MarlinAddict

See, you're assuming because they were paid members of Kerry's staff, of which during a campaign is comprised of THOUSANDS, that they were explicitly told by Kerry to do so. Which none of the court documents, or stories about, even REMOTELY assume. It's an assumption you've made on your own. Wrong again. You are remarkable in the way you blatantly ignore the facts. Here again, is exactly what I said: I have never seen any evidence that Kerry knew of, approved, or would have approved of the tire slashing incident; I don't hold him responsible. How on earth were you able to turn that into me assuming that Kerry explicitly told them to slash tires?

You think I'M ignoring the truth? The person who posted that 20 cars were vandalized by "Kerry supporters" as compared to the freaking WHITE HOUSE and I'm the one who can't face reality because I searched this story on other sites and found dick. True. I guess I'm the one living in denial. This administration doesn't suck regardless of whether or not the original allegations are true. Typical. Yes, you are ignoring the truth. I don't know why. If you are like so many other of the far left, it may be just because the truth doesn't fit your agenda. I don't know what you read, but why don't you Google, Yahoo, or Dogpile "Kerry Tire Slashing" and read any of the numerous reports? They say the same thing about paid staff member slashing tires. Get it straight, at this time, there is only a vague stretch of the story that even has the smallest implication of the administration. The were paid member of Kerry's campaign staff indicited for the tire slashing. Neither Bush nor Kerry are or were implicated. The far left is trying to extrapolate that Bush himself authorized and executed the jamming, and ignoring facts and jumping to conclusions to do so. And, for what it's worth, you seem to imply that (1) I approve of either incident, and (2) am in love with the current administration. If so, you are wrong on both counts. As for the first apparent implication, I think both incidents should be fully investigated, and prosecuted. As for calling the White House, there are thousands of employees. Further, most calls to the White House never are received in that building, including these particular calls. These calls went to the political affairs office, which is actually located in the Old Executive Office Building. For whatever reason, employee of the OEOB are called White House employees, and have been for decades. I guess its just an ego trip, just like how in DC people bragged about being on Cipro during the anthrax scare in 2001. I have never seen any evidence that Kerry knew of, approved, or would have approved of the tire slashing incident; I don't hold him responsible. Further, I have never seen any evidence that Bush knew of, approved, or would have approved of the phone jamming incident; I don't hold him responsible. As for the second implication, I think the Bush administration is dreck and will go down as doing more harm to this country than any other in our livetimes (at least I hope we don't get something even worse in the future). While I believe there are media source that have a left slant, I also believe there are those that have a right slant. For example, there is all kinds of celebration today about the trade deficit dropping from $68.5 billion in January to "only" $65.7 billion in February. First, in China, factories and businesses were shut down during the lunar new year in February. Also, in January the daily trade deficit was $2.21 billion. In February, the daily trade deficit was $2.35 billion (a per-day growth of about 6% in one month even with the shutdown for the lunar new year). The right wing media is ignoring this in its analysis. Also, since getting an increase in the spending limit March 16, the administration has expanded the deficit from $2.1 billion a day to $3.2 billion a day. Even this new cap will be hit in less than 6 months (my estimated target date is September 6). The cap went from $8.184 trillion to 9 trillion. The deficit, as of yesterday, was already at 8.407 trillion. We should all be appalled at Bush's recklessness. The right wing media is ignorning it, and the left wing is more interested in superficial news. Most recounts actually favored Gore, but in the Supreme Court case (Bush v. Gore) the Supreme Court voted 5-4 in his favor to end the recounts and make Bush president. There were 13 post-election media reccounts, including Miami Herald, USA Today, Knight-Ridder, Tampa Tribune and others. Bush won all 13. The Universityy of California Irvine, which included overvotes (more than one presidental candidate received a vote) Gore won by 3 votes. However, overvotes are illegal and, by law, stricken from the counts of all candidates. It was impossible for Gore to have won unless overvotes were counted.

Here's one link that's still online link about Operation Elephant Takeover - gotta love that name. I'm skeptical they worked for Kerry after reading that article. If they some idiot from the campaign hired them, yeah, it's still shady. But 20 vehicles? Meh, that's nothing compared to all the votes not counted in Florida in the first election... You must think Ted Kennedy is a conservative. You can't face reality, and have a habit of ignoring the truth. and don't forget Bush won in all 14 of the left-wing recounts that were held after the election.

Here's one link that's still online link about Operation Elephant Takeover - gotta love that name.

I agree there's a big difference between a couple of people slashing tires, and the actual party itself, or at least part of it, deliberately trying to interfere with an election. The tire slashers, or at least some of them (the slashing of RNC van tires was widespread) were paid staffers of the Kerry campaign. Neither case is acceptable. When somebody's right to vote is violated, no matter what the circumstances, to claim that one means is more acceptable than another. Any attempt to do so is foolish.

Kinda offsets the Kerry's supporters slashing the tires of the vans that were to be used to take republican voters to the polls. Doesn't justify either act, and both have the same purpose as the KKK prevent-the-vote tactics. I get 99% of my articles from MSNBC.com. Nobody should rely that heavily on a single source. Probably all media outlets have an agenda. To only listen to the news you want to hear is, well, sad.

Latest (March 6) Cenus Bureau Monthly US Manufacturers' Report New orders for manufactured durable goods: Down 9.9% New orders for manufactured nondurabable goods: Down 2.2% Unfilled orders: Down 0.7% Shipments of durable goods: Down 1.3% Shipments of nondurable goods: Up 2.2% As for housing, which was 55% of our growth last year, the lastest (March 16) Census Bureau/HUD Residental Contruction Report: Building permits: Down 1.1% Housing starts: Down 7.9% Housing completions: Down 1.7% Now, the stock market made some gains this week, in fact the best in two months. When you look at who was investing, it wasn't just the instituions playing the tinies on trade. It was the poor sheep clients listening to their the non-related degreed brokers for investments. They talked their clients out of the bonds (where they were sitting on very decent yields) into the stocks. While already locked in on their yields, they were told to sell off as future yields were not looking so good as the economy was slowing down. The sheep sold off and bought stocks high. It made for a few great days for day trading - it was 1999 all over again. The rest of the world is hitting its saturation point with the US$. We can't even cover our current accounts, and foreign investment is the dollar is falling short of our needs. Congress is considering adding huge (27%) tariffs on all Chinese imports unless China raises the value of the yuan. First off, this does nothing to put our house in order, just make imports more expensive. If we manufactured the types of goods here that we import, the tariffs might help - but that is not the case. It's just inflationary, without helping US manufacturing or employment. Meanwhile, at the central bankers conference last week, the rest of the world just simply p!ssed off at us - rightfully so. Bernake handled it poorly, burned bridges, and the rest of the world told us to lay off China as the problem is our currency is 40% overvalued, which is the problem rather than yuan being undervalued. Bernake is faced with raising interest rates while the economy is slowing down and the rates should either hold or even retreat. He has to do this to support of the US$ in order to re-attract foreign investment, which is now showing serious signs of drying up. With the CPI slowing down, manufacturing falling off, and unemployment taking another tick up to 4.8%, leading economic indicators falling, and consumer confidence declining, rates should, at most, hold. If anyone paid attention to the preceding indicators for January, there was no reason for the Fed hike at that time (other than to support the US$ in order pay for the deficit). A 4.75% rate is built into the markets for the upcoming Fed meeting. An eventual rate of 5% is build in for time frames from May to September. The stock market will not accept anything much above 5.0%, and the high rates are throttling growth and employment. As the dollar declines, we should ideally be able to cut into the deficit not only by importing less, but also exporting more (read: jobs). In major sectors, other than energy (which is not exactly a big export item), manufacturing is not looking very healthy. It's going to take some time, probably at least a couple years, for the falling US$ to result in decent jobs so that we do have something to export. We should be able to tool up pretty quick with wheat, which died as an export as the US$ made Chinese, Austrailian, and Russian wheat less expensive for other countries to import. Unfortunately, that will not provide jobs to the broader, non-farm market. Still, watch for Bernanke to try to keep the dollar from falling in order to cover the deficit, and further hurt US jobs. The stock market is not the economy. Most of the manufacturing for the companies traded on the stock market occurs off our shores. Wal-Mart does wonderful things for Chinese employment. "Great" is not the word to describe the US economy.

Published: 03/17/2006 12:00 AM (UAE) UK breaks with the US over Iran By Patrick Seale, Special to Gulf News Britain has told the United States that it will not take part in any armed action against Iran's nuclear sites, according to diplomatic sources in London. Alreading facing huge public criticism for his participation in the Iraq war, Prime Minister Tony Blair is seeking to distance himself from America's belligerent rhetoric towards Iran. Blair knows he would probably not survive the political storm if Britain joined in an attack on Iran. The concern in Whitehall, however, is that the Bush administration, egged on by Israel and its powerful friends in the United States, risks developing an unstoppable momentum towards war a war in which Britain clearly wants no part. There is a real fear that if Iran refuses to yield to pressure either by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) or by the UN Security Council to which Iran was formally referred on March 8 then the US would be left with no other option than to strike. The US may indeed have boxed itself into a corner by its threats, which Iran has scornfully rejected. The view in Whitehall is that if America attacks Iran, it will have to do so alone or with Israel. In private discussions, British officials have made clear that any sort of military campaign against Iran would be "madness". Close alliance Despite its close alliance with the US, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has departed publicly from aggressive statements by senior US officials. He has ruled out military action by Britain against Iran as "inconceivable". Last week, Britain announced it was pulling 800 men out of Iraq one tenth of its force there. This is seen as a signal that Britain is seeking to limit its involvement in America's wars, rather than take on additional commitments. Carefully monitoring opinion in Washington, British officials have noted with alarm that the advocates of confrontation with Iran, both inside and outside the administration, have triumphed over the few brave souls who dared argue in favour of dialogue and engagement. Analysts in London are now convinced that Washington's real aim is "regime change" in Tehran, an ambition which goes far beyond merely delaying or halting Iran's nuclear programme. The Washington Post reported this week that Iran had moved to the top of America's national security agenda. Quite apart from the large teams devoted to the Iran problem in the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies, 10 people are now working full time on the Iran desk at the State Department, and an American outpost of Tehran-watchers has been established in the Gulf. Earlier this month US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared: "We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran whose policies are directed at developing a Middle East that would be 180 degrees different from the Middle East that we would like to see develop." In a bid to undermine the mullahs, she is planning to spend $85 million expanding American radio and TV broadcasts to Iran and promote internal opposition. In a widely reported speech on March 7 to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the main pro-Israeli lobby, Vice-President Dick Cheney declared: "The United States is keeping all options on the table in addressing the irresponsible conduct of the [iranian] regime ? We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon." On the same day, General Moshe Ya'alon, a former Israeli chief of staff, told a Washington audience that Israel could launch an attack on Iran in several different ways, not just from the air. This was seen as a reference to Israel's Dolphin class submarines, armed with American Harpoon nuclear missiles, which are thought to be targeted at Iran. As with the invasion of Iraq, the campaign against Iran seems to be driven by neocons and other pro-Israeli activists. Richard Perle one of the most eager advocates of the Iraq war has been beating the drums of war against Iran, as has the pro-Israeli Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Even Ze'ev Schiff, a usually sober Israeli defence analyst, wrote last week in Haaretz that intelligence services in the West were convinced that Iran was covertly developing nuclear weapons. "There is a secondary, smaller covert channel that is making steady progress towards creating a nuclear weapon," he claimed. The Israeli daily Haaretz reported on March 10 that "in recent months, IDF officers have visited Washington to offer their support for a military strike should the diplomatic channels fail to bring Iran to heel". Largely to do with Israel American war fever against Iran seem largely to do with Israel. It includes Iran's support for anti-Israeli militant groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's remarks about "wiping Israel off the map", which most independent observers dismiss as an angry response to Israel's brutal oppression of the Palestinians and not in any sense a realistic threat. President George W. Bush and his Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have accused Iran of smuggling sophisticated road-side bombs and military personnel into Iraq, but General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, admitted this week that the US had no proof of such activity. In claiming that Iran is developing nuclear weapons the US seems in danger of repeating the mistake it made in Iraq. The evidence against Iran is as flimsy and as unproven as was the charge that Iraq's WMD posed an "imminent threat" to America and the world. There is no sign, however, that Washington is ready to heed the advice of IAEA chief Mohammad Al Baradei, who urged the US to end the "war of words" with Tehran and "engage in a dialogue". Russia, too, is anxious to avert the danger of war not least to protect its substantial interests in Iran. Russia is supplying Iran with an advanced air defence system and has almost finished building Iran's first nuclear power station at Bushehr on the Arabian Gulf at a reported cost of $800 million. Moscow is keen to win more nuclear power contracts in Iran where Energy Minister Parviz Fattah this week announced plans to start building a second nuclear power station within six months. Russia's Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, described Iran's referral to the Security Council as "too hasty". "This move is detrimental," he said on Russian state TV. "Not one real problem can be decided with such a move ? We don't want to be the ones to remind [everyone] who was right and who was not in Iraq, although the answer is obvious." A Russian compromise proposal to produce nuclear fuel for Iranian power stations in Russia, while allowing Iran to enrich a small amount of uranium on its own soil, was shot down by the US. "Enrichment and reprocessing on Iranian soil is not acceptable," US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said. In confronting Iran, the US may not have fully weighed the possible consequences: the extreme danger to US forces in Iraq; soaring oil prices; and encouragement for the world-wide jihadi movement which is bound to result in terror attacks against US and Israeli interests. It looks as if the US has no coherent policy towards Iran only bluster. Iran has an "inalienable right" under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to acquire atomic knowledge for peaceful purposes. It has the ability to hit back hard against any aggressor. And, even were it to acquire nuclear weapons a remote possibility several years in the future it could surely be contained and deterred by the immensely greater nuclear arsenals of the US and Israel. The inescapable conclusion would seem to be that the US should start direct talks with Iran as soon as possible. It may be the only way to defuse the threat of war, to provide the US with an exit strategy from Iraq and to build bridges to an inflamed Muslim public opinion. Gulf News

This is further compounded by Bush's recent visit to Indian, where he is promoting nuclear energy. The Islamic country's are seeing a double standard, and are likewise upset. My concern is that this will instill a greater desire for the OPEC nations to sell their oil through the Iranian oil bourse (IOB). The bourse is expected to open on the 20th (Iranian news is saying "before April"). When it does, it will trade in euros. The timing is rotten. Thanks to Greenspan's nearly 20 years of folly, Clinton's selloff of manufacturing, and Bush's unconscionable spending, the US$ is due for a dive. If (actually, I think "when") the US$ dives - and it's having a tough time right now, this will make paying for oil in euros cheaper than paying in US$, which would further weaken demand for the US$. Last September, every member of the Fed predicted at least a 30% decline in the US$. As the demand weakens for the dollar, we will be facing enormous inflationary pressures without economic growth. With the weakened dollar, it would be cheaper for foreign countries to purchase goods manufactured in the US. The problem is, we manufacture relatively squat. We inexplicably had a trade deficit in food last year - that should have been impossible. It will take a few years for us to fire up our manufacturing to decent levels, and those are gonna be tough years. Of course, if only Iranian oil was available for euros, while still very difficult, the impact would be much less than if the other OPEC countries join in. Syria and Venezuela have said they will sell their oil through the IOB, and China and Russia have stated they would be buyers on the IOB. Look for Bernanke to up interest rates in an attempt to strenthen the US$ even though, as an isolated economy, the rates should, at most, hold (actually, they should probably drop by 0.50%). Of course, this will increase activity in the bond market, and hurt the stock markets. We've relinquished substantial control of our economy to the Mid East, Russia, China and other countries not exactly fond of us. Now congress is proposing legistlation to put tariffs on Chinese imports unless they raise the yuan - meanwhile the Fed is trying to artificially inflate the dollar just to sustain demand. Sadly, the US media is not preparing the public. If you search CNN, or Reuters US sites for "bourse" you will not find a single related topic. It's widely reported in the foreign press. A kid on Wikipedia, looking up "Iranian Oil Bourse", "PetroEuro", or "PetroDollar" knows more about this than our combined US media.

The president of the NY Fed confirmed one of my worse fears - that due to our massive debt, and so much being held offshore, that we have relinquished significant control of our economy to other countries. We have again, today, incurred a yield inversion. Since short-term instruments are used by the financial institutions to finance long-term notes. Whenever short-term rates grow and close in on the long-term rates, financial institutions tightenup. When the short-term rates are higher than the long-term rates, there is literally no profit in long-term notes - and money gets extraordinarily tight. Since the Fed's last ludicrous move in January, until Tuesday, we were in a yield inversion. The yield inverted again today. The long-term rates are based more on true economic expansion. Any time the short-term rates close in on the long-term, it is not a healthy economy causing the rate hikes. When the yield inverts, something is terribly wrong. Greenspan finally got one thing right, this is a problem without an easy solution. Besides the yield inversion, as rates go up, funds move out of the stock market and into the bond market. Most analyst think the limit the stock markets can handle is 5.00%. I expect we will go well above that mark before summer. Most analysts now expect a raise in the Fed rate to 4.75% later this month. Personally, I won't be too surprised to see another 0.50% raise to 5.00%. When the foreign countries show "a heathly evolution toward flexibility," look for a "healthy" selling off the US$. Geithner Says Global Capital Flows May Require Fed to Raise Rates More March 9 (Bloomberg) -- Foreign purchases of U.S. bonds are keeping long-term interest rates low and may require the Federal Reserve to counter the effects with higher short-term interest rates, New York Fed President Timothy Geithner said. ``To the extent that these forces act to put downward pressure on interest rates and upward pressure on other asset prices, they would contribute to more expansionary financial conditions,'' Geithner said in remarks to the Japan Society in New York. U.S. interest-rate policy ``would have to act to offset these effects in order to achieve the same impact on the future path of demand and inflation.'' Geithner's comments add to the debate on the cause of what former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan called a ``conundrum,'' or low long-term interest rates even as the Fed raises its short-term rate. Geithner discussed Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke's view that the U.S. is absorbing a global ``savings glut'' and suggested instead that money is flowing to the U.S. because Asian economies are buying bonds to sustain inflexible currencies. Many countries have currency policies ``targeted at limiting the variability in their exchange rate against the dollar,'' Geithner said. ``Sustaining that objective in the past several years has required large accumulation of dollar assets. The scale of this activity has been particularly dramatic in parts of Asia.'' Asia Geithner did not mention China, although the government controls the yuan to keep it from rising substantially in value against the dollar. U.S. officials, led by Treasury Secretary John Snow, have been pushing China's government to let its currency trade more in line with market forces. U.S. lawmakers including New York Senator Charles Schumer support legislation that would raise import duties on China's goods if it doesn't comply. Oil exporting nations are also accumulating large amounts of dollar reserves, Geithner said. The European Central Bank said today the U.S. current- account deficit, the widest measure of U.S. trade, is being funded in part by an ``unprecedented'' increase in world foreign- exchange reserves that may not take all risks into account. Since January 2002 world reserves have risen by 91 percent, the Frankfurt-based ECB said in a report published on its Web site. A ``significant share'' of the U.S. deficit is financed by countries ``pursuing objectives that are, to some extent, insensitive to risk-return considerations,'' it said, a reference to purchases by central banks. Setting Rates The New York Fed president said foreign currency purchases by central banks make setting U.S. interest rates more complex. That's because foreign government buyers have different incentives than private investors, making ``the task of assessing the probable trajectory of growth and inflation more complicated.'' The trend can also distort the outlook for risk in financial markets, ``and this can contribute to an increased willingness to raise leverage,'' or debt, he said. Rising levels of foreign cash into the U.S. are helping Americans finance purchases of imports. The U.S. trade deficit widened to a record $68.5 billion in January as the oil-import bill rose and purchases of inexpensive Chinese goods increased. The deficit in goods and services trade was larger than forecast and followed December's $65.1 billion shortfall, the Commerce Department reported today in Washington. Foreign-Exchange Reserves World foreign-exchange reserves swelled to a record $4.1 trillion last year as Asian countries in particular bought U.S. bonds to insure themselves against economic crises and anchored their currencies to the dollar to boost export-led growth. That's helped fund the U.S. current-account deficit, which reached a record 6.5 percent of gross domestic product in the first quarter of 2005 and requires the U.S. to lure $2.1 billion of foreign cash daily. Seven of the 10 central banks with the most reserves are in Asia. Japan had the most, with $832 billion in January, and China was next with $818 billion at the end of 2005, up 34 percent from the previous year. Interest rates are moving higher in major industrial economies as growth forecasts rise. The Fed raised its main rate for a 14th straight time in January, and futures traders predict another increase to 4.75 percent at the next meeting on March 28. The European Central Bank raised its benchmark refinancing rate a quarter-point to 2.5 percent on March 2 and boosted forecasts for inflation and growth. Bank of Japan The Bank of Japan is poised to raise interest rates this year, ending a deflation-fighting policy that provided enough cash to the banking system to keep interest rates around zero. The Japanese central bank voted yesterday to pare back cash provided to lenders to about 6 trillion yen ($50.7 billion) over the next few months, down from as much as 35 trillion yen. Geithner declined to comment on Japanese monetary policy in response to a question. ``We obviously watch what happens in Japan very closely,'' Geithner said, adding that he has ``a lot of admiration for the current leadership of the central bank.'' Without mentioning China, Geithner said in response to a question that countries with exchange rates tied to the dollar are likely to show ``a healthy evolution'' toward flexibility. Geithner didn't speak directly about the near-term path of monetary policy or the state of the U.S. economy. As New York Fed president he has a permanent policy vote on the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets interest rates. He called the Fed's internal debate on whether to set a numerical inflation goal a ``discussion worth having.'' Geithner, 44, became head of the New York Fed in 2003. He has never dissented on an interest-rate vote. To contact the reporter on this story Craig Torres in Washington ctorres3@bloomberg.net; Last Updated: March 9, 2006 15:22 EST Bloomberg As for the healthy economy that would be a reason for legimately raising rates, and which it being sited as great news an a justification for the forthcoming hike, today's job report included: American employers added a greater- than-expected 243,000 workers in February and incomes rose, signs the job market will bolster consumer spending and economic growth. The unemployment rate increased to 4.8 percent. ... Economists also projected the unemployment rate would hold at 4.7 percent. ... Among blacks, the unemployment rate rose to 9.3 percent from 8.9 percent in January, today's report showed. The jobless rate for Hispanics fell to 5.5 percent from 5.8 percent and for whites held at 4.1 percent for a second month. For teenagers, unemployment rose to 15.4 percent last month from 15.3 percent. The jobless rate for women held at 4.3 percent for a second month. The jobless rate for men increased to 4.2 percent from 4 percent. Bloomberg In summary: 1. We added more jobs than expected, and unemployment went up more than expected :mischief2 . Thank goodness we can trust government numbers. It makes one wonder if legal citizens are declaring unemployment, and illegals are getting the jobs. 2. If you are a Hispanic female over 19, congratulations on your employment outlook. 3. Higher unemployment, when it's already much higher than optimal levels, any having fewer people able to provide their own food, shelter, health insurance, make car payments, etc. is being morphed into a reason to celebrate great ecomonic expansion.

Update on the Dubai Ports deal and its impact on the debt/US$: Dubai Ports World presses on with port takeover 9 March 2006 DUBAI - Dubai Ports World is pressing ahead with a takeover that gives it control of six major US ports despite a Congress committee vote to block the deal, sources familiar with the deal said on Thursday. Government and company officials in the United Arab Emirates declined comment on Wednesday's vote by US lawmakers to block the deal on the grounds that handing the ports over to a Gulf Arab state-owned firm would threaten US national security. But the sources said the vote had not taken Dubai Ports any closer to relinquishing the six ports at the center of a political firestorm. 'The vote in the House of Representatives has not change anything in that respect. We are not at that point,' one Dubai-based source said. Analysts said the political furor was bound to provoke businesses in the world's biggest oil exporting region, which is an increasingly important source of financing for the huge US current account deficit. 'It's American double standards. Do you think that businesses and governments here won't react and even retaliate?' said Wadah Al Taha of the National Bank of Abu Dhabi. He said the issue was likely to feature prominently in trade talks later this month between the United States and the UAE, a federation of seven emirates that includes Dubai. The Dubai Ports row has reinforced fears in the Middle East that investments in the United States have become politically risky for Arabs and Muslims. Some Arabs say the US opposition to the deal smacks of racism. Security fears Some US politicians say the UAE has in the past been sympathetic to Islamist militants, noting that two of the September 11 hijackers came from that country. President George W. Bush, however, says the UAE is a staunch ally in the US war on terrorism and he has vowed to veto any legislation that would block the ports deal. Wednesday's 62-2 vote, by the House Appropriations Committee, will be followed next week by another vote by the full House of Representatives. Dubai Ports officials said they were pushing ahead with plans to integrate British ports group P&O which runs the US ports. A Dubai Ports spokesman said the company would soon announce the de-listing of P&O now that shareholders had approved the $6.8 billion takeover. Dubai Ports Chairman Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem and Chief Executive Mohammed Sharaf fly to London this week to discuss integration of the two companies which make up the world's third largest ports group. 'We are evaluating the situation,' Bin Sulayem said. The UAE is a close ally of Washington and a frequent port of call for American warships. Concerns are growing that the fallout from the ports row will affect US economic ties with the Gulf. UAE Economy Minister Sheikha Lubna Al Qassimi said last week the furor could prompt other countries to divert funds away from the United States. American businesses in the UAE warned on Wednesday that trade worth more than $8 billion between the United States and the United Arab Emirates could be in jeopardy. Khaleej Times (UAE) UAE's direct trade with the US is relatively small. However, the trade with the US which they can influence is enormous, as is their ability to unfavorably mess with the US$.

First, I don't claim to be an expert. But I probably have more knowledge and experience in international relations and government finance than most, and have some access. You cannot simply print more money, and anyone who calls for that as a solution for the debt is generally flunked out of any econ course as that is the greatest joke in economics. The supply of money is a factor in inflation, with the moeny supply and inflation in direct correlation. A money supply increase, without an increase in goods to purchase, or a need to purchase them, has always lead to extremely high inflation and often (ususally?) hyper-inflation. If there are no goods produced to match the growth in money supply, the result is inflation. Why not just print a few trillion, and become debt free? Because a loaf of bread would cost a few hundred bucks. Those on fixed incomes right now that cannot afford food and medicine will be able to afford neither food nor medicine. Even a healthy retirement check would only cover a few days of groceries. Printing money to cover the debt would be the cruelest thing the US has ever done. There goes the senior voting block. As for the rest of us, inflation would match the growth in income, and the net effect would be that we could purchase no more goods and services after the printing than we can today (and our employers would have to raise the prices for the goods and service we produce to offset our huge raises). If Wal-Mart can only sell 100 TVs a month, and the expendable income of the average US citizen goes up by $27,500 (roughly the US debt for every man, woman, child in the US), prices would skyrocket. Further, only so much bread, milk, eggs and other such goods can be consumed anyway. The inflationary pressures on those essential goods would be even worse than on luxury items, such as TVs, as the quantity of demand is less sensitive to price increases for essential items as it is for luxury items. While the quantity demand for oil has gone up, largely from India and China, production has more than met that demand quantity. Refined reserves are near peak levels. However, there is a lot more demand as the supply of US$ throughout the world is going up much more rapidly. This money supply has fulfilled the and able part of demand's of willing and able components. There was a lot more money laying around, oil is essential (in some cases converted from luxury to essential), and the price went up over 100% in a "controlled" environment.

There is probably an economic reason that we've not been more aggressively seeking alternative fuels. Most US financial instruments are held offshore. Most of those are used to purchase oil in something similar to a voucher system. We are the only country in the world that enjoys this unique economic status, which has allowed us to sell bonds, and print currency, to cover our debt. If there is no ready market which will accept the enormous supply of US$, the dollar will be sold off all over the world. Until the US becomes fiscally responsible, I doubt we'll ever aggressively seek alternative fuels.

I don't think that the Iranians have the ability to hit anything further than Israel, so they aren't a threat to the U.S. right now. However, North Korea is developing a new missile that can reach Alaska and possibly the West Coast. They don't have to hit the continental US, just our fleet in the Persian Gulf. But why would they do that? They can't possibly have as many nukes as the US, fear of retaliation should keep them from striking anything belonging to the US. It's more likely they use those nukes for other targets. We have played ourselves into a position where Iran has us by the short & curlies. Iran has a military of 800,000 and long range missiles that can reach Israel and most analyst believe Europe. Russia has been admitting Iranians to its missile training labs for years. Iran also has the military capability, and have threatened to, sink ships in the the Strait of Hormuz. This would effectively cut off virtually all of the Middle East oil supply, and also leave the US with no allies in the region (or much of the world), as we would be seen as the instigators. Also, an attack could inflame Shiites througout the region. Shiites run Iran and Iraq, and have a huge influence in Saudi Arabia. A Shiite uprising in Iraq would put all of our troops their in much greater danger than they've ever faced. Hezbollah is a ally of Iran, and would further act to destabalize the region. But it's not the military threat that is the cause for concern. Russian and China both arm Iran, and both have been increasing friendly allies of Iran. In January, after selling Iran $700 million worth of missles, Russia also agreed to guard Iran's nuclear facilities. China will not just sit and watch us attack Iran. Also, with our deficits having us in a perilous economic position, we cannot either afford a war, nor afford to have China and Russia further dump their suppliies of US$. Either on of those countries, all by itself, could act to destroy us in 24 hours without ever firing a shot. While the US media, and what seems like most of the US population, suffer from Alzheimers, the rest of the world does not. North Korea poses a much greater nuclear threat, but is ignored as it has little influence over the value of the US$, and is not an economic threat. Iran does have such influence, and will be using it in their new oil bourse, knowing that our debt has us in a position where we cannot stop them. To get into a war with Iran will likely only more rapidly bring about the demise of the US$, the protection of which would be the reason for going to war in the first place.

We've had a luxury that no other nation has - the US$ is to a large degree an oil voucher. When we went off the gold standard, we made an agreement with the Saudi's to arm them to their teeth and they would support the US$. That's all changing. The Saudi king just recently visited both China and India. He stated clearly that the purpose of the visit was to ensure a market for Saudi oil as an insurance should they no longer export to the US. Bush's State of the Union speech further upset the Saudi's, but they also knew it was largely rhetoric. Nonetheless, they are antipating no longer exporting to the US. If that should happen, they also have no reason to further support the US$. If countries start to choose other currencies than the US$, we are totally screwed. We've been printing money to cover our financial arse for decades. Their is an overabundance of US$ in the world, and the dollar is stuggling to survive. The Fed has been trying to artificially boost it by increasing interest rates when there is truly no economic reason for doing so. This has also hit a crisis level. We now have a yield inversion, where short-term rates are higher than long-term rates. Banks use short-term instruments to finance long-term notes. Right now, the cannot do this. Money is getting very tight, and will continue to do so. The Fed is now talking about rating their rate to 5.5%. This will be done to boost the dollar, however, very few analysts believe the stock market can survive anything above 5.0%. They expect a collapse in the stocks of much greater degree than what we had in 2000. Further, we've now hit the point where every 1% hike in interest rates will add about $10 per barrel of WTI oil. Our fear of the decline of the US$ is real and well founded. Why haven't we done anything against North Korea, when they have a much more advanced nuclear program than Iran? Because only Iran can greatly influence the US$. There is some speculation that Saddam's acceptance of the euro for payment of oil, and the UN's oil for food being in euros, is the real reason we are in Iraq. One of the very first things we did once Saddam was overthrown was to discontinue Iraq's acceptance of the euro. While I don't buy into that as the primary reason for the war, I am not ready to dismiss it, either. Why was the administration willing to crawl into bed with the UAE for the ports deal? Support of the US$. That is a pretty drastic measure to go to in order to protect our currency. UAE keen on more US investment, says Lubna Reuters Dubai: Opposition in the United States against Dubai Ports World's (DP World) takeover of six US ports will not deter the UAE from more investments there, but could make other countries divert funds to Asia and Europe, a top UAE official said on Wednesday [March 1]. Gulf News On March 20, Iran opens a new bourse for oil - all traded in euros. Their nuclear program is believed to be nowhere near that of the North Koreans. But they are our target. The Syrians just converted all their oil sales to the euro. The supply of US$ that is held in offshore accounts is reflected in our M3 money supply. Coincidentially, last November 10th, the Fed announced that it would no longer disclose the M3 money supply starting on March 23. The Fed releases the money supply every Thursday. March 23 is the first Thursday following the opening of the Iran bourse. The timing is very suspcious. Following the Feds announcement on November 10, Russia and several other countries started buying gold and letting go of US$. Gold had been steady in the $430-$460 range for years, and then jumped dramatically following the Fed's announcement. Russia has had a 20% Value-Added Tax on gold, but in January Putin started the process of removing the VAT (I don't know the effective date of the top of my head). He wants Russian citizens to also invest in gold, which will give him more of an indirect control over that gold supply. Putin is much more brilliant than anybody we've had in decades. Unfortunately, he's also a SOB. Thank goodness Bush looked into Putin's eyes an saw a friend. On January 5, China announced it was going to start dumping the US$. That's about a trillion dollar problem. Fortunately, they know that to do so all at once would destroy the US, and that they need the US to some degree to be a customer. But, they've also been actively setting up trading partnerships throughout Asia. The problem with printing US$ is that, like anything else, too much of a supply means that each unit becomes worth less. Since the Fed announcement on November 10, we've been printing an extra $50 - $58 billion a week. Also, bonds back each US$ we print. When those dollars are offshore, we don't have to repay those bonds and their related interest. When foreign governments start investing in other currencies, and those dollars come back, we have to pay off those bonds and the interest. We recently started issuing 30-year bonds again. The reason is to defer the payback period as we are expecting an excess supply of US$ being dumped internationally. In other words, its an attempt to move the problem to some future administration. Unfortunately, its way too little way too late, and doesn't address the problem. The problem is that these deficits are what are making us print all the excess currency. A 30-year bond does not fix that any more than morphine cures cancer. The debt has grown to dimensions that were unfathomable just a few years ago. It has made our stability much more fragile. Al Qaeda and our other enemies know that they cannot defeat us militarily, and have been striving to defeat us economically. Bush and his deficits, have made our debt an easy target. If our enemies attacked the US$ with half the debt, the impact wouldn't be anywhere near as great. The impact of the decline in the US$ goes up exponentially with the debt. Standard and Poors recently published a report that they expect a decline of 30%-40% in the US$ over the next several months. I sure hope they are wrong; like all of us, they have been wrong in the past. Unfortunately, most major foreign governments are making moves that will hurt the value of the US$. Recently, the Euro was released in a E500 demonination. The sole purpose was to make the euro more attractive as an international standard. This would make it easier for the euro countries to benefit similarly to the US$/oil voucher, and not having to make payments on bonds issued to print currency. Every economy on the euro will benefit from the conversion of oil markets to the euro. However, like Standard and Poors, several members of the Fed also believe that a decline of 30% is likely. In the following, the Greenspaneque thinking is the US isolationist economist, whereas the international economist have a global approach (an it is their fears which are coming true). September 15, 2005 The Coming Dollar Crisis? As is often the case, the most interesting things I learned at last August's round of conferences came not in the formal conference sessions but in the informal small-group conversations before, around, in the interstices of, and after the conference. Take the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's "Greenspan Era" conference. It was held in Jackson Hole, at the Jackson Lake Lodge in Grand Teton National Park, in the shadow of the Grand Tetons, which are perhaps the most impressive mountain range in North America. ("Perhaps" because the Canadian central bankers present pointed out the Canadian Rockies from Lake Louise to Jasper, while Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco president Janet Yellen sang the praises of the mountains of her own Federal Reserve District: the east face of the Sierra Nevada as seen from the Owens Valley, to be specific.) You spend the mornings in windowless conference rooms, and the afternoons outside--on the Snake River, hiking, climbing, looking for moose, looking for elk, hoping that bear are not looking for you. But the afternoons--and the formal and informal breaks in the mornings when you flee the windowless conference room for the fresh air of the west lawn of the lodge to stare at Mount Moran and company across the lake--are filled with arguments. Go with Federal Reserve Governor Don Kohn on an afternoon hike up Cascade Canyon, I am told, and expect to gain 3000 feet in two hours while being quizzed intently about technical details of monetary policy. Try to keep from grounding yourself on sand bars in the Snake River, and you will hear ex-senior executive branch officials of both political parties give their assessments of why neither of the Bush II Treasury Secretaries has been able to make effective use of the thousand or so people who work directly for him. This time the most interesting rounds of break-and-afternoon conversations I heard were sparked by Sebastian Edwards's paper about the U.S. current account deficit. My conversations quickly exposed a deep fault among the conference attendees. Those who analyzed or forecast the U.S. domestic macroeconomy agreed that a steep decline in the value of the dollar sometime in the next five years was overwhelmingly likely, but by and large they did not think that such a decline would pose a big problem for the U.S. economy. (They agreed that it might well pose a very big problem for some of America's trading partners.) By contrast, those who analyzed or forecast the international economy as a whole were typically terrified by the prospect of a steep (30% or more, perhaps much more) decline in the value of the dollar: they thought a severe U.S. recession was a definite possibility, and that the situation would require exceptionally skillful handling to keep from becoming a serious economic problem. Why this disjunction? The domestic macroeconomists would typically argue more or less like this: Yes, the dollar is likely to decline steeply either when foreign central banks stop buying dollar-denominated assets to keep the values of their currencies down or when international speculators lose confidence or both. But so what? The fall in the value of the dollar will boost foreign demand for U.S. exports. Workers will be pulled out of other sectors into the export sector. The effects of the dollar decline are much more likely to be a plus for employment rather than a minus, a boom rather than a recession. To this, the international economists would respond more-or-less like this: When foreign central banks stop buying or international speculators lose confidence in the value of the dollar and thus stop buying U.S. long-term bonds, two things happen: the value of the dollar falls, and the rate of interest on dollar-denominated long-term bonds spikes. The spike in long-term interest rates discourages investment spending directly, and also discourages consumption spending because higher interest rates mean lower housing and stock prices and thus lower consumer wealth. The fall in domestic spending happens now. The rise in exports as the falling dollar makes U.S.-made products more attractive to foreigners happens two years from now. In between, a lot of people are unemployed--and as they are unemployed, they cut back further on their spending. Plus there is the risk that the fall in the value of the dollar and the fall in long-term asset prices generated by the interest rate spike will cause enough bankruptcies among financial institutions to cause a flight to quality--which will further raise non-safe interest rates, and further discourage investment and consumption spending. This then puzzled the domestic economists: Why should interest rates spike? The Federal Reserve controls American interest rates. If it wants to keep the price of the ten-year Treasury bond high, it can simply start buying bonds until the price of ten-year Treasuries is what the Fed wants it to be. There's no reason for employment in construction and other interest rate-sensitive sectors to fall before employment in exports and related sectors rises--at least not unless the Federal Reserve makes a big mistake and allows rising interest rates to shoot the economy in the head. And at this point the response of the international economists fragmented: 1. Some said that the falling dollar would create inflation--with imports at 1/6 of GDP, a 40% fall in the dollar would, if fully passed through to import prices, add 6% to the U.S. price level. The Federal Reserve would feel honor-bound to maintain its reputation as an inflation-fighter, and so would allow interest rates to go high enough to produce enough unemployment to push nominal wages down far enough to offset this rise in import prices. Thus the Federal Reserve would welcome the spike in interest rates as appropriate, and take no steps to offset it. 2. Others said that the adjustment to the fall in the dollar would require that ten million workers shift out of construction, retail, and consumer services occupations and into export and import-competing manufacturing industries. You cannot move ten million American workers from one sector to another in a matter of a year or two without creating lots of structural unemployment. 3. Still others said that financial stress would be the key: perhaps some major Wall Street firms would discover big unhedged risks in their derivative books; perhaps perhaps others would find that the values of their portfolios were more responsive to changes in long term interest rates than they had thought. In either case, it is financial distress and chaos that really triggers the recession. And the domestic side had rebuttals to each of these three points: 1. If the Federal Reserve announces now that it is targeting a measure of inflation that is not grossly affected by import prices--that it is targeting nominal wage growth, say--there is no need for the Federal Reserve to defend its credibility by attacking the economy. Just as the Federal Reserve has trained observers that it is more important to worry about 'core inflation' than 'headline inflation', so the Federal Reserve ought to be preparing observers to recognize that inflation produced by rising import prices is a one-time event, not an inflationary spiral that needs to be fought by triggering a deep recession. 2. A large structural shift will cause high unemployment only if the transition is quick and brutal, and only if workers are pushed out of job-losing rather than pulled into job-gaining sectors. Whether it is quick or gradual and whether it is push or pull depends, once again, on the path of interest rates. Only if the Federal Reserve fails to do its job and allows for a massive interest rate spike is there a problem. 3. Financial stress is something that can be managed: if the Federal Reserve keeps the path of interest rates smooth, great financial stress is unlikely. And the domestic side of the argument pointed to the historical experience of the U.S. from 1986-1990: Between 1985 and 1989 the value of the U.S. dollar declined by 40%. Between 1986 and 1990 the U.S. trade deficit declined from 4.0% of GDP to 0.5% of GDP--without a big recession, or significant macroeconomic distress. Before dinner one evening I was lectured by a prominent Washington-area international finance economist about all the reasons that the 1986-1990 U.S. experience was likely to be a bad guide to the future: 1. 1986-90 began with a 50% decline in world oil prices, a powerful stimulus to the world economy. This time the process is beginning with a doubling of world oil prices. 2. 1986-90 saw Europe growing rapidly. Europe has a high propensity to buy U.S. exports, and the European boom meant that U.S. exports grew much faster in the late 1980s than anyone had expected. This time it is Asia that is booming, not Europe. And Asia has a relatively low appetite for U.S. exports. 3. The Japanese government was willing to buy very large amounts of dollar-denominated assets in the late 1980s to keep the decline in the value of the dollar "orderly." In so doing, it inflated its domestic credit base and touched off its own property bubble. No foreign government is going to risk this again just because the U.S. would rather that the decline in the dollar was slow and orderly. 4. The problem then was half as big relative to the size of the U.S. economy as is the problem now. One way I found myself thinking of the argument is that the domestic-side economists look at the goods market and think of a decline in the value of the dollar as a supply shock, and as not that big a supply shock: if half of the adjustment in import prices is taken in reduced margins by producers abroad, and if the shock is spread out over four years, then 40% / 2 x 16% / 4 = 0.8% increase in inflation relative to baseline over three consecutive years. The Federal Reserve could easily allow that to happen without--providing it explained its causes well--running any risk of damaging the credibility of its commitment to effective price stability. No big deal. International finance economists, by contrast, look at the asset markets. A 40% decline in the dollar over four years is a decline at the rate of 10% per year. Once financial markets convince themselves that such a decline is coming and that they need to be compensated for it, that ought to drive a 400 basis point wedge between U.S. and foreign long-bond expected returns. And that is a very big deal. Martin Feldstein said something very smart just after we had both taken off our shoes at Jackson Hole airport. He said that the domestic-side economists were keying off the past experience of the U.S. after 1985 and of Britain after 1982, and so were saying "no big deal"; while the international finance economists were keying off of the experiences of developing countries that had run large current-account deficits--Mexico 1994, East Asia 1997, Argentina 2001. Each side had its own preferred models that functioned very well at explaining the past historical cases that they focused on. But there was no way right now of settling, empirically, whether a model built to explain the U.S. in 1985 or Korea in 1998 was more applicable to the U.S. in 2006--you had to make a bet, either that continuities in U.S. economic structure were important, or that financial globalization was important, in choosing your model and your terms of analysis. It was very interesting. And very disturbing. Brilliant economists, thinking hard, unable to reach even the beginnings of analytical agreement about how to model the distribution of possible futures. Delong Now, we have expended much of our military, and can only expand our military activities by making our economy an easy target economically. Even if we don't expand any military activities, even shrink the military, unless we get the debt under control, and truly support the US$ by getting currency supplies under control, we are every day becoming more of an easy target for anyone who wants to fight us economically. While the economic isolationist see this as only a moderate difficultly, I find their thinking to be sophmoric and ignorant. I tend to believe that the economy is indeed global, and that there are international forces over which we only have limited control.

I don't think that the Iranians have the ability to hit anything further than Israel, so they aren't a threat to the U.S. right now. However, North Korea is developing a new missile that can reach Alaska and possibly the West Coast. They don't have to hit the continental US, just our fleet in the Persian Gulf.

There are no details, so there is no concrete information on whether this is a diesel sub or nuclear. I'm pretty confortable that it is diesel. If nuclear, Iran is a lot further along than we thought. More likely than this sub being nuclear powered, and still of significant uncertainty, is how it serves as a launching platform. Iran is widely suspected of having in its possession Russian-made SS-22-N nuclear anti-ship missiles. What I believe most likely, from my purely amatuer analysis, is that it can launch the new AS-18/KH-59 (Nato designation: "Kazoo") anti-ship missile, which Russia first exported this year and Iran was its first customer, although, at the time, Iran did not have a platform for launching this missile. This would at least explain why Iran wanted this missile. According to Putin, in his meeting with Chirac on January 31, this missile doesn't not keep a ballistic trajectory, changes altitude and direction, and can thus defeat all of our missile defense systems. The KH-20 version of this missile carries a nuclear warhead, but Russia has not (officially anyway) exported that version. However, the KH-59 and KH-20 use identical launch platforms. Putin is upset with Bush for continuing on with our BMD (Ballistic Missile Defense) system. His argument is that the deterent against nuclear strike is retaliation, and the BMD nullified retaliation. Bush argued that the BMD is for protection against rogue launches, not Russian (I guess he was planning on letting the Russian missiles through). The result was Putin made the development of the advanced missiles that can defeat our BMD a top priority. Now, those missiles are being exported to what we consider rogue nations. I wonder when was the last time we thought things through. This is like having the Keystone Cops running the show. Iran boosts Gulf presence with locally-made submarine 7 March 2006 TEHERAN - Iran?s armed forces have deployed a new locally-built submarine in Gulf waters, state television reported on Tuesday. The vessel is named the Nahang, meaning whale, and was ?built by specialists in the Iranian defence ministry and has the capability to carry multipurpose weapons for different missions?, Rear Admiral Sajjad Kouchaki said. ?The submarine is fully adapted to the Persian Gulf,? he said, adding that the Iranian navy was pursuing a policy of deterrence in the strategic waters -- home to the world?s largest oil reserves. No further details on the submarine were given. Last May state media announced Iran had begun producing its first locally-built submarine. At the time it was called the Ghadir, named after a Shiite religious holiday. According to foreign military experts, Iran?s inventory of submarines patrolling Gulf waters includes up to six Russian-built SSK or SSI Kilo class diesel submarines. In recent months Israel has been dangling the threat of pre-emptive action to stop Iran?s disputed nuclear energy programme -- seen as a mask for weapons development. The United States has also refused to rule out military action against Iran. Khahleej Times (UAE)

The legal national debt ceiling is set at $8.184 trillion. According to the US Treasury website, we exceeded that amount on January 24, and were at $8.271 trillion as of Friday. Treasury Secretary Snow made some emergency moves on February 16 (accounting smoke and mirrors) and March 3, and more today. There is nothing else the Treasury can do, as it exhausted its last option today. I just wish he'd get his story straight, and let us know whether the US has entered unchartered territory and is now technically in default already, or if its just days away. In the article below, the Treasury said that as of last Thursday, the defict was $8.159 ($25 billion less than the $8.184 trillion limit), yet, if you check its website, it publishes deficits that are in default. If the Treasury's website numbers are correct, we are bankrupt, in default, and have been operating illegally for about six weeks now. Thanks, W. On December 29, Snow formally asked congress to increase the debt limit or face the consequences. The whole rest of the world has been following this for months. Even Pravda has been keeping better tabs on this than the US media. CNN's financial news imbeciles, while acknowledging the jump in US treasury yields, were once again unable to connect the dots. Their TV never mentioned the Treasury moves, and their website has ignored them, but does offer coverage of the Oscars. U.S. Taps Exchange, Pension Funds as Debt Limit Looms (Update3) March 6 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Treasury today took steps to avoid slamming into the government's legal borrowing limit and to make sure the sale of a 10-year note goes ahead this week. Treasury Secretary John Snow authorized the government to use the $15 billion available in the exchange stabilization fund on March 3 and issued a ``debt issuance suspension period'' to temporarily stop investments in the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund. The Treasury also redeemed some of the fund's current investments. Today's actions by the Treasury provide ``only a few days of additional borrowing capacity, which we expect will be exhausted by mid-March,'' Snow said in a letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert. ``Treasury has now taken all prudent and legal actions to avoid reaching the statutory debt limit.'' The moves were the second Treasury has taken in the last month to stay below the debt ceiling. They will ensure the Treasury can auction and settle the 10-year-notes scheduled to be sold this week and allow government operations to continue through mid-March. The Treasury said today it will auction $8 billion in 9 year-11 month 4 1/2 percent notes on March 9, and $18 billion in four-week bills at tomorrow's sale of the securities. `Real Costs' ``There are real costs to using these tools to stay under the limit,'' Randal Quarles, under secretary for domestic finance, told reporters after a speech in Washington. ``It is not automatic. It is a difficult thing to do. But we can do it until the middle of March, and the congressional leadership is aware of that.'' The Treasury said beneficiaries of the civil service retirement fund ``will be fully protected and will suffer no adverse consequences'' from the funding suspension. The department is required to restore all interest and principal due the fund as soon as possible, without exceeding the debt limit. U.S. Democratic Representatives Charles Rangel of New York and John Spratt of South Carolina have said any increase in the debt limit should be tied to a plan to balance the federal budget. Congress needs to raise the debt limit before it goes on recess March 20, Treasury spokesman Tony Fratto said. ``We cannot hostage the full faith and credit of the United States on these other issues,'' he said. If Congress doesn't act, the U.S. will reach its borrowing limit, Fratto said. He declined to say what Treasury would do if that happens. Before Recess Congress will vote on raising the debt limit before the recess, said William Hoagland, the director of Budget and Appropriations for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. U.S. debt on March 2 was $25 million short of the $8.184 trillion limit set by Congress, the Treasury said. Snow asked Congress in December to raise the debt ceiling. He said Treasury could use extraordinary measures to continue government operations through mid-March. The exchange stabilization fund is used to sell foreign currency, to hold U.S. foreign exchange and special drawing rights assets, and to provide financing for foreign assets. Any use of the fund requires Snow's explicit approval. Last month the Treasury suspended sales of state and local government securities, or SLGS. These non-marketable Treasury securities are sold to states and municipalities, which deposit them into escrow accounts to pay their own debts. Borrowing Needs The Treasury said in January it plans to borrow $188 billion from January to March, the most ever for a single quarter. The U.S. may have to delay the auction of some of this quarter's debt if Congress doesn't raise the borrowing limit soon. This is the fourth time the administration of President George W. Bush has asked lawmakers to raise the debt limit. Congress complied with the last request, in November 2004, only after the Treasury was forced to delay auctioning bills and notes and move money among government pension funds. Since Bush took office in 2001, the federal budget has gone from four years of surpluses, the longest such run since before the Great Depression, to deficits brought on by a recession, tax cuts, the Sept. 11 attacks, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and Gulf Coast hurricane damage. Bush last month sent Congress a $2.77 trillion budget request for fiscal 2007 that calls for a deficit of $354 billion, compared with a record $423 billion forecast this year. The Bush administration says it expects to shave the deficit to less than 2 percent of gross domestic product by 2009, from 3.2 percent this year. The Treasury estimates it will borrow $427 billion in fiscal 2006 and $373 billion in fiscal 2007 to fund government operations, the budget showed. The government borrowed $297 billion in 2005, according to the documents. Bloomberg

Then there is Blanco, herself. A fews after the storm, Nagin, Blanco, and Bush were on Airforce One. Nagin pissed off, yelling at Bush and Blanco to do whatever it is they need to do. Bush informs Blanco that she can have whatever she needs. She responded that she wanted 24 hours to think it over, and, as Nagin said, while more people died. CNN has discontinued publishing the video where Nagin goes ballistic Blanco's response to Bush (http://www.cnn.com/video/partners/clickability/index.html?url=/video/us/2005/09/05/obrien.nagin.walk.talk.cnn). She also refused the Red Cross access to the Superdome, saying she didn't want to attract people there. It took Blanco an unforgivable 71 days to call an "emergency" session of the legislature. Also, the head of the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness was in jail when Katrina hit, and Blanco failed to assign the duties of acting director. That office went into the storm with its head cut off. Due to incompetence at the state level, Louisana went into Katrina with almost no chance of survival.

As for the money flows: Money Flowed to Questionable Projects State Leads in Army Corps Spending, but Millions Had Nothing to Do With Floods By Michael Grunwald Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, September 8, 2005; A01 Before Hurricane Katrina breached a levee on the New Orleans Industrial Canal, the Army Corps of Engineers had already launched a $748 million construction project at that very location. But the project had nothing to do with flood control. The Corps was building a huge new lock for the canal, an effort to accommodate steadily increasing barge traffic. Except that barge traffic on the canal has been steadily decreasing. In Katrina's wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics have complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and Louisiana projects in particular. But over the five years of President Bush's administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times as large. Much of that Louisiana money was spent to try to keep low-lying New Orleans dry. But hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to unrelated water projects demanded by the state's congressional delegation and approved by the Corps, often after economic analyses that turned out to be inaccurate. Despite a series of independent investigations criticizing Army Corps construction projects as wasteful pork-barrel spending, Louisiana's representatives have kept bringing home the bacon. For example, after a $194 million deepening project for the Port of Iberia flunked a Corps cost-benefit analysis, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) tucked language into an emergency Iraq spending bill ordering the agency to redo its calculations. The Corps also spends tens of millions of dollars a year dredging little-used waterways such as the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, the Atchafalaya River and the Red River -- now known as the J. Bennett Johnston Waterway, in honor of the project's congressional godfather -- for barge traffic that is less than forecast. The Industrial Canal lock is one of the agency's most controversial projects, sued by residents of a New Orleans low-income black neighborhood and cited by an alliance of environmentalists and taxpayer advocates as the fifth-worst current Corps boondoggle. In 1998, the Corps justified its plan to build a new lock -- rather than fix the old lock for a tiny fraction of the cost -- by predicting huge increases in use by barges traveling between the Port of New Orleans and the Mississippi River. In fact, barge traffic on the canal had been plummeting since 1994, but the Corps left that data out of its study. And barges have continued to avoid the canal since the study was finished, even though they are visiting the port in increased numbers. Pam Dashiell, president of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, remembers holding a protest against the lock four years ago -- right where the levee broke Aug. 30. Now she's holed up with her family in a St. Louis hotel, and her neighborhood is underwater. "Our politicians never cared half as much about protecting us as they cared about pork," Dashiell said. Yesterday, congressional defenders of the Corps said they hoped the fallout from Hurricane Katrina would pave the way for billions of dollars of additional spending on water projects. Steve Ellis, a Corps critic with Taxpayers for Common Sense, called their push "the legislative equivalent of looting." Louisiana's politicians have requested much more money for New Orleans hurricane protection than the Bush administration has proposed or Congress has provided. In the last budget bill, Louisiana's delegation requested $27.1 million for shoring up levees around Lake Pontchartrain, the full amount the Corps had declared as its "project capability." Bush suggested $3.9 million, and Congress agreed to spend $5.7 million. Administration officials also dramatically scaled back a long-term project to restore Louisiana's disappearing coastal marshes, which once provided a measure of natural hurricane protection for New Orleans. They ordered the Corps to stop work on a $14 billion plan, and devise a $2 billion plan instead. But overall, the Bush administration's funding requests for the key New Orleans flood-control projects for the past five years were slightly higher than the Clinton administration's for its past five years. Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the chief of the Corps, has said that in any event, more money would not have prevented the drowning of the city, since its levees were designed to protect against a Category 3 storm, and the levees that failed were already completed projects. Strock has also said that the marsh-restoration project would not have done much to diminish Katrina's storm surge, which passed east of the coastal wetlands. "The project manager for the Great Pyramids probably put in a request for 100 million shekels and only got 50 million," said John Paul Woodley Jr., the Bush administration official overseeing the Corps. "Flood protection is always a work in progress; on any given day, if you ask whether any community has all the protection it needs, the answer is almost always: Maybe, but maybe not." The Corps had been studying the possibility of upgrading the New Orleans levees for a higher level of protection before Katrina hit, but Woodley said that study would not have been finished for years. Still, liberal bloggers, Democratic politicians and some GOP defenders of the Corps have linked the catastrophe to the underfunding of the agency. "We've been hollering about funding for years, but everyone would say: There goes Louisiana again, asking for more money," said former Democratic senator John Breaux. "We've had some powerful people in powerful places, but we never got what we needed." That may be true. But those powerful people -- including former senators Breaux, Johnston and Russell Long, as well as former House committee chairmen Robert Livingston and W.J. "Billy" Tauzin -- did get quite a bit of what they wanted. And the current delegation -- led by Landrieu and GOP Sen. David Vitter -- has continued that tradition. The Senate's latest budget bill for the Corps included 107 Louisiana projects worth $596 million, including $15 million for the Industrial Canal lock, for which the Bush administration had proposed no funding. Landrieu said the bill would "accelerate our flood control, navigation and coastal protection programs." Vitter said he was "grateful that my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee were persuaded of the importance of these projects." Louisiana not only leads the nation in overall Corps funding, it places second in new construction -- just behind Florida, home of an $8 billion project to restore the Everglades. Several controversial projects were improvements for the Port of New Orleans, an economic linchpin at the mouth of the Mississippi. There were also several efforts to deepen channel for oil and gas tankers, a priority for petroleum companies that drill in the Gulf of Mexico. "We thought all the projects were important -- not just levees," Breaux said. "Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but navigation projects were critical to our economic survival." Overall, Army Corps funding has remained relatively constant for decades, despite the "Program Growth Initiative" launched by agency generals in 1999 without telling their civilian bosses in the Clinton administration. The Bush administration has proposed cuts in the Corps budget, and has tried to shift the agency's emphasis from new construction to overdue maintenance. But most of those proposals have died quietly on Capitol Hill, and the administration has not fought too hard to revive them. In fact, more than any other federal agency, the Corps is controlled by Congress; its $4.7 billion civil works budget consists almost entirely of "earmarks" inserted by individual legislators. The Corps must determine that the economic benefits of its projects exceed the costs, but marginal projects such as the Port of Iberia deepening -- which squeaked by with a 1.03 benefit-cost ratio -- are as eligible for funding as the New Orleans levees. "It has been explicit national policy not to set priorities, but instead to build any flood control or barge project if the Corps decides the benefits exceed the costs by 1 cent," said Tim Searchinger, a senior attorney at Environmental Defense. "Saving New Orleans gets no more emphasis than draining wetlands to grow corn and soybeans." Washington Post and Louisiana Officials Could Lose the Katrina Blame Game By Jeff Johnson CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer September 07, 2005 The Bush administration is being widely criticized for the emergency response to Hurricane Katrina and the allegedly inadequate protection for "the big one" that residents had long feared would hit New Orleans. But research into more than ten years of reporting on hurricane and flood damage mitigation efforts in and around New Orleans indicates that local and state officials did not use federal money that was available for levee improvements or coastal reinforcement and often did not secure local matching funds that would have generated even more federal funding. In December of 1995, the Orleans Levee Board, the local government entity that oversees the levees and floodgates designed to protect New Orleans and the surrounding areas from rising waters, bragged in a supplement to the Times-Picayune newspaper about federal money received to protect the region from hurricanes. "In the past four years, the Orleans Levee Board has built up its arsenal. The additional defenses are so critical that Levee Commissioners marched into Congress and brought back almost $60 million to help pay for protection," the pamphlet declared. "The most ambitious flood-fighting plan in generations was drafted. An unprecedented $140 million building campaign launched 41 projects." The levee board promised Times-Picayune readers that the "few manageable gaps" in the walls protecting the city from Mother Nature's waters "will be sealed within four years (1999) completing our circle of protection." But less than a year later, that same levee board was denied the authority to refinance its debts. Legislative Auditor Dan Kyle "repeatedly faulted the Levee Board for the way it awards contracts, spends money and ignores public bid laws," according to the Times-Picayune. The newspaper quoted Kyle as saying that the board was near bankruptcy and should not be allowed to refinance any bonds, or issue new ones, until it submitted an acceptable plan to achieve solvency. Blocked from financing the local portion of the flood fighting efforts, the levee board was unable to spend the federal matching funds that had been designated for the project. By 1998, Louisiana's state government had a $2 billion construction budget, but less than one tenth of one percent of that -- $1.98 million -- was dedicated to levee improvements in the New Orleans area. State appropriators were able to find $22 million that year to renovate a new home for the Louisiana Supreme Court and $35 million for one phase of an expansion to the New Orleans convention center. The following year, the state legislature did appropriate $49.5 million for levee improvements, but the proposed spending had to be allocated by the State Bond Commission before the projects could receive financing. The commission placed the levee improvements in the "Priority 5" category, among the projects least likely to receive full or immediate funding. The Orleans Levee Board was also forced to defer $3.7 million in capital improvement projects in its 2001 budget after residents of the area rejected a proposed tax increase to fund its expanding operations. Long term deferments to nearly 60 projects, based on the revenue shortfall, totaled $47 million worth of work, including projects to shore up the floodwalls. No new state money had been allocated to the area's hurricane protection projects as of October of 2002, leaving the available 65 percent federal matching funds for such construction untouched. "The problem is money is real tight in Baton Rouge right now," state Sen. Francis Heitmeier (D-Algiers) told the Times-Picayune. "We have to do with what we can get." Louisiana Commissioner of Administration Mark Drennen told local officials that, if they reduced their requests for state funding in other, less critical areas, they would have a better chance of getting the requested funds for levee improvements. The newspaper reported that in 2000 and 2001, "the Bond Commission has approved or pledged millions of dollars for projects in Jefferson Parish, including construction of the Tournament Players Club golf course near Westwego, the relocation of Hickory Avenue in Jefferson (Parish) and historic district development in Westwego." There is no record of such discretionary funding requests being reduced or withdrawn, but in October of 2003, nearby St. Charles Parish did receive a federal grant for $475,000 to build bike paths on top of its levees. Earlier this year, the levee board did complete a $2.5 million restoration project. After months of delays, officials rolled away fencing to reveal the restored 1962 Mardi Gras fountain in a four-acre park featuring a new 600-foot plaza between famous Lakeshore Drive and the sea wall. Financing for the renovation came from a property tax passed by New Orleans voters in 1983. The tax, which generates more than $6 million each year for the levee board, is dedicated to capital projects. Levee board officials defended more than $600,000 in cost overruns for the Mardi Gras fountain project, according to the Times-Picayune, "citing their responsibility to maintain the vast green space they have jurisdiction over along the lakefront." Democrats blame Bush administration Congressional Democrats have been quick to blame the White House for poor preparation and then a weak response related to Hurricane Katrina. U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, joined two of his colleagues from the Transportation and Infrastructure and Homeland Security committees Tuesday in a letter requesting hearings into what the trio called a "woefully inadequate" federal response. "Hurricane Katrina was an unstoppable force of nature," Waxman wrote along with Reps. James Oberstar (D-Minn.) and Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.). "But it is plain that the federal government could have done more, sooner, to respond to the immediate survival needs of the residents of Louisiana and Mississippi. "In fact, different choices for funding and planning to protect New Orleans may even have mitigated the flooding of the city," the Democrats added. But Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) suggested that Waxman "overlooks many other questions that need to be asked, and prematurely faults the federal government for all governmental shortcomings; in fact, local and state government failures are not mentioned at all in [Waxman's] letter." Davis wrote that Waxman's questions about issues such as the lack of federal plans for evacuating residents without access to vehicles and the alleged failure of the Department of Homeland Security to ensure basic communications capacity for first responders might "prematurely paint the picture that these are solely, or even primarily, federal government responsibilities. "This is not the time to attack or defend government entities for political purposes. Rather, this is a time to do the oversight we're charged with doing," Davis continued. "Our Committee will aggressively investigate what went wrong and what went right. We'll do it by the book, and let the chips fall where they may." The House Government Reform Committee will begin hearings on federal disaster preparations and the response to Hurricane Katrina the week of Sept. 12. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is schedule to hold hearings on the economic recovery from Katrina beginning Wednesday morning. CNS

Here are a few excerpts from the New Orleans City Charter: As established by the City of New Orleans Charter, the government has jurisdiction and responsibility in disaster response. City government shall coordinate its efforts through the Office of Emergency Preparedness. ... The authority to order the evacuation of residents threatened by an approaching hurricane is conferred to the Governor by Louisiana Statute. The Governor is granted the power to direct and compel the evacuation of all or part of the population from a stricken or threatened area within the State, if he deems this action necessary for the preservation of life or other disaster mitigation, response or recovery. The same power to order an evacuation conferred upon the Governor is also delegated to each political subdivision of the State by Executive Order. This authority empowers the chief elected official of New Orleans, the Mayor of New Orleans, to order the evacuation of the parish residents threatened by an approaching hurricane. ... The City of New Orleans will utilize all available resources to quickly and safely evacuate threatened areas. Those evacuated will be directed to temporary sheltering and feeding facilities as needed. When specific routes of progress are required, evacuees will be directed to those routes. Special arrangements will be made to evacuate persons unable to transport themselves or who require specific life saving assistance. Additional personnel will be recruited to assist in evacuation procedures as needed. ... Evacuation procedures for small scale and localized evacuations are conducted per the SOPs of the New Orleans Fire Department and the New Orleans Police Department. However, due to the sheer size and number of persons to be evacuated, should a major tropical weather system or other catastrophic event threaten or impact the area, specifically directed long range planning and coordination of resources and responsibilities efforts must be undertaken. Also, the "new" video offers nothing new. Mayfield, in this video which was made just several hours prior to the eyewall making landfall, says he's worried about the levies being topped, and nobody ever mentions breaches or failures as what did occur. Don't going changing the words in order to suit your own agendas, that is, unless you enjoy being a liar. The local authorities are responsibile for the evacuation. New Orleans, Nagin, and Blanco were utterly unprepared. I received a call at 11:30 am the Friday prior to landfall (which was Monday) from an Assistant Director of Finance from New Orleans Parish Schools. I asked her was the heck she was doing at work as the 11:00 am report had them just inside the western edge of the cone of what was then a Cat 3. The city had absolutely no idea what they were facing. Indeed, the NHC never mentioned LA in its "discussions" until the 11:00 pm report on Saturday. Even then, it called for a 2-4 foot surge. So, in fairness to Nagin and Blanco, NHC has to take some responsibility.

I, too, think the sentence didn't fit the crime. It didn't come close, and he deserves a lot worse. The Republicans were upset when Clinton rented out the Lincoln Bedroom, but this guy had a freakin' printed list of what bribes purchased what benefits printed up on his letterhead. He actively solicited the bribes. To the best of my knowledge, none of the beneficiaries were considered our enemies, or else should have been charged with treason. 100 months - BFD. He grossly misrepresented an embarrassed his constituents, as well as all Americans. He was the Navy's only ace in Veitnam (actually, his RIO also gets credit for an ace, Cunningham was the pilot). To me, his background in Vietnam only makes this that much more of an embarrassment. It would have been a lot easier to take if it had been some draft dodging weasel than having the best of our best prove to be of such character. What about those that accepted his invitations to bribe? I'm having a hard time finding out anything about their prosecution.

"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line." President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998-Truth! This was a quote from President Clinton during a presentation at the Pentagon defending a decision to conduct military strikes against Iraq. "If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program." President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998-Truth! Bill Clinton went to the Pentagon on this occasion to be briefed by top military officials about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. His remarks followed that briefing. "Iraq is a long way from USA but, what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face." Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998-Truth! This is a quote from Albright during an appearance at Ohio State University by Albright, who was Secretary of State for Bill Clinton. "He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983." Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998-Truth! This was at the same Ohio State University appearance as Madeline Albright. "We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S.Constitution and Laws, to take necessary actions, (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998-Truth! According to the U.S. Senate website, the text of this letter was signed by several Senators, both Democrat and Republican, including Senator John McCain and Joseph Lieberman. "Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998-Truth! The text of this statement by Nancy Pelosi is posted on her congressional website. "Hussein has .. chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies." Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999-Truth! This was from an appearance Albright made in Chicago. She was addressing the embargo of Iraq that was in effect at the time and criticism that it may have prevented needed medical supplies from getting into the country. Albright said, "There has never been an embargo against food and medicine. It's just that Hussein has just not chosen to spend his money on that. Instead, he has chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction, and palaces for his cronies." "There is no doubt that ... Saddam Hussein has invigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue a pace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies." Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, December 5, 2001Truth! The only letter with this quote from December 5, 2001 that we could find did not include the participation of Senator Bob Graham, but it was signed nine other senators including Democrat Joe Lieberman. It urged President Bush to take quicker action against Iraq. "We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them." Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002-Truth! These were remarks from Senator Levin to a Senate committee on that date. "We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002-Truth! This and the quote below was part of prepared remarks for a speech in San Francisco to The Commonwealth Club. "Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002-Truth! "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002-Truth! Part of a speech he gave at Johns Hopkins. "The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..." Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002-Truth! On the floor of the Senate during debate over the resolution that would authorize using force against Iraq. He was urging caution about going to war and commented that even though there was confidence about the weapons in Iraq, there had not been the need to take military action for a number of years and he asked why there would be the need at that point. "I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002-Truth! Senator Kerry's comments were made to the Senate as part of the same debate over the resolution to use force against Saddam Hussein. "There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years ... We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction." Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002-Truth! Senator Rockefeller's statements were a part of the debate over using force against Saddam Hussein. "He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do" Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002-Truth! Senator Waxman's contribution to the Senate debate over going to war. "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002-Truth! Senator Clinton acknowledged the threat of Saddam Hussein but said she did not feel that using force at that time was a good option. "Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real ..." Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan.23.2003-Truth! In a speech to Georgetown University. Truth or Fiction As for lying under oath, Martha Stewart went to jail for the same offense. There was no evidence whatsoever that her receiving an unsolicited phone call recommending to sell as the president of a corporation filed with the SEC to sell all his shares, and was thus public knowledge. On the otherhand, a certain Senator from New York sold short shares in health care, then, later that day, announced that as chair of the health care reform that she was going to crush those companies, causing a huge decline in their value, making almost 15 times as much on that insider trade than Stewart made on a public trade. Make no mistake, I think Bush, like Clinton, will be remembered very poorly. Bush was the reason I changed my party affiliation. But the closed-mindedness of those of you on what used to be the far left, but by today's standard is the moderate left, is still even more appalling.

Cuba seen pushing oil, gas work close to Florida Nick Snow Washington Correspondent WASHINGTON, DC, Mar. 2 -- Cuba is moving to develop its offshore oil and gas resources, which would result in development closer to Florida's coast than the US government allows, Rep. John E. Peterson (R-Pa.) warned on Mar. 2. "Offshore oil and natural gas drilling, sanctioned by the Cuban government, occurs within 60 miles of Florida's southern borders. Moreover, the drilling potential within the existing Cuban basin is such that oil wells will, in the near future, be as close as 35-40 miles from the Florida keys," he said. The island nation cannot develop its offshore energy resources itself, so it enlisted the help of Canadian, Chinese, Indian, Spanish, Venezuelan, and Norwegian companies, Peterson said. With their help, Cuba has pumped $1.7 billion into its energy industry since 2004, he said at a breakfast sponsored by Dow Chemical Co. and The Hill newspaper. The proposed 5-year Outer Continental Shelf leasing plan being developed by the US Minerals Management Service and a bill before the US Senate would establish a 100-mile oil and gas leasing buffer off Florida's coast. Most of the state's congressional delegation supports another bill that its two US senators, Republican Mel Martinez and Democrat Bill Nelson, introduced on Feb. 1 that would effectively push new offshore exploration 260 miles from Tampa Bay (OGJ, Feb. 20, 2006, p. 24). "Any way you slice it, Cuba, with the help of its foreign enablers, is drilling closer to sovereign American property than we are," Peterson said. 'Awash in gas' Calling Florida "awash in gas" with the potential to be self-sufficient, he said, "I would never negotiate with one state at the expense of the country?especially one that uses 133 times the natural gas it produces." He and Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Ha.) have introduced HR 4318, a bill that would lift congressional and presidential bans on offshore drilling for natural gas. The measure has 133 cosponsors, including more than 20 Democrats, Peterson said. Its cosponsors also include one member of Florida's House delegation, Republican John L. Mica. "There are others who would like to, but they're afraid the press would eat them alive," said Peterson. He told OGJ that he thinks his bill will move through the House Resources Committee with relative ease but face a harder test before the entire House. Peterson also told OGJ that Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-NM) "says that if we pass it by a big enough margin, it will give him the momentum to get it through the Senate." Peterson told the breakfast audience that winning the support of House members from urban districts could be the key to the House's passing the bill by a large margin. "If legislators from our cities realize the impact high gas prices have on their voters, this will happen," he said. Peterson said "a couple of dozen" more House members have indicated they would vote for the bill even though they are not cosponsors. "I'm going to push the [Resources] committee for a mark-up as soon as possible," he said. Opposes state options He said his bill is preferable to proposals that would give coastal states the option to request lifting of federal moratoriums and withdrawals because that approach would take too long. "This is a crisis. I don't think giving states additional rights treats it that way. It delays the process," he maintained. His bill would extend coastal states' jurisdiction from 3 to 20 miles, give them 40% shares of revenue from bonus bids and royalties from any new gas activity off their coasts, and phase in 40% revenue shares for coastal states over 4 years from existing offshore gas production. Peterson also defended his bill's exclusion of oil and focus on gas. "I'm sure the oil industry wasn't happy with me when I proposed gas-only. But we're doing nothing now. Why should we export billions of dollars to foreign suppliers when we have our own natural gas?" he said. Excluding oil, he added, "put people at my side who wouldn't be there otherwise." Peterson said he has nothing to gain personally by trying to get the US to develop more of its offshore gas resources. "I don't remember ever owning an energy stock or making a dollar out of energy," he said. "My view is that we as a government are handicapping American business, American homeowners, and people who are just trying to survive by closing off these vital resources. Current prices and policies guarantee that America will continue to lose basic industries," Peterson warned. Oil and Gas Journal

Suicide bombers attack Saudi oil facility (Reuters) 24 February 2006 DUBAI - An explosion rocked Saudi Arabia?s huge Abqaiq oil facility in the east of the kingdom on Friday and an official said Saudi forces had thwarted suicide bomb attacks against the world?s biggest oil exporter. Oil jumped more than $2 a barrel. Al Qaeda leaders have previously called for attacks on oil fields in Saudi Arabia, a key US ally. A security source said suicide bombers had tried to storm the facility in the mainly Shia province, known locally as Baqiq, and site of one of Saudi Arabia?s main oilfields. ?Security forces foiled an attempted suicide attack at the Abqaiq refinery using at least two cars,? the official said. Dubai-based television station Al-Arabiya said Saudi forces killed the attackers. It quoted witnesses saying there was shooting. Al Arabiya said the cars used by the attackers had the logo of Saudi state-owned oil company Aramco on them and that one car exploded at the gate to one refinery mid-afternoon. Al Arabiya said a fire at a pipeline from the blast was now under control. It was not clear if there was any impact on output from the world?s top oil producer and a close US ally. Most Saudi oil is exported from the Gulf via the huge Abqaiq producing, pumping and processing facility. The world?s biggest processing plant, it handles about two-thirds of the country?s output. Former Middle East CIA field officer Robert Baer has described Abqaiq as ?the most vulnerable point and most spectacular target in the Saudi oil system.? ?It?s not clear what damage there is but Abqaiq is the world?s most important oil facility,? said Gary Ross, CEO at PIRA Energy consultancy in New York. ?This just emphasises fears over global oil supply security when we?re already facing major ongoing risks in Nigeria, Iran and Iraq.? Khaleej Times