http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050620/blumenthal

"I'd grown up listening to Bob Grant...one of the most entertaining hosts I'd ever heard," Hannity wrote in his 2002 book, Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty Over Liberalism.

And some of Bob Grant's record here:

In March 1995, according to the media watchdog FAIR- http://www.fair.org/extra/9506/grant.html- Grant entertained the call of a promoter for the neo-Nazi group National Alliance who billed his mission as the "support of European males." "I don't have a problem with the National Alliance!" Grant twice declared... He had called Haitian refugees "subhuman infiltrators"; remarked that the United States contained "millions of subhumanoids, savages who really would feel more at home careening along the sands of the Kalahari or the dry deserts of eastern Kenya"; and often promoted "The Bob Grant Mandatory Sterilization Program" for minorities.

The problem is not that they're racist, the problem is that they're mainstream and Obama's pastor is not allowed to be. That's what's known as Rich Man's justice...

In the 25 years since banking and financial market 'reforms' began, in earnest, to undo the laws and regulations created by legislators and reformers to safeguard against the conditions that precipitated the Great Depression- the worst global economic and financial debacle in recorded history- total credit market debt in this country has gone from 1.2 to 3.1 times GDP. That astounding figure is the highest on record, including through the Great Depression and its aftermath as dramatically shrinking denominator, and does not remotely incorporate the hundreds of trillions in obligations existing in derivatives contracts, nearly 50 trillion in credit derivatives alone. It would appear that the decision by regulators and policy makers to leave the decisions up to the 'expertise', intermediaries and speculators, lacked some considered judgment. Alas, it was a decision not so much to have the foxes guard the hen house, as to- through brute force obstinacy and intelligently argued ignorance- ignore the threat altogether. For those keeping score, Glass Stegal was quaint long before the Geneva Conventions.

The ramifications of these decisions have been vast and utterly predictable. In this laughable instance, Bear Stearns, a relatively small player in a massive global financial landscape and not even technically part of its remit as it would have it pre-crisis, has been deemed too big to fail. The Fed has interceded in what would have been its bankruptcy, in so doing pledging the taxpayer to the most troubling assets on its dubious balance sheet. And while investors and speculators may produce deleterious ends for the commons, they do know how to look out for themselves. Seeing that the Federal Reserve has all but tacitly committed the US government to support the entirety of US financial intermediaries inclusive of the vaunted shadow banking system, save perhaps a few measly regional banks and smaller hedge funds that have and will go under, investors took no time to seize on the bonanza. The safety of Treasury paper in the junk that Mr. Market considered US money center banks and broker dealers? Gimme more! And last week and this, they are cashing in.

So to whom does it come as any surprise that the Bear Stearns shareholders want a piece? How could they not, with all this booty being doled out? They're not suckers like the common tax payer. They are the players: they arrange the layoffs recapitalizations and 'special dividends'- they don't get played. The Fed or anyone else who thinks that shareholders will roll over because the Fed needs the PR of having someone besides the US taxpayer lose, (and heaven knows it can't be the bond holders), are living in a dream world. Bear shareholders will get their cut, hedge funds will get their cut, executives will get their cut, the banks and other shareholders will get their cut, etc. That's how the game is played. And all that will happen is that the financial industry will unmask itself as the tumor that has grown to envelope the heart of the largest economy in the world. It is daring our politicians and policy makers to cut it off- fat chance.

It is their culture, their religion. Perhaps it shares culpability, together with geographical misfortune, for bringing the Tibetan people to the brink of the abyss. But calling it horseshit, or feeling sorry for the boy or elderly Chief Lama doesn't much compute to me. Tibetan Buddhists believe the individual is empowered to transcend the slings and arrows of daily life, to include brutal victimization at the hands of others, through enlightenment. It is not horseshit to believe that, and not less so than to believe in the ability of people to transcend anything. I for one can't sense much of a difference between it and, "Your son is with God now". "Love your enemies". "Turn the other cheek". You know, priest and prophet horseshit.

As for hinting that he may be the last of his reincarnated line, well, as I would expect the author knows, that has nothing to do with weariness on the part of the Dali Lama. That has more to do with the Chinese decision to abduct the chosen Panchen Lama 13 years ago at the tender age of 6, never to be seen again, and appoint their own. It is laying the ground for defiance, the opposite of giving in. Speaking of which, is it any surprise that the world has allowed Tibet to be swallowed whole like a cartoon fish when they can't even get it together to condemn a government sponsored abduction of a child? Never mind the abduction of a religion. If the Dali Lama cannot get any sympathy from the world powers from that disgraceful display, it seems rather heroic to assume that anything he could've done, short of parting the Himalayas, would've made much of a difference.