Thursday, 4 February 2010

Amid Media Blackout

By Alex Lantier

The revelation that US intelligence agencies made a deliberate decision to allow Abdulmutallab to board the commercial flight, without any special airport screening, has been buried in the media. As of this writing, nearly a week after the hearing, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times have published no articles on the subject. Nor have the broadcast or cable media reported on it. Continue



By Real News Network

Clare Short accuses Lord Goldsmith, the former attorney general, of misleading the Cabinet over the legality of the Iraq war. Continue



By: Bob Chapman

How can the US conceivably extricate itself from debt? That is $1 to $2 trillion deficits annually as far as the eye can see. It is already bogged down in an occupation in Iraq and a war in Afghanistan that stretches into Pakistan. That is all off budget, but it stretches already to more than $1 trillion. Then there is the phony, phantom war on terror the cost of which is unknown. Continue



By Paul Craig Roberts 

Readers ask if the financial crisis is over, if the recovery is for real and, if not, what are Americans’ prospects. The short answer is that the financial crisis is not over, the recovery is not real, and the U.S. faces a far worse crisis than the financial one. Here is the situation as I understand it: Continue


        
By Mike Whitney

The banks didn't care if the loans were repaid because they got their money "up front" on volume originations. That's why they were so eager to issue mortgages to people with no income, no collateral, no job, and a bad credit history. It was all a gigantic skimming operation, where banks and brokers got their cut and then bailed out before the whole thing blew up. Continue



By Dina ElBoghdady and Dan Keating

February 02, 2010 "Washington Post" -- The share of borrowers who are falling seriously behind on loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration jumped by more than a third in the past year, foreshadowing a crush of foreclosures that could further buffet an agency vital to the housing market's recovery. Continue



By Daniel Tencer

The study, Hunger in America 2010, found that 37 million people, or roughly one in eight US residents, received food aid in 2009. That's a 46 percent jump from a similar survey carried out in 2006. Continue