The politically powerful California Correctional Peace Officers Association has worked without a contract since 2006 and just had their pay cut to minimum wage because of the budget crisis, wants to recall Gov. Schwarzenegger.

Before you get all misty-eyed about union solidarity, be aware that the CCPOA tends to be quite right wing, solely concerned with themselves, and a huge contributor of money to politicians. Arnold came into power in a recall in 2003. And it was also over a budget crisis.

What goes around, comes around.

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Joe Bageant

We [rednecks] all understand that there is a political class which dominates in America, and that Sarah Palin for damned sure is not one of them. And the more she is attacked by liberal Democratic elements (translation: elite highly-educated big city people) the more America’s working mooks will come to her defence.

Liberals really need to end their nasty, insulting, class-based attacks on Palin. Now. Attack her for her extremism but not because she’s a redneck. So says Leftie redneck Joe Bageant.

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Today, I attended a meeting on Georgia and the EU, organised by the Centre for European Policy Studies. During a break I managed to get an interview with Ghia Nodia, the Georgian Minister for Education.

I also came accross two interesting papers, Post-Mortem on Europe’s First War of the 21st Century by CEPS Michael Emerson and Ghia Nordia’s The war for Georgia: Russia, the west, the future

The interview is here (mp3 6:28 min 2.96MB)

It seems that the EU visit to Moscow has been quite successful: Russia agrees to a deadline for withdrawl

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Robert Reich

It’s another case of socialized capitalism, folks. The largest, yet. Along with making lots of money for investors and their executives, Fannie and Freddie corrupted our political process. They blocked any attempt to reign in the risks. Their lobbyists were and are the most sophisticated and among the most ubiquitous in Washington.

Part of the takeover terms was that F&F immediately stop all lobbying. Good.

The US markets are up, but not nearly as much as one might think. Among the reasons, many banks own large amount of F&F common and preferred stock, and the dividends were eliminated. Also, the bonds were not guaranteed, to the surprise of many.

Question: Did the Treasury government seize F&F or did they seize the Treasury?

This takeover is one of the biggest financial events ever. Seriously.

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Cuba has highly regarded and effective hurricane contingency plans. Given that a major hurricane is passing over them from east to west, they will need all of their expertise to avoid loss of life.

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In an age when politics is choreographed, voters watch out for the moments when the public-relations facade breaks down and venom pours through the cracks. Their judgment is rarely favourable when it does. Barack Obama knows it. All last week, he was warning American liberals to stay away from the Palin family. He understands better than his supporters that it is not a politician’s enemies who lose elections, but his friends.

But the berserkers seemingly must attack Palin, even when it clearly is not helping.

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Just returned fron a 4-day cross country trip. The leg out was on US Airways. They had commericials for themselves via annoucenments and the TV for way to much of the time. Plus they now apparently charge for everything. I’m expecting pay toilets on their planes soon. Flew back on Northwest and the difference was pronounced. No lengthy commercials for themselves.

Had a layover at the Minneapolis Airport on the return trip. They still had banners up for the RNC and the bookstores were filled with unsold books by right wingers bashing Democrats.

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