Ordc Forum/Blog

Obama and Geithner: Government, Enron-Style
POSTED: December 20, 10:06 AM ET

Strongly recommend this piece at the Huffington Post by Jeff Connaughton, a former aide to Senator Ted Kaufman. Jeff is one of the smartest guys on the Hill and is particularly strong on issues surrounding Wall Street and the regulatory system. In this piece, he takes apart the oft-stated mantra that what Wall Street firms did during and after the crisis was maybe unethical, but not illegal.

=> Read more!

Boys and girls, this is extremely bad news and may indicate that we have reached an irreversible tipping point. Some of these bubbles are 1km in diameter.
Russian research team astonished after finding 'fountains' of methane bubbling to surface
http://edpearl.blogspot.com/2011/12/shock-as-retreat-of-arctic-sea-ice.html

Steve Connor
Independent UK: 13 December, 2011

Dramatic and unprecedented plumes of methane – a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide – have been seen bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean by scientists undertaking an extensive survey of the region.

The scale and volume of the methane release has astonished the head of the Russian research team who has been surveying the seabed of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf off northern Russia for nearly 20 years.

=> Read more!

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

My name is Patrick Meighan, and I’m a husband, a father, a writer on the Fox animated sitcom “Family Guy”, and a member of the Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Santa Monica.

I was arrested at about 1 a.m. Wednesday morning with 291 other people at Occupy LA. I was sitting in City Hall Park with a pillow, a blanket, and a copy of Thich Nhat Hanh’s “Being Peace” when 1,400 heavily-armed LAPD officers in paramilitary SWAT gear streamed in.

=> Read more!

There’s some disturbing rhetoric flying around in the debate over the National Defense Authorization Act, which among other things contains passages that a) officially codify the already-accepted practice of indefinite detention of "terrorist" suspects, and b) transfer the responsibility for such detentions exclusively to the military.

=> Read more!

This bill allows any citizen anywhere in the world to be held in indefinite detention by military authorities without charges or trial on the ‘suspicion’ of association with terrorists.

http://trueblueprogressivereport.blogspot.com/2011/12/senate-approves-indefinite-detention.html
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2011
By Renee Parsons

If Al Qaeda needed a recruitment tool for its dwindling numbers, its operatives simply needed to video tape the Senate’s recent consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act (S. 1867).

What should have been a serious discussion on the cost and moral authority of the President’s endless war policy stretching U.S. military tentacles around the globe morphed instead into a platform for endless harangues about American ‘traitors’ during WWII, inflamed passions about ‘terrorists’, bipartisan ravings in fear of Iran, redefining the Constitution and other war-mongering subjects.

=> Read more!

On the other side of the political spectrum, Ron Paul also advocates getting rid of the federal reserve. I think there can be a basis for a new coalition, perhaps growing out of Occupy Wall Street. Click the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUpXDZFtEHw&feature=share
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), a longtime advocate for reform of the Federal Reserve, is sharply criticizing the Federal Reserve today after Bloomberg news reported that the Federal Reserve secretly committed nearly $8 trillion in support to American and international financial institutions during the 2008 bailout. Kucinich recorded a video for his website before going to the floor of the House of Representatives to call upon Congress to reclaim its Constitution primacy over monetary policy.