Today's Stories

September 27 / 28, 2008

Linn Washington, Jr.
Alaska's Blacks and Palin: a Strained Relationship

September 26, 2008

Moshe Adler
Bailing Out Wall Street Won't Save Main Street

Bill Quigley
The U.S. War on Unarmed Working Mothers

Jonathan Cook
When Archaeology Becomes a Curse

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Visions of Pinpoint Control: the Romance of Laser Weapons

Madis Senner
Why the Bailout will Fail

Brian Cloughley
US Raids in Pakistan: Violations of Sovereignty

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Oh, Henry!

Joanne Mariner
Passport Fraud and Torture

Dan La Botz
The Financial Crisis: a View from the Left

David Macaray
Ralph's Management Indicted by Federal Grand Jury

Website of the Day
Nader and Obama Girl at the Office

September 25, 2008

Michael Hudson
The Insanity of the $700 Billion Giveaway

Sharon Smith
Democrats and Corporate Bailouts

Ralph Nader
Who Will Show Some Backbone Against the Bailout?

Christopher Ketcham
The Economy of Dead Sperm (or What I Learned From My Race-Car Grandpa Who Had No Bankers)

Eric Toussaint
Is Another Third World Debt Crisis in the Offing?

Robert Weissman
Getting Wall Street Pay Reform Right

David Estabrook
A Better Bailout Plan

Nikolas Kozloff
The Voyage of the SS Peter the Great

Steve Early
The High Price of Purple Dissent

Judith Scherr
Blue Helmets in Haiti

Laray Polk
South Ossetia and Abkhazia: Notes from the Inside

Website of the Day
Letterman Spanks McCain

September 24, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
The Bitter Fruits of Deregulation

Nikolas Kozloff
Palin at the UN: a Tutorial from Uribe

Robert Weissman
The Financial Crisis: How and Why Congress Should Play for Time

Andy Worthington
The Guantánamo Trials: Govt. Says Six Years Not Long Enough to Prepare Evidence

Steve Conn
Will Nader's Warning be Acknowledged in the Presidential Debates?

Karyn Strickler
The $700,000,000,000 Power Punch

Diane Farsetta
Stealth Marketers Gone Wild

Dennis Loo
Poisoned Legacy

John Halle
Wealth Tax Now!

Khalil Nakhleh
Palestinians Under the Occupation

Website of the Day
Nader: Debate Crasher

September 23, 2008

Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr.
Bail Out on This Bailout

Michael Hudson
Henry Paulson and the New Yazoo Land Scandal

Tariq Ali
Why was the Marriott Targeted?

Patrick Dyer
A Death Row Visit with Troy A. Davis

Franklin Lamb
Hezbollah and the Palestinians

Joshua Frank
Oppose Barack Obama? How Dare Thee!

Alan Farago
Pushing the Referees: How the Financial Crisis Occurred

Dave Lindorff
The Bailout Will Kill the Dollar

Tanya M. Kerssen /
Roger Burbach
Bolivia's Popular Upheaval

Harvey Wasserman
Nuclear Power Liabilities Dwarf Bush's Wall Street Bailout

Website of the Day
Hammered by the Irish: the Video

September 22, 2008

Michael Hudson
The Paulson-Bernanke Bank Bailout Plan: Will the Cure be Worse Than the Crisis?

Mike Whitney
Mushroom Clouds Over Wall Street

Christopher Ketcham
Let It Collapse!

Ron Jacobs
The Predators' Bailout

Anne-Marie McManus
Lost in the Rhetoric of Crisis

Robert Weitzel
The Twin Terrors of the Holy Land: a Sexy Fundamentalist and a White-Haired Zionist

Wajahat Ali
An Interview with Howard Dean

John Ross
A New Cold War Comes to Latin America

Steve Breyman
Does the U.S. Really Need Cluster Bombs?

Patrick Bond
On the Bellies of the Filth

Uri Avnery
Fly, Tzipora, Fly

Carl J. Mayer
An Open Letter to Michael Moore (AKA God's Pen Pal): Whatever Happened to Voting Your Conscience?

Website of the Day
Stop the Execution of Troy Anthony Davis

September 20 / 21, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Is This the Stake Through Neoliberalism's Heart?

Michael Hudson
America's Own Kleptocracy

Pam Martens
The Wall Street Model: Unintelligent Design

Lila Rajiva
Putting Lipstick on an AIG

Mike Whitney
Full-Spectrum Breakdown

Richard Rhames
A Bailout to Nowhere

Bill Moyers /
Michael Winship
The NY Yankees and the U.S. Economy

Bill and Kathleen Christison
The Making of Recent U.S. Middle East Policies: a New Study of Neocon Influence

Susan Block
Palin as Venus in Furs: the Dominatrix Politics of Drilling and Killing

Robert Fantina
Republicans and Subpoenas: Never the Twain Shall Meet

Heidi Walters
Hung Up on Route 36: an 18-Wheeler and a Nuclear Cask

David Yearsley
Germany's Lost Organs: When Bigger Was Better

Raymond J. Lawrence
The Politics of Tribulation: Sarah Palin and the Rapture

David Rosen
One Billion Pills Later: Viagra at 10

David Michael Green
Living in Sarah Palin's America

Anthony Papa
Imprisoned Voters and the Elections

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Freddie, Fannie, Daddy, Nanny

Howard Lisnoff
When We Notice the Homeless

John Goekler
Leaving Every Child Behind

Missy Beattie
Impalement

Dave Zirin
Leave Josh Howard Alone

Charles R. Larson
Holden Caulfield, Rest in Peace

Tim Matson
Too Big for His Birches: Woodlot Economics

Susie Day
Attack of the Angry Fetus

Poets' Basement
Corseri, Gibbons, Jenkins and Ford

Website of the Weekend
Dylan & Baez: Deportees

September 19, 2008

Steven T. Banko
McCain's Passion Play

Mike Whitney
The Point of No Return

Michael Hudson
The Dow Jones' Wonderfully Cheesy Addition

William Kaufman
Shattering the Glass-Steagall Act: the Bi-Partisan Origins of the Financial Crisis

Brenda Norrell
The Fall of Lehman Bros.: Blowback for Black Mesa?

Keeanga-Yamatta Taylor
The New Rhetoric of Racism: Why Won't Obama Call It Out?

Clifton Ross
Bolivia: Cleaning Up the Bull Ring

Dave Lindorff
Hang On to Your Wallets: the Government's About to Rescue Us!

Cynthia McKinney
Seize the Time!

Susan Hurlich
Storm Survivors: a Dispatch from Cuba

Michael Donnelly
Let's Hand It All Over to the Democrats (They Helped Create This Mess)

Website of the Day
The Crisis Explained

September 18, 2008

Benjamin Dangl
The Machine Gun and the Meeting Table

Harvey Wasserman
The Senate's Drill, Drill, Drill Scam

Susan Abulhawa
The Lobby Has Spoken: Biden and Israel

Robert Weissman
After the Fall: the Financial Re-Regulatory Agenda

Anne-Marie McManus
McCain's Cinderella: the Fetishization of Sarah Palin

Corey D. B. Walker
The Poverty of 21st Century Progressivism

William S. Lind
Senator O'Bush: Why Obama is Wrong on Iran and Afghanistan

Ron Jacobs
Washington's False Logic of Torture

Dave Lindorff
American and China: Joined at the Hip

Binoy Kampmark
How Damien Hirst Got Away With It

Website of the Day
An Invisible Army

September 17, 2008

Stephen Conn
Palin and the Politics of Big Oil

Forrest Hylton
Reactionary Rampage in Bolivia

Patrick Cockburn
Petraeus Leaves Iraq

Gregory Elich
Inside North Korea

Ralph Nader
How the U.S. Auto Industry Wrecked Itself

Franklin Lamb
The Palestinians of Shabra-Shatila

Pam Martens
The Gang's All Here: Bush, McCain and the Old Iran/Contra Team

Dave Lindorff
The End of the Blue Chip Economy

Peter Morici
The Damage Deepens

Stanley Heller
The Killing of Count Folke Bernadotte

Douglas Valentine
Rambling David Foster Wallace

Website of the Day
Free Cindy McCain!

September 16, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
US Economy: Rudderless and Reeling from Direct Hits

Tiphaine Dickson
Citizen Palin: Why Sarah Palin Quoted Westbrook Pegler

Stan Goff
America is Now Rome: an Open Letter to Christian Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan

Uri Avnery
Tzipi's Choice

Michael Winship
Lipstick on Polar Bears

Jeff Halper
Warehousing Palestinians

Patrick Irelan
Bolivia Versus the Empire

Oscar Gonzalez
Who's Dumber? Ike's Refugees or Wall Street's?

Binoy Kampmark
Cheney and His Records

Fatemeh Keshavarz
Muslims are at Peace with You

Sen. Russ Feingold
Restoring the Rule of Law

Website of the Day
The Next Great Rock Band?

September 15, 2008

Mike Whitney
The Tumbrils Roll at Dawn

Peter Morici
Toxic Lehman

Patrick Cockburn
Take Another Look at the Surge

Charles R. Larson
The Maverick Has No Clothes

Jonathan Cook
The Expulsion of Palestinians from Jaffa

Nikolas Kozloff
Racist Rhetoric in Bolivia

Roger Burbach
Morales Confronts the Insurrection: Bolivia and the Echoes of Allende

Helen Redmond
Where's the Health Care Bailout?

David Michael Green
The Democrats Do Poland

David Macaray
The Boeing Strike

Ralph Nader
Remembering Peter Camejo

Website of the Day
The Ballad of Sarah Palin

Weekend Edition
September 27 / 28, 2008

Did the Governor Say She "Didn't Have to Hire Any Blacks?"

Alaska's Blacks and Palin: a Strained Relationship

By LINN WASHINGTON, Jr.

While many across America consider GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin some kind of phenomenon, many blacks in Alaska see the Governor of their state as a person closing down the open-door inclusive posture of her predecessors.

Alaskan blacks fault Palin for not hiring African-Americans, dismissing blacks from government posts, spurning repeated requests to meet with black leaders to discuss issues of concern and refusing to attend that state’s major African-American celebration.

“Where past governors have attended [this celebration] Gov Palin has refused to attend or even send a staff member. They could have sent a gardener as their representative but they didn’t,” said Bishop James Thomas, a spokesman for Juneteenth, a state holiday in Alaska since 2001.

Juneteenth, recognizing the freeing slaves during Civil War, receives celebration nationwide. It holds distinction as the oldest African-American celebration. Twenty-nine states including Alaska recognize Juneteenth as an official holiday or an observance.

“For Gov Palin to blatantly ignore Juneteenth is a tragedy,” said Thomas, pastor of the non-denominational Jesus Holy Temple in Anchorage. “We are not criticizing her because Obama is running for president. If Obama was white, we would still criticize Palin due to our treatment here.”

Palin’s increasingly rocky relations with Alaska’s black community seeped down to the ‘Lower 48’ weeks ago following an internet posting by the President of Alaska’s African American Historical Society Gwendolyn Alexander detailing controversies like Juneteenth, Palin’s staffing practices and Palin allegedly stating she “doesn’t have to hire any blacks” for major projects.

Palin denies telling black leaders she did not intend to hire blacks in her state where African-Americans comprise 4% of the population.

Palin, through spokespersons, defends her staffing record citing that top aides and advisors include a Filipino, a Korean and a person of mixed African-American ancestry.

Given Palin’s penchant for hiring friends with not apparent qualifications for their high salaried government posts, the refrain of not being able to find ‘qualified minorities’ appears irrelevant. One frequently cited Palin appointment is her elevation of a high school classmate to the $95,000 a year post heading the State Division of Agriculture which Palin defended based on this real estate agent’s childhood love of cows.

Alaskan blogger Amy Jones stated in a post that she “tired to get specific information from the governor’s office, but no one could verify what minority representation there might be among Palin’s appointees on boards and commissions or how often she met with community organizations…”

The Rev. Dr. Alonzo B. Patterson chuckles at Palin’s claims of being color-blind, saying she’s “not sensitive to [having] African-Americans in her administration.”

Patterson, who’s worked closely with previous governors plus mayors and other elected officials during his 45-years in Alaska, feels Palin has “totally departed from the past practices” of previous Alaska governors.

“Past administrations have had black administrative assistants to the Governor, state Commissioners and department leaders,” said Patterson, who served as chair of Alaska’s Board of Paroles for 13-years.

Patterson heads the American Baptist Churches of Alaska and that state’s Martin Luther King Jr. Foundation. Earlier this year, Patterson participated in a meeting of black leaders with Palin. This meeting followed months of requests to Palin for a meeting.

“We gave her a list of concerns and have received no response,” said Patterson, pastor of Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church in Anchorage.

Concerns presented by this group included hiring minorities at all levels of state government plus contracting and employment practices in the upcoming pipeline construction project.

This group also invited Palin to participate in a town meeting during the summer with other racial and ethnic minorities in Alaska to discuss issues of import including economic growth, educational deficiencies, family disintegration and young gang problems. Palin spurned this invitation.

“She has not met with us since that March meeting,” Patterson said. “I think she was intimidated by us not being intimidated by her. From my perspective, she is basically a housewife who looses her temper when she’s not getting her way.”

A person from the area of Wasilla where Palin served as mayor said she’s very vindictive, a behavior pattern that chills criticism of her.
While commending Palin as an enchanting person with maverick ways, the person said “Sarah is not ready” for the office she holds or higher office. This person did note that Palin’s employment practices may not be as discriminatory as they appear because “she is devoted to her people and there are few blacks in Wasilla.”

Sarah Palin burst on the national stage as Senator McCain’s running mate during the GOP Convention that had the lowest number of black delegates in forty years.

With Palin’s failing relations with blacks in Alaska, some might cynically see this as part of her pick by McCain who’s received an F on the NAACP Congressional Report Card during 11 of the past 13 reporting periods. (During McCain’s two runs for president the NAACP provided no grade for McCain.)

McCain’s scores on supporting issues important to the NAACP ranks lower than conservative Senators Trent Lott of Mississippi and Orin Hatch of Utah.

Palin’s rocky relations with blacks mirrors relations with Alaska’s Native Peoples according to the September 12, 2008 Counterpunch article by Lloyd Miller.

Bishop Thomas and many others in Alaska feel “blacks are not being treated fairly” by Gov Palin.

“This governor does not deal with minorities well,” Thomas said. “We have to examine how she will act as Vice-President and if by chance she becomes President.”

Linn Washington Jr. is a columnist for The Philadelphia Tribune newspaper.

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