Alexander Cockburn from Creators Syndicate

How to Wash $7.3 Billion: Russians Battle America's Oldest Bank for 07/18/2008

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

On July 3, a Moscow courtroom sizzled with acrid testimonials to the effect that the oldest bank in the United States is internationally accountable on charges of money laundering and, if convicted, will have to pony up $22.5 billion to the Russian Customs Service, said sum representing just over a third of its capital.

The outfit in question is the indubitably venerable Bank of New York ...

Updated: Fri Jul 18, 2008

]]>

Where's the Scandal? for 07/25/2008

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Where's the spice in this campaign? The only fun available is the National Inquirer's deadly pursuit of John Edwards's alleged mistress and "love child." The wretched Edwards isn't even a candidate, but his scandal offers the only game in town. Now that Hillary Clinton is out of the race, the campaign has gone flat.

This time in the presidential race four years ago, the press w ...

Updated: Fri Jul 25, 2008

]]>

How Bush is Wiping Out McCain for 08/01/2008

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Amid these very bad weeks for Republican John McCain's hopes for victory in November, the cruelest blow of all is surely that President George Bush has plainly decided to let McCain sink, without even pretending to toss a life belt to his fellow Republican.

Two mean-spirited men by nature, Bush and McCain have never liked each other much, and this natural animosity was fanned by the vici ...

Updated: Fri Aug 01, 2008

]]>

Mainstream Media Snobs Scooped by Enquirer for 08/08/2008

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

An American standing in the checkout line at a supermarket is better informed on a hot issue of the day than the nation's elite who send their maids to buy food while getting their news from The New York Times and the Washington Post.

So far as the precise historical record goes, former senator John Edwards, 55, began his slide into public scandal back on Aug. 25, 2007, when the New York ...

Updated: Fri Aug 08, 2008

]]>

Yes, This Might Have Been a Real Government Conspiracy for 08/15/2008

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

A significant number of Americans have a profound belief in government conspiracies. Against all the evidence, the conspiracy buffs feel that the incompetent bozos collectively known as "the government" have superhuman powers of organization and cunning.

I'm not talking here about identifiable conspiracies, like taking away our money in the form of taxes or death duties or fixi ...

Updated: Fri Aug 15, 2008

]]>

You Want to Be President? Don't Take a Vacation for 08/22/2008

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Vacations are dangerous. Ask Barack Obama. He went off to Hawaii for rest and fun, and while he was being tossed around in the surf, John McCain — who should by rights be snoozing in a hammock in one of his eight homes — was right there in the trenches fighting World War Three. Guess who's jumping in the polls. Obama is still stuck at 45, and McCain is pushing past him, right on the ...

Updated: Fri Aug 22, 2008

]]>

"Change," "Hope" . . . Why, They Must Be Talking About Joe Biden! for 08/29/2008

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

"Change" and "hope" are not words one associates with Sen. Joe Biden, a man so ripely symbolic of everything that is unchanging and hopeless about our political system that a computer simulation of the corporate-political paradigm senator in Congress would turn out "Biden" in a nanosecond.

The first duty of any senator from Delaware is to do the bidding of t ...

Updated: Fri Aug 29, 2008

]]>

One Cheer for Sarah Palin for 09/05/2008

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Sure, we know. She's a wolf killer, bear hunter, would-be driller in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She backs the Pebble Creek gold mine, scheduled as the world's largest, right next to the salmon-rich bay after which she and Todd named their second daughter. She tried to get her former brother-in-law bounced from his job as a cop. Nobody's perfect. After all, she was only runner-up in th ...

Updated: Fri Sep 05, 2008

]]>

Toward a New New Cold War? for 09/12/2008

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Though not yet a sure thing, we could be in the foothills of a new new cold war, bouncing son of the "new cold war" fired up by Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski and the defense industry in the late 1970s and grandson of the old cold war with the Soviet Union launched in the Truman era.

It's shaped up along familiar lines, starting with Georgia's lunge into South Ossetia in ...

Updated: Fri Sep 12, 2008

]]>

Even Jonathan Swift Couldn't Match McCain for Satire for 09/19/2008

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Last Monday morning, amid the financial rubble of the weekend disasters, John McCain said he thought the economy was fundamentally sound. Hours later, maybe after a phone call from the Palins, he changed his mind. The man who wants less government now wants a government enquiry. He doesn't know what's wrong, but he's bothered.

It would take the pen of Swift to depict a scene more ludicro ...

Updated: Fri Sep 19, 2008

]]>

Is This The Stake Through Neo-Liberalism's Heart? for 09/26/2008

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

What exploded last week was an economic credo that has been rolling along since the early 1970s: neoliberalism. By all rights, this last crisis has brought us to the crossroads where neoliberalism should be buried with a stake through its heart.

We've had 30 years worth of deregulation — the loosening of public controls on Wall Street and the banking industry. This has been the neo ...

Updated: Fri Sep 26, 2008

]]>

How McCain Blew It for 10/03/2008

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

In whatever years remain to him — and the health prognoses for McCain are cloudy at best — McCain should look back at the debate over the $700 billion bailout for Wall Street as the Rubicon he was too scared to cross. He spurned a huge chance to turn the tables on his all-too-decorous opponent. Instead he flopped around and then finished by making an ass of himself, claiming a vital ...

Updated: Fri Oct 03, 2008

]]>

Imbecilic Tedium: The Debate in Nashville for 10/10/2008

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The presidential campaign plummeted into imbecilic tedium in Nashville as Barack Obama and John McCain faced off in the second debate. The encounter took place against the vivid backdrop of economic catastrophe, the obvious failure of the $700 billion bailout to turn the tide, Tuesday's market averages hurtling into the abyss, a paralyzing credit freeze, the prospect of savage deflation and pro ...

Updated: Fri Oct 10, 2008

]]>

Into the Home Straight for 10/17/2008

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The morning of the third presidential debate, a friend in Landrum, S.C., conducted an informal survey of voter sentiment in this rural town in the heart of Dixie. He pulled over at a convenience store-cum-coffee shop and walked in with a wad of McCain/Palin stickers. "Don't you bring those things in here," said the man behind the register. Our friend strolled around among the regulars ...

Updated: Fri Oct 17, 2008

]]>

Suspicions Dog McCain (and Even Biden): If Elected, How Long Would They Live? for 10/24/2008

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Among the many travails of John McCain's faltering bid for the presidency is the semi-stifled suspicion that his chances of lasting through a four-year term are not rosy. Officially, the Obama campaign has distanced itself from allegations that McCain might be a lot sicker than he lets on. Supporters have been less restrained in suggesting that The Reaper is but a step behind the 72-year-old se ...

Updated: Fri Oct 24, 2008

]]>

Change that Really Means Something for 10/31/2008

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The disadvantages to the McCain-Palin ticket don't need much explication. McCain has never risen to the challenge of the world financial crisis and this failure has shriveled his chances to near invisibility. Though Sarah Palin has enough horse sense to attack Wall Street greed, it's a brave soul who would argue that she's ready to run the country, which in the unlikely event of Republican vict ...

Updated: Fri Oct 31, 2008

]]>

Thank You Mr. Greenspan, Thank You Mr. Bush for 11/07/2008

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

A country with a terrible history of racism and racist violence has elected a black president. Looking at the ecstatic crowd in Grant Park, Chicago, the moment Obama was declared the winner, one sees with vivid force that many Americans haven't had much of a chance to feel proud of their country for a long time. Young Americans, particularly blacks and Hispanics, yearned for all the affirmation ...

Updated: Fri Nov 07, 2008

]]>

Hail to the Chief of Staff for 11/14/2008

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

The first trumpet blast of change ushers in Rahm Emanuel as Obama's chief of staff and gatekeeper. This is the man who arranges his schedule, staffs out the agenda, includes, excludes. It's certainly as sinister an appointment as, say, Carter's installation of arch cold-warrior Zbigniew Brzezinski as his National Security Adviser at the dawn of his "change is here" administration in 1 ...

Updated: Fri Nov 14, 2008

]]>

It's All About Paying Workers Less for 11/21/2008

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Since there's one standard for automakers and another for bankers, the quickest way for GM to pick up some loose change would be to buy a few banks and thus get the company's mitts on some of the Treasury's $700 billion. If insurance companies are doing it, why not GM?

A story on the Bloomberg wire on Nov. 17 told us that four of the world's biggest insurers, including Transamerica and H ...

Updated: Fri Nov 21, 2008

]]>

Foreign Policy Thanksgiving for 11/28/2008

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

There have been bleaker Thanksgivings, to be sure, than the one Americans celebrated Thursday. The storied first feast in 1621 in the Puritan colony on the Massachusetts shoreline actually took place in the ruined Indian village of Pawtuxet. The Wampanoag Indians, who brought the little band of Puritans wild turkeys (a meat they themselves rather despised) along with some ears of corn and seaso ...

Updated: Fri Nov 28, 2008

]]>