal of the
stationery the Commonwealth of Virginia issued me shortly after I was sworn in as a member of the General Assembly. It was also on my state-issued business cards identifying me as a member of the House of Delegates. Of course, I […]

By Fayen Wong
Mon Mar 31, 2008
PERTH (Reuters) - Oil fell to $105 a barrel on Monday, extending Friday’s decline, after the restart of a crude pipeline system in Iraq eased fears of an extended exports disruption from the country’s oil-rich south.

By Rachel Graham
March 31 (Bloomberg) — Gold rose in London, leading other precious metals higher, as global stocks headed for the worst quarter since 2002, increasing the attractiveness of commodities as an alternative investment.
The 1,941-member MSCI World Index has dropped 10 percent this quarter, which would be the worst performance since the third quarter […]

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
31/03/2008
Every slump is punctuated by exuberant bursts of optimism, known to traders as “bear market rallies”. Japan had four false dawns during its long slide into the abyss. Each lifted Tokyo’s Nikkei index by an average of 53pc. Such bounces can be intoxicating.

The big banks’ fear of big losses is threatening to bring down the entire system, with dire consequences for all of us. Here’s what’s going on, and what we can do about it.
By Allan Sloan
March 31, 2008
What in the world is going on here? Why is Washington spending billions to bail out Wall Street titans […]

By Barb Ickes
Monday, March 31, 2008
It evidently took a few days to sink in.
When my story from last week about plans for a truckers’ strike appeared Monday on the high-traffic Drudge Report Web site, the calls and e-mails poured in.
I heard from CNN in Atlanta as well as small-time radio stations across the […]

Not everyone thought the Iraq war was a good idea.
STEVEN GREENHUT
March 30, 2008
The U.S. war in Iraq recently passed its five-year milestone, having now lasted longer than American involvement in World War II. The surge has brought some recent success, but it has not helped bring about the stated goal of political reconciliation. That might, […]

More doublespeak on the situation in Iraq
Ivan Eland
March 31, 2008
Some things never change. In a continuation of the Bush administration’s Orwellian doublespeak on the Iraq War, President Bush recently gave an upbeat speech in Dayton, Ohio, extolling the progress in Iraq and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s military offensive in the southern oil […]

Justin Raimondo
The recent increase in fighting around Basra, which is rapidly spreading to Baghdad, has the punditariat in a lather. Their sacred Surge has turned into a mere splurge – of resources, lives, and misplaced hope. Well, I could have told you that, and, indeed, I did. But never mind the chattering classes, their delusions […]

by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
In response to an LRC review of a (Distortion of) History Channel “documentary” on Sherman’s march to the sea by Clyde Wilson, Valerie Protopapas of Huntington Station, New York, took it upon herself to go to the library and research Sherman herself. Sherman’s History Channel image of a heroic and benevolent egalitarian […]

by Charley Reese
Republicans waited too late to nominate John McCain. When he ran in 2000, he was bright and alert, but they chose George W. Bush, the pseudo good old boy and country-wrecker. Now they want to hand the presidency to McCain, soon to be 72 years old. He’s not up to it.

By: Geoff Metcalf
Monday, March 31, 2008
“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.”
–P.J. O’Rourke
So the Treasury Department wants Congress to gift the Federal Reserve with broad new authority and power to ride rough shod over financial market stability (or lack thereof). The New York Times described […]

New superpowers are competing for diminishing resources as Britain becomes a bit-player. The outcome could be deadly
John Gray
March 30 2008
History may not repeat itself, but, as Mark Twain observed, it can sometimes rhyme. The crises and conflicts of the past recur, recognisably similar even when altered by new conditions. At present, a race for […]

By Paul Craig Roberts
Mar 31, 2008
The US Congress, the US media, the American people, and the United Nations, are looking the other way as Cheney prepares his attack on Iran.
If only America had an independent media and an opposition party. If there were a shred of integrity left in American political life, perhaps a third […]

Leo Lewis
March 31, 2008
An escalating war of words across the world’s last Cold War, nuclear-armed border spiraled dramatically yesterday when North Korea threatened to wreak total destruction on its neighbour to the south.
“Our military will not sit idle until warmongers launch a pre-emptive strike,” the official news agency in Pyongyang reported a senior military […]

Nick Turse
March 30, 2008
We at Tomdispatch love anniversaries. So how could we have forgotten DARPA’s for so many months? This very year, the Pentagon’s research outfit, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), turns 50 old. Happy birthday, DARPA! You were born as a response to the Soviet Union’s launching of the first earth-girdling […]

By ERIC LICHTBLAU
March 30, 2008
The National Security Agency’s eavesdropping program sparked heated legal concerns and silent protests inside the Bush administration within hours of its adoption in October 2001, according to current and former government officials.

What’s behind the boom in homeland-security and emergency-management majors?
By Jessica Portner
The traditionally slow-moving education industry is churning out a slew of students with specialties in “mass catastrophe” and “international disaster.” More than 200 colleges have created homeland-security degree and certificate programs since 9/11, and another 144 have added emergency management with a terrorism bent.

By Spencer S. Hsu
March 30, 2008
The governors of Maine and South Carolina are working with the Department of Homeland Security to avert a showdown before tomorrow’s deadline over a federal demand for new driver’s licenses that could leave residents of those states unable to board aircraft, officials said.

Mar 29, 2008
It was no big surprise that Total Fed Credit was up a whopping US$9.6 billion last week as the Fed continued creating money and credit to bail out its nasty little friends on Wall Street to prevent the boom, that resulted from decades of the Federal Reserve stupidly creating too much money […]

The once-unchallenged world hegemony of the US currency is under threat as its value plummets and investors desert it.
Richard Wachman
Sunday March 30 2008
Lurking behind the headline-grabbing stories about the credit crunch, the US housing crash and the near-death experiences of Northern Rock and Bear Stearns, is the bigger one about the slump in the […]

By Liam Halligan
30/03/2008
The dollar is taking a pounding. With the US sinking deeper into recession, the greenback recently hit an all-time low against the euro and a 12-year low against the yen.
Last week, America’s currency fell again - dropping more than 2 per cent in euro terms, to $1.5779. On a trade-weighted basis, the dollar […]

Deanna Spingola
03/30/08
Oil greed generates war! International banksters, in London and New York, had quickly recognized that control of petroleum was essential to power and profit. After Britain’s Rothschild-orchestrated depression of 1873 (coincided with the U.S. stock market crash of September 18, 1873), a growing divergence existed “between the depressed economy of the British Empire and […]

McCain, Lieberman and Rev. Hagee
By CHRISTOPHER BRAUCHLI
March 29 / 30, 2008
As John McCain and his presumptive vice-presidential running mate, Joe Lieberman, toured the middle East together (Joe to remind John of who is on first in Iraq so as to correct gaffs born of John’s ignorance or old age, and John to demonstrate that notwithstanding […]

By Tom Leonard
Police in Miami are expected to become the first force in the United States to use hi-tech pilotless drones to fight crime.
The small spy-in-the-sky contraptions fit into a backpack and are capable of vertical takeoff and landing. Their manufacturer, Honeywell International, has installed technology that allows the 14lb wingless drone to “stare” […]

By Staff Reporter of the Sun
March 28, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO — Attorney General Mukasey, in an emotional plea for broad surveillance authority in the war on terror, is warning that the price for failing to empower the government would be paid in American lives. Officials “shouldn’t need a warrant when somebody with a phone in Iraq […]

By Matthew Rothschild
3-30-8
The odds of Bush bombing Iran have gone up dramatically this week.
There’s just no other way to rationally interpret the resignation of Admiral William Fallon as head of Centcom.
Fallon resigned, and more likely was pushed out, after Esquire published an article on him entitled “The Man Between War and […]

Jim Kirwan
3-29-8
The various electronic tickertapes in Times Square ought to carry the truth for a change, which if they did, might convey the following advisories:
“Promises Are Prosperity; Lies Are Truth; Ignorance Is Strength;
Freedom Is Slavery; and of course: War Is Peace.”

Judith Moriarty
3-29-8
Cheney dragging his evil ass over there wasn’t to watch soccer games - which, by the way, GWB says proves how great the country is doing - HONEST TO GOD THE DOLT SAID THIS a couple days ago! Most people- namely because we get NO news - don’t realize that GWB’s surge consisted on […]

Saturday, March 29, 2008
A new BBC documentary supports the conclusion that the CIA planned and executed the assassination of Robert Kennedy. The new video and photographic evidence — the result of a three year long investigation –”puts three senior CIA operatives” at the scene of the murder.

Bankruptcies in America
The recent rise in corporate bankruptcies in America may well be a sign of much worse to come
The Economist
Mar 27th 2008
CAPITALISM without bankruptcy, it is said, is like Christianity without hell. With recession looming, the air in America’s bankruptcy courts is thick with brimstone and the coals are being heated in readiness […]

By Cliff Kincaid
March 29, 2008
In his March 26 speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, McCain never mentioned the need to preserve American sovereignty. He could have reassured conservatives by stating his forthright opposition to Senate ratification of the U.N.’s Law of the Sea Treaty, which provides for international control over billions of […]

By Jim R. Schwiesow
March 29, 2008
“It is the system of nationalist individualism that has to go…We are living in the end of the sovereign states…In the great struggle to evoke a Westernized World Socialism, contemporary governments may vanish…Countless people…will hate the new world order…and will die protesting against it.” — H.G. Wells

Henry Lamb describes federal boondoggle where ‘the inmates run the asylum’
By Henry Lamb
March 29, 2008
Youngsters who are just entering the workplace have never known the difference. Baby boomers and beyond know that government rules and regulations have increased exponentially and continue to squeeze freedom from almost every endeavor. Few people recognized the incremental constrictions, nor […]

by Paul Gottfried
Richard Brookhiser is a National Review senior editor and the author of a readable biography of Alexander Hamilton. But his job in recent years seems to involve repeating neoconservative opinions, perhaps in his capacity as an upper-class WASP with a courteous manner and a soft voice. Typically I skim over Brookhiser’s commentaries as […]

by Bill Bonner
“My bills are all due
And the kids all need shoes
And I’m busted
“Coffee is down
To a quarter a pound
And I’m busted.
“I went to my brother to ask for a loan
‘Cause I was busted
I took the bait like a dog takes a bone
‘Cause I was busted

By Dr. Laurie Roth
March 28, 2008
It just never stops! Last week I was contacted by a reliable source that had put together the nightmare connections of some of Obama’s fundraisers and supporters (for details go to www.therothshow.com and click on Jim Kouri’s article link as well). A few of these connections have been quickly touched […]

by Butler Shaffer
There is nothing more frightening than active ignorance.~ Johann von Goethe
I am often reminded of the time H.L. Mencken was interviewed by a young newspaper reporter. The question was asked: “why, if you find so much that is unworthy of reverence in the United States, do you continue to live here?” Mencken responded: […]

By David Alan Black
March 27, 2008
Today I viewed the monumental new PBS documentary, Bush’s War – four and a half hours about the deceit and incompetence that got us to where we are in Iraq. It struck me as a very admirable job. It is a disturbing report to say the least.

by Michael Tennant
Dr. Walter E. Williams is an excellent economist. He’s fairly libertarian when it comes to domestic policy in general. But turn him loose on foreign policy, at least in the post-9/11 era, and suddenly all that skepticism about government goes out the window.

New video and photographic evidence that puts three senior CIA operatives at the scene of Robert Kennedy’s assassination has been brought to light.
The evidence was shown in a report by Shane O’Sullivan, broadcast on BBC Newsnight.

By: Alan Stang
Friday, March 28, 2008
(Please bear in mind that I am writing the thoughts below under intense sniper fire. News With Views always sends your Intrepid Correspondent wherever there is danger. As you will see, I did not lose my nerve. I did not cravenly run for cover, head down.)

By: Henry Makow
Friday, March 28, 2008
Greg Hallett’s book “Hitler Was A British Agent” depicts war as a ghoulish illusion conjured by occult magicians in order to degrade and eventually enslave humanity in world government.
Hallett’s claim that Hitler was a “British” agent is based on the testimony of a shadowy network of retired intelligence […]

Ilana Mercer slams candidates
for advocating state-is-king taxing policies
By Ilana Mercer
March 28, 2008
Obama is an ass with ears when it comes to the economy. The same goes for Clinton. So Sen. McCain did not help himself (or us) by being charmingly self-deprecating about his understanding of the economy. He has allowed Obama and Clinton, infinitely more […]

Pat Buchanan hails latest efforts to end affirmative action
By Patrick J. Buchanan
March 28, 2008
In his Philadelphia address on race, Sen. Obama identified as a root cause of white resentment affirmative action – the punishing of white working- and middle-class folks for sins they did not commit: