EarthSourceMedia

EarthSourceMedia Reports for October 31st, 2008

‘Say Hello to my Little Friend’

Morro Bay, California:

Hello everyone, don’t be afraid…come on in and Happy Halloween! Bwa-ha ha ha!

Just when you thought it was safe to breathe the air in this quaint little hamlet-by-the-sea, which harbors the nasty-ol’ Morro Bay Power Plant, the Bush administration has foiled us again! Seems that on their way out the door, the Bush cabal is fast-tracking a flurry of rules designed to further deregulate toxic polluting industry. Mining coal would become a bit easier because mountaintops could be removed and simply pushed into pristine streams waiting below for their black sooty bounty.

Power Plants, like the one in Morro Bay Estuary (site of a new Marine Protected Area) will have air pollution limits raised up to- well, up to whatever the highest level of emmissions that plant is capable of spewing -and the NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service) has a new rule to put the ‘over-fishing’ industry in charge of itself! NMFS are the people behind the whole seal fiasco in LaJolla (see: www.helpsealthedeal.com). Once in, these rules will take time to change back, and should the election not be stolen, even with Obama in the Whitehouse, he may not change the rules because he keeps mentioning ‘clean’ coal in his speeches. Clean coal is very similar to dry water. It doesn’t exist. EarthSourceMedia points out that it was the refusal of the democrats to impeach Bush and Cheney that is allowing  this final rush to madness.

Los Angeles:

A member of the jury about to try recording wiz and suspected murderer Phil Spector has been hurt, once again delaying trial testimony. ESM is trying to substantiate rumours the juror hurt his back carrying a large bag of money away from a meeting with a Spector accountant.

Damascus, Syria:

In a perfect illustration of how well our ‘Peace Keeper’ missiles are keeping the peace, tens of thousands of Syrians massed by the Iraq border denouncing deadly U.S. missile strikes within their country, and calling for the death of Americans. Further proof of the wisdom of trying to convert the world into American satellites were abundant; A bomb killed 5 yesterday in Afghanistan, and a series of 13 coordinated bombings killed almost 100 people in India. So, we’re bombing Pakistan, Pakistan is bombing India, and India is getting help with their nuclear program from the United States. In a statement by the Whitehouse, George Bush said “Ya see? I told you they love us!”   

Sweden:

The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority said on it’s website that during a recent malfunction of it’s alarm system, the Oskarshamn Nuclear Plant used janitors to guard the plants perimeters. The janitors had no security training, but they left the plant glowing. -ESM 

Seattle, Washington:

A 61 year old former Washington University staff member doused himself with gasoline and burned to death on the crowded campus. In many cases of self immolation, there is a message of cause. Let’s face it, you have to really mean it when you light yourself on fire as it can cause great discomfort. But, as is often the case, authorities -who don’t want the public to become enflamed -never allow media to get the word out about why it was done. This was once again the case in todays headlines, which simply focused on the cops, fire extinguishers and macabre. EarthSourceMedia wants to know why. Iraq? Bush? Palin shooting wolves? CIA in the cocaine business? Columbia President Uribe snorting lines with Bush? Bush and Rice in bed? What the hell is going on that someone burned himself to death? -ESM    

Georgia:

A police officer was found guilty of conspiracy after an incident in which a 92 year old woman was shot during a mistaken drug raid. Realizing the unfortunate mix up, quick thinking Officer Arthur Tessler sprang into action. Sometimes, ‘oops‘ simply will not do, and an officer can avoid a lot of embarassing questions just by planting a few well-placed bags of marijuana. After all, its a well known fact a lot of elderly hide their pot among the tea stash. Some are even Al Qaeda.

Mexico City, Mexico:

Last in our scary Halloween column for October 31st, is a quickie about a Mexican narco raid on a mansion owned by real drug dealers. When police showed up, they were not greeted by guns or german shepherd dogs, but by Lions, white Tigers, and black Jaguars! The only thing harder to believe than the improbable manajerie is that the U.S. has nothing to do with the murder, mayhem and marijuana happening in Mexico on a daily basis or with the drug trade coming north across the border.

Whether it’s Heroin poppies from Afghanistan, Cocaine Coca leaves from Columbia or Acapulco Gold high-grade Mexican weed from Mexico, you can be sure of one common denominator- the market is the youth of the United States and the 9 year old inner city black youth dealing crack on the street isn’t the one bringing it in because he doesn’t have the resources. And joey knows drug smuggling. Dear old dad smuggled drugs for the Columbians back in the scarface days. Live by the sword, die by the sword- he was murdered in July, 1983. 

For EarthSourceMedia, I’m joey racano saying “Goodnight and go with grace”.

EarthSourceMedia Reports for October 30th, 2008

EarthSourceMedia Mini Editorial:

‘Decision 2008′

When citizens work to improve America, it should be known there are two such countries- the America in which we live, and the America that shall come to be. For better or worse, the America of today is already formed, her features beyond our control. It is the face of future America upon which we must decide and the state of the future State is being formed even as this editor writes.

In Al Gore’s book, ‘Earth in the Balance- Ecology and the Human Spirit’, there was a picture of an unrecognizable form, made up of smaller pictures. The form was made of black or white squares, and, as we were to see on the following page, all it took was one additional square to recognize the composite as the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.

But remove that one square, and Honest Abe fell back into the depths of obsecurity from which he had come. The point our former Vice President was making was how hard it might be to see our ecological peril before it was too late to act. This fact is known well to the oil companies, who pour enormous money into disinformation campaigns designed to give the illusion there is still some question about global warming and if man might be causing it. Their goal is to keep us from taking the decisive action necessary to save ourselves while they swim in money until the end of the world.

The ultimate destination of our country is similarly hard to see without that ‘one more square’ added to the picture. It is likely that by the time we can see that destination, it would be too late to avoid should it be an undesireable one. A recent editorial in San Diego’s Union Tribune railed against the Washington Post and other newspapers for comparing the behavior of people at McCain/Palin rallies to those of people attending Nazi rallies during the rise of Hitler. The editorial went on to point out the great differences in severity of the activities, saying it was wrong to compare the two. But like all pro-capitalist right leaning news outlets from the Ayne Rand school of thought, this is a dangerous road to hoe. The issue isn’t whether or not we are another Third Reich- it is whether or not we are aimed in that direction and becoming more like one every day.

In choosing to walk the fine line between freedom and fascism, one mistake can take us past the point of no return, and America treds that fine line today. -ESM 

Damascus, Syria:

Thousands are attending a government sanctioned rally today, protesting American Military raids inside the country. The Syrian government is threatening to cut off security cooperation along the Iraq border if any further such raids occur, and has ordered the immediate closing of a cultural center and of an American school by November 6th.

Afghanistan:

Pakistans government has summoned U.S.Ambassador Anne Patterson to protest American missile strikes on that country as well. Such strikes are designed to stop terrorist strikes in the west. 

Kut, Iraq:

The U.S. Military turned control of Wasit Province back over to Iraqi authorities Wednesday saying the smuggling problem there was under control. Even as journalists, EarthSourceMedia finds it hard to understand how one country can give another country back to itself. Adding to the confusion is the language barrier, where for the first few days of the transfer troops from both countries continually asked each other, “Wasit?”

Lincoln, Nebraska:

Nebraska legislators are struggling with the now infamous ’safe-haven’ law as more and more people continue dropping off their kids. At least 30 of those dropped off are 17 years old. No confirmation they have formed Nebraska’s newest gang, the ‘18th Street Drop Offs’.

Washington DC:

‘Federal mortgage guarantees readied’ said a headline in todays Los Angeles Times as the Fed lowered it’s key interest rate to 1%, lowest since 2004. “We finally got a guarantee..” said an unidentified inner-city homeowner facing foreclosure. “We guaranteed to be out on our asses”.

Washington DC:

Nuclear detection device is audited 

The Department of Homeland Security exaggerated the performance of costly new machines designed to detect radiological material that could be used to make ‘dirty bombs’. Radiation found to be present in microwave ovens, televisions, computer screens, cell phones and glow in the dark necklaces is said to pose no problem whatsoever.

Los Angeles, California:

In the 2000 election, voting accuracy was called into question as it was again in Ohio in 2004. If ESM readers have concerns about the integrity of the upcoming presidential election, those concerns are well-founded; in the last 8 years since the Gore-Bush maelstrom, vote-counting precision has apparently made no progress at all. Voters in record numbers are using absentee ballots and Los Angeles is warning them their ballots may not make it back in time, so they should be hand delivered.

In three other states, ‘vote flipping’ has occurred; this is when you vote one way and the machine records it the opposite way. Only if a voting officer is present at that precinct at that time can this be reversed. Otherwise, you just voted for Sarah Palin.

Colorado:

Voters rights groups have sued to reinstate 30,000 names that have been removed from voting rolls, arguing their removal violates Federal law prohibiting such an action within 90 days of a federal election.

Florida:

Not only is Florida one of five states named in a complaint by the Justice Department to have engaged in misconduct related to minority voting, but 10,000 voters there are stuck on a list requiring them to be ‘identity checked’ on or before election day.

Georgia:

A Federal panel of judges ruled election officials need Justice Department approval to check voters immigration status but did not stop them from doing so.

Indiana:

Republicans are trying to shut down early voting, alleging fraud.

Michigan:

A federal judge ordered  election officials to cease removing voters from the rolls when their mail was returned by the Postal Service as undeliverable.

Mississippi:

Another of the ‘minority voting misconduct five’

Montana:

The Democrats had to sue to halt challenges to the eligability of 6,000 voters. A federal judge found the challenges to have been ‘frivolous’.

New Jersey:

Another of the ‘minority voting misconduct five’.

Ohio:

State Republican Party leaders are ‘negotiating’ with election officials about 200,000 voters whose data doesn’t exactly match with other forms of their records. Can you say, ‘TYPO‘?

Pennsylvania:

Civil rights groups filed suit to have emergency paper ballots on hand on election day in the event of voter machine ‘malfunction‘.

South Carolina:

Another of the ‘minority voting misconduct five’.

Tennessee:

Another of the ‘minority voting misconduct five’ as well as ‘disenfranchisement of overseas military voters’.

Virginia:

The NAACP has filed suit against Governor Tim Kaine, saying adequate preparations were not made to accomodate record numbers of new voters. The NAACP wants the Federal Government be put in charge of the election.

Wisconsin:

A Judge in Dane County threw out  a lawsuit by the State Attorney General that wanted election officials to validate the I.D. of hundreds of thousands of new voters by election day- appeal pending!

Now, take a look at Yahoo! news- it shows McCain to be ‘catching up’. Uh, yeah, sure, with Obama doing half-hour shows and millions upon millions of dollars pouring in to Obama in small contributions from little guys, a consistent double-digit lead, the economy in the tank -literally- record breaking new young voters, and Palin caught for more corruption on a daily basis. Does anyone really believe McCain could be within a hundred million votes? Not on your life, so don’t you believe it for a minute.

Republicans own the media and they intend to steal this election.

For EarthSourceMedia, I’m joey racano saying, “Everything is fine- all we need are some outside election observers. May I suggest Obrador, Ahmedinejad and Tony Montana? Goodnight and go with grace”.  

(Washington DC, 4:15 a.m.)

Ring-ring!!  Ring-ring!!

“Cookie the Bookie, what’s your horse?”

“Cookie? It’s ‘Deep Pockets’.

“Yes suh, Mr. Ro.. -I mean Deep Pockets’ -what can I do ya for?”

“Oh, it’s Stanley and his boy J.C. at ‘the Bear’ - I think they went too far this time- anyway, listen…remember that bimbo we set up with Eliot the Spitball? With the pierced tongue, belly-button and you said could suck a cinderbrick through a 20′ garden hose? We still got that film?”

“Yessir Karl- I mean…”

“Shutthehekkup and listen, french-fry brain! I need that shit to come out in the news, and I need it to come out, like, yesterday- so call Rupert and tell him, well, just call Rupert, and he’ll know what to do, Kabish?”

“Yessir, Mr.-”

“Pssshhhtt!”

*click*

Bloomberg

Wall Street Executives Made $3 Billion Before Crisis (Update1)

By Tom Randall and Jamie McGee

Sept. 26 (Bloomberg) — Wall Street’s five biggest firms paid more than $3 billion in the last five years to their top executives, while they presided over the packaging and sale of loans that helped bring down the investment-banking system.

Merrill Lynch & Co. paid its chief executives the most, with Stanley O’Neal taking in $172 million from 2003 to 2007 and John Thain getting $86 million, including a signing bonus, after beginning work in December. The company agreed to be acquired by Bank of America Corp. for about $50 billion on Sept. 15. Bear Stearns Cos.’s James “Jimmy” Cayne made $161 million before the company collapsed and was sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co. in June.

Democrats and Republicans in Congress are demanding that limits be placed on executive pay as part of the $700 billion financial rescue plan proposed by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO, who received about $111 million between 2003 and 2006, said in testimony to Congress on Sept. 24 that he would accept such limits as part of the plan, after initially opposing them.

“Shareholders and boards should have done something about this a long time ago,” said Charles Elson, director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware in Newark. “They justified these levels of pay on the idea that they’re all geniuses. I think that balloon has burst.”

Wall Street firms have shared profits liberally with employees. The five biggest — Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Merrill, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Bear Stearns — paid their 185,687 employees $66 billion in 2007, as problems with subprime mortgages mounted, including about $39 billion in bonuses. That amounts to average pay of $353,089 per employee, including an average bonus of $211,849. The five firms had combined net income of $93 billion during the five years through 2007.

CEO Pay Doubled

The $3.1 billion paid to the top five executives at the firms between 2003 and 2007 was about three times what JPMorgan spent to buy Bear Stearns. Goldman Sachs had the highest total, with $859 million, followed by Bear Stearns at $609 million. CEO pay at the five firms increased each year, doubling to $253 million in 2007, according to data compiled from company filings.

Executive-compensat ion figures include salary, bonuses, stock and stock options, some awarded for past performance. The options were valued at a third of the fair-market price of the stock at the time the options were granted, a method recommended by Graef Crystal, a compensation specialist and author of the Crystal Report on Executive Compensation, an online newsletter. The companies value the options using different methods.

`Make It Rain’

Wall Street firms have paid employees a greater share of revenue than any other industry, about 50 percent, Crystal said. That tradition at investment banks comes from their history as closely held partnerships of investors who put their own capital at risk, he said.

“In Wall Street and Hollywood, the profits tend to come in great big packets, and everyone wants a piece,” said Crystal, a former Bloomberg columnist. “Whether it’s the movie `Dark Knight’ or a huge merger deal, he who can make it rain, he who can bring everyone to the theater, can earn whatever he wants.”

Until the rain stops.

Lehman Brothers filed for the biggest bankruptcy in history on Sept. 15, with more than $613 billion in debt. The same day, Merrill Lynch was sold to Bank of America for $29 a share, about 70 percent below the stock’s high of $97.53 on Jan. 24, 2007.

Goldman and Morgan Stanley, the two biggest independent U.S. investment banks, were forced to convert to bank holding companies, giving them more access to Federal Reserve funds and buying time to acquire deposits. Goldman Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein made $57.6 million in 2007 in salary and bonus, which includes stock and options granted at the beginning of the fiscal year to reward performance the previous year. Co- presidents Gary Cohn and Jon Winkelried each got $56 million.

`Tied to Performance’

Morgan Stanley’s current and former chief executives, John Mack and Philip Purcell, were paid about $194 million over the last five years.

Mark Lake, a spokesman for Morgan Stanley, pointed to Mack’s decision not to take a bonus for 2007 and said the $1.6 million in salary and other compensation he was awarded last year isn’t “a lot” compared with other Wall Street CEOs.

“He has taken everything he had since rejoining the firm in equity, other than salary,” Lake said. “There’s a difference in taking stock in the firm as a bonus and taking cash. Stock in the firm, obviously you are tied to performance of the firm.”

Goldman Sachs spokesman Michael Duvally declined to comment. Merrill Lynch spokeswoman Jessica Oppenheim, JPMorgan spokesman Brian Marchiony and Lehman spokeswoman Monique Wise didn’t return calls for comment.

Paulson, Bush

“The American people are angry about executive compensation, and rightfully so,” Paulson told a House panel on Sept. 24, departing from his prepared remarks. “We must find a way to address this in the legislation, but without undermining the effectiveness of this program.”

President George W. Bush said that night in a televised address to the nation that the plan would provide “urgently needed money so banks and other financial institutions can avoid collapse” and “should make certain that failed executives do not receive a windfall from your tax dollars.”

Congressional Republicans splintered late yesterday over the proposed $700 billion rescue plan. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said this morning at a news conference that Democrats are circulating a draft of legislation that contains limits on executive compensation and ensures that Congress has oversight over the bailout. Lawmakers from both parties are meeting again today in Washington.

Weak Record

The U.S. government has a weak record when it comes to regulating compensation, said Kevin Murphy, a professor of finance at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

“Every government attempt that has existed to limit or regulate CEO pay has backfired,” Murphy said. “I’m fairly confident this one will backfire too. There are always loopholes.”

Regulation of golden parachutes, or protection for executives in the case of an acquisition, were circumvented in the 1980s with severance agreements, and Nixon’s wage-and-price- control experiment in the 1970s ultimately failed, Murphy said.

“It’s either the compensation committee or the general counsel or the head of human resources who are trying to negotiate a pay package with someone who will be their boss in a week,” he said. “These are things that can be done a lot better.”

Corporate Governance

Rather than government regulation, the solution is in better corporate governance, Elson said. Companies should negotiate more aggressively with executives and should establish rules that encourage shareholders to protest excessive pay. The rescue package is not the place to have that debate, he said.

“This will get in the way” of passing the $700 billion financial rescue legislation, Elson said. “We are in a crisis. The patient is dying. Let’s work on the details as soon as we get the patient out of the emergency room when we can do it in a thoughtful or deliberate manner.”

Not all Wall Street CEOs have escaped unscathed. Cayne sold a Bear Stearns holding once worth $1 billion for $61 million in March. Lehman’s Chief Executive Officer Richard Fuld, who made $165 million between 2003 and 2007, sold 2.88 million of his firm’s shares for 16 cents to 30 cents apiece, or less than $500,000, according to a regulatory filing.

Fuld owned 10.9 million shares and restricted stock units as of Jan. 31, valued at $931 million at their peak. He also had in- the-money options and other stock worth almost $300 million, according to Crystal.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tom Randall in New York at trandall6@bloomberg .net; Jamie McGee in New York at jmcgee8@bloomberg. net.
Last Updated: September 26, 2008 13:56 EDT

~It has been said that it doesn’t matter what bad press or scandal you get yourself into, because the public’s memory only goes back 6 months. Well, public, about six months ago, you may remember the sad news conferences showing the once-proud Eliot Spitzer with his family stoicly by his side, conceding to the world he had done wrong.

But, in light of the financial meltdown, EarthSourceMedia thought it to be vitally important to rehash the reason the entire sordid call-girl information was released to the public by an angry Bush administration. It was an attempt to destroy this man of integrity (with a weakness for a tan, shapely young dancer) for having the audacity to call a spade a spade; the Bush cabal and it’s beloved housing sector was engaged in preditory lending. A nation-wide economy of organized crime that would lead to the most severe economic meltdown in the history of the modern world.

Here is the story, written by Spitzer, that might have sounded the alarm to save us, but instead brought a good man’s world -and eventually an entire nation- crashing down:

Predatory Lenders’ Partner in Crime

How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers

By Eliot Spitzer

Thursday, February 14, 2008; Page A25

Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. Some were misrepresenting the terms of loans, making loans without regard to consumers’ ability to repay, making loans with deceptive “teaser” rates that later ballooned astronomically, packing loans with undisclosed charges and fees, or even paying illegal kickbacks. These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets.

Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers.

Predatory lending was widely understood to present a looming national crisis. This threat was so clear that as New York attorney general, I joined with colleagues in the other 49 states in attempting to fill the void left by the federal government. Individually, and together, state attorneys general of both parties brought litigation or entered into settlements with many subprime lenders that were engaged in predatory lending practices. Several state legislatures, including New York’s, enacted laws aimed at curbing such practices.

What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge? As Americans are now painfully aware, with hundreds of thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure and our markets reeling, the answer is a resounding no.

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.

Let me explain: The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC has been in existence since the Civil War. Its mission is to ensure the fiscal soundness of national banks. For 140 years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But a few years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers.

In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government’s actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.

But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.

Throughout our battles with the OCC and the banks, the mantra of the banks and their defenders was that efforts to curb predatory lending would deny access to credit to the very consumers the states were trying to protect. But the curbs we sought on predatory and unfair lending would have in no way jeopardized access to the legitimate credit market for appropriately priced loans. Instead, they would have stopped the scourge of predatory lending practices that have resulted in countless thousands of consumers losing their homes and put our economy in a precarious position.

When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners, the Bush administration will not be judged favorably. The tale is still unfolding, but when the dust settles, it will be judged as a willing accomplice to the lenders who went to any lengths in their quest for profits. So willing, in fact, that it used the power of the federal government in an unprecedented assault on state legislatures, as well as on state attorneys general and anyone else on the side of consumers.

The writer is governor of New York.