Today's Stories

February 4, 2009

Arno J. Mayer
On Corruption

February 3, 2009

David Price
Counterinsurgency & Anthropology: Roberto Gonzalez on Human Terrain Systems

Bill Moyers
Obama's Wars: an Interview with Pierre Sprey and Marilyn Young

Kirkpatrick Sale
Obama's Lincoln Thing

Conn Hallinan
When Mind Wounds Don't Count

Peter Morici
The Slippery Slope of Stimulus

George Ciccariello-Maher
From Oakland to Santa Rita: "Fired Up, Can't Take It No More"

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad
The BBC's Nadir

Allan Nairn
What Does It Take to Get a Meal Here, an Earthquake?

Norman Solomon
Why are We Still at War?

David Macaray
The Late, Great UAW

Website of the Day
The Bloody Cove

February 2, 2009

Uri Avnery
Under the Black Flag: Israeli War Crimes

Ralph Nader
What to Do About Wall Street

Gareth Porter
Generals Move to Obstruct Obama's Iraq Withdrawal Orders

Paul Craig Roberts
The Death of American Leadership

Harvey Wasserman
The Nuclear Industry's Latest Money Grab

Rannie Amiri
Gaza and the Crimes of Mubarak

Cal Winslow
Stern's Gang Seizes UHW Union Hall

Steve Early
Checking Out of Stern's Hotel California

Alan Farago
Superbowl as Panopticon

Diane Farsetta
Banning Domestic Propaganda

January 30 / February 1, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Obama and the Oddsmakers

Michael Hudson
Obama's New Bank Giveaway

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
"Too Big to Fail:" a Bailout Hoax

Dave Lindorff
The Ugly Truth: the American Economy is Not Coming Back

Saul Landau
Freedom Fighters, Terrorists or Schlemiels?

Andy Worthington
Blame the Chef: How Cooking for the Taliban Can Get You Life in Gitmo

Subcomandante Marcos
Gaza Will Survive

Robert Jensen
Future Farming: an Interview with Wes Jackson

Ron Jacobs
Return of the Democrats

Gareth Porter
Is Gates Undermining Another Opening to Iran?

Allan Nairn
Hope for the Dump Cities?

Laura Carlsen
NAFTA's Dangerous Security Agenda

Rev. William E. Alberts
The Feelings of a Stranger

Christopher Brauchli
From Gitmo to Supermax?

Jules Rabin
Israel and the Bomb

Col. Dan Smith
Thoughts From an Inauguration Refugee

Missy Beattie
The US Garden of Evil

Tom Barry
Obama's Immigration Challenge

J. Michael Cole
The Downfall of an Academic

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Burning the First Amendment

Dan Bacher
How Dam Removal Can Save the Klamath River

David Rosen
Last Gasp of the Culture Wars?

Don Monkerud
Religion in the American Bedroom

Binoy Kampmark
Updike: Apostle of the Middlebrows

Lorenzo Wolff
Playing Down a Bad Reputation: the Lovin' Spooful's Near Perfect Record

David Yearsley
When Orfeo and Euridice Lived Happily Ever After in Upstate New York

Poets' Basement
Valentine and Rihn

January 29, 2009

Peter Linebaugh
Tom Paine's Birthday

Paul Craig Roberts
Is It Time to Bail Out of America?

Riz Khan
The Future of Gaza: an Interview with Jimmy Carter

M. Reza Pirbhai
Pakistan: a New Cambodia?

Wajahat Ali
Obama's Al-Arabiya Interview

Gregory Vickrey
What About the Environment? Cap and Trade and Selling Out

Dina Jadallah-Taschler
Whither the Two State Solution?

Alison Weir
Killing Palestinians Doesn't Count: Fact-Checking Ceasefire Breaches

Alan Farago
Economy Without Escape Routes

Walter Brasch
Taxing a House of Cards

Website of the Day
Madoff Inc.

January 28, 2009

Norman Finkelstein
Behind the Bloodbath in Gaza

Noam Chomsky
Obama's Emerging Policies on Israel, Iraq and the Economic Crisis

Patrick Cockburn
Is Mitchell's Mission Already Doomed?

Rob Larson
The Clinton Foundation Donors

George Wuerthner
Who Will Speak for the Forests?

Allan Nairn
South-East Asian Groups Threaten Retaliation Over Gaza Invasion

M. Junaid
Levesque-Alam
A Muslim's Memo to Obama

Stefan Simanowitz
The Silent Trade

Charles R. Larson
The Autumn of the Patriot

Website of the Day
Veggie Love: PETA's Banned Superbowl Ad

January 27, 2009

Winslow T. Wheeler
Save the Economy by Cutting the Defense Budget

Yigal Bronner /
Neve Gordon
Fueling the Cycle of Hate

Joshua Frank
Obama's Neocon: the Curious Case of Richard Holbrooke

Jordan Flaherty
Torture at a Louisiana Prison

Ralph Nader
Access to Economic Justice

Rev. José M. Tirado
How Iceland Fell: a Hundred Days of (Muted) Rage

Benjamin Dangl
Bolivia Looking Forward

Russell Mokhiber
What If Israel Were in Your Neighborhood?

Martha Rosenberg
Who Says Technology Transfer Doesn't Pay?

C. G. Estabrook
The Inaugural Address: the Digested Read

Website of the Day
Who Profits From the Occupation?

January 26, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Speaking the Truth is a Career-Ending Event

Deepak Tripathi
The BBC's Day of Shame

Vijay Prashad
The India Lobby: Drunk with the Sight of Power

Peter Lee
Geithner's Pop Gun Volley at China

Allan Nairn
The Torture Ban That Doesn't Ban Torture

Uri Avnery
On the Wrong Side of History

John Sayen
The Next Shoe to Drop

Dave Lindorff
Afghanistan is No Threat to America

Lawrence R. Velvel
Investing with Madoff

David Macaray
Obama vs. Labor

Roger Burbach
Winds of Change in Cuba

Norman Solomon
The Ghost of LBJ

Website of the Day
Landscapes of Occupation

January 23 / 25, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Ghosts at Obama's Side

P. Sainath
The Freefalling Economy

Patrick Cockburn
In Israel, Detachment From Reality is the Norm

Saul Landau
Reasons for War?

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Our Current Economic Crisis: the Monks' Cure

Alan Farago
The Problem with the Stimulus

Christopher Brauchli
When Due Diligence is a One-Way Street

Andy Worthington
Return to Law?

Ron Jacobs
Obama's Pentagon: Bowing to the Masters of War?

Lawrence Velvel
Investing with Madoff: My Experience (Part Four)

Henry A. Giroux
The Audacity of Educated Hope

David Yearsley
The Music That Wasn't There: Chamber Music for Obama's Masses

Raymond F. Gustavson
Here We Go Again: General Shinseki and Veterans

Dave Lindorff
The Way Forward

Roberto Rodriguez
Fighting for Migrant Justice in the Desert

Dina Jadallah-Taschler
The Struggle of an Un-People

Fidel Castro
Meeting Cristina

J. Michael Cole
Can Obama's Shift on Terror Succeed?

Bob Fitrakis /
Harvey Wasserman
It's Time to Free Leonard Peltier

Ramzy Baroud
Breaking Gaza's Will

Mohammad Ali Shabani
The Aftermath of the War on Gaza

Richard Rhames
Panning for Pyrite on a Cold Day at the Mall

Stephen Martin
Voices in the Mirror

Lorenzo Wolff
Jurassic Radio

Kim Nicolini
Katrina's Endless Loop

Poets' Basement
Fleming, Henson, First, Jaramillo and Glendinning

Website of the Weekend
Cartoon Love

January 22, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Another Real Estate Crisis is About to Hit

Kathy Kelly
Worse Than an Earthquake

Allan Nairn
US Intel Nominee Lied About Church Murders

Lawrence Velvel
Investing with Madoff: My Experience (Part Three)

Andy Worthington
Halting the Gitmo Trials

Peter Morici
How to Fix the Banks

Joseph G. Davis
The First MBA Presidency and the Business Academy: a Damage Assessment

Adriana Kojeve
The Democrats on Israel: a Brief Oral History

Benjamin Dangl
Bolivia Poised for Historic Vote

Website of the Day
Support the Gaza Community Mental Health Program

January 21, 2009

Gabriel Kolko
Understanding Gaza

Harry Browne
Obama's Work Ethic

Michael Colby
Ready. Aim. Organize.

Lawrence R. Velvel
Investing with Madoff: My Experience

Audrey Stewart
Starting Over in Gaza

Wajahat Ali
Obama and the Muslims

Binoy Kampmark
The Marketing of Hope

David Kεr Thomson
Abolition

John Ross
In My Own Bones

Allan Nairn
Killer in Chief: Will This President Murder Civilians?

Sheldon Richman
The Peaceful Transfer of Violent Power

Website of the Day
Globistan

January 20, 2009

Chuck Spinney
Hosing Obama Israeli Style

Kathy Kelly
The Strongest Weapon of All

Raymond Deane
The EU, Gaza and the Lisbon Treaty

Ralph Nader
State Terrorism Against Gaza

Audrey Stewart
Why I am in Gaza

Jonathan Cook
Israel's Doctrine of Destruction

Harvey Wasserman
A Ten-Point Solar Agenda for Obama

Christopher Ketcham
Inauguration Ad Nauseam

Robert Jensen
A Citizen's Oath of Office

Dave Lindorff
Commie Chorus on the Mall: This Land Really is Made for You and Me

David Macaray
SAG Watches It All Slip Away

January 19, 2009

Kevin Alexander Gray
Time for an New Divestment Campaign

Uri Avnery
The Boss Has Gone Mad

Kathy Kelly
Respite in Gaza

Mike Whitney
What Obama Left Out of His Economic Recovery Plan

Lawrence R. Velvel
Investing with Bernie Madoff

Mats Svensson
For Fatima in Gaza

Harry Browne
Obama's Bard: Springsteen's Working on a Dream

Norman Solomon
The Return of Triangulation

Jeffrey Sommers
The Baltic Riots: Really Existing Thatcherism

Kenneth Libby
Manipulating MLK Day

Peter Ewart
Robbie Burns, Mackenzie and Gaza

Bob Sommer
"The Fierce Urgency of Now"

Website of the Day
Death of a Whaler

January 16-18, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Hail to the Chief

Caoimhe Butterly
Terribly Bloodied, Still Breathing

Audrey Stewart /
Kathy Kelly
Suddenly Bombs Started Falling: Report from Gaza

Jeffrey St. Clair
High Plains Grifter: Geo. W. Bush, a Concise Biography

Ellen Cantarow
I Could Not Save a Single Child

Neve Gordon
How to Sell "Ethical" Warfare

Vijay Prashad
An African-American in Gaza

Jonathan Cook
Israeli Attack Injures 1.5 Million Gazans

Rannie Amiri
The UN in Israel's Crosshairs

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo's Forgotten Child

Joshua Frank
Forecasting Obama

Dave Lindorff
Prosecuting Bush and Cheney

Brian Cloughley
Who Runs America?

Belén Fernández
Changing the Equation

Missy Beattie
Peace and Justice Denied

Fred Gardner
Growing Pot for Research

George Ciccariello-Maher
"Oakland is Closed!"

John V. Whitbeck
Democracy Not Partition

Stephen Fleischman
Card Check

Mischa Gaus
Medicare for All! Tackling Union Opposition to Single-Payer

Saul Landau
The End of the Affair

Norm Kent
Perils of the Grow House

Alejandro López
Give Bush the Shoe! (and Send Us the Photo)

David Yearsley
The Glory That Was Dresden

James McEnteer
Doin' the Time Warp Again

Lorenzo Wolff
An Album That Lives Up to Its Cover

Kim Nicolini
Patti Smith's Dream of Life

Poets' Basement
Three Financial Poems by Brian J. Foley

Website of the Day
Lancet: Medical Conditions in Gaza

January 15, 2009

Pam Martens
Wall Street Powerhouses Invested Alongside Madoff

Karl Grossman
Obama and the Military - Industrial - Scientific Complex

M. Shahid Alam
Gaza's Shattered Mirror

Jules Rabin
Gaza Besieged, Gaza Mauled

Alan Farago
The Nail-Gun Bailout

Ron Jacobs
The State of Black America: From Oscar Grant to Barack Obama

Timothy Seidel
Just Violence in Gaza? The Calculus of Proportionality

George Ochenski
Why No Montana Wilderness?

Todd Chretien
Taking a Stand for Justice in Oakland

Bob Fitrakis /
Harvey Wasserman
Obama's Marijuana Prohibition Acid Test

Website of the Day
Uranium Watch

January 14, 2009

Henry A. Giroux
Killing Children With Impunity

Kathy Kelly
Cease Fire, Cease Siege

Franklin Lamb
A Second Front? Hezbollah Militants Chafe as Gaza Burns

Mike Whitney
The Big Contraction: Why the Stimulus Alone Won't Work

Paul Craig Roberts
The Humiliation of America

Glen Ford
Sullying Dr. King's Legacy: the Congressional Black Caucus and Israel

Aditya Chakrabortty
The End of Property Porn

Dave Lindorff
Fattening the Rats: Feeding at the Bailout Trough

Jonathan Cook
Israel Bars Arab Parties From Elections

David Swanson
Conyers Explains Why He Didn't Push Impeachment

Martha Rosenberg
Fragile: Handle with Risperdal

Website of the Day
Report of a Red Cross Worker in Gaza

January 13, 2009

Norman Finkelstein
The Facts About Hamas and the War on Gaza

Jonathan Cook
Is Israel Using Experimental Weapons in Gaza?

Michael Neumann
Hamas and Gaza: Slave Revolts and Passionate Evasions

Coleen Rowley /
William John Cox
No Victors in the War on Dissent

Robert Sandels
Cuba and the Obama Administration: Subversion Through Trade?

Saul Landau
The Changeling: an Obama Nightmare

David Swanson
What to Ask Eric Holder

Wajahat Ali
Waltzing with War Crimes

Sam Bahour
No Other Option? A View From the West Bank

Stanley Heller
Why It's Useless to Lobby Congress on Gaza

Robert Jensen
Beyond Grief and Rage

Robin Mittenthal
Eating Away at the Land That Feeds Us

Website of the Day
The 50 Most Loathsome People in America

January 12, 2009

Uri Avnery
The Blood-Stained Monster Enters Gaza

Paul Craig Roberts
Our Collapsing Economy

Mike Whitney
Israel's Moral and Political Insanity

Ewa Jasiewicz
Oh, Quiet Night: Only Six Homes Were Bombed

Bill Quigley
A Day in Gaza

Dave Lindorff
From Vietnam to Gaza

Bill and Kathleen Christison
Blowback From a Tragic Error: a Message to Barack Obama

Jonathan Cook
Israel Ponders the Third Stage

Andy Worthington
Seven Years of Guantánamo

Kara N. Tina
Oakland on Fire

Brenda Norrell
Palestinians and American Indians: Russell Means Breaks the Silence on Obama

Nour Kharma
A Plea From a Teen in Gaza: "Will I Die, Too?"

Website of the Day
The Villages Group: an Antiwar Alliance in Sderot

January 9/11, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Israel's Onslaught on Gaza: Criminal, for Sure; But Also Stupid

Kathy Kelly
Tunnel Vision: Report from Arish, Egypt

Bill Quigley
Report From Rafah: Doctors Stopped at the Border

George Ciccariello-Maher
Oakland's Not for Burning?

Elaine C. Hagopian
Gaza: History Matters

Mike Roselle
Drowning in a Toxic River: What Can be Done to Save Appalachia?

Steve Hendricks
The Torturer-Elect?

Gary Leupp
Revisiting the Tale of Samson

Jonathan Cook
Outcry Over Israel's War Crimes

Karim Makdisi
The Ceasefire Plan: the UN Finally Acts, But Does It Mean Anything?

Rannie Amiri
Livni's Big Lie

Peter Morici
In the Jaws of a Depression

Peter Montague
Can Chemicals be Regulated?

Ralph Nader
Move Fast to Restore the Rule of Law

Andy Worthington
The Dying Days of the Guantánamo Trials

Nadia Hijab
A Music School Silenced in Gaza

Dan Bacher
Unholy Alliance: Nature Conservancy Backs Schwarzenegger's Big Ditch

Catherine Fenton
The American Peace Movement and Israel

David Macaray
Wal-Mart Caught Stealing

Valia Kaimaki
Why Greek Youths Took to the Streets

Richard Morse
Haiti's Gas Gang

David Yearsley
To Gotham City with Dexter Gordon

Charles R. Larson
The Horror, the Horror

Richard Rhames
Gaza and the Goon Squad Meet the Wizard

Stephen Martin
Meltdown Memo to Come?

Lorenzo Wolff
What They Sing About When They Sing About Love

Poets' Basement
Anderson, Beatty and Valentine

Website of the Weekend
Gaza Protest

January 8, 2009

Jean Bricmont /
Diana Johnstone
Gaza Seen From Paris

Franklin Lamb
How Dershowitz Misstates, Misrepresents and Misapplies the Law

Paul Craig Roberts
The Difficulty of Being an Informed American

Kevin Alexander Gray
Give Burris His Seat

Chris Floyd
The Enduring Priorities in Obama's Time of Change

Ewa Jasiewicz
Riding on Fire in Gaza

Steve Conn
Sanjay Gupta and Obama

Harvey Wasserman
Kill the Nuclear Stimulus!

Wayne S. Smith
An Opening to Cuba?

Linda Mamoun
Re-settling Gaza: the Real Goal of the Israeli Invasion?

Adam Turl
Unions and Young Workers

Chris Papaleonardos
Mourning Maria Dimitriadi

Website of the Day
On the Wing

January 7, 2009

Saree Makdisi
What Kind of Security Will This Barbarism Bring Israel?

Franklin Lamb
Bend Over Professor Dershowitz, It's Time for Your Check Up

William Blum
America's Other Glorious War

Belén Fernández
The Trauma Vortex: Israel's Monopoly on Psychological Suffering

Lawrence Davidson
What is New About Gaza?

Allan Nairn
Adm. Dennis Blair and the Church Killings in East Timor

Jonathan Cook
What is Israel's Objective?

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad
Watching the War on BBC

Deepak Tripathi
Bush, as He Leaves

Cal Winslow
Now is the Hour to Defend Democracy in the Labor Movement!

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
To Students Planning Careers: Be Mindful

Dr. Hannah Safran
No More Recycled Military Solutions

Website of the Day
CNN: Israel Broke the Ceasefire First

January 6, 2009

Pam Martens
It's All One Big Lie

Victoria Buch
Real Estate War in Gaza: the History and "Morals" of Ethnic Cleansing

Neve Gordon
Israel's New War Ethic

Tami Sarfatti /
Yonatan Mendel
What Silence Says: Gaza is Still Waiting on Obama

Mike Whitney
The Gaza Bloodbath

Alan Farago
After the Fall

Gary Leupp
A Hamas Coup d'Etat in 2007?

Larry Everest
Silent Partner: the US-Backed War on Gaza

Ron Jacobs
The New Iraqi Sovereignty

David Macaray
Union-Busting is Alive and Well

Stephanie Basile
Where's Anna's Money?

Stacey Warde
An Uncle's Unrest

Website of the Day
Israeli Refusenik on Gaza

January 5, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Will There be a Recovery?

Sousan Hammad
Phoning Home to Gaza

Wajahat Ali
Flying While Brown

Mats Svensson
Longing in Gaza

Jen Marlowe
Abeer's Baby

Muhammad Ali Khalidi
Gaza Phone Tag

Brian Cloughley
Israel is Immune From Criticism

Faheem Hussain
Gaza and India: a View From Pakistan

William Cook
Consider the Realities of Gaza

Dr. Trudy Bond
The Madness Among Us

Christopher Ketcham
The Revenge of the Blogger at the National Press Club: a Rotten Washington Interlude

Steve Early
Who Rules SEIU?

Dave Lindorff
When It Comes to Terrorism and POW Cases, Equal Justice Under Law is a Joke

Website of the Day
The Endangered Fish of the Colorado River Basin

January 2 - 4, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Diary of 2008: an Incredible, Hope-Filled Year

Uri Avnery
Molten Lead in Gaza

Jonathan Cook
The Real Goal of the Gaza Assault

Paul Craig Roberts
Whatever Happened to Western Morality?

Brian Eno
Stealing Gaza: an Experiment in Provocation

Ralph Nader
America Must Stop Shirking Its Responsibility on Gaza

Omar Barghouti
UN Complicity in Israel's Massacre in Gaza

Graham Usher
Where Pakistan's Generals and the ISI Draw Their Lines

P. Sainath
The Economy is Worse Than It Appears

Belén Fernández
Pardon Our Dust: Israel's PR Campaign for Gaza

Deb Reich
Shiv'a in Gaza, December 2008

Gary Leupp
Defacing Mr. Jefferson's Wall: Preachers and the Inauguration

Michael Yates
Top Chef or Top Wage Thief? Tom Colicchio and the Economics of Restaurants

Joanne Mariner
How to Close Guantánamo

Seth Sandronsky
Funding the Israeli Military: the US Pipeline

Cynthia McKinney
We Lived to Tell the Story

Sonja Karkar
Israel's Dogs of War

Deepak Tripathi
Gaza in Perspective

Robert Fantina
Obama, Afghanistan and Israel

John Ross
The Year No One Can Remember

Norm Kent
The Heat on Duval Street: Why Head Shop Raids are Unfair and Unjust

Larry Portis
Syria and the Arab Barbie Doll--Before the Deluge

Richard Rhames
Is Conscience Dead?

Dee C. Lubell
We Come From the Sun: Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright

David Yearsley
A Gay German at the Courts of the Medici and Hanover, and of Course the BBC

Lorenzo Wolff
Joe Ely, the Fighting Rooster of Rock

Marc Catone
Looting Lennon's Legacy

Poets' Basement
Five Poems by Grzegorz Wróblewski

Website of the Weekend
Earth in High Rez

January 1, 2008

Jennifer Loewenstein
If Hamas Did Not Exist

Oren Ben-Dor
The Self-Defense of Suicide

Wajahat Ali
The U.S. Response to the Gaza Crisis: Unfair and Unbalanced

Saul Landau
In Cuba No One Man Could Steal $50 Billion From Other People

David Michael Green
What to Expect While We're Expecting

Website of the Day
Morbid Anatomy

December 31, 2008

Pam Martens
Wall Street's Collapse and the Ownership Society

Neve Gordon /
Jeff Halper
Where's the Academic Outrage Over the Bombing of a University in Gaza?

Ted Honderich
The First Casualty of Israel's War

Brian Cloughley
Five Little Girls on a Sofa: Gaza's One-Sided Images

Ron Jacobs
What is Hamas, Really?

Vijay Prashad
Hot Rod and His Sikh Warrior: Blago's Indian Connections

Franklin Lamb
Mr. Mubarak, Tear Down That Wall!

Mike Whitney
My Brilliant Career

David Macaray
What Really Killed the Auto Bailout

Richard Thieme
The Betrayal of the Commons

Mary Lynn Cramer
Who Wins What in Gaza?

Stephen Lendman
The Troubling Case of the Fort Dix Five

Worthy Group of the Day
Western Shoshone Defense Project

December 30, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
May We No Longer Be Silent

Tariq Ali
The Gaza Ghetto and Western Cant

Robert Bryce
The $775,000-a-Year GI

Jonathan Cook
Electioneering with Bombs

Gary Leupp
The Fishbarrel War

Dave Lindorff
Tough Guys Don't Walk: Will Cheney Seek a Pardon?

Brian McKenna
Ted Downing and Troublemaker Anthropology

John Walsh
The End of the Green Party

Ramzy Baroud
Gaza and the World

Bob Sommer
The Education of David Frost

Worthy Activist of the Day
Support Marie Mason

December 29, 2008

Jennifer Loewenstein
Israel's Attempted Endgame in Gaza

Neve Gordon
What, Exactly, is Israel's Mission?

Joshua Frank
Obama and the "Special Relationship"

George Salzman /
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The War Against Palestine: Exception From Humanity

Norman Solomon
A Hundred Eyes for an Eye

Ewa Jasiewicz
Gaza Today: "This is Just the Beginning"

Rob Larson
The Banks Laugh All the Way to the Bank

Kenneth Libby
Arne Duncan's Dark Years in Chicago

Robert Weissman
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2008

Elsa Johnson
High Noon at Black Mesa: Bush's Farewell Gift to Peabody Coal

Nicola Nasser
Resolution 1850: Bush's Parting Gift

Belén Fernández
Hanukkah Games

Worthy Group of the Day
Nuclear Information and Resource Service

December 26-28, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
The Medusa's Head

Dr Eyad Al Serraj
The Boming of Gaza: "An Earthquake on Top of Your Head"

Jeffrey St. Clair
Cancerous Air

Bradley Simpson
Obama's New Intel Chief, Dennis Blair, Ran Interference for Indonesia's Butchers

Ralph Nader
Government Without Laws

Gary Leupp
Obama and the Graveyard of Empires

Ellen Cantarow
Richard Falk, Israel and the NYT

Matt Landon
The Great Coal Ash Flood: a Report From Swan Pond Road

David Macaray
SAG's Terrible Dilemma

Patrick Bond
End of Neoliberalism? Sorry, Not Yet

Norm Kent
Invoking Bigotry: Obama and Rick Warren

Brian T. Ketcham
Fuel Efficiency is Easy--Just Don't Let Detroit Tell You How to Do It

Rannie Amiri
War Clouds Over Gaza

Larry Portis
Changing the Ethnic Vocabulary

Richard Rhames
Welcome to Soup Kitchen America

Stephen Lendman
29 Red Flags: Early Suspicions About Bernard Madoff

James L. Secor
Unheralded Coup

Ramzy Baroud
Iraq, the Plot Thickens

Harold Pinter
Art, Truth and Politics: the Nobel Lecture

Cpt. Paul Watson
Tracking the Cetacean Death Star

Howard Lisnoff
Nixon's Cambodian Shock Treatment

Michael Dee
The Bill of Rights, Killed in Action by the War on Drugs

Steve Conn
Eight Predictions for 2009

Poets' Basement
Valentine, Kaung, Moser and Graham

Worthy Group of the Weekend
United Mountain Defense

December 25, 2008

Judy Gumbo Albert
What Were Those 1960s Terrorists Thinking, Anyway?

Rev. William E. Alberts
The Sole of Christmas

Hannah Mermelstein
Caution: Settlers Ahead

Worthy Group of the Day
Citizens' Coal Council

December 24, 2008

Bill Quigley
Five Bailout Lessons From Katrina

Saul Landau
Then and Now: Venezuela and Cuba, 1960-2008

Sam Smith
Evangelism and Politics

Brian Cloughley
Torture, Slaughter and Lies

John Ross
Where's al-Zaidi's Pulitzer?

Eric Walberg
Cold War Shivers

Norm Kent
What Will Obama Do About Marijuana?

Stephen Martin
Reasons for Cheerfulness

Worthy Group of the Day
Collateral Repair Project

December 23, 2008

Michael Hudson
The Ponzi Paradigm

Michael Yates
The Tombstone Economy

Chuck Spinney
The New York Times Flames Out in Defense Dogfight

Vijay Prashad
India's Reckless Road to Washington, Through Tel Aviv

Brian Horejsi
Interior Decorating: Obama, Salazar and the Future of America's Public Lands

David Macaray
Obama's Best Pick?

Neil Watkins /
Sarah Anderson
Ecuador's Conscientious Default

David Michael Green
Hey, Reagan Democrats! Now Do You Get It?

Worthy Group of the Day
Focus on the Corporation

February 4, 2009

Agony and Desperation

Madoff's Victims

By LAWRENCE R. VELVEL

For the last six weeks or so, I have been dealing with a large number of people whom I never previously knew and who did not previously know me.  They are victims of Madoff.  They are not the billionaires, huge international funds, or gigantic banks that the media focuses on.  They are plain Americans who worked like dogs all their lives, managed to save some money, thought they had invested it wisely, were fooled by, and got sucked in by, the complicitous SEC's 1992 pronouncement that there was no fraud and/or its failure of retraction or of any action thereafter, and now, in their senior years, suddenly find themselves financially wiped out or gravely injured.  They are selling their houses to raise money to live, they are trying to unretire and get back into the workforce at a time of depression and high unemployment caused by the barons of Wall Street -- which has just passed out nearly $20 billion in bonuses -- who were aided and abetted by Greenspan, Rubin, Summers, Bush and Bush's laissez faire Republican Party.  They are desperate and in agony.

One of these plain Americans recently sent me an email.  It was poignant.  She gave me permission to print it, with her identification deleted:

Dear Sir

I have been reading your articles on line. I write you this email with tears in my eyes engulfed with great emotion. I too am a victim of Bernard Madoff's masterful Ponzi scheme and I too am left with nothing. You are the first one I have written . Your articles have made more sense to me than any thing I have read or seen (and I follow the stories on the internet/TV carefully). I have no lawyer, accountant, advisor - just me. Your words resonate.

I am not the stereotypical investor the reporters seem to love to showcase, to sensationalize their stories. I am a regular plain person, mom, wife, grandmother. I am the working poor - owning a small yard maintenance business in  [redacted] with my husband - earning enough to "get by". No more. We live in a 1500 sq foot house, have 1 car that runs . Going to the dentist., the doctor is only on an as absolutely necessary basis. There are no summer houses, jewelry, art, travel, no steaks or fine wine just a hamburger / beer and Walmart.  My last job was as a maid. My husband and I have 3 daughters. For the most part, I have stayed home with our girls (the youngest is now in college locally) as they grew up. I worked here and there if we needed money, mostly as a maid. Oh yes I am poor and a jew.

I invested in BLMIS 17 years ago with my 3 sisters - each of us putting in money jointly to  have enough so Mr Madoff would take our account. He did.  (collectively we had under $100k.) A brother in law did all the accounting work. I never even saw a statement, just got tax forms at the end of the year from him.(K-1) We split our group 7 years ago so those that wanted could add more to their account. At that point I began getting monthly and quarterly statements, flying solo. My sister (her husband did the accounting with our group)  died the next year so I have no records of the past.

I never worried about the luxury of being a stay at home mom. I had a Madoff account. It grew steadily but not by huge amounts as the news reports. My wealthy friends were making tons of money investing with their brokers (who wanted nothing to do with me since I wasn't a big enough account as told to me by a broker). Apple, Microsoft grew, split - my friends got in on hot tips etc etc not me. But I finally had an investment that I could do well with and knew as my children grew under my loving care, not day care, I would have Madoff.

To this date, I think I am the poorest Madoff investor with the smallest account, at least based on what the media has reported. I haven't gone from riches to rags. I never had riches. Stories like mine are uninteresting because they don't make the public, those viewing the media, happy or feel good to know someone like them was a victim. It is more sensational, a thrill to think it was only the rich, the elite,  the movie stars -- people the working class can laugh at, feel the situation was caused by the greedy rich.

I have no way to recoup what I thought were my life's savings. I have very few quarters for social security -  Madoff was for both my husband and me.

Based on my November 2008 statement -- I could file 2 1/2 SIPC claims and be with in their limit! That is how small for some but huge for us my account was worth. I never withdrew any funds, just paid taxes all 17 years.

The scary part now is the unknown  -- with very little news from the trustee/SIPC -- my emotions go from initially being hopeful to total despair. Nights are sleepless. There are no jobs where I live -

So I appreciate your thoughtful comments on OpEdNews -- the only ones that have uttered any reason to me. Rich or middle class or poor - a loss of one's life savings is devastating. I feel like a failure.  My only hope right now for  a modest life in the future is SIPC -- to pay out something soon -- for those that need living money now and for those of us that will need to quickly reinvest what ever we can salvage. The clock is ticking.

Sincerely yours

[Name Redacted]

I responded to this email with one that expressed my sympathy, and received back the following email:

How kind of you to respond to my email. Please know I was the one that was touched by your articles. I am sad and grieving about what could have been, a modest retirement for my husband and me, I am frightened about our senior years, but I am almost more overwhelmed with the realization that our government (SEC), our culture is so corrupt, uncaring, filled with greed.....SEC can say mea culpa and be done with Madoff investors....Bernie will end up in a country club jail while his wife and kids live happily on factious profits that won't get clawed back ...... Mr Picard will earn more by paying us less......I have become cynical .  My husband and I will survive this - after all as I said in my email we never had a high life - I actually think we are better off then most victims that lost everything because we are accustomed to a simple frugal life already. It is easier in life to move up in station than down.!! We are already down!  I have many weak moments and feelings of disbelief but I am trying very hard not to go there. It is time to replant my vegetable garden here - this year it is with more meaning.

I have no objections to you sharing my letter provided you can assure me full anonymity. Right now this is still a very private matter for me. I realize there is little understanding of the spectrum of victims involved and agree the public needs to know the truth.

As an aside, do you know if amongst the victims there is any activism happening in the case - for example letter writing or calling Congress/Senate ?

Thank you again for your articles - I wish you good health and happiness

[Name Redacted]

This woman's emails poignantly reflect the agony visited on so many by the combination of Madoffian fraud and governmental irresponsibility.

But now contrast her poignant emails with a view expressed during an exchange on a CSpan call-in show ("Washington Journal," I believe) by a Republican Congressman, Mark Steven Kirk of Illinois.  

Kirk represents a number of suburban towns north of Chicago, including ones that traditionally were havens of the WASP and wealthy, are still havens of the well off, sometimes are still heavily WASP, and have been bastions of Republicans forever.  Kirk, who has the smooth-faced visage so often endemic to politicians, could not exactly be called underprivileged.  He attended one of the country's most elite public high schools, New Trier, which has served the elite of the Northern Chicago suburbs forever -- for around 100 years I would bet, including a long period when those suburbs were exclusively WASP and wealthy.  His B.A. is from Cornell, he has a Master's degree from the London School of Economics, and he has a legal degree from the elite GeorgetownUniversityLawSchool in Washington. He has spent almost all of his career, except for two or three years, in politics or government. He was not out there scrabbling for a living in the private sector like Madoff's victims were.

When Kirk was on the CSpan call-in show, he would lengthily pontificate in answer to telephonic questions, the way that legislators always do.  No question was to minor not to be worth hundreds of words.  Philip Roth once satirized Eric Sevareid as saying blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.  And more blah.  That was Kirk too, until one fellow called in and asked whether Kirk would support a bailout for the victims of Madoff.  Suddenly, the loquacious Congressman who is supposedly a moderate Republican, and who held forth at great length on even the trivial, became an exponent of the one word, clipped response.  "No" was his expostulation.

This supposedly moderate representative of the Bushian Republican Party which led the country into foreign, economic and regulatory disaster from 2000 (when Kirk was first elected) until today, this supposedly moderate representative of a Bushian party which aided and abetted such fantastic economic disaster that it requires a bailout of one or more trillion dollars to the culpable private side actors it collaborated with, this child of continuous privilege in high school, college, graduate school and life, this "worthy" who has not had to scrabble in life as Madoff's victims have, this motor mouth who holds forth loquaciously on television on even the most trivial non Madoff subjects -- this person's tersely expressed attitude towards helping innocent, non culpable, hardworking unprivileged persons such as the woman who wrote me the poignant emails essentially is "fuck 'em."

Is it ironic that Kirk means church?

* * *

Regardless of party, not all legislators have the attitude of the "church" from the wealthy northern suburbs of Chicago.  There are those who are horrified at what has happened.  True, so far their horror has mainly focused, sometimes almost exclusively focused, on the regulatory failure, on the question of how could the SEC -- and FINRA too -- have missed this gigantic fraud and how do we correct whatever led to the regulatory failure.  Generally, little concern has been shown for the human wreckage caused by the incompetence and complicitousness of the regulators.  But some have shown concern for the human wreckage, particularly a few Congressmen at a hearing of January 5th and, even if to a somewhat lesser extent, some Senators at a hearing on January 27th.

Let us briefly discuss aspects of the January 27th hearing of the Senate Banking Committee.  The witnesses, who comprised a panel, included John Coffee, a nationally famous professor of securities law and regulation at the Columbia Law School, Stephen Harbeck, the head of FINRA, Stephen Luparello, the head of the SIPC, Dr. Henry Backe, the head of a 140 employee medical practice that serves people in Bridgeport Connecticut, including the uninsured, Lori Richards, director of the SEC's Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations, and Linda Thomsen, the Director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement.

The last two, of course, would seem to bear extensive responsibility for the SEC's failure.  Little wonder that, as further discussed below, they refused to answer any questions about what happened with regard to Madoff.

The Senators' views were pretty much of a piece.  They simply could not believe that the SEC, and FINRA too, missed this fraud.  They could not believe that the SEC never issued subpoenas to Madoff despite Markopolos' constant warnings to it, or that FINRA had not caught Madoff though FINRA and its predecessor, the NASD, inspected Madoff once every two years since 1960 and had the power to make, and should have made, inquiries regarding Madoff's brokerage business that would have revealed the fraud.  Senators commented on the detail and thoroughness of the views Markopolos presented to the SEC and certain of the red flags he presented.  Those red flags included ones often talked of now:  the absence of an independent custodian of securities, the use of a three person -- in reality a one person - - accounting firm, the articles written circa 2000 and 2001, the discovery circa 2006 or 2007 that Madoff -- and, it seems likely, members of his family and other personnel -- had lied to regulators about his accounts, the number of customers, and his investment strategy, the fact that Madoff was willing to leave on the table fortunes made by other investment managers (which indicates he wanted nobody questioning him), and the fact that word was out all over Wall Street that Madoff was not on the up and up, several houses refused to do business with him because of such concerns, and Markopolos had named names regarding the Wall Street experts the SEC should talk to.  (Most of these points have been discussed here previously.) 

Professor Coffee pointed out that, as has also been discussed here previously to some extent, the absence of an independent custodian and the less than puny nature of the accounting firm should have set off alarm bells and that, as one who has participated in the FINRA disciplinary process, he knew FINRA most certainly did have the power to make relevant inquiries and to throw people out of the broker-dealer business if they refused to answer the inquiries.  He also made clear that the SEC, by rule, had deliberately and inexcusably permitted incompetent accountants to audit brokers, and that (although the SEC had done little to combat them) Ponzi schemes have been a growing industry in recent years, with $9.6 billion lost to them in 2002 and over one billion dollars being lost to them in four others of the last dozen years.

Dr. Backe explained the havoc being caused the people in the medical practice, who had relied on the SEC and FINRA.  Luparello, the head of FINRA, admitted the system had failed to protect investors, but, as one would expect, tried to excuse the failure by false claims that Coffee debunked.

Harbeck said that SIPC has $1.7 billion, does not know the total amount of claims, can draw on a two lines of credit, and should have a much larger line of credit because of inflation and the growth of the market since its one of its lines was set in 1970.

The two officials of the SEC took the cake.  They were delighted to repeatedly tell the Committee how passionate they and their colleagues are about their jobs, how hard they and their colleagues work, how much they want to stop fraud, how seriously they take the Madoff matter, how they follow the evidence, what the Commission does in the abstract.  But answer questions about the facts of what happened in the Madoff mess, for which they apparently bear some or a lot of responsibility?  Not a chance.  No way.  Answering such questions supposedly would jeopardize a pending internal investigation and possible criminal cases for perjury (presumably against one or more members of the Madoff family and its supporting personnel.)  It would seem that the Senate Committee must have agreed in advance to this limitation on their testimony, although why it did so was never explained, nor did the two officials ever explain the reasons why answering questions about the facts of what happened in the Madoff case would injure an internal investigation or subsequent prosecutions.   Simpleton though I may be, such reasons are surely not self evident to me.  To me, the refusal to answer seems part and parcel of an impending SEC cover-up, the way that federal agencies always try to cover up their delicts: via secrecy; the way federal agencies always cherry pick and put forward only the good things while hiding all the bad that they are able to hide.

So, testify about the SEC's examination of Madoff?  No.  Testify about "how we dealt with Mr. Markopolos' complaint and the investigation we began and then closed?"  No.  Testify about questions regarding Madoff's auditor?  No. Testify about the question of a custodian for Madoff?  No.  Testify about who in the SEC saw Markopolos' complaint?  No.  Testify about whether the bad consequences the SEC was warned of by Markopolos came true?  No.  Testify about other pertinent matters?  No.

You know, I think these two officials, who each are likely to share in responsibility for wrecking the lives of thousands but now won't tell Congress what they or their colleagues did, should do the decent thing, the honorable thing, and commit suicide.

To Be Continued

Lawrence Velvel, dean of the Massachusetts School of Law, is the author of Thine Alabaster Cities Gleam and An Enemy of the People. He can be reached at: Velvel@VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com

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