Tale of Two Cities

The Illustrated Version

The Realtime Version

A tip of the hat for the Latuff image goes to Israel’s 60th Birthday.

UK Jewish MP: Israel acting like Nazis in Gaza

George Galloway “The West has DOUBLE STANDARDS when it comes to Israel”

California controller to suspend tax refunds, welfare checks

Reporting from Sacramento — State Controller John Chiang announced today that his office would suspend tax refunds, welfare checks, student grants and other payments owed to Californians starting Feb. 1, as a result of the state’s cash crisis.

[read the rest here]

Chomsky’s Speech on Gaza at MIT

sorry folks, no Youtube version that I can find, so here is the link. It is glitchy so you have to let it download before playing. just let it sit there for a while before you play it.  It’s worth the wait.

click on picture to link to video

Kucinich Ready To Go After The Federal Reserve!

This is what a democrat sounds like for those of you out there who have forgotten or never really knew.

Still Another Obama™ Payday for “Big Banking” While Granny Starts Looking at Dog-Food

Grand-dad's Retirement Plan

Part of the Obama™ stimulus package is a provision that allows businesses who posted a loss just this past year, to receive from the Federal Government a refunds of their income taxes paid over the following 5 years.  They get all their tax money back.

“I think it’s creative, I think it’s bold,” Wein said. “It’s going to get a lot of backing from Republicans for the obvious reasons.” AP

So right on time, Citibank and Bank of America post their losses for 2008, with one hand already stuffed full of TARP money, the other hand writing themselves an invoice from the U.S. government to pay them back everything they paid in taxes from the past 5 years.

There has been harsh blame for Citigroup’s woes directed at the board, too — and the company said Friday it plans to get rid of more board members after the recent departure of long-time director and former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. MSNBC

So while the Federal Government gets ready to cut Big-Banking more TARP checks, and the IRS is printing out their refund checks, Obama™ is telling us we have to do something “radical” to fix Social Security and that we all have to make sacrifices to fix this economy.

President-elect Barack Obama said Wednesday that overhauling Social Security and Medicare would be “a central part” of his administration’s efforts to contain federal spending, signaling for the first time that he would wade into the thorny politics of entitlement programs.  AE

And all the while it may have been Paulson’s Treasury department that was helping “Big Banking” cook the books…. (as if we needed confirmation of that fact…)

Investigators probing how Treasury regulators allowed a bank to falsify financial records hiding its ill health have found at least three other instances of similar apparent fraud, sources tell ABC News. ABC News

Obama vows to reshape entitlement programs Says Social Security, Medicare linked to long-term economic recovery

President-elect Barack Obama pledged yesterday to shape a new Social Security and Medicare “bargain” with the American people, saying that the nation’s long-term economic recovery cannot be attained unless the government finally gets control over its most costly entitlement programs. MSNBC

(what? Social Security is the most “costly entitlement program”? And they want “control” control over that? What about the banker entitlement program that congress has no idea how it’s being used? How about the Fed handing over 1.3 trillion dollars of tax-payer dollars with no indication of where it went? What about the Pentagon and the missing trillions there?)

[read the rest of the article, here]

Taxpayers’ Billions: How Banks Are Using It

The lack of details mirrors the responses provided by the Treasury Department, which is overseeing the TARP program, to a congressional oversight panel.

In a sharply worded report released last week, the panel said it “still does not know what the banks are doing with taxpayer money.”

[read the rest of the article here]

Obama Urges Congress Not to Block the Bailout

Half of that money has already been used up by the Bush Administration, and with little indication that such usage has helped ease the flow of lending to consumers and businesses, members of Congress are loath to hand over the rest of the money without guarantees of greater oversight and transparency.

[read the rest of the article, here]