Hampton Roads Publishing Company Blog

Took a while. One wonders how the voters of the state feel about having to wait so many months because the incumbent wouldn’t admit he was defeated. From http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/us/politics/02minnesota.html?ref=us

Franken, in Long Wait, Studied for Senate Role

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
Published: July 1, 2009
After eight months of quietly raising money, hiring a staff and boning up on health care and other issues, Al Franken, the newly minted Democratic senator from Minnesota, finally got to deliver a victory speech on Wednesday.

“I’m not going to waste this chance,” he declared at a rally at the Capitol in St. Paul, a day after the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled him the winner of a protracted election battle with Senator Norm Coleman that began Nov. 4.

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White House Watched
Friday 26 June 2009
by: Dan Froomkin | Visit article original @ The Washington Post

Former President George W. Bush. Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin chronicled the White House throughout Bush’s presidency. (Photo: Getty Images)
Today’s column is my last for The Washington Post. And the first thing I want to say is thank you. Thank you to all you readers, e-mailers, commenters, questioners, Facebook friends and Twitterers for spending your time with me and engaging with me over the years. And thank you for the recent outpouring of support. It was extraordinarily uplifting, and I’m deeply grateful. If I ever had any doubt, your words have further inspired me to continue doing accountability journalism. My plan is to take a few weeks off before embarking upon my next endeavor — but when I do, I hope you’ll join me.

It’s hard to summarize the past five and a half years. But I’ll try.

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This guy is selling advice, clearly. And I don’t know a thing about him; I stumbled upon this link (http://www.moneyandmarkets.com/new-hard-evidence-of-continuing-debt-collapse-34202) within a comment dissenting from the main view at another site (http://pragcap.com/marc-faber-hyperinflation-is-coming) which in turn I came to via Mike Ruppert’s blog, http://mikeruppert.blogspot.com/.

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The latest of John Whitehead’s periodic columns, which may be found on the web at www.rutherford.org

Know Your Rights or You Will Lose Them
By John W. Whitehead
June 22, 2009

“It astonishes me to find… [that so many] of our countrymen… should be contented to live under a system which leaves to their governors the power of taking from them the trial by jury in civil cases, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce, the habeas corpus laws, and of yoking them with a standing army. This is a degeneracy in the principles of liberty… which I [would not have expected for at least] four centuries.”–Thomas Jefferson, 1788

“Most citizens,” writes columnist Nat Hentoff, “are largely uneducated about their own constitutional rights and liberties.”

The following true incident is a case in point for Hentoff’s claim. A young attorney,

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More on the inevitable changes ahead. From http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/528ba940-4e19-11de-a0a1-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

General Motors holds a mirror up to America
By Robert Reich
Published: May 31 2009 21:03 | Last updated: May 31 2009 21:03
As president of General Motors when Eisenhower tapped him to become secretary of defence in 1953, “Engine Charlie” Wilson voiced at his Senate confirmation hearing what was then the conventional view. When asked whether he could make a decision in the interest of the US that was adverse to the interest of GM, he said he could.

Then he reassured them that such a conflict would never arise. “I cannot conceive of one because for years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa. Our company is too big. It goes with the welfare of the country.”

Wilson was only slightly exaggerating. At the time, the fate of GM was

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It’s a sick society that hates its own children and does not protect them.

But on the other hand, there’s so much money to be made!

The Hostile Takeover of Childhood
By John W. Whitehead
June 15, 2009
“Irresponsible, manipulative, and deceitful marketing efforts push products and programs that harm children physically, emotionally, socially, mentally, morally, and even spiritually. Children today face increased exposure to sex, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, guns, foul language, bullying, violence, and fattening foods. And many of us are simply standing by as increased materialism and commercialism undermine our culture’s basic values.”– Daniel S. Acuff and Robert H. Reiher, Kidnapped: How Irresponsible Marketers Are Stealing the Minds of Your Children (2005)

Children are in greater physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual danger now than at any other time during the life of this nation–and the threat is coming from a multi-billion dollar industry that is using the latest advances in psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience to transform children into profitable consumers from cradle to grave.

It’s no surprise that the pre-teen demographic has become a major draw for marketers and big business. There are presently 52 million kids under the age of 12 in the United States. These kids spend $40 billion of their own money on everything from clothes and music to toys and electronics annually, but more importantly, they influence an additional $700 billion in parental spending.

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Is the sky still falling? Lots of people have strong opinions, but opinions aren’t necessarily right just because they’re strong. This article from MSN Money argues that housing is going to continue to sink.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/CompanyFocus/coming-a-3rd-wave-of-foreclosures.aspx?ref=patrick.net

Coming: A 3rd wave of foreclosures
The next group of Americans to lose their homes seemed to have good credit and affordable loans. But those families have been walloped by the recession.

By Michael Brush
MSN Money
There’s a simple reason you shouldn’t get too excited about the “green shoots” of an economic turnaround.
In the housing market, a lot of prime mortgages are becoming subprime as a new wave of foreclosures begins to hit. Mainstream homeowners — those previously “safe” borrowers with sound credit who have conservative, fixed-rate mortgages — are getting into trouble at an alarming rate.

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The problems are so interconnected that as one aspect improves, it makes another worse. So, fewer drivers, more efficient cars, reduce the need for oil — and starve the highway fund.

Real change is coming, and not because any of the policy makers want it or even approve of it, but because they can’t stop it. The question is, what form will it finally take?

From http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124398661358179367.html#mod=loomia?loomia_si=t0:a16:g2:r4:c0.0792667:b24890342

U.S. Highway Fund Low on Cash Again

By CHRISTOPHER CONKEY

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said as much as $17 billion in additional federal money is needed to maintain roads and bridges over the next two years, underscoring the challenges policy makers face as driving habits change.

The recession and gas-price increases over the past two years have caused many consumers to drive less and switch to more fuel-efficient cars. The result has been a fall in revenue from taxes on gasoline and vehicle purchases, which are used to fund state and local transportation projects.

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From http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124510580969816645.html

New Regulations Designed to Pass

President Barack Obama spent the first five months of his presidency trying to make sure the worst financial shock in 70 years didn’t push the U.S. economy into a depression. He will spend the next five months or so trying to redo the rules of finance so we don’t go through this again.

Enough of the Obama plan has leaked to see how Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and chief White House economist Lawrence Summers propose to protect the economy from the vulnerabilities now so painfully evident: Plug the gaps; don’t redo the organization chart. Rely heavily on the sagacity of the Federal Reserve; the alternatives are inferior. Craft a plan that has a chance of getting through Congress.

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from http://www.truthout.org/061409E

For Republicans, the Forces Aren’t With Them
Sunday 14 June 2009
by: Dan Balz | The Washington Post

There has been much chatter about who now speaks for the Republican Party and whether the GOP has a message or agenda to combat President Obama’s popularity. Those questions are important to the party’s future, but the most serious problem remains the deeper demographic and political forces at work in the country.

For the past few months, political analysts and demographers have been poring over the results of the 2008 election and comparing them with presidential results from the last two decades. From whatever angle of their approach - age, race, economic status, geography - they have come to a remarkably similar conclusion. Almost all indicators are pressing the Republicans into minority status.

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