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| From public pix |
Keith Olbermann had a wonderful story tonight about the statement by Senator McCain this morning, the new Mc$hame ad, and the RNC ad. Seems they’re all mutually exclusive. The elephants are well-stocked in the flip-flop department.
Archive for September, 2008
Courtesy Amnesty International
Death Penalty Cost
“Using conservative rough projections, the Commission estimates the annual costs of the present system ($137 million per year), the present system after implementation of the reforms … ($232.7 million per year) … and a system which imposes a maximum penalty of lifetime incarceration instead of the death penalty ($11.5 million).”
–California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, July 1, 2008Recent Cost Studies
* A 2003 legislative audit in Kansas found that the estimated cost of a death penalty case was 70% more than the cost of a comparable non-death penalty case. Death penalty case costs were counted through to execution (median cost $1.26 million). Non-death penalty case costs were counted through to the end of incarceration (median cost $740,000).
(December 2003 Survey by the Kansas Legislative Post Audit)
* In Tennessee, death penalty trials cost an average of 48% more than the average cost of trials in which prosecutors seek life imprisonment.
(2004 Report from Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury Office of Research)
* In Maryland death penalty cases cost 3 times more than non-death penalty cases, or $3 million for a single case.
(Urban Institute, The Cost of the Death Penalty in Maryland, March 2008)
* In California the current sytem costs $137 million per year; it would cost $11.5 million for a system without the death penalty.
(California Commission for the Fair Administration of Justice, July 2008)
Ariicle Continues @ Sourced Site.
Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve will pump an additional $630 billion into the global financial system, flooding banks with cash to alleviate the worst banking crisis since the Great Depression.
The Fed increased its existing currency swaps with foreign central banks by $330 billion to $620 billion to make more dollars available worldwide. The Term Auction Facility, the Fed’s emergency loan program, will expand by $300 billion to $450 billion. The European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan are among the participating authorities.
The Fed’s expansion of liquidity, the biggest since credit markets seized up last year, came hours before the U.S. House of Representatives rejected a $700 billion bailout for the financial industry. The crisis is reverberating through the global economy, causing stocks to plunge and forcing European governments to rescue four banks over the past two days alone.
“Today’s blast of term liquidity will settle the funding markets down, and allow trust to slowly be restored between borrowers and lenders,” said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. in New York. On the other hand, “the Fed’s balance sheet is about to explode.”
The MSCI World Index of stocks in 23 developed markets sank 6 percent, the most since its creation in 1970. Credit markets deteriorated further as authorities tried to save more financial institutions from collapse.
European Rescue
Article Continues @ Sourced Site.
Exit polls indicate that a majority of Ecuadorians have voted yes to a new constitution. The constitution is the first in the world’s history to grant nature legal rights, and also to allow individuals to sue on nature’s behalf in courts. It is a major victory for Ecuador’s President, Rafael Correa.Ecuador’s El Comercio provides data from three separate exit polls which when averaged indicate that around 66.47% of voters said yes on the referendum to pass the new constitution (a strong enough majority to say that the Constitution has passed in this writer’s opinion).
Article Continues @ Sourced Site.
Courtesy BBC News
Oscar-winning film legend Paul Newman has died of cancer at the age of 83.
The blue-eyed star of movies like Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid died in his Connecticut home on Friday, surrounded by family and close friends.
A statement from Newman’s family said: “His death was as private and discreet as the way he had lived his life.”
His Butch Cassidy co-star Robert Redford paid tribute, saying: “There is a point where feelings go beyond words… I have lost a real friend.”
The star’s five daughters praised their father’s “selfless humility and generosity” in a statement released to the press.
“Paul Newman played many unforgettable roles,” they said.
“But the ones for which he was proudest never had top billing on the marquee: Devoted husband, loving father, adoring grandfather, dedicated philanthropist.”
In Los Angeles, flowers were to be placed on Newman’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as the Motion Picture Association of America hailed his “extraordinary career.”
Retired
The iconic actor starred in some 60 films in a career that spanned five decades.
Article Continues @ Sourced Site.
Courtesy Yahoo News
WASHINGTON - House Democrats say the idea of letting judges rewrite mortgages to help bankrupt homeowners avoid foreclosure won’t be a part of the $700 billion financial industry bailout.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told Democrats at a closed-door meeting Friday evening the provision would be a deal-breaker for Republicans who she has said must deliver substantial votes for the rescue plan. That’s according to several lawmakers who attended the session.
Article Continues @ Sourced Site.
US Senator Edward M. Kennedy, fresh from undergoing chemotherapy treatment for a malignant brain tumor, was rushed to Cape Cod Hospital just hours ago after suffering a seizure.Kennedy’s representatives said tonight that the seizure was mild, and that doctors believe it was triggered by a change in medication.
“Senator Kennedy will return home tonight and looks forward to watching the debate,” Kennedy’s representatives said in a statement.
Safety officials received an emergency call from the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port at 5:12 p.m., said Barnstable police Sgt. Ben Baxter. He said Kennedy was alert and conscious when crews arrived.
Kennedy, 76, has been more visible recently after undergoing six weeks of chemotherapy and radiation treatment. On Tuesday, he received a visit and a civilian award from Chilean President Michellle Bachelet, for his support of the country during turmoil in 1973 and his work to cut off military aid to dictator Augusto Pinochet.
Article Continues @ Sourced Site.
Courtesy Common Dreams
NEW YORK - The George W. Bush administration’s plan to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to rescue giant Wall Street firms from their current financial meltdown has unleashed a spontaneous wave of protests across the United States.
Protesters said they want the Congress to protect millions of U.S. citizens who are on the verge of losing their homes due to bad lending practices of creditors instead of doling out public money to big investment firms responsible for ruining the economy.“People are up in arms about this,” Matt Holland of the TrueMajority.org, an advocacy group comprising 700,000 members that played a major role in organising the protests, told IPS. “Our members are livid. They’re hitting the streets.”
According to the group, thousands of people in more than 190 cities and towns across the country took part in demonstrations against the corporate bailout bill proposed by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson last Friday.
The four-page draft bill, which is currently under discussion on Capitol Hill, did not initially require any legal and financial measures to protect homeowners from possible foreclosures, nor did it put any limits on the salaries of the corporate executives — although legislators say that has since been amended.
On Thursday, Democratic and Republican lawmakers declared they were close to reaching a deal on a modified version of the bill, but still there was no indication if it would pass the Senate and the House.
“While many are focused on providing relief to the Wall Street, millions of homeowners are at risk of being left behind,” said Janet Murgula, president of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights group.
To Murgula, “it is irresponsible public policy to ask taxpayers to foot the bill for a Wall Street rescue package while simultaneously denying them a sustainable response to the devastation the rising foreclosures rate is having throughout the country.”
Article Continues @ Sourced Site.
Editorial Comment: In the interest of full disclosure, WaMu is this poster’s current financial institution. Remember folks, its just business, nothing personal….My Hairy postarier it ain’t Personal!!!
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Talks on a $700 billion rescue for the U.S. financial system fell into chaos on Thursday amid accusations Republican presidential candidate John McCain scuppered the deal, and U.S. authorities closed Washington Mutual and sold its assets in America’s biggest ever bank failure.
As negotiations over an unprecedented billion bailout plan to restore credit markets degenerated into chaos, the largest U.S. savings and loan bank was taken over by authorities and its deposits auctioned off. U.S. stock futures fell by more than 1 percent, the dollar weakened and share markets in Asia fell.
The third-largest U.S. bank JPMorgan Chase & Co said it bought the deposits of Washington Mutual Inc, which has seen its stock price virtually wiped out because of massive amounts of bad mortgages. The government said there would be no impact on WaMu’s depositors and customers. JPMorgan said it would be business as usual on Friday morning.
Had a bailout deal been reached in Congress, it may have helped the savings and loan, founded in Seattle in 1889. Efforts to find a suitor to buy WaMu faltered in recent days over concerns about whether the government would reach a deal to buy its toxic mortgages.
Earlier on Thursday, U.S. lawmakers had appeared close to a final agreement on the bailout, lifting world stock markets and sending the dollar higher. But an emergency White House meeting between Congressional leaders with U.S. President George W. Bush “devolved into a contentious shouting match,” according to a statement from the McCain campaign.
In advance of that meeting, which included the two men battling to succeed him, Democrat Barack Obama and McCain, a compromise bipartisan deal seemed imminent.
After the session, Congressional leaders said an agreement could take until the weekend or longer.
Democratic Rep. Barney Frank, who has played a key role in talks over the Bush administration proposal, said negotiations would continue on Friday, but with no sign that House Republicans would take part.
Article Continues @ Sourced Site.
Cortesy International Herald Tribune.
WASHINGTON: Congressional negotiators from both parties announced Thursday that they had reached general agreement on a $700 billion rescue effort for the U.S. financial system.
Emerging from a nearly three-hour meeting in the Capitol, Republicans and Democrats said they would continue working through the day to complete the legislative language and would begin final negotiations with the U.S. Treasury.
It was unclear if a final draft of the bill would be ready by 4 p.m. when congressional leaders were scheduled to meet at the White House with President George W. Bush and the two presidential candidates, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois.
On Wall Street, shares, which had opened higher, rose sharply on expectations of a rescue plan. The Dow Jones industrial average was up more than 220 points, or 2 percent, at midafternoon.
Lawmakers in both parties said that few substantive differences and no major obstacles remained and that they expected it to be approved in days. They said the bill would authorize the full $700 billion requested by Bush, but that Congress was intent on disbursing the money in installments.
Article Contines @ Sourced Site.
