AIG Gets More Government Bailout Cash 08 Oct 2008 Only one day after it was revealed that AIG had sprung for a $440,000 spa vacation shortly after getting an $84 billion government-loan bailout comes this report: The government is loaning AIG another $38 billion. AIG, the world’s largest insurer, said it has already drawn down $61 billion on its $84 billion line of credit from the government.
AIG Spa Trip Fuels Fury on Hill –Lawmakers Blast Them About Bonuses 08 Oct 2008 For some people at AIG, the insurance giant rescued last month with an $85 billion federal bailout, the good times keep rolling. Joseph Cassano, the financial products manager whose complex investments led to American International Group’s near collapse, is receiving $1 million a month in consulting fees. Former chief executive Martin J. Sullivan, whose three-year tenure coincided with much of the company’s ill-fated risk-taking, is receiving a $5 million performance bonus. Last week, about 70 of the company’s top performers were rewarded with a week-long stay at the luxury St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, Calif., where they ran up a tab of $440,000.
Predatory Lenders’ Partner in Crime –How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers By Eliot Spitzer 14 Feb 2008 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… 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.
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AP: Documents say US detainee, held as ‘enemy combatant,’ near insanity 07 Oct 2008 A U.S. military officer warned Pentagon officials that an American prisoner was being driven nearly insane by months of punishing isolation and sensory deprivation in a U.S. military brig, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. The documents shed new light on how two American citizens and a legal U.S. resident were treated in military jails inside the United States. The Bush administration ordered the men to be held in military jails as “enemy combatants” for years of interrogations without criminal charges, which would not have been allowed in civilian jails. The men were interrogated by the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency, repeatedly denied access to attorneys and mail from home and contact with anyone other than guards and their interrogators.
Thousands of Troops Are Deployed on U.S. Streets Ready to Carry Out “Crowd Control” By Naomi Wolf 08 Oct 2008 I interviewed Vietnam veteran, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel and patriot David Antoon for clarification… “If the President directs the First Brigade to arrest a bunch of voters, what would stop him?” “Nothing. It would end up in courts but the action would have been taken.” “If the President directs the First Brigade to kill civilians, what would stop him?” “Nothing.” “What would prevent him from sending the First Brigade to arrest the editor of the Washington Post?” “Nothing. He could do what he did in Iraq — send a tank down a street in Washington and fire a shell into the Washington Post as they did into Al Jazeera, and claim they were firing at something else.”