Open Thread Feb. 20, 2007

Here's a new thread.

Newest from Raw Story:

Breaking: Three American women kidnapped in West Bank...

A new cold war? That's what Russia says may happen

From Raw Story:

Poles and Czechs to cooperate in US missile talks as Russia warns WARSAW (WIRE SERVICES) - Poland and the Czech Republic said they would work together in talks with Washington on the missile defense shield it wants to set up in central Europe, even as Russia threatened retaliation.

"We are trying to set up an information-sharing system for discussions on this proposal," Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said during a press conference with his Polish counterpart Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

"We have agreed that both countries are likely to give (Washington) a positive answer. Talks will begin after that," Topolanek said.

snip

Russia has objected to having the shield stationed on its doorstep and threatened to pull out of a treaty with the United States limiting short and medium-range missiles.

In a statement, a key Russian general warned Monday that Poland and the Czech Republic "risk being targeted by Russian missiles if they agree to host U.S. missile defense bases," writes Vladimir Isachenkov for The Associated Press.

This admin of ours is itching to get into another war. Two fronts aren't enough it seems. The longer Bushco is in office, the more destruction happens worldwide.

Our Conservative Supreme Court

The Supreme Court throws out $79.5 Million Tobacco Verdict. Throws out punative damages against Phillip Morris, according to CNN just now.

And what is worse is what they will be ruling on this year. Per Think Progress quoting the LA Times:

Justice Antonin Scalia is “poised to lead a new conservative majority” on the Supreme Court. “Between now and late June, the court is set to hand down decisions in four areas of law — race, religion, abortion regulation and campaign finance — where Scalia’s views may now represent the majority.”

The conservatives are loving this:

"I'm looking forward to the next 10 to 12 years," said Terry Eastland, the publisher of the conservative Weekly Standard.

Scalia's another arrogant, self important neocon:

"Justice Scalia has had a bigger impact off the court than on it," said law professor Michael Gerhardt of the University of North Carolina. "In his speeches and his opinions, he is trying to reach a wider audience."

Scalia does not grant media interviews, but in recent years he has spoken regularly at colleges and law schools, and he rarely fails to make news with an off-the-cuff comment. When asked to explain his role in the Bush vs. Gore decision that halted Florida's recount in the 2000 presidential race, his standard rejoinder is: "Get over it."

The original retort from the winger..."Get over it"! I will never get over a stolen election. The Supreme court has usurped my right of voting. This , I will never get over. This type of things happens in countries with Dictators, not the United States of America.

Update on Court Rulings today. Of course this one has not been aired yet by the MSM.

U.S. appeals court backs Bush, denies Gitmo detainees
POSTED: 10:58 a.m. EST, February 20, 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Guantanamo Bay detainees may not challenge their detention in U.S. courts, a federal appeals court said Tuesday in a ruling upholding a key provision in President Bush's anti-terrorism law.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2-1 that civilian courts no longer have the authority to consider whether the military is illegally holding foreigners.

Barring detainees from the U.S. court system was a key provision in the Military Commissions Act, which Bush pushed through Congress last year to set up a system to prosecute terrorism suspects.

The ruling is all but certain to be appealed to the Supreme Court, which last year struck down the Bush administration's original plan for trying detainees before military commissions.

The Military Commissions Act was crafted in response to that decision and the president hailed it as a necessary tool for bringing terror suspects to justice.

From the BBC - US 'Iran attack plans' revealed

Deny, deny, deny! The Bush admin has been denying this through the media. Of course the US press won't print this. I wonder who the source was for the BBC?

US contingency plans for air strikes on Iran extend beyond nuclear sites and include most of the country's military infrastructure, the BBC has learned.
It is understood that any such attack - if ordered - would target Iranian air bases, naval bases, missile facilities and command-and-control centres.

The US insists it is not planning to attack, and is trying to persuade Tehran to stop uranium enrichment.

The UN has urged Iran to stop the programme or face economic sanctions.

But diplomatic sources have told the BBC that as a fallback plan, senior officials at Central Command in Florida have already selected their target sets inside Iran.

That list includes Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz. Facilities at Isfahan, Arak and Bushehr are also on the target list, the sources say.

Two triggers

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says the trigger for such an attack reportedly includes any confirmation that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon - which it denies.


The Natanz plant is buried under concrete, metal and earth
Alternatively, our correspondent adds, a high-casualty attack on US forces in neighbouring Iraq could also trigger a bombing campaign if it were traced directly back to Tehran.

read the rest here

New Thread Feb. 19, 2007

Science group:
Warming a mounting threat
The world's largest general scientific society on Sunday joined the concern over global climate change, calling it a "growing threat to society."

Scientists warn it may be too late to save the ice caps
A critical meltdown of ice sheets and severe sea level rise could be inevitable because of global warming, the world's scientists are preparing to warn their governments.

I love the shore line, but I wouldn't live close to the water right now!

Sad how some people just won't believe this is happening. The same people that won't believe Bush is the worst president ever; and just now on CNN Wolf Blitzer said there was a poll and 2% of the people think Bush is the greatest president ever. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Suburban Poor

I received an email from a member of a progressive group I belong to. The contents was an article from our local paper, The Daily Herald, about the Suburban Poor. There have been many indications of this but, until recently, it went unreported. Here are excerpts of this article along with the link:

Poor among plenty
For the first time in history, more poor people are living in the nation's suburbs than in the cities. Soon that may be true in the Chicago area; the number of those living in poverty in the collar counties has risen dramatically since 1999.

BY MARNI PYKE
Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Thursday, February 15, 2007

More and more suburban residents are barely scratching out a living, a report on Illinois poverty indicates.

More than 386,000 people in the collar counties of DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, Will and suburban Cook are among the have-nots, the study by the Mid-America Institute on Poverty of Heartland Alliance indicates.

And the number of those in need in the suburbs grew by 25 percent between 1999 and 2006, a rate that surpasses Chicago's rate of 8 percent.

"Poverty is a reality, not an urban phenomenon," said report researcher Amy Rynell of Heartland Alliance, a Chicago-based charitable organization.

In Illinois, the numbers of the poor come to 1.48 million, while in Chicago the tally is 573,486.

Heartland uses federal guidelines to define poverty as one person earning less than $10,210 a year or a family of four with an income of less than $20,650.

Experts say the poor are seniors, people with disabilities, domestic violence victims, young adults trying to make it on their own, single-parent families, new immigrants, individuals with health problems, and the unemployed.

They're also people with jobs, say social workers on the front lines.

"They're working hard, holding down two jobs and trying to find child care," explained Victoria Bran, director of the Rolling Meadows Police Neighborhood Resource Center.

The Illinois report echoes a national study by the Brookings Institution that found - for the first time in history - more of America's poor are living in the suburbs than in cities, a total of 1.2 million people in 2005.

snip

Other findings were that nearly 24,000 households a month use food pantries in Kane, Will, DuPage, Lake and McHenry counties and that a growing number of people in the Chicago region are paying more than one-third of their income toward rent.

State officials, meanwhile, say that in spite of the grim news, employment is increasing. Between 2005 and 2006, the unemployment rate went from 5.4 percent to 3.9 percent, Illinois Department of Employment Security economist Norman Kelewitz said.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin says yes, maybe more people have jobs, but they're not necessarily well-paying jobs.

"Incomes are not rising and the cost of living continues to go up," he said. "Costs for education, energy and health care are continuing to go up."

That's a sentiment shared by Maureen Murphy, association division manager at the Lake County branch of Catholic Charities.

The agency serves between 25,000 and 27,000 people a year and has noticed a dramatic increase in need.

Job losses and a high cost of living are hurting Lake County residents, Murphy said.

"If you work for a minimum wage in Lake, you have to work 133 hours a week to afford a two-bedroom apartment.

We are told daily that the economy is good, we have low unemployment. But the jobs aren't the same. Many subrbanites are having to get two jobs to afford the basics when 6 years ago one job sould suffice. And the cost of health care has risen so fast that people have no healthcare Insurance or policies that don't cover much.

Libby Trial, Novak and Newsweek's Mystery Man

Newsweek has a new article on the Libby trial. During Robert Novak's testimony, he mentioned a man that no one in the trial had heard about before. Seems he's very well connected in the White House. Here's an excerpt:

A Man of Mystery
Richard Hohlt is the heavy hitter you've never heard of.

By Michael Isikoff
Newsweek
Feb. 26, 2007 issue - Robert Novak, as usual, had a scoop to unload—only this time, it was from the witness stand. Testifying last week in the trial of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, the conservative columnist gruffly described how he first learned from two top Bush administration officials that Valerie Plame, wife of Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson, was a CIA officer. But then Novak injected a new name into the drama—one that virtually nobody in the courtroom knew.

Asked by one of Libby's lawyers if he had talked about Plame with anybody else before outing her in his column, Novak said he'd discussed her with a lobbyist named Richard Hohlt. Who, the lawyer pressed, is Hohlt? "He's a very good source of mine" whom I talk to "every day," Novak replied. Indeed, Hohlt is such a good source that after Novak finished his column naming Plame, he testified, he did something most journalists rarely do: he gave the lobbyist an advance copy of his column. What Novak didn't tell the jury is what the lobbyist then did with it: Hohlt confirmed to NEWSWEEK that he faxed the forthcoming column to their mutual friend Karl Rove (one of Novak's sources for the Plame leak), thereby giving the White House a heads up on the bombshell to come.

So the plot thickens once again. And it all goes back to the White House. There's more and it's interesting so here's the link.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Good and bad in the year of the pig. I'm rooting for the Good!!

This is Disturbing. Are we that insensitive?

From the AP:

Human Compassion Surprisingly Limited, Study Finds

SAN FRANCISCO—While a person's accidental death reported on the evening news can bring viewers to tears, mass killings reported as statistics fail to tickle human emotions, a new study finds.


The Internet and other modern communications bring atrocities such as killings in Darfur, Sudan into homes and office cubicles. But knowledge of these events fails to motivate most to take action, said Paul Slovic, a University of Oregon researcher.


People typically react very strongly to one death but their emotions fade as the number of victims increase, Slovic reported here yesterday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.


"We go all out to save a single identified victim, be it a person or an animal, but as the numbers increase, we level off," Slovic said. "We don't feel any different to say 88 people dying than we do to 87. This is a disturbing model, because it means that lives are not equal, and that as problems become bigger we become insensitive to the prospect of additional deaths."


Human insensitivity to large-scale human suffering has been observed in the past century with genocides in Armenia, the Ukraine, Nazi Germany and Rwanda, among others.


"We have to understand what it is in our makeup—psychologically, socially, politically and institutionally—that has allowed genocide to go unabated for a century," Slovic said. "If we don't answer that question and use the answer to change things, we will see another century of horrible atrocities around the world."


Are we that insensitive or is it that we are unable to solve the problem directly and try not to think about it? This is definately a flaw in the human psyche. Is there a way to change this? I hope so.

Sunday Talk Shows Feb 18 Schedule

Meet The Press:

Exclusive! Showdown in the House and Senate over Iraq. White House Press Secretary Tony Snow with reaction. Plus two Senators opposed to the troop surge: Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) & Jack Reed (D-R.I.) Then, insights from NBC's Richard Engel just back from Iraq.

ABC's This Week:
In a Sunday Exclusive, George is "On the Trail" with GOP front-runner and former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass. and his wife Ann to discuss his bid for the White House. Fareed Zakaria, Katrina vanden Heuvel and George Will on the 'Roundtable.' And Michael Douglas on teaching kids to talk to each other.

CBS's Face the Nation:

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Delaware.
Chairman, Foreign Relations Committee
2008 Presidential Candidate

Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Indiana
Foreign Relations Committee

Doyle McManus
Washington Bureau Chief, The Los Angeles Times

Josephine Hearn
The Politico

Fox News Sunday

The House OKs its non-binding resolution opposing the president's Iraq War plan. Now what?

We will speak with Carl Levin, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House

CNN's Late Edition

• Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada: majority leader
• Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky: minority leader
• Gov. Bill Richardson, D-New Mexico, former Energy Secretary
• Tony Snow: White House press secretary
• Penn Jillette: entertainer and magician
• Michael Steele: former Lt. Gov. of Maryland
• Marc Morial: president and CEO, National Urban League
• Donna Brazile: Democratic strategist


Tony Snow(job) on Meet the Press and Late Edition! What will you watch?

Open thread February 17, 07

Ex-envoy says Iraq rebuilding plan won't work

By Sue Pleming
Sat Feb 17, 10:32 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Kiki Munshi was showcased by the media in September as a seasoned U.S. diplomat who came out of retirement to lead a rebuilding group in Iraq.

Now she is back home, angry, and convinced that President George W. Bush's new strategy of doubling the number of such groups to 20 along with a troop surge of 21,500 will not help stabilize Iraq.

A diplomat for 22 years, she quit her job last month as leader of a Provincial Reconstruction Team -- groups made up of about 50 civilian and military experts that try to help Iraqi communities build their own government while strengthening moderates.

"In spite of the magnificent and often heroic work being done out there by a lot of truly wonderful people, the PRTs themselves aren't succeeding. The obstacles are too great," Munshi said this week in Washington, where she was pressing her view at the State Department and to Congress.

"Once again we are proceeding to lay people's lives on a line drawn with faulty information. Once again the fantasies of the 'policy-makers' drive decisions without much link to the realities on the ground," said Munshi, who retired from the foreign service in 2002 .

Her postings included Romania, India and Sierra Leone before Iraq, where Munshi said he had felt a "moral obligation to sort out the mess we have made there."

LINK

Tens of thousands protest expansion of US base in Italy

This from a nation that was an ally as Bush invaded Iraq! Now that Berlusconi is no longer in charge, the people speak. Italy! Not only did they charge CIA agents in a trial, but now they are marching against the expansion of US bases in Italy.

From dpa German Press Agency vis Raw Story:

Vicenza, Italy- Tens of thousands of people marched through
the streets of Vicenza on Saturday to protest against plans to expand
a United States military base in the northern Italian city.
"We came to say 'no' to war," said one participant.

Organizers said well over 100,000 demonstrators attended the rally
while authorities spoke of 80,000. Around 1,500 policemen in riot
gear were on standby. Several police helicopters flew over the
scene to monitor the largely peaceful demonstration, which was up to
six kilometres in length.

The march passed off without incident, Italian state television
reported afterwards.

The rally was organized by left-wing militants and local residents
who oppose the expansion of Camp Ederle, home to the US 173rd
Airborne Brigade.

Around 2,750 US soldiers are currently stationed at the base which
is to be enlarged by 2010 to accommodate a further 1,800 US soldiers
currently stationed in Germany under an agreement forged by US
President George W Bush with former Italian premier Silvio
Berlusconi.

The current government of Romano Prodi has endorsed that decision,
despite protests from part of the Vicenza population, backed by
far-left members of the premier's supporting centre-left coalition.

Read more here.

Republicans blocked the vote in the Senate again.

I hope they get a ton of mail and phone calls and emails from their constituents and the rest of the American people that want this war to end! This will come back to bite them.

"The Senate Should Not Fiddle While Iraq Burns"
New York Times | February 17, 2007 06:49 PM

Other Republicans who had helped thwart the earlier debate also said it was time to end the procedural impasse.

"In my view, it is most important that the Senate speak out on Iraq," said Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania. "If we continue to debate whether there should be a debate while the House of Representatives acts, the Senate will become irrelevant. To paraphrase the Roman adage, 'The Senate should not fiddle while Iraq burns.' "

LINK

Here's what my Rep said on the floor of the House. Peter Roskam

Peter Roskam defeated Tammy Duckworth for Henry Hyde's seat in the House of Representative. You know I wished Tammy would have won. Now this double amputee's husband is off to Iraq. Sometime life just isn't fair!

Here's Mr. Roskam's words about Bush's surge plans:

Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to Mr. PETER ROSKAM from Illinois.

Mr. ROSKAM. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, we are here to debate a House Concurrent Resolution, and the root verb of ``resolution'' is resolute. I just want to challenge the House today to consider the resolution of our enemies. I would like to read three quotes to you.

Resolved, by Samba bin Laden. The whole world is watching this war, and the two adversaries, the Islamic nation on the one hand and the United States and its allies on the other. It is either victory and glory or misery and humiliation.

Or how about this? Resolved, in the al Agenda charter: There will be continuing enmity until everyone believes in Allah. We will not meet the enemy halfway, and there will be no room for dialogue with them.

Or how about this, and I am paraphrasing: Resolved, from Samba bin Ladens deputy, who said that the plan is to extend the jihad wave; to expel the Americans from Iraq and extend the jihad wave to secular countries neighboring Iraq, clash with Israel and establish an Islamic authority.

Is there anybody among us who doubts the resolve and clarity with which our opponents are speaking? I don't.

I think what is lacking today in our conversation is the consequences of failure. The previous speaker used the words ``victory'' and ``success.'' He had a very low view of them, and I understand his characterization of those words. He said we have heard those words before. That is what the gentleman from New Jersey said.

But, do you know what? We will hear the word ``failure'' when it is used in the context of this challenge that is before us.

There is no question that there has been great difficulty that has gone before us in this fight. There is no question that there have been great mistakes that have been made, and I am wholeheartedly in favor of us acting as a coequal branch of government and calling for benchmarks and demarcation and holding the administration accountable for its decisions.

But if we fail in this, if we pull out, if we retreat, if we yield, what will happen? Is there anybody really who thinks that Iran, for example, will be less provocative? Is there anybody who thinks that al Agenda will be less provocative?

If we fail, extremism in this world, will it be ascendant or will it be descendant?

Madam Speaker, I close with a simple question, and that is, we need to ask, What is it about this resolution that will do one of two things? Does this encourage our troops, or does this discourage our enemies? I would suggest that this resolution, while it is serious, oh, it is very serious, it is not substantive. This is the ultimate expression of legislative passive aggression. It offers no substantive alternative.

Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition, and ask my colleagues to do the same.

Link

Bah!! More double speak!! And this man never served in any branch of the armed services! Just another Chciken Hawk playing a chess game with human lives!

The Worst President Ever?

Al Neuharth, the founder of USA Today, in an Opinion column at USA Today, wrote this:

Mea culpa to Bush on Presidents Day
Plain Talk by Al Neuharth, USA TODAY founder

Our great country has had 43 presidents. Many very good. A few pretty bad. On Presidents Day next Monday, it's appropriate to commemorate them all.

I remember every president since Herbert Hoover, when I was a grade school kid. He was one of the worst. I've personally met every president since Dwight Eisenhower. He was one of the best.

A year ago I criticized Hillary Clinton for saying "this (Bush) administration will go down in history as one of the worst."

"She's wrong," I wrote. Then I rated these five presidents, in this order, as the worst: Andrew Jackson, James Buchanan, Ulysses Grant, Hoover and Richard Nixon. "It's very unlikely Bush can crack that list," I added.

I was wrong. This is my mea culpa. Not only has Bush cracked that list, but he is planted firmly at the top.

No offence to Al, but the day I found out GW was running for president, I was extremely leery! I wasn't crazy about his father, and having somewhat followed his career as a governor, I was sure I didn't want him as my president. I am still awed at how his presidency even came about.

When the media and people I knew were saying what a down to earth man GW was, he was the type of guy you'd want to have a beer with, I cringed. I couldn't see what they were seeing in him. What I saw was an arrogant, spoiled son of a former president. And when I heard Cheney was his choice for VP, my blood turned to ice.

At that point I knew nothing about PNAC, but I am old enough to remember the Nixon years and the Reagan years. I remembered Iran Contra and all the players involved. And lo and behold, these people were brought back for the GW reign! At that point I knew we were in trouble.

Later, after 9/11, people were still saying Bush was a great president. I still didn't see this. I wondered why he wasn't heard from for over 24 hours after 9/11. I heard about the school in Florida that he was at at the time of 9/11. I heard about Air Force One flying around until they decided to land somewhere safe. Then I heard about the Saudis being flown out of the country when there was a ban on all aircraft from flying for days after 9/11. I knew, when other didn't, that something was terribly wrong. So many people were singing his praises, but I was wondering what they saw in this man and was I the only one feeling this way.

That feeling of being alone was only exacerbated by the news stations, the Main Stream Media, saying what a great job Bush was doing. This feeling of being alone didn't pass until Air America Radio came to be and I realized I was not alone.

Then came Iraq and the lies to get into a war with Saddam! But that's another post all together!

Did any of you feel like I did? Alone in dreading Bush's presidency?

Another open thread for Feb. 16, 2007

If you've got any comments, here's an open thread. Fill it up!

House Passes Iraq Resolution

That's good news! It passed 246-182

2 Dems voted against - Marshall (Ga) and Taylor (Ms)

17 Republicans voted with the Dems!

6 Did not vote

See the vote talley here

Now the Senate must vote on this. They are arguing on the Senate floor about having to vote tomorrow. The Senate needs 60 votes.

Quds. The New Enemy?

Newsweek has a Web Exclusive that explains the Quds. In a speech the other night, Bush "annointed" a new enemy. Of course this enemy is from Iran. Here's a few excerpts from this Newsweek article:

President Bush officially anointed a new enemy of the United States on Wednesday: the “Quds Force.” After a week in which his administration contradicted itself repeatedly over the threat from Iran, Bush settled on what he said were the known facts. The sophisticated weapons being used against U.S. troops in Iraq “were provided by the Quds Force,” a paramilitary arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the president said at a news conference in the East Room. “We know that. And we also know that the Quds Force is a part of the Iranian government. That’s a known. What we don’t know is whether or not head leaders of Iran ordered the Quds Force to do what they did.”

It's funny how noone really believes this admin since the truth came out about Iraq. But Bush and his cronies are still trying to use the same tactics they used in the buildup to the war with Iraq.

This Newsweek article goes on to explain just what the Quds are:

The Quds Force was created by the IRGC—the powerful institution created to defend Iran’s 1979 Islamist revolution—toward the end of the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s. Its purpose: to conduct operations inside Iraqi territory, especially the Kurdish region that operated somewhat autonomously from Saddam Hussein’s government. “Quds” means “Jerusalem” in Arabic, and the goal of the Islamist revolutionaries who started the group was to take over Jerusalem after capturing Baghdad. Even after the Iran-Iraq War ended in 1988, the Quds Force, or Quds Brigade as it is also called, maintained three major foreign operations: supporting the Kurds in Iraq against Saddam, backing the Muslim Bosnians against the Serbs and working with Masoud and his Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. After Masoud was assassinated by Al Qaeda operatives on Sept. 9., 2001, Quds Force members helped the U.S.-assisted Northern Alliance cross the Kokcha River between Tajikistan and Afghanistan and advance toward Kabul to oust the Taliban, according to Iranian officials.

These Qud forces helped us with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Now they are our enemies according to Bush. More proof that Iran, at one time, was willing to help the US.

Here's the link to the rest of the story

Good News for Air America!!

Bankruptcy judge approves sale of Air America Radio

Posted 2/16/2007 12:30 PM ET
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal bankruptcy judge approved on Friday the sale of the liberal talk radio network Air America Radio for $4.25 million to Stephen L. Green, founder of a New York real estate firm.
The approval of U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain essentially transfers all the assets of Piquant LLC, parent company of the New York-based Air America, to a group including new and current investors.

It gives a majority stake to Green Family Media LLC, an entity controlled by Green, and a minority stake to Democracy Allies LLC. That group includes RealNetworks Inc. Chief Executive Robert Glaser and two former Air America board members.

Air America was launched in 2004 and has lost money ever since. Its most prominent personality was the comedian and author Al Franken, who left the network on Wednesday to run for nomination to a U.S. Senate seat from Minnesota.

Green is the founder and chairman of SL Green Realty Corp., a publicly traded real estate investment trust that owns 34 Manhattan office buildings and has a total of 27 million square feet of space under its control. He is also the brother of Mark Green, a longtime New York politician who has appeared frequently as a guest on Air America.

Lawyers for Green asserted that he offered "the only chance for the debtor to avoid liquidation." Air America Chief Executive Scott Elberg said Friday that if the sale was not approved, the network would soon be closed down.

LINK

Open Thread for my Sam Seder Show friends

It's all set and ready to go!!