Bailed out insurance giant AIG plans $198 million in new bonuses

American International Group, which has received nearly $200 billion in bailout funds from the federal government, is slated to pay 400 employees in its financial products division another $198 million, according to a report published Wednesday by the Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

Oligarchic Senate Still ‘Treasonous’ After All These Years

October 16, 2009 “Information Clearing House” — -Where are gutsy muckrakers of yesteryear?  In a stunning 1906 Cosmopolitan expose, journalist David Graham Phillips made history with his headline, “The Treason of the Senate.”  He then justified his condemnation of mercenary senators, then cherrypicked by states and owned by nefarious Trusts:

MSM: Support troops swell U.S. force in Afghanistan

(MSNBC) – President Obama announced in March that he would be sending 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. But in an unannounced move, the White House has also authorized — and the Pentagon is deploying — at least 13,000 troops beyond that number, according to defense officials.

Video: The ever changing story – Anatomy of a typical US military propaganda campaign

(Examiner) – One month later, after the bombings of a village in western Afghanistan that killed up wards of 150 civilians, we now get this half assed admission of culpability on the part of the US military.

U.S. News & World Report Piece Implies People Who Question 9/11 Mentally Ill

Psychologists Weigh In On 9/11

A new article in U.S. News & World Report quotes a couple of psychologists, one sociologist and one historian to argue that people who question the government’s version of 9/11 are prone to false thinking.

MSM: White House – Budget deficit to top $1.8 trillion

(AP) – With the economy performing worse than hoped, revised White House figures point to deepening budget deficits, with the government borrowing almost 50 cents for every dollar it spends this year.

US Hides Behind Iran Sanctions Threat

Whereas United States President Barack Obama promised in his new year message to Iran that he was committed to a new diplomacy that “will not be advanced by threats”, a month later this is precisely what is happening. This is in light of new White House-backed legislation in the US Congress that aims to impose “crippling sanctions” on Iran by targeting its energy imports.

Video: Over 50 Anti-Torture Activists Arrested at White House Protest – “Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied”

On Thursday, April 30, 2009, in a massive act of non-violent “Civil Resistance” over 50 activists were arrested at a protest action in front of the White House. The protesters refused to move from the sidewalk when ordered to so by the police. The activists were demanding that the administration of President Barack Obama uphold the supremacy of the Law and investigate and prosecute wrongdoers in the Bush-Cheney Gang responsible for “acts of torture.”

Torture Memos Expose Dark, Imperial Presidency

This was not a happy week for the torture lobby, nor its defenders, derailing months of charm offensive by Bush-Cheney legacy boosters. A wary President Obama backed off attempts to defuse the torture parade – fretting over divisive investigations and hard-to-win court convictions. Public indignation likely surpassed February polling when 65% favored torture investigations, 40% criminal prosecutions.

Top Democrats Complicit In Torture Cover-Up

We now know why top Democrats are protecting Bush administration officials from facing an inquiry into the illegal torture program – because several of them were actually complicit in giving their approval for such methods to be used.

MSM: Obama Repeats ’90 Percent’ Stat for U.S. Guns Recovered in Mexico

The White House stands by the president’s use of the word “recovered” in describing the role firearms smuggled from the U.S. play in Mexico’s drug war.

Death By the Numbers: Pakistan Counts the Toll of the Bush-Obama Drone War

As we all know, the Terror Warriors in the White House (of whatever political stripe) don’t do body counts. They just kill people, make unsupported claims of “clean hits” on “militants,” backtrack a bit later when eyewitness reports confirm extensive civilian casualties, promise “investigations” that kick the PR can way down the road — and carry on killing.

U.S. seen weighing expanded covert war in Pakistan

President Barack Obama and his national security advisers are considering expanding the covert U.S. war in Pakistan far beyond the tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.

MSM: White House says world can’t delay on Iran

WASHINGTON – The White House says the international community must work together to urgently address Iran’s uranium enrichment activities.

Film: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Two independent filmmakers were inside the presidential palace on April 11, 2002, when he was forcibly removed from office. They were also present 48 hours later when, remarkably, he returned to power amid cheering aides. Their film records what was probably history’s shortest-lived coup d’état.

Another Attack on the Constitution: Obama Hijacks the Census

It’s another shot across the bow of the Constitution: the White House has announced it will micromanage the census. It is said Obama and crew — you can almost hear Rahm Emanuel cracking his knuckles in Obama’s ear — decided to lord over the census after California Rep. Barbara Lee, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Hispanic groups complained to the White House about Judd Gregg, the Republican senator from New Hampshire slated to head the Commerce Department. Lee, the Caucus, and Hispanic groups complained Gregg couldn’t be trusted to conduct to run the census, at least not to their liking, and in response the Obama administration hijacked the census.

Generals Seek To Reverse Obama’s Iraq Withdrawal Decision

CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus, supported by Defence Secretary Robert Gates, tried to convince President Barack Obama that he had to back down from his campaign pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months at an Oval Office meeting Jan. 21.

Chomsky: No change coming with Obama

The following is a Press TV interview with respected American author, political analyst and world-renowned linguist, Professor Noam Chomsky.

MSM: Venezuela’s Chavez says Obama has “stench” of Bush

Venezuela (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Saturday Barack Obama had the “stench” of his predecessor as U.S. president and was at risk of being killed if he tries to change the American “empire.”

Video: 8 years in 8 minutes – accomplishments of George W. Bush – Keith Olberman

The accomplishments of George W. Bush, eight years in eight minutes.
OK, maybe too many accomplishments for 8 minutes. The clip is 9.6 minutes in length.

Karl Rove’s/GOP’s IT Guru Dies in Plane Crash

A top level Republican IT consultant who was set to testify in a case alleging GOP election tampering in Ohio died in a plane crash late Friday night.

This Is Not A Normal Recession: Moving on to Plan B

“The Winter of 2008-2009 will prove to be the winter of global economic discontent that marks the rejection of the flawed ideology that unregulated global financial markets promote financial innovation, market efficiency, unhampered growth and endless prosperity while mitigating risk by spreading it system wide.” Economists Paul Davidson and Henry C.K. Liu “Open Letter to World Leaders attending the November 15 White House Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy”

Will Wall Street’s Meltdown Turn America Into a Police State?

Failing banks? Endless war? Call Homeland Security.

“Raw capitalism is dead.” — Henry Paulson, U.S. Treasury secretary

“Can’t we just all go out and say things are OK?” — President Bush, to congressional leaders during bailout negotiations

I’m not much of an Army Times reader, but after reading that a brigade was shipping from Iraq in October to serve as “an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks” in the homeland right before the election, my antennae perked up. Same as they did when I read that an electoral college doomsday scenario exists in which Dick Cheney casts the deciding vote that gives McCain-Palin the White House.

MSM: Lawmakers Reach Accord on Huge Financial Rescue

Vote is Imminent on $700 Billion Bailout Plan

Congressional leaders and the Bush administration this morning said they had struck an accord to insert the government deeply into the nation’s financial markets, agreeing to spend up to $700 billion to relieve Wall Street of troubled assets backed by faltering home mortgages.

House and Senate negotiators from both parties emerged with Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. at 12:30 a.m. from a marathon session in the Capitol to announce that they had reached a tentative agreement on a proposal to give Paulson broad authority to organize one of the biggest government interventions in the private sector since the Great Depression.

Video: Bush Ordered CIA to Forge Iraq Intelligence to start Iraq War

A new book by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind claims that, after the Iraq war began, the White House ordered the CIA to forge a “backdated, handwritten letter” from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein, in an attempt to tie Hussein to the 9/11 attacks.

Ex-CIA official: WMD evidence ignored

’60 Minutes’ report: White House disregarded good intelligence

Will the Fall of an Aussie Bank Rock Wall Street? Apocalypse Down Under

Monday’s trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) was a real humdinger.