Foreign Investors Have More Control Over The US Economy Than Americans

Pravda
07/23/2007

America’s leading public finance watchdog has sounded a warning that the US economy is vulnerable to hostile financial actions by nations that are not its “allies”.

David Walker, the US comptroller general, indicated that the huge holdings of American government debt by countries such as China, Saudi Arabia and Libya could leave a powerful financial weapon in the hands of countries that may be hostile to US corporate and diplomatic interests.

Mr Walker told The Times that foreign investors have more control over the US economy than Americans, leaving the country in a state that was “financially imprudent”.
He said: “More and more of our debt is held by foreign countries – some of which are our allies and some are not.” Read More

Bush Aides Face Contempt Vote Wednesday

Copyright 2007 AFX News Limited
AFX.COM
July 23, 2007 Monday 10:44 PM GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) - House Democrats on Monday targeted two of President Bush's longtime aides for criminal contempt citations, escalating a legal fight over executive privilege and access to White House deliberations on the firings of federal prosecutors.

Rep. John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said his panel would vote Wednesday on citing White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former Counsel Harriet Miers for contempt of Congress. Read More

Hannity: Sen. Vitter Should Resign

Think Progress

July 19, 2007

When Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) replaced former Rep. Bob Livingston (R-LA) — who “abruptly resigned after disclosures of numerous affairs” in 1998 — he argued that an extramarital affair was grounds for resignation:

“I think Livingston’s stepping down makes a very powerful argument that Clinton should resign as well and move beyond this mess,” he said. [Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 12/20/98]

Calling Vitter a “hypocrite-in-chief,” TriCities.com writes today, “If U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., were one-quarter the man he claims to be, he would resign his office over links to a D.C. escort service.” The op-ed continues, “Vitter is a bigger hypocrite than most,” noting his prior criticisms of Clinton. “Vitter is the worst kind of a politician: A man who hoists himself upon a family-values pedestal and condemns others who don’t ascend with him.”

Even right-wing pundit Sean Hannity is getting into the act. Last night on Fox, Hannity said that Vitter should heed his own advice and resign. Read More

Pakistan Troops Kill 19 Militants, US Backs Musharraf

Middle East Times

July 22, 2007


MIRANSHAH, Pakistan -- Pakistani troops killed 19 militants in clashes near the Afghan border, officials said Sunday, a day after the US president fully backed Islamabad's efforts to combat extremism.

Six rebels died in a gunbattle Sunday after they ambushed a troop convoy with a roadside bomb in the tribal agency of North Waziristan, where fighting continued with helicopter gunships, the army said.

Troops also killed 13 pro-Taliban fighters in overnight clashes after the rebels attacked several military checkpoints in the lawless region, where authorities were simultaneously trying to revive a 10-month-old peace deal.

Fighting in the rugged border lands has intensified amid a wave of Islamist bloodshed that has killed more than 200 people nationwide, sparked by the army's storming of the radical Red Mosque in Islamabad earlier this month.

US President George W. Bush in his weekly radio address Saturday linked the US global campaign against Al Qaeda to Pakistan's efforts to quell Islamist violence, including the deadly storming of the pro-Taliban mosque. Read More

The Logic of Impeachment

By Robert Parry July 21, 2007
Consortium News

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has taken impeachment “off the table,” in line with Official Washington’s view that trying to oust George W. Bush and Dick Cheney would be an unpleasant waste of time. But there is emerging a compelling logic that an unprecedented dual impeachment might be vital to the future of the United States.

If some historic challenge is not made to the extraordinary assertions of power by President Bush and Vice President Cheney, the United States might lose its status as a democratic Republic based on a Constitution that adheres to the twin principles that no one is above the law and everyone is endowed with inalienable rights.

Over the past six-plus years, Bush has trampled on these traditional concepts of liberty and the rule of law time and again, even as he professes his love of freedom and democracy. Indeed, in Bush’s world, the word “freedom” has come to define almost its classical opposite.

Bush’s “freedom” means the right of the Executive to imprison enemies of the state indefinitely without charge and without even the centuries-old right of habeas corpus; Bush’s “freedom” tolerates coercion, torture or what the Founders called “cruel and unusual punishment” to extract confessions from detainees; it countenances surveillance of anyone – citizen and non-citizen alike – without a requirement for judicial review or evidence of probable cause that a crime is being committed; it sees no problem with the government and its private-sector allies teaming up to silence dissent.

Bush’s “freedom” also embraces the notion of a Commander in Chief acting as a quasi-dictator possessing “plenary” – or unlimited – powers in wartime, deciding which human beings on the planet get basic rights and which ones don’t. Read More

Watchdog Group: Government Awards Contracts Despite Firms' Misconduct

By Roxana Tiron The Hill
Thursday 19 July 2007

A watchdog organization is calling attention to what it deems the government's failure to properly vet the companies to which it awards hundreds of billions of dollars in contracts.

The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) yesterday released a revamped database detailing misconduct by the top 50 government contractors, including some of the world's largest military hardware, information technology, construction and energy companies. The database is stirring up criticism from industry members concerned that minor or even irrelevant issues are given too much attention.

POGO, which for years has criticized government waste in defense-related and other programs, said it set up the database due to the lack of centralized federal tracking of misconduct.

The new database includes instances of misconduct from 1995 to the present. POGO found that in fiscal 2005, the top 50 federal contractors received $178 billion in contracts out of a total of $384 billion in federal awards. Since 1995, the top 50 contractors paid $12 billion in fines, penalties, restitution or civil settlements for what POGO identified as more than 370 instances of misconduct.

In 2006 alone, the federal government collected $3.1 billion in settlements and judgments in cases involving allegations of fraud against the government, according to the Department of Justice. Since 1986 the government has collected $18 billion. Read More

Olbermann: Go to Iraq and fight, Mr. President

Olbermann: Go to Iraq and fight, Mr. President
Bush’s latest choice of scapegoat — Hillary Clinton — boggles the mind

By Keith Olbermann
Anchor, 'Countdown'
MSNBC
Updated: 8:39 p.m. ET July 19, 2007

It is one of the great, dark, evil lessons, of history.
A country — a government — a military machine — can screw up a war seven ways to Sunday. It can get thousands of its people killed. It can risk the safety of its citizens. It can destroy the fabric of its nation.

But as long as it can identify a scapegoat, it can regain or even gain power. The Bush administration has opened this Pandora’s Box about Iraq. It has found its scapegoats: Hillary Clinton and us. Read More