A very big bucks new twist has been added to the context of Afghanistan: the U.S. has discovered some $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan — a finding that is likely to urge some to keep the U.S. there, some to pull out, rosy predictions about Afghanistan’s easier future, and gloomier predictions that with the country’s stultifying corruption the find could eventually trigger...

WASHINGTON — Will politics slow our economic recovery? Will world leaders who pulled us back from the brink of a new Great Depression throw in the towel before the global economy gets the unemployed back to work? These are the moment’s central questions, and I posed them last week to Larry Summers, President Obama’s top economic adviser. Summers is often cast as an economic conservative...

The coverage of the BP disaster is pretty much non stop but what we have not heard is that it may not be possible to stop it.  But there is another potential toxic invasion.  This month has not been a quiet one for the booming Marcellus Shale natural gas well drilling industry, and the commotion has the attention of Debbie Borowiec of Upper Burrell, where two gas wells are planned near 67 homes on...

In retrospect, George W. Bush was right when he described himself as a Uniter, not a Divider. He left office after bringing together Democrats and Independents under the banner of “Yes We Can” while Republicans campaigned as if he had never existed. A year and a half later, the dams of Bush government-in-denial have burst open to flood the political scene with economic and environmental disasters...

Here is a prime example of what I call “the Jewish schizophrenia”: liberal on all issues of social justice and human need; fascist on Israel (emphasis in original):

Add yet one more instance where BP’s assertions of reality in the Gulf Oil spill have proven to be either a mistake or seeming outright incorrect information: the initial estimates British Petroleum and the government (relying on BP) out are now believed to be wrong — and the oil is believed to be 4 to 8 times more than what the public was initially told. The Christian Science Monitor: For nearly...

A New Red Storm Rising? by Michael Reagan Last week Chinese officials brushed off U.S. Defense Secretary Gates on a proposed meeting to discuss looming military issues and bolster communication. Their reason? It was “inconvenient.” I would find China’s casual and indifferent response to our efforts disturbing under any circumstances. We must take care that neither China nor any other nation...

What is Ronald Reagan’s “real” legacy? Hint, it’s not the end of the cold war! It is the destruction of the middle class in the US and since the middle class is what makes Democracy possible it resulted in the end of Democracy in this country. Dave Cohen at Decline of the Empire along with Robert Reich, Thom Hartmann and others have been talking about the decline of the middle class...

Holy moly. I think John Boehner just handed the Democrats a big, fat, gift-wrapped box with a gift coupon inside it for the elections in November:

WASHINGTON — This week’s primaries should have been good news for Democrats. Instead, a stray comment from an Obama aide briefly threatened a civil war in the Democratic Party, which needs all the unity it can get. The administration moved quickly to heal bad feelings that burst forth when an unnamed senior White House official disparaged organized labor’s unsuccessful efforts to defeat...

To some — and not just environmentalists — there may be some poetic justice in a new apparent trend in the Gulf oil spill story: as the oil from under the sea gushes up threatening fish, birds, the coastline and a whole way of life, British Petroleum’s shares have begun to fall amid speculation that the whole sorry saga will end in the company having to declare bankruptcy. Speculation abounds...

I am wondering why I can’t get clear confirmation on answers to certain questions: 1. If a ‘no fly zone‘ has been put into place over the hemorrhaging oil line in the Gulf, who ordered that? The US government, or British Petroleum or whom? 2. Have there been people arrested in that area, and how many, and for what reasons? Who exactly has ordered that citizens or reporters/ photographer be...

It seems that President Obama has labor union problem. As unlikely as it sounds, the candidate who was pushed over the top by several labor unions in 2008 was on opposite sides of the Arkansas democratic primary less than two years later. After the primary dust settled, both sides had shots to fire across the bow warning of another conflict. The White House said “Organized labor just flushed $10 million...

Whether it’s Africa for African-Americans, Mexico, Central and South American for Latino US citizens and naturalized citizens, China for Chinese refugees who fled to the US, or any group, ANY group, we’ve all heard someone say it, or else been the recipient who it was aimed at: Go home, you $^#% immigrant. Go home if you dont like it here. Go home if you cant look like me. Go home if you’re...

A Voice in the Wilderness by Owen Grey In Saturday’s Globe and Mail, Jeffrey Simpson reviews Lament for America: Decline of the Superpower, Plan for Renewal, by Earl Fry of Brigham Young University. What is interesting about the book — aside from Fry’s analysis — is that it has been published by the University of Toronto Press — which, Simpson notes, is “hardly a household...

WASHINGTON — The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has created a double bind for the Obama administration. How it deals with a challenge even more complicated than it looks will determine the kind of summer the president has and the kind of election the Democrats will face this fall. The obvious problem is how the administration can get ahead of a disaster that promises to be a running story for much...

Some of the most memorable and idyllic times of my early youth are the days and weeks I spent in the late 1940s with my parents and sister in the “Oriente” in my native Ecuador. The “Oriente” is Ecuador’s name for its beautiful jungle region on the East side of the mighty Andes—the beginning of the Amazon rainforest and one of the most biologically diverse regions on earth. The Oriente provides...

On the fourth of May Adam Sharp of Energy and Capitol saw BP as a buying opportunity. By the first of June he had done an about face. Three weeks ago I wrote an article titled, “Hold Your Nose and Buy BP Stock.” That made writing this piece a bit… awkward. But I’m not one to shy away from mistakes. It was a bad call. That said, I sold my BP shares for an 8% loss a few days later (and...

Forrest Gump’s mother was right. “Stupid is what stupid does,” Forrest would quote his mother. It got me to thinking about comments Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann have said about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. For Rush, two comments have drawn attention from his 10 million daily fans and equal number of antagonists. One is environmentalists working as eco-terrorists...

If Rupert Murdoch’s announcement that he plans to withdraw his news content from Google’s index is any indication, the value of the link is still a topic of debate. Proponents of the “economy of the link” who consider the hyperlink to be the ultimate form of flattery — from which revenue will flow — argue that the aggregators, search engines, and blogs send firehoses of traffic...