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Last Updated: Nov 5th, 2008 - 11:46:08 |
U.S. Cities Have High Levels of Economic Inequality
While the global financial meltdown has been treated as a major crisis requiring government intervention, other critical issues have remained mostly off-limits to policy makers. A new United Nations report has revealed major US cities, including New York, Washington, Atlanta and New Orleans, have levels of economic inequality that rival cities in Africa. The Economic Co-operation and Development found the U.S. had the highest inequality and poverty after Mexico and Turkey, and the gap has increased rapidly since 2000.
Two Neo-Nazis Arrested in Obama Assassination Plot
Two white supremacist neo-Nazis were arrested in Tennessee Monday for plotting to assassinate Barack Obama. Daniel Cowart and Paul Schlesselman were charged with making threats against a presidential candidate, illegal possession of a sawed-off shotgun and conspiracy to rob a gun dealer. Officials said the men planned to go on a killing spree at a predominantly black school, killing eighty-eight people and beheading fourteen African Americans. At the end of the killing spree, the men intended to try to kill Obama. Troy Klyce, Sheriff of Crockett County in Tennessee, said the men were first arrested on October 22.
Troy Klyce: “It took some good work, some great work between all these agencies for them to come together. But we needed a little luck. And it’s scary how it could have ended up.”
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there have been more than sixty major domestic terrorist plots that have emerged from the radical right since 1995.
Court Grants Troy Davis Stay of Execution
Death row prisoner Troy Davis was granted a stay of execution on Friday, three days before his scheduled execution. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Georgia gave Davis’s lawyers fifteen days to file documents with the court, supporting defense claims that Davis is being wrongfully held in prison. The court will then decide if the case should go back before a lower court, which could order a new trial.
Foreclosures Rose 70% in 3rd Quarter
Meanwhile, the research firm RealtyTrac is reporting foreclosures increased 21 percent last month over the same period last year. But September foreclosures fell from August, dropping 12 percent. For the third quarter, foreclosures were up a staggering 70 percent compared to the same period in 2007.
McCain Campaign Worker Admits Attack Was a Hoax
A Republican campaign worker has admitted she made up a story about being attacked by an African American man in Pittsburgh because of a John McCain sticker. Ashley Todd had told police that a man had punched her in the back of the head, knocked her to the ground, while threatening to teach her a lesson for being a McCain supporter. She claimed the man scratched a backward letter B on the right side of her face. Todd has been charged with filing a false police report.
Obama: McCain Thinks Giving Americans a Break is Socialism
On Tuesday, Senator Barack Obama campaigned in Canton, Ohio, where he gave what was described as his closing argument speech.
Sen. Obama: “We’ve always grown the American economy from the bottom up. John McCain calls this socialism. I call it opportunity, and there’s nothing more American than that."
At a rally in Cleveland, Ohio, Senator John McCain said an Obama presidency could be dangerous.
Sen. McCain: “Do you want to keep it invested in your future or have it taken by the most liberal person to ever run for the presidency and the Democratic leaders, the most liberal, who have been running Congress for the past two years, [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi and [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid? You know, my friends, this is a dangerous threesome.”
Justice Department Pressed by Bush to Contest 200,000 Ohio Voters
The White House is intervening in an election dispute in the state of Ohio. The White House has asked the Department of Justice to look into whether 200,000 new Ohio voters must reconfirm their registration information before the Nov. 4 election because their records don’t precisely match other government databases. Last week, the US Supreme Court dismissed a case brought by the Ohio Republican Party over the issue.
11,000 Absentee Ballots Not Mailed Out in Colorado
In election news, a series of voting disputes in key swing states remain unresolved with just eight days to go before the presidential election. In Colorado, more than 11,000 voters in Denver have not received absentee ballots because of a mistake made by the company Sequoia Voting Systems. Sequoia was supposed to have delivered 21,000 ballots to a Denver mail processing facility on October 16, but the company only delivered about half of the requested ballots.
Polls: Obama Ahead in Battlegrounds
On the campaign trail, a series of new polls show an increasing lead for Senator Barack Obama over Senator John McCain. Several polls show Obama ahead in key battleground states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. Nate Silver of the polling website FiveThirtyEight.com says McCain’s chance of winning the election has dwindled down to 3.7 percent, down from 6.5 percent. On Thursday, Obama campaigned in Indiana.
Sen. Barack Obama: “More tax cuts for jobs outsourcing, that’s what Senator McCain proposed as his answer to outsourcing. He said that’s, quote, ‘simple fundamental economics.’ Well, Indiana, my opponent may call that ‘fundamental economics,’ but we know that’s just another name for Wall Street first, Main Street last. That’s the kind of economic philosophy we’ve had for the past eight years. And that’s fundamentally wrong.”
McCain was in Florida, where he continued to invoke “Joe the Plumber” to portray Obama as a “tax and spend” Democrat.
Sen. John McCain: “He believes in redistributing the wealth, not in policies that grow our economy and create jobs and opportunities for all Americans. Senator Obama is more interested in controlling who gets your piece of the pie than he is in growing the pie. You know, whether it’s Joe the plumber in Ohio or Joe over here—thank you, Joe, Joe, thank you; there’s Joes all over here, small business owners I met with this morning here in Florida—we shouldn’t be taxing our small businesses more, as Senator Obama wants to do.”
Report: McCain Suppressed Info on Fellow Vietnam POWs Left Behind
John McCain’s time as a POW during the Vietnam War is back at the center of attention with the release of a 1967 interview of him while he was bedridden and imprisoned in Vietnam. The interview by reporter Francois Chalais originally aired on French television in 1968. The French national audiovisual archive posted the interview on its website Wednesday, and some of the footage was also picked up by the McCain campaign. The interview shows an emotional McCain describing how his aircraft was shot down while he was bombing Hanoi in 1967.
Well, McCain’s years as a prisoner of war and his return home as a war hero have been a central part of his political image. But there’s another part of the story that’s rarely been told, and that has to do with the POWs who were left behind in Vietnam and never released back to the United States.
An investigation by veteran journalist Sydney Schanberg reveals John McCain “worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn’t return home." Schanberg’s report was published in the October 6th issue of The Nation magazine. It’s called “Why Has John McCain Blocked Info on MIAs?”
Bush Administration Considers Emergency Funds for GM and Chrysler
The Bush administration is examining a range of options for providing emergency financial help to spur a merger between General Motors and Chrysler. Reuters reports that the Treasury is considering at least a $5 billion package that could come in the form of direct capital injections and government purchase of loans. Congress has already given the automakers $25 billion in low-interest loans.
Bank Bailout May Lead to Greater Bank Consolidation
In financial news, at least sixteen regional banks have announced they will become partially nationalized as part of the Treasury Department’s financial bailout plan. The infusion of government funds is expected to lead to a wave of bank mergers and the further consolidation of the banking industry. On Friday, PNC Financial Services bought its rival National City for $5.2 billion. PNC announced the deal after getting $7.7 billion in government funds. The Treasury Department had claimed the financial bailout was needed to help banks lend more money. But now it appears much of the money will be used for banks to buy their weaker rivals.
$13 Billion Set Aside for Wall Street Bonuses
Bloomberg is reporting Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch have set aside $13 billion to give out as year-end bonuses, despite the financial meltdown. One analyst is predicting the average managing director at an investment bank will receive a bonus of $625,000 this year. Top bankers could receive as much as $1 million.
US Open-Air Burn Pit in Iraq Exposes Thousands to Cancer-Causing Dioxins
The Military Times reports an open-air “burn pit” at the largest US base in Iraq may have exposed tens of thousands of troops, contractors and Iraqis to cancer-causing dioxins, poisons such as arsenic and carbon monoxide, and hazardous medical waste. The paper reports the military is burning 147 tons of waste per day in the burn pit at the Joint Base Balad, the central logistics hub for US forces in Iraq. According to a military memo, the burn pit has consumed Styrofoam, unexploded ordnance, petroleum products, plastics, rubber, dining facility trash, paint and solvents, and medical waste, including amputated limbs.
Eight-Year-Old Shoots Himself Dead with Uzi at Gun Show
An eight-year-old boy has died in Massachusetts after accidentally shooting himself to death at a gun show. The boy, Christopher Bizilj, was firing a 9mm Micro UZI automatic machine gun when he lost control and shot himself in the head. The boy’s father had given him permission to fire the UZI, which can fire hundreds of rounds in a minute. Advertisements for the gun show boasted: “No age limit or licenses required to shoot machine guns, handguns, rifles or shotguns!!!”
Grand Jury to Probe Allegations of Police Beating in Brooklyn
In news from New York, the Brooklyn district attorney has decided to have a special investigative grand jury examine allegations that police officers beat and sodomized a twenty-four-year-old man at a subway station last week. Michael Mineo says four police officers brutally assaulted him by throwing him to the ground. Mineo said an object, possibly the antenna of a police radio, penetrated his rectum. The police have rejected his account. Mineo was hospitalized for five days, and hospital discharge papers said his injuries are consistent with that type of assault. The alleged incident mirrors the case of Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant who was attacked with a broomstick in a Brooklyn police station in 1997.
Federal Jury Convicts GOP Sen. Ted Stevens
A federal jury has convicted Republican Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska on all seven counts of violating federal ethics laws for failing to report tens of thousands of dollars in gifts and services he had received from an oil company executive. Stevens is the longest-serving Republican senator in US history and is the former chair of the Appropriations Committee. He was accused of receiving payments and gifts from the now-defunct oil services company VECO. Stevens, who is up for re-election next week, says he will fight the conviction. The seven felonies each carry a penalty of five years in prison. Alaskan governor and Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin said, “This is a sad day for Alaska and a sad day for Senator Stevens and for his family.” Palin has ties to Stevens going back to at least 2003, when she became a director of the 527 group “Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service.”
Flooding Kills 90 in Yemen; 20,000 Displaced
And flooding in Yemen has killed at least ninety people and displaced 20,000 others. Torrential rain has affected much of the country.
Awad Mubarak: “This is the first time that anything like this has ever happened. Torrents were coming in. We never expected it to that extent. The water entered from the third floor. Our house is four or five floors. The water didn’t enter from the bottom of the house. The house began to shake.”
Syria Condemns US Attack as “Terrorist Aggression”
The Syrian government has condemned the United States for carrying out a daytime helicopter-borne raid that killed eight people. It marked the first time US ground forces had crossed the Syrian border since the US invasion of Iraq. The Syrian government has warned of retaliation if the US strikes again.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Moualem: “Killing civilians in international law means terrorist aggression. The Americans do it in the daylight. This means it is not mistake. It is by determination, by blunt determination. For that, we consider this criminal and terrorist aggression.”
The Bush administration has not said anything publicly about the cross-border raid. Unnamed US officials said the special operations forces targeted and killed an Iraqi militant known as Abu Ghadiya, who was responsible for running weapons, money and foreign fighters across the border into Iraq. Local eyewitnesses blamed the US commandos for killing eight civilians.
Drilling and Killing: Landmark Trial Against Chevron Begins Over Its Role in the Niger Delta
A landmark trial has begun against the oil giant Chevron. A San Francisco district court is hearing a case brought by Nigerian plaintiffs who accuse Chevron of recruiting and supplying Nigerian military forces involved in the May 1998 shooting and killing of protesters in the oil-rich Niger Delta. The protesters were occupying a Chevron-owned oil platform called the Parabe, demanding jobs and compensation for environmental damage to their communities.
© Copyright 2006 SeeingBlack.com
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