Those "poor", US consumers owned by the energy and credit/banking entities are so desperate/dependant on energy and credit consumption, they really couldn't fathom or consider a serious boycott any of the corps that have them by the b***s.

The vast channeling of billions into energy companies (away from consumers' wealth began arrogantly in Sept. 05 and hasn't stopped even at the bargain of $2.20/$50 gas/oil.

I'm with you--America--say no to those plastic, slivers of financial enslavement:

Visa

MC

AE

Diners

and all tools of predation from the users of peoples' economic desperation.

"If Coleman doesn't want to pick up the phone and call over to the Federal Reserve, maybe she could?"

Pure window dressing and scared s***-less that the real "pharaohs" over at the privately owned Reserve Bank will have her replaced, suicided or mishapped in a plane if she did her job, i.e. spoke her true mind and exposed where the money has and is going.

Not to jump too quickly into the conspiracy pool of despair, but I am getting suspicious with all these in-name-only inspector/oversight/wanna-be-reformers holding up their end of the deal.

"If we cut the increasingly misnamed Department of Defense's budget by 95 percent, we have a small chance of returning to peace and prosperity. I wager we will increase that budget instead."--heru-u

...as you say, and may I add that bears do still do it in the woods.

The "Sun Will or Will Not Come Out Tomorrow" it depends on who's padding your budget.

presenting these pieces of well-documented, loaded-with-truth indictments of political, slimefest, exposes'.

This one in particular has opened a wound in my once-kept-confined-outrage more inflicting then before.

Nothing cuts the heart to the deepest vein more than the sequestered funds snatched from the beggars pocket.

"I very much doubt that any regulator actually has a prayer against such power."

Thanks, NS

You put down well some of the unsavory entanglements that prove where the power lies.

One must ask in light of this why would any of these seasoned financial wizards/managers want to move against these corrupt banking practices--

They devise and profit from them.

Trillions unaccounted cannot be counted--too vast a sum--is the equivalent, human pondering of how many light years to the next galaxy.

Much like the complexities written into one's credit card statement, mortgage/closing papers and all predatory financial contracts by ingenious lawyers--

they discourage inspection, understanding and transparency.

And so the once incomprehensible sum of billions is now the 1000 billions/trillions.

One or two Americans took notice when Rumsfeld dared mention a mere trillion or so unaccounted for within the paltry defense budget not too long ago.

"...I fear that Durbin may yet offer another retraction and blubbering apology..."

I do too, for he just relinquished his chairmanship to accommodate that repub mole--Specter. He maligns the integrity of all bold jelly fish.

Never underestimate the phenomena of Stockholm Syndrome and concession for bipartisanship sake among the thought-we-lost-the-last-election Democrats.

I'm UT, incomprehensibly unenlightened by your comments on RP and the insults to the plethora of commentators.

Be more generous with your evaluative wisdom, but with some degree of linguistic, prosaic restraint, so I may simply understand.

Google can be your friend.

Try this--http://www.nowpublic.com/waste_rumsfeld_says_2_3_trillion_dollars_missing

On Sept. 10, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared war. Not on foreign terrorists, "the adversary's closer to home. It's the Pentagon bureaucracy," he said.

He said money wasted by the military poses a serious threat.

"In fact, it could be said it's a matter of life and death," he said.

Rumsfeld promised change but the next day – Sept. 11-- the world changed and in the rush to fund the war on terrorism, the war on waste seems to have been forgotten.

""According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions," Rumsfeld admitted. (Source: freerepublic.com)

You thought I could imagine such a horror?

Would you be so forgiving of me if I stated I was 100% certain of anything except my bad snarkiness?

But, really RP is a unique, political person that engenders loyalty from many while fomenting disgust from both sides. His fight against the FR is one with which I happen to agree.

I guess your distinctions, definitions and compartmentalizing of what Salon's/UT left and right issue-driven discussions entailed regarding RP were too restrictive.

He (and others) also gets points for recognizing the true impetus for these wars of choice and I don't mean-- "We're keeping America safe."

I don't "crow"--can't stand their invective, interruptive, plaintive cry for attention.

I do (speaking for myself) vomit whenever there is a discussion where sources are questioned because they are assigned either liberal or conservative.

Speaking of vomit, that trillions of misplaced trillions is not news or unimaginable if one follows loosely what is in defense budgets and the historic, reported wast.

"I have no further questions."-23Skidoo

May/may not your respect for the loss of lives on 9-11 be equal to your sympathy for the alleged destruction of records that state the obvious theft of money that was/is plundered to supposedly make America safe?

You're o.k. with pilfering, don't know if it was missing or want to think defense budgets are supposed to be unaccountable?

I'm curious.

"...I am now terming a vile sodomite..."

Nothing gets the Christianist right more encircled than those contemptible labels pulled from the era of King James favorites: fornicators, effeminate, adulterers and blasphemers. The world of vileness to them occupies these horrors of moral inadequacies, but doesn't allow that torturing in hell or fields of war, lying to engage these wars and that predatory loans be classified as vile or disaproved by their god.