White House is Playing with Atomic Fire
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashchandrabiswas@gmail.com">palashchandrabiswas@gmail.com
Redefining the war in Iraq -- is Iran the President's NEW target? Journalist Sy Hersh on why Bush may leave the White House with a bang. "AC 360" investigates tonight, 10 ET!
Pl see the Web Page:
The Evolving India-U.S. Strategic Relationship
A Compendium of Articles and Analyses
http://www.comw.org/pda/0603india.html
Strategic Co-operation Versus Military –to-Military Co-operation: A strategic partnership between the United States and India in the 21st Century is “inevitable” as the India Shining Sensex Brand Brahminical Ruling class considers!Indo-US strategic co-operation in the contiguous areas of South Asia , namely the Middle East and South East Asia may be only marginal till such time a full Indo-US strategic partnership emerges. However Indo-US strategic co-operation in the Indian Ocean region and the “freedom of the high seas” offers promise of substantive progress. In any case this itself has spill-over effects on the Middle East and South Asia.
Talks in Washington on the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal are going down to the wire. The three day talks on the 123 agreement have now been extended by a day, a sign that both sides are trying hard to break the impasse over India's right to reprocess spent fuel and the fallout of India conducting a nuclear test.India's National Security Advisor M K Narayanan also held talks with US Vice President Dick Cheney on Wednesday in an effort to break the logjam.Narayanan and his American counterpart Hadley and their respective delegations had a three hour-long meeting. The American side has stated that both India and the United States had overcome most of the outstanding issues.
Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon meanwhile, met Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns.Burns has termed the final talks as going into an extra innings, adding that he was hopeful that there will be an agreement.
''We have overcome many of the outstanding issues. We just need to go the extra couple of feet,'' he said.
India and the US could be close to clinching the nuke deal as positive signals emerge from Washington on India's rights to reprocess spent nuclear fuel. According to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's assessment, talks on the issue have entered the "last leg".
The two countries are close to ironing out differences on storage of spent fuel after three days of talks on the 123 agreement.
According to reports, the US has agreed to India's offer to set up a dedicated spent fuel storage facility. This development comes after National Security Advisor M K Narayanan held several rounds of discussions with his US counterpart Stephen Hadley on Thursday. Both Narayanan and foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon also met vice president Dick Cheney after the talks.
Reports say that the two sides have removed major roadblocks to implement the landmark agreement while the crucial issue is now to incorporate this understanding in the text of the 123 agreement. Tom Casey, Deputy Spokesman of the State Department, said that while no dramatic breakthrough was expected immediately, the two sides have made "good progress" in sorting out the differences.
State Department Spokesperson Sean McCormack said, "well, we hope that's in fact the case. The United States has expressed its commitment and expressed its desire to reach an agreement. And we're sure that the Indian government wants to reach an agreement. The question is a matter of when and the timing of it.”
The Spitzer Space Telescope's Infrared Spectrometer Instrument has
viewed a star more than 400 light years away which has an pre-formed
planet. Star No HD113766, is about the size of our sun, and the
forming planet is a cloud of dust gathered in an apparent torroid
(donut) around the star. The details can be found on-line, including
Ker Than, Staff Writer for SPACE.com in his article for USA
TODAY, "Astronomers: second Earth in the making"
I ask the reader to consider that we apparently cannot see formed
planets of nearer stars, yet we can see a cloud of dust around a star
at 424 light years – more than a hundred times more distant.
This is another validation of my model, and it also explains
planetary rings. This forming planet is emitting thermal radiation
(the man-made device looks at infrared) because its sun's gravity is
providing harmonics that are driving the particle like a microwave
oven. The dust is being resonated at a level that makes it act like a
laser, which is why we can see the cloud.
Until somebody comes up with a better name, I am labeling
it, "Gravitational Induction Pumping". This also explains rings
around our solar system's gas giants. They were once a similar cloud
orbiting instead, around a large planet, which at one time had the
capacity to pump energy into the cloud. This small contribution added
to the solar harmonics. A sintering process went on for millennia,
until the contents were extremely uniform. When the planet cooled,
the ring lost much of its received energy, and slowly crumbled to
rubble as it cooled.
From my perspective, the primary data is (1) that we can now see the
wobble of a very nearby star's gravitational fields' harmonics, which
we rationalize to represent its planets, but cannot view these
planets directly. Our reach to planet discovery does not extend
beyond the nearest stars. (2) We can see a dust cloud which could
become planets for a star one hundred times more distant, but (3)
still can't get a decent photo of Pluto (resolution to see a planet-
cloud at 400 light years should at least yield topography for Pluto –
all Hubble gets on its best day is a gray blur).
My model not only works for these three pieces of evidence, but may
be the only one that works with all of them. Please consider reading
it so that you will understand where we are going with Astrophysics.
www.joebrownscience .net
Articles: Millennial Physics, Black Holes
1) BANNED MARCH IS LEGAL SAYS LIBERTY
WE WILL MARCH MONDAY 8 OCTOBER
ALL TROOPS OUT NOW: NOT ONE MORE DEATH
We will be marching to Parliament on Monday 8 October, despite
the government insisting that our protest is banned. Human rights
group Liberty says our march is legal and we will be exercising
our democratic right to protest peacefully on the day Gordon
Brown makes his long awaited speech on Iraq to the House of
Commons.
Stop the War has been flooded with messages of support and a
commitment to join our protest, including from Shami Chakrabarti
(Liberty), Tony Benn, Walter Wolfgang (Labour Party NEC, Bob
Wareing MP, musician Brian Eno, comedian Mark Thomas, author Iain
Banks, poet Benjamin Zephaniah and playwright David Edgar (SEE
QUOTES BELOW).
We urge everyone who has opposed the British government's support
for George Bush's war, and who agrees that our right to peaceful
protest must be defended, to join us on Monday
ASSEMBLE 1PM TRAFALGAR SQUARE FOR RALLY
(Speakers include Tony Benn, , Brian Eno, Mark Thomas, Walter
Wolfgang, George Galloway and Ben Griffin (ex SAS trooper)
MARCH TO PARLIAMENT
WHY YOU SHOULD JOIN US:
In the run up to this much anticipated general election, the
leaders of each major political party have claimed to champion
our civil liberties. No doubt they will now unite to ensure that
this peaceful demonstration takes place.
SHAMI CHAKRABARTI, Director of Liberty
The authority for this march derives from our ancient right to
free speech and assembly enshrined in our history. It is only
fair to tell you that the march will go ahead, in any case, and I
will be among those marching.
TONY BENN, in letter to the Home Secretary
A protest demanding all the troops out now is of national
significance. To try and stop that protest is a major
interference with free speech. The march should go ahead whether
it is formally permitted or not.
WALTER WOLFGANG, Labour Party NEC
The government want to bury the issue of their disastrous war.
They will not succeed. We will be marching in our thousands on
Monday.
LINDSEY GERMAN, Convenor Stop the War Coalition
In a democracy we expect peaceful protest to be permitted. We are
not yet in the kind of tyranny that the Burmese people have to
suffer, I hope the authorities will reconsider.
BOB WAREING MP
Gordon Brown cannot praise protesters in Burma and then ban a
protest in London. I will be protesting on Monday, regardless of
whether Police permission is granted.
BEN GRIFFIN (ex SAS trooper)
If people aren't allowed to have their say on all our streets,
what kind of Parliament are we meant to be defending?
MICHAEL KUSTOW, theatre director
This is rather a ham-fisted attempt to prevent us from
demonstrating. What the government and police do is up to them.
We will just ignore them and we have the moral and logical
high-ground. I will be marching on Monday 8 October.
MARK THOMAS, comedian
It's becoming remarkably hard to escape the feeling we're ruled
by people who are basically paranoid authoritarian incompetents.
IAIN BANKS, author
It is depressing that our democratic rights are being whittled
away bit by bit. We will look back and wonder how this happened.
They wouldn't get away with this in one go. First an arrest for
reading names, then a ban on marches. What will be next?
BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH, poet
The stop the war demonstration on 15 February 2003 was arguably
the most politically influential march in Britain since the
1970s, so it's no surprise that politicians are immobilising
anti-war demonstrations now. At a time when the political debate
at Westminster occupies ever narrower ground, it's vital that
voices from outside are heard.
DAVID EDGAR, playwright
http://theobfuscationrepor t.blogspot.com/
The latest revelations of lawbreaking, torture and extremism
-- Glenn Greenwald
Much outrage has been provoked by the generally excellent New York Times article this morning revealing the Bush administration's recent violations of legal restrictions on the use of torture and other "severe interrogation techniques." And, in one sense, the outrage is both understandable and appropriate. Today's revelations involve the now-familiar, defining attributes of this administration -- claims of limitless presidential power, operating in total secrecy and with no oversight, breaking of laws at will, serial misleading of the Congress and the country and, most of all, the shattering of every previous moral and legal constraint on our national behavior.
But in another, more important, sense, this story reveals nothing new. As a country, we've known undeniably for almost two years now that we have a lawless government and a President who routinely orders our laws to be violated. His top officials have been repeatedly caught lying outright to Congress on the most critical questions we face. They have argued out in the open that the "constitutional duty" to defend the country means that nothing -- including our "laws" -- can limit what the President does.
It has long been known that we are torturing, holding detainees in secret prisons beyond the reach of law and civilization, sending detainees to the worst human rights abusers to be tortured, and subjecting them ourselves to all sorts of treatment which both our own laws and the treaties to which we are a party plainly prohibit. None of this is new.
And we have decided, collectively as a country, to do nothing about that. Quite the contrary, with regard to most of the revelations of lawbreaking and abuse, our political elite almost in unison has declared that such behavior is understandable, if not justifiable. And our elected representatives have chosen to remain largely in the dark about what was done and, when forced by court rulings or media revelations to act at all, they have endorsed and legalized this behavior -- not investigated, outlawed or punished it.
A ruling by the Supreme Court in Hamdan that the President's interrogation and detention policies violated the law led Congress to enact the Military Commissions Act to legalize those policies. Revelations that the President and telecom companies were breaking our surveillance laws led to the legalization of much of that program and will soon lead to amnesty for the lawbreakers. With regard to all of the most severe acts of illegality, no criminal prosecutions have been commenced and no truly meaningful Congressional investigations have been pursued.
And the more that is revealed about the deep corruption of this administration, the more protective our political elite becomes of the administration, the more insistent their demands become that nothing be done (see Fred Hiatt's attack today on Pat Leahy for his "irresponsible" refusal to confirm Bush's Attorney General until the administration discloses information regarding their past lawbreaking and firings of prosecutors) . And the more our political elite defends the administration and demands that nothing be done, the more our "opposition party" heeds those demands:
Backing away from a fight with the White House, Senate Democrats are suggesting that they will not hold up confirmation of President Bush's nominee for attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey, despite differences over Senate access to documents involving Justice Department actions.
In a letter to Mr. Mukasey made public Wednesday, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, said he would go forward with the confirmation hearings without the promise of the documents.
The committee had for months been pressing the White House for access to files and e-mail messages about last year's firing of several federal prosecutors for what Democrats maintain were political reasons, and about legal justifications for the domestic eavesdropping program run by the National Security Agency.
All of these subversive and grotesque policies -- the Yoo/Addington theories of the imperial presidency, torture, rendition, illegal surveillance, black sites -- began as secret, illegal Bush administration policies. But the more they are revealed, and the more we do nothing about them, the more they become our own.
It is vital to emphasize here that these revelations are not obsolete matters of the distant past -- something we can all agree to leave behind in the spirit of harmoniously moving forward. The torture, detention and surveillance policies in question are still the formal and official position of our government -- and thus can be applied with far greater vigor not merely in the event of a new terrorist attack, but at any time.
The current policies of the U.S. Government still include, in undiluted form, the Bush administration's theories of unlimited presidential power; the lawless powers of indefinite, due-process- free imprisonment even of U.S. citizens (as applied to Jose Padilla); the use of black sites; the asserted right to spy on Americans with no warrants or legal constraints. None of that has gone away. We just decided to accept it. As the NYT article said about the administration's torture memos:
But the 2005 Justice Department opinions remain in effect, and their legal conclusions have been confirmed by several more recent memorandums, officials said. They show how the White House has succeeded in preserving the broadest possible legal latitude for harsh tactics.
All of the solemn "debates" and hand-wringing and anti-torture laws that were passed have changed very little, because the administration knows that there is no political will ever to enforce any of that. They know that the political and media institutions intended to impose checks on their behavior will never take any meaningful stand against what they do, no matter how blatantly extreme or illegal.
In response to a post I wrote last month ago regarding the press's reverence for Karl Rove, NYU Journalism Professor (and excellent media critic) Jay Rosen argued that much of the Beltway's acquiescence to the administration's lawbreaking and radicalism is due to their sheer inability to comprehend and internalize just how extreme it all has been:
But I would recommend to Glenn some other factors that deserve consideration if we're trying to explain the collapse of the press under Bush, Cheney and Rove.
The most important of these is that journalists and their methods were overwhelmed by what the Bush White House did -- by its radicalism. There is simply nothing in the Beltway journalist's rule book about what to do, how to act, when a group of people comes to power willing to go as far as this group has in expanding executive power, eluding oversight, steamrolling critics (even when they are allies) politicizing the government, re-working the Constitution, rolling back the press, making secrecy and opacity standard operating procedure, and repealing the very principle of empiricism in matters of state.
The press tends to behave because it does not know how to act, in the sense of striking out in a new direction when confronted with a new fact pattern.
Previously, that's what I believed, and I think that is what accounted for the meekness among our political and media class when these abuses first began to emerge: an inability to comprehend, really to believe, that our government had become this extreme, so blatantly indifferent to even the most minimal legal and moral constraints. One does not expect an administration to imprison U.S. citizens with no process, or to proclaim explicitly the right to break the law, or to systematically adopt policies of torture. For that reason, it is not surprising that it would take some time for the reaction to catch up to the full extent of the wrongdoing.
But we are now way past the point where that excuse is plausible. Anyone paying even minimal attention is well aware of exactly how radical and corrupt and lawless this administration is. We all know what has happened to our standing in the world, to our national character and our core political values, as a result of the previously unthinkable policies the Bush administration has relentlessly pursued. Ignorance or incredulity can no longer explain our acquiescence. Accommodating and protecting the lawbreaking of high Bush officials is widely seen by our Beltway elite as a duty of bipartisanship, a hallmark of Seriousness.
It isn't surprising or particularly revealing that there were not immediate consequences for these revelations. Our political system, by design, works slowly and methodically. The Founders purposely imposed significant hurdles to undertaking the most significant steps (such as criminal investigations of high Executive officials or impeachment) precisely to ensure that such actions were taken deliberatively, not impetuously. It took two-and-a-half years for the much simpler Watergate scandal to lead to what would have been the impeachment of Richard Nixon. The failure to impose immediate or even rapid consequences, while frustrating to many, would not really be a cause for legitimate complaint.
But when it comes to Bush's extremism and lawbreaking, we're not imposing consequences slowly. We're not imposing consequences at all. Quite the contrary, we're moving in the opposite direction -- when we're not affirmatively endorsing and providing protection for that conduct, we're choosing not to know about it, or simply allowing it to fester. And the more that happens, the less that behavior becomes the exclusive province of the Bush administration and the more it becomes our country's defining behavior.
This could still all be reversed. The NYT article today reveals new facts about the administration's lawbreaking, lying, and pursuit of torture policies which we had decided, with futility, to outlaw. The Congress could aggressively investigate. Criminal prosecutions could be commenced. Our opinion-making elite could sound the alarm. New laws could be passed, reversing the prior endorsements and imposing new restrictions, along with the will to enforce those laws. We still have the ability to vindicate the rule of law and enforce our basic constitutional framework.
But does anyone actually believe any of that will be the result of these new revelations? We always possess the choice -- still -- to take a stand for the rule of law and our basic national values, but with every new day that we choose not to, those Bush policies become increasingly normalized, increasingly the symbol not only of "Bushism" but of America.
-- Glenn Greenwald
Labels: Bush Administration, torture
This would be very good, because Bill Clinton has good relations with the less prmitive elements in world politics.
Bill Clinton envisions diplomatic role
Associated Press
Friday, October 05, 2007
By D'ARCY DORAN, Associated Press Writer
Former President Clinton has said his wife wants him to lead efforts to rebuild the United States' tarnished reputation abroad - if she is elected to the White House next year.
The former president made the comments in interviews released Friday in Britain where he was fundraising for Hillary Rodham Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination for next year's presidential election.
Clinton was asked what his public role might be if his wife becomes president, in interviews with The Guardian newspaper and British Broadcasting Corp. television.
He joked to The Guardian that Scottish friends have suggested his title could be "first laddie."
"What Hillary has said is that if she were elected she would ask me, and others - including former Republican presidents - to go out and immediately try to restore America's standing, go out and tell people America was open for business and cooperation again," he was quoted as telling the newspaper.
He said for the first time in his political experience, "ordinary Americans in the heartlands" were concerned about how the world sees the U.S. after years of unilateralism of President Bush's administration on issues such as Iraq, climate change, and nuclear nonproliferation.
"The collective effect of that was to enrage the world at the very moment when we had more world support than we've had in recent memory because of 9/11. It was an unbelievable turnaround," Clinton said.
As an example of how the U.S. can win by working with others, Clinton pointed to the six-nation North Korea arms talks this week, where the country committed to disabling its main nuclear facilities by year-end.
"You can see in the recent success of the North Korean nuclear effort that when America moved from unilateralism to working through, and with, others it works pretty well," he said on the BBC.
Kucinich Details His Views on Iraq War, Health Care Reform
PBS Online NewsHour
October 4, 2007
Conversation
Copyright ©1996-2007 MacNeil/Lehrer Productions. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.pbs. org/newshour/ bb/politics/ july-dec07/ kucinich_ 10-04.html
In a series of interviews with presidential candidates, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, talks about his track record of voting against the Iraq war as well as his take on domestic issues such as health care and abortion.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Finally, in our ongoing series of conversations with Democratic and Republican presidential nomination candidates who are competing in the primary contests, tonight, Ohio Democrat Dennis Kucinich, who is serving his sixth term in the U.S. House of Representatives. He is the former mayor of Cleveland, and he ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 2004. I spoke with Dennis Kucinich earlier today.
Congressman Kucinich, thank you very much for talking with us.
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH (D), Ohio: Thank you very much. Good to be here, Judy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You were the only 2008 presidential candidate who, five years ago this week, voted against giving the president the authorization to go to war in Iraq. Now, Barack Obama was also against the war at that time. Right now, it's also Bill Richardson and Mike Gravel who want to get U.S. troops out of there right away, just like you do.
So how do you distinguish your position today from the other candidates?
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, it's very easy, Judy. I not only voted against it, but I did an analysis five years ago that totally debunked the Bush case for war.
As a matter of fact, the analysis that I did was 100 percent spot-on in asserting that there was no proof that Iraq had the intention or capability of attacking the United States, that they had anything to do with 9/11 or al-Qaida's role in 9/11, and certainly there was no proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
My analysis was chapter and verse. And furthermore, it isn't -- you know, to me it's not sufficient to say that you said something against the war, but when you get to the Senate -- as Senator Obama did -- and voted 100 percent of the time, up until recently, to fund the war, there's a contradiction there.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But what about today? How is your position different?
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: But today what's different is this, that not only did I reflect the capacity for judgment and wisdom at the moment of crisis when it really counts, but also today I have a plan that would bring our troops home and stabilize Iraq at the same time, and also leave Iraq in control of their oil.
It's embodied in H.R. 1234. It's a plan to end the Iraq war. I submitted versions of that plan immediately after the invasion, but today there are many people who talk about ending the war, but I have the plan to do it and a way to stabilize Iraq at the same time.
There's no one else who really has presented that awareness or who is saying, look, the privatization of Iraq's oil or the partition of Iraq is a path to continued war.
JUDY WOODRUFF: What do you think Iraq will look like after U.S. troops are out of there?
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, you have to keep in mind that my plan calls for a parallel process. We end the occupation, close the bases, bring the troops home in parallel with an international security and peacekeeping force that moves in as our troops leave. I mean, that's the way you bring an end to the U.S. involvement in Iraq.
Otherwise, you have the plans of Senators Clinton, Obama, and Edwards, all of which will leave a U.S. presence in the region. And, frankly, we have to get out of there. We have to bring our troops home.
So, you know, I've been consistent on this. And I'm the only one running for president who's been right from the start on this issue and has demonstrated a quality of judgment that people have a right to expect in a president of the United States about matters of international security.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You have described yourself, I think, as a committed pacifist. Help us understand what that means. I mean, for example, after 9/11, the terrorist attack on the United States, if you had been president, what would you have done?
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, I think that we had a right to strike at the training camps. As a matter of fact, I voted for the resolution that gave the president the ability to do that.
But, you know, the response has to be measured. What we've done in this search for top people in al-Qaida, we've destroyed a lot of villages along the border of Pakistan. You know, these missile strikes in places like Damadola killed a lot of innocent villagers under the pretext that somehow we were getting top-ranking people in al-Qaida.
You know, we have done this all wrong. This administration has been wrong with every aspect of their international policy, beginning with the response to 9/11, continuing with the war against Iraq, and up to this moment planning for an attack on Iran. This administration' s policy of peace through strength, the neoconservative policy, which endorsed preemption, unilateralism, first strike, I reject totally.
I'm talking about strength through peace. No unilateralism, no preemption, no first strike, adherence to international law, and working with diplomacy, direct engagement, leader talking to leader in order to create security for our nation and for the world. I mean, that's the approach that a Kucinich presidency would bring.
Kucinich's Department of Peace
JUDY WOODRUFF: You're the only candidate, I think, who's talking about a Department of Peace. How would that work? And what would it mean for the Defense Department?
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, first of all, the idea of a Department of Peace has both domestic and international criteria.
On a domestic level, everyone watching this understands that American families are beset by a lot of problems that result in domestic violence, spousal abuse, and child abuse. I'm talking about creating programs that would help families get out of that really deep rut that creates a lot of emotional problems and strife inside families.
But also, when you look at the issues of gang violence, violence in the schools, racial violence, violence against gays, the Department of Peace would also supply help to deal with that.
On an international level, we'd look at those areas that help conflict percolate and get involved before they develop into something that requires troops. It's really a very wise approach that uses the principles of Gandhi, of Christ, of Dr. King, and others to try to lift us out of this idea that war is inevitable. War is not inevitable. Violence is learned, and non-violence can be learned, as well.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So you'd still have the Defense Department? This would be in addition?
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Of course you'd have the Defense Department.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You've also said that you admire the foreign policies of Jimmy Carter, President Jimmy Carter. Tell us about why. What is it that you admire about him?
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: He's been the one president who has shown a real capacity to reach out, and deeply, into the Middle East to understand that America must take an even-handed approach.
Look, I've been to Israel, and I've met with the Israelis, and I've met with the Palestinian people, and I've met with people throughout the region. My wife and I have been to the region twice in the last year and two months. And there is a deep desire for peace on all sides.
But the United States must take an even-handed approach. We have to do everything we can to help Israel survive. And Israelis perceive this existential threat; we must be attuned to that. At the same time, the Palestinians are crying for justice that they can't receive with walls and fences and losing their property.
There has to be a United States presence that assures the survival of the Israelis and the rights of the Palestinians. And, frankly, here again, I'm the only one running for president who's even talking about this.
And this is really -- the door to peace in the Middle East going right through Jerusalem. And anyone who would be president of the United States has to have the capacity to talk not only to the Israelis and the Palestinians, but the Syrians, the Iranians, the Iraqis, the Jordanians, and all of the others in the region. And I have that capacity.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Let me turn you to a couple of domestic questions, the current subprime mortgage crisis. What do you think the cause of it is? And what would you do about it? Who would you go after, or whom or what?
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, there's a number of different areas that needed to be looked at initially. The Fed has not had proper oversight of banks. The Securities and Exchange Commission has not had proper oversight of hedge funds. So you take those two conditions, and you see what's burst forward now, which is hedge funds in trouble because of their investment in subprime mortgages, and you see millions of Americans losing their homes because there wasn't a cop on the beat.
So, obviously, what needs to happen is there needs to be a financial mechanism that basically creates a wraparound mortgage that would help protect the people who are in danger of losing their homes, that's number one. But, number two, we have to get to the underlying issue of predatory lending here.
There are many areas in our cities that have basically been red-lined, cannot get access to credit. And that is a violation of the Community Reinvestment Act, Judy. During the Carter administration, the Community Reinvestment Act was put forth so that inner-city areas would have access to credit.
And what's happened is that the credit for homes has dried up. Minorities in particular were offered these subprime products, no-document loans. As chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee, I was the first one to put my finger
