Ordc Forum/Blog

Just in case you haven't heard, the Inyo County Democrats Central Committee endorsed Debra Bowen for Congress from the 36th District at our April meeting. We also voted to donate $20 to her campaign from committee funds.

Watch Video of Republican Getting Clock Cleaned

Published on Sunday, April 24, 2011 by the Guardian/UK
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/22/water-the-next-arab-battle
By: Lester Brown

Long after the political uprisings in the Middle East have subsided, many underlying challenges that are not now in the news will remain. Prominent among these are rapid population growth, spreading water shortages, and growing food insecurity.

In some countries grain production is now falling as aquifers – underground water-bearing rocks – are depleted. After the Arab oil-export embargo of the 1970s, the Saudis realised that since they were heavily dependent on imported grain, they were vulnerable to a grain counter-embargo. Using oil-drilling technology, they tapped into an aquifer far below the desert to produce irrigated wheat. In a matter of years, Saudi Arabia was self-sufficient in its principal food staple.

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By Joseph E. Stiglitz•
May 2011

The personal and the political are today in perfect alignment. Virtually all U.S. senators, and most of the representatives in the House, are members of the top 1 percent when they arrive, are kept in office by money from the top 1 percent, and know that if they serve the top 1 percent well they will be rewarded by the top 1 percent when they leave office. By and large, the key executive-branch policymakers on trade and economic policy also come from the top 1 percent. When pharmaceutical companies receive a trillion-dollar gift—through legislation prohibiting the government, the largest buyer of drugs, from bargaining over price—it should not come as cause for wonder. It should not make jaws drop that a tax bill cannot emerge from Congress unless big tax cuts are put in place for the wealthy. Given the power of the top 1 percent, this is the way you would expect the system to work.

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By Sen. Bernie Sanders, Reader Supported News

02 April 11

"In another dubious twist, the Fed loans, at interest rates as low as 0.25 percent, relied on US Treasury securities as collateral. In other words, at the same time that the Arab Banking Corp. was borrowing money at almost zero interest from one arm of the government, the Fed, it was lending money at a higher interest rate to another arm of the US government, the Treasury Department."

How Do Gadhafi's Bankers Avoid US Sanctions?

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today questioned why the Federal Reserve provided more than $26 billion in credit to an Arab intermediary for the Central Bank of Libya.

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