“The Bear Market Economics Phenomenon” is an observation of Political Economics. Wall Street Admits: ‘We Got Rich Off the Backs of Workers’ thus creating the Bear Market. The Bear Market is America's default war.
The ethic of Wall Street is the ethic of celebrity. It is fused into one bizarre, perverted belief system and it has banished the possibility of the country returning to a reality-based world or avoiding internal collapse. A society that cannot distinguish reality from illusion dies.
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FAIR USE NOTICE FAIR USE NOTICE: This page may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This website distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for scientific, research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107.
Despite signs of broader economic recovery, number of foreclosure filings hit a record high in the third quarter - a sign the plague is still spreading.
The number of homes receiving foreclosure filings is skyrocketing across the country. Here's the rate in your state.More
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Despite concerted government-led and lender-supported efforts to prevent foreclosures, the number of filings hit a record high in the third quarter, according to a report issued Thursday.
"They were the worst three months of all time," said Rick Sharga, spokesman for RealtyTrac, an online marketer of foreclosed homes.
During that time, 937,840 homes received a foreclosure letter -- whether a default notice, auction notice or bank repossession, the RealtyTrac report said. That means one in every 136 U.S. homes were in foreclosure, which is a 5% increase from the second quarter and a 23% jump over the third quarter of 2008.
Nevada continued to be the worst-hit state with one filing for every 23 households. But even tranquil Vermont, where the foreclosure crisis has barely brushed the housing market, saw foreclosure filings jump nearly 170% compared with the third quarter of 2008. Still, that resulted in just one filing for every 5,023 households in the state -- the best record in the country.
The RealtyTrac report also unveiled the results for September, and it found that there was slight relief from foreclosure filings. Last month, notices totaled 343,638, down 4% compared with August. Unfortunately, that total accounts for 87,821 homes that were repossessed by lenders.
That deluge contributed significantly to the quarter's record 237,052 repossessions, a 21% jump from the previous three months. So far this year lenders have taken back 623,852 homes.
"REO activity increased from the previous quarter in all but two states and the District of Columbia, indicating that lenders may be starting to work through some of the pent-up foreclosure inventory caused by legislative delays, loan-modification efforts and high volumes of distressed properties," James Saccacio, RealtyTrac's CEO, said in a statement.
Most disturbing is that all foreclosures -- not just repossessions -- are rampant despite efforts to corral them. Not only has the Obama administration's Making Home Affordable foreclosure prevention program taken a bite out of REOs but lenders themselves have scaled back repossessions over the past few months to give the program time to work.
And in some low-price markets, lenders simply aren't following through on foreclosures, according to Jim Rokakis, treasurer for Cuyahoga County, Ohio, which includes Cleveland.
"They'll even set the date for the sheriff's sale, but they don't file the final papers," he said. "They hold it in abeyance and let the residents stay in the house."
In ever more frequent cases, delinquent borrowers want out of the mortgage worse than the lenders. There are no firm statistics for it, but many industry watchers claim the percentage of REOs caused by borrowers voluntarily walking away from their homes is skyrocketing.
A study of the trend by the Chicago Booth School of Business and the Kellogg School of Management determined that when home price declines drop home values 10% below the mortgage balances, people start to give up their homes. When "negative equity" approaches 50%, 17% of households default, even when they can still afford their mortgage payments.
No end in sight
The foreclosure crisis may not diminish anytime soon. "The fastest growing area is in the 180 days late-plus category, the most seriously delinquent borrowers," Sharga said. "It's going to be a lingering problem."
Plus, the RealtyTrac statistics may understate the depth of the foreclosure mess because lender and government actions have delayed many filings. As a result, some delinquencies have not been counted on the foreclosure tallies. That means the crisis may not end quickly.
And because there are so many delinquent borrowers, Sharga predicts the banks will be slow to take back their properties and put the repossessed homes back on the market.
"It's hard to envision [the banks] putting millions on properties up for sale and cratering prices," he said. "Recovery will be slow and gradual. I don't see home prices getting much better until 2013."
Published on Thursday, October 29, 2009 by The Nation
Investigating the Mortgage Crisis
by Katrina vanden Heuvel
In a press release last week, Chairman Edolphus Towns of the House Committee for Oversight and Government Reform announced a major investigation "into whether mortgage companies employed deceptive and predatory lending practices, or improper tactics to thwart regulation, and the impact of those activities on the current crisis."
The Committee has requested--and will subpoena if necessary--records from Wells Fargo, Bank of America (including Countrywide), JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Residential Capital (GMAC), and US Bank Home Mortgage. It is also issuing a subpoena for records on Countrywide Financial's VIP program.
While the media seems focused on the Countrywide VIP program and questions of whether Towns himself benefited from it (he has denied doing so but will forward the documents to the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct), I think the far more significant development here is the breadth of information the Committee is demanding from Big Banking.
The records in question cover 2000 to 2008, and include: the number and types of mortgages issued (whether fixed rate, adjustable, subprime, etc.); number of foreclosures and on which types of mortgages for every month during that time period; any marketing strategies and target audiences for residential mortgages, home equity loans, or similar products; special benefits provided to officials with a regulatory relationship with the banks; any draft legislation pertaining to mortgage lending that was offered to legislators; and any coordinated campaigns with other banks to fight mortgage regulation.
The Nation's national affairs correspondent William Greider recently wrote of the financial crisis: "We may know the broad outlines, but the landscape remains littered with unanswered questions and informed suspicions about who did what to produce the breakdown. The relevant facts are still buried in the files of Wall Street firms and the regulatory agencies that utterly failed as watchdogs.... Asking deeper questions about the true sources of the calamity is a first step toward developing authentic answers to the nation's predicament."
Here's hoping the Towns' investigation helps bring responses, finally, towards some of those crucial authentic answers.
How to Get Free Weatherization Assistance for your Home
Without weatherization assistance, many homes will be drafty, cold and lose heat in the winter. The Department of Energy, has a program to help those who can not afford to weatherize their homes. Weatherization assistance provides help for the elderly and low-income or unemployed insulated their homes.
Instructions
Step 1
What they do: They will seal attics, walls, floors, air ducts, cover water heaters and other basic maintenance. This program, is designed to save low- income families, about $300 a year in energy costs.
Step 2
Check your state: Contact the department of Energy in your state, for further information on the Weatherization Assistance Program in your area.
Step 3
Qualifications: To be eligible for weatherization assistance, your income must be below 125% to 150%. Some states will vary in the income qualifications.
Step 4
The application: The application process is very simple. You must provide proof of income, unemployment, ownership or renting, to be considered for the program.
Step 5
Acceptance: Once you have been accepted, local agencies will come to your home to be assess possible heat loss, carbon monoxide leaks and a plan of action will be designed to weatherize your home.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has created a program to help low-income families get help with their home energy costs. One of the services provided by the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) is free weatherization of homes. Although this is a federally funded program, to find out if you and your family qualify for assistance from LIHEAP, you must contact your local grantee for information. Read on to learn how to get a home weatherized for free.
Click on "Applying for LIHEAP assistance" under the heading "Consumer Information."
Step 3
Choose the "LIHEAP State Grantee" link if you live in one of the 50 states or the District of Columbia. Choose the "LIHEAP Indian Tribe or Tribal Organization Grantee" if you are a member of an Indian tribe or tribal organization. Choose the "LIHEAP Insular Area Grantee" link if you live in American Samoa, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, or the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Step 4
Follow the link of the state, tribe or insular area where you reside.
Step 5
Use the information listed to contact your local LIHEAP office to determine their specific qualifications and criteria for assistance. These qualifications may be different from one LIHEAP office to the next.
Land Speculator Michael Winer Wins 2009 Rubber Dodo Award
His Wall St. Firm Pushing Largest Developments in California and Florida Imperiling Dozens of Endangered Species, Including Condors on Tejon Ranch
LOS ANGELES - October 29 - The Center for Biological Diversity announced today that the winner of its third annual Rubber Dodo Award is Michael Winer, portfolio manager for the giant real-estate investment firm Third Avenue Management, LLC ("TAREX"). The Rubber Dodo is awarded each year to the person who has done the most to drive endangered species extinct. The 2007 winner was Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne; the 2008 winner was Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
Winer is deserving of the 2009 award for his leadership of TAREX, the largest stockholder in companies developing the largest pieces of private land remaining in Southern California and Florida. These regions are also home to some the highest numbers of endangered species in North America. In California, TAREX is pushing the Tejon Ranch Company to pave over thousands of acres of federally designated California condor habitat. In Florida, TAREX is pushing the St. Joe Company to flood tens of thousands of acres of the Florida Panhandle with high-end developments.
"Under Winer's money-obsessed leadership, TAREX has become the poster child for unsustainable, endangered-species-killing sprawl," said Adam Keats, director of the Center's Urban Wildlands Program. "He specializes in finding massive, remote estates far from urban centers and turning them into a sea of condos, malls, golf courses, and resorts. There is good reason that even Wall Street commonly calls TAREX a ‘real-estate vulture'."
In California, Winer has been a driving force behind the Tejon Ranch Company's bid to build two new cities 50 miles north of Los Angeles. Tejon is the largest parcel of private land in California and the last remaining unprotected wilderness-quality land in the region. The Tejon development has been likened to dropping a city the size of Boulder, Colorado into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
"Mr. Winer, more than almost any other single individual, is responsible for the reckless speculative investment strategies that have led to the current development pressure facing Tejon Ranch," said Keats. "If Tejon Mountain Village gets built, our children will very likely never be able to witness the majesty of the California condor soaring over its ancient core habitat. Meanwhile, we'll all be stuck holding the bill for the project's smog, traffic, water use, and wildfires, while Mr. Winer and his investors make off with the profits."
In Florida, Winer has targeted the relatively remote Florida Panhandle, making TAREX the largest investor in the St. Joe Company, which owns 800,000 acres there. In order to leapfrog over existing development areas, St. Joe has pushed the Federal Aviation Administration to build a new airport in the middle of its private lands.
Ignoring the impact to endangered species, Winer and TAREX boast that the airport is "going to have a significant impact on the development of northwest Florida, not to mention the area around the airport that is all owned by St. Joe... northwest Florida is ideally suited to benefit from that: it's less expensive, less crowded and there's not a whole lot more to be developed in any other coastal region of Florida."
Background on Tejon Ranch
From condors to kit foxes, as many as 20 state- and federally listed species - and many others found nowhere else on Earth - make their homes on California's Tejon Ranch. Covering more than 270,000 contiguous acres from the Transverse Ranges foothills across the Antelope Valley, over the southern Sierra mountains and back down onto the San Joaquin Valley floor, the ranch is located at the convergence of five geomorphic provinces and four floristic regions - the only location of its kind in California. It houses federally designated California condor critical habitat, hosts 23 known types of plant communities, and serves as an "oak laboratory" for more than one-third of all California oak species. Unfortunately, this astoundingly diverse landscape could be the future site of widespread sprawl development.
The ranch's owner, Tejon Ranch Company, has already built an energy plant and an industrial warehouse complex, and is now planning three additional developments that would seriously compromise the land's ecological integrity. Tejon Mountain Village would convert 28,500 pristine acres of crucial condor habitat in Kern County into a sprawling resort. The Centennial Project, proposed for north Los Angeles County, would pave more than 11,000 acres of grasslands, woodlands, scrublands, and wildflower fields, replacing them with 23,000 homes and 14 million square feet of commercial development. Finally, the Tejon East Industrial Complex would destroy 1,100 acres that comprise a key wildlife linkage along the San Joaquin Valley floor, including habitat for the threatened San Joaquin kit fox.
Tejon Ranch has a long history of hostility to efforts to bring the endangered California condor back from extinction. While in the 1980s the last remaining wild condors were captured on Tejon Ranch, a decade later the company sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to block condor reintroduction near the ranch and to have any reintroduced birds listed as a nonessential, experimental population without full federal protection.
But in a show of environmental concern, in 2008 Tejon Ranch Company agreed, in exchange for securing several environmental groups' non-opposition to its development plans, to grant conservation easements to about 160,000 of its 270,000 total acres. Even though almost all of this conservation area is un-developable, being too steep, rugged, or remote, the agreement has given a "green sheen" to Tejon's noxious development plans. Meanwhile, the fate of the condor in its historical wild habitat hangs in the balance of Tejon's development plans.
The Center has proposed that, rather than becoming yet another monument to the continuation of a speculative real estate bubble, Tejon Ranch should be preserved as a new national or state park and preserve, protecting a bounty of native plant and animal communities, cultural and historic features, and scenic vistas. See www.savetejonranch.org.
Background on the Dodo
In 1598, Dutch sailors landing on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius discovered a flightless, three-foot-tall, extraordinarily friendly bird. Its original scientific name was Didus ineptus. (Contemporary scientists use the less defamatory Raphus cucullatus.) To the rest of the world, it's the dodo - the most famous extinct species on Earth. It evolved over millions of years with no natural predators and eventually lost the ability to fly, becoming a land-based consumer of fruits, nuts, and berries. Having never known predators, it showed no fear of humans or the menagerie of animals accompanying them to Mauritius.
Its trusting nature led to its rapid extinction. By 1681, the dodo was extinct, having been hunted and outcompeted by humans, dogs, cats, rats, macaques, and pigs. Humans logged its forest cover and pigs uprooted and ate much of the understory vegetation.
The origin of the name dodo is unclear. It likely came from the Dutch word dodoor, meaning "sluggard," the Portuguese word doudo, meaning "fool" or "crazy," or the Dutch word dodaars meaning "plump-arse" (that nation's name for the little grebe).
The dodo's reputation as a foolish, ungainly bird derives in part from its friendly naiveté and the very plump captives that were taken on tour across Europe. The animal's reputation was cemented with the 1865 publication of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Based on skeleton reconstructions and the discovery of early drawings, scientists now believe that the dodo was a much sleeker animal than commonly portrayed. The rotund European exhibitions were accidentally produced by overfeeding captive birds.
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At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature - to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law, and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters, and climate that species need to survive.
A packed house hears a left-wing critique of Obama
by Seth Rolbein
In the video above, Howard Zinn answers a question from the audience: what would he urge Barack Obama to do? Photos below by Frank Curran
BOSTON UNIVERSITY - With the Tsai Performance Center filled to its 500-seat capacity, many in the audience remembered when that hall was named Hayden, the University was in turmoil, and Howard Zinn was both lightning rod and radical catalyst.
Much has changed. The Howard Zinn Lecture Series, kicking off Alumni Weekend on October 22, now celebrates Boston University's distinguished professor emeritus of political science. As Virginia Sapiro, dean of Arts & Sciences, welcomed all and introduced three intriguing writers gathered around the man of the night, cordiality rather than conflict ruled.
"To have a kindly relationship between us and the BU administration," said Zinn, his nod to Sapiro drawing swells of laughter, "well, we're still trying to get used to it."
Yet some things haven't changed. The topic was The Promise of Change: Vision and Realty in Obama's Presidency. And the analysis came hard from the left, with Zinn staking out the far post.
Just as intriguing were the positions of his fellow panelists, each nuanced, each approaching Obama at least a little more sympathetically. They were:
James Carroll, a National Book Award winner and Boston Globe columnist, who first met Zinn during his years as Catholic chaplain at Boston University, from 1969 to 1974, before he left the priesthood.
Ellen Goodman, a Pulitzer Prize winner, who has been writing about social change in America since 1976 and whose column appears in more than 300 newspapers.
Mary Gordon, New York's official state author, a stuffy title for a writer whose work marries a piercing intimacy and religious and political explorations.
Zinn gingerly took up the cudgel.
"It's a very delicate question," he mused. "Why? Well, it's not easy to talk about." Everyone wants to support Obama, he continued, or at least everyone in his circle. Everyone wants to love Obama. But let's face it: "His presidency doesn't measure up. I have to say that. But why? How? How come?"
Militarism, he answered. Obama has kept the troops in Iraq. He's sent more troops to Afghanistan. "He's continued a military foreign policy."
Not to be a know-it-all, Zinn said ("though I do know it all," he joked), but those who expected great change from this president were fooling themselves. Look at history, he urged, invoking his mantra; Democrats are as aggressive as Republicans.
"They're all in this for war," he said. "That's what we call bipartisanship." Those surprised or disappointed are those who "exaggerated expectations, romanticized him, idealized him. Obama is a Democratic Party politician. I know that sounds demeaning. It is."
"There's an enormous weight left over by the Bush administration," Zinn said. "Unfortunately, he has done nothing to begin to lift that weight." Change can happen only by grassroots protest strong enough to move entrenched interests.
"I'll say it: turmoil," he concluded.
Carroll weighed in.
"President Obama's administration began in January," he said, then paused. "January of 1943."
Carroll ticked off four events that year: the Allies insisting on unconditional surrender to end World War II, massive bombings of civilian sites by the American and British Air Forces, the creation of the Pentagon, and the forming of Los Alamos National Laboratory to build a nuclear weapon. Those events put in motion "a current running below the nation ever since," he argued, and "President Obama is at the mercy of this current."
This is a permeating force, he said, strong enough to stall antiwar protests and nuclear disarmament. Its momentum has stopped us from taking advantage of opportunity after opportunity, from the Cold War's end to this singular moment. Call it "the military industrial complex," as President Eisenhower did, Carroll said, but see it as even more pervasive.
Still, he was not as dark as Zinn. Obama's speeches, raising expectations and changing perceptions, also count, he said. "While it totally freaks me out to disagree with Howard Zinn, I think the words matter. I think the Nobel Prize went to the right person ... as an invitation to greatness."
That said, Carroll seconded Zinn's call for protest and pressure to change foreign policy. "Nothing happens without the grassroots," he concluded. "That's Howard Zinn's point."
Goodman said she found it "shocking, but I'm going to be the resident optimist." The man hasn't been president for a year, let alone a term. "We're very impatient," she said, and that's not fair.
Yet her hope for more public civility has died away. Goodman sees an organized, bitter, and in many ways fabricated right-wing attack on Obama: the "birthers" (who insist that the president was not born in this country, despite proof to the contrary) and the "kill granny group" (who have said that national health care would lead to euthanasia). They're akin to Holocaust deniers, she said, and they have powerful sway in the country Obama leads.
"There's an underlying anxiety," said Goodman. "Can you be a healer and a politician?" While she doesn't feel hopeless about the president's agenda, "I'm not hopeful about the rise of civility." And so she returned to the theme of the evening, and made it personal:
"The gap between hope and reality is very much a gap inside ourselves."
Gordon invoked Henry James: "Things are much more complicated than you ever think," she quoted, then adding from Voltaire to build her perspective: "The best is the enemy of the good. The perfect is the enemy of the good."
She listed what she sees as major Obama accomplishments: growing acceptance of the Muslim faith within our nation, changes in reproductive rights for women, the prospect of a much-improved health-care system. Each of these is "enormous," she said, but even more, Obama "opens up our imagination. He reminds us that the world is a complicated place."
And, she continued, "what will never go back is that African-American kids will look at him and say, ‘The world is different.'
"He didn't say he was going to pull a rabbit out of a hat and there will be no more original sin," she said. And then she closed a writer's circle begun with Henry James: "He's not Gabriel García Márquez. He can't do magic realism. He has to write a realistic novel."
After a round of questions, panelists and posse adjourned to the Castle for drinks, food, and more conversation. The ornate building was packed with people and energy and a sense of how history - including University history - is full of surprising turns.
Sidney Hurwitz, a College of Fine Arts professor emeritus of art, who taught at BU for more than 30 years, a colleague of Zinn's and fellow activist during stormier times, summed up:
"When I see Howard up there, giving a lecture, celebrated as he deserves to be - well, I never thought I'd live to see this happen."
The Howard Zinn Lecture Series, made possible by the gift of Alex MacDonald (CAS'72) and Maureen A. Strafford (MED'76), is an annual talk on contemporary issues from a historical point of view.
The public option was always a compromise for serious supporters of health-care reform, who -- like Barack Obama when he was running for the Senate in 2003 -- knew that a single-payer "Medicare for All" system was what America needed to provide health care to everyone while controlling costs.
Pelosi says the legislation is "historic," and celebrates the fact that is does still include a public option -- a component many pundits had said was destined for abandonment.
But, while there is a public option, it is anything but robust.
Progressives believe Pelosi has bent to far to the right.
And The New York Times suggests as much in its analysis, which declares that:
Under pressure from moderate-to-conservative members of the House Democratic caucus, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has decided to propose a government-run insurance plan that would negotiate rates with doctors and hospitals, rather than using prices set by the government...
Ms. Pelosi said the public plan, which she prefers to call a "consumer option," would compete with private insurers. But the speaker was apparently unable to muster the votes needed for the 'robust' liberal version of a public plan, which she has repeatedly said would save more money for consumers and the government.
Translation: The "public option" Pelosi and her team have proposed a plan that would not make payments for care based on Medicare rates, as the Congressional Progressive Caucus and key Senate Democrats have proposed.
Rather, under the Pelosi plan, the rates be tied to those of the big insurance companies. That's a big, big victory for the insurance industry, as it will undermine the ability of the public option to compete -- and to create pressure for reduced costs.
Pelosi's plan also drops a number of provisions that had been advanced at the committee level to promote consideration of "Medicare for All" models and to allow states to experiment with single-payer plans.
That's an especially bitter pill for House progressives, who has won support for state-based experimentation in committee votes.
Groups such as Progressive Democrats of America were quick to raised alarm bells because some of the most innovative responses to the health-care crisis are being forged at the state level. While single-payer proposals are being blocked at the federal level, PDA national director Tim Carpenter says the single-payer fight is ramping up in the states.
"Last week, members of the PDA national team traveled to Pennsylvania for a rally at the capital rotunda in Harrisburg, in support of Healthcare for All Pennsylvania and their single-payer bill," notes Carpenter. "The momentum for single-payer healthcare grows daily. It appears Congress will have to be forced to follow the lead of states like Pennsylvania, California, Illinois, Ohio and Massachusetts --- all working to implement single-payer healthcare at the state level."
House progressives were quick to express disappointment, as they were counting on the House to advance a strong alternative to the Senate Democratic leadership's very weak public option proposal -- which would allow states to opt out of the plan.
Reviewing the details of Pelosi's plan in a passionate speech on the House floor, Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, one of the chamber's most ardent advocates for reform asked: "Is this the best we can do? Forcing people to buy private health insurance, guaranteeing at least $50 billion in new business for the insurance companies?
Kucinich continued:
Is this the best we can do? Government negotiates rates which will drive up insurance costs, but the government won't negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies which will drive up pharmaceutical costs.
Is this the best we can do? Only 3 percent of Americans will go to a new public plan, while currently 33 percent of Americans are either uninsured or underinsured?
Is this the best we can do? Eliminating the state single payer option, while forcing most people to buy private insurance.
If this is the best we can do, then our best isn't good enough and we have to ask some hard questions about our political system: such as Health Care or Insurance Care? Government of the people or a government of the corporations.
Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Lynn Woolsey, D-California, said she and her allies would continue to battle to muscle-up the public option.
"It's not even the fourth quarter,'' said Woolsey, who noted the public option had only recently been dismissed as dead by many pundits. "We will be insisting on (the option) being as strong as it possibly can be.''
Woolsey and other progressive Democrats are set to meet with President Obama Thursday.
"He needs to hear from us that he needs to support the public option,'' Woolsey told the Los Angeles Times. "He's not saying it loud enough. We want to make sure he lets the Senate know he wants a public option in the bill."
The focus on Obama is appropriate. He has the authority, as a man with a bully pulpit and a veto pen, to tell Pelosi that a soft public option is insufficient. At the same time, he can and should be more involved in challenging the absurd proposals -- advanced by conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans -- for "opt-outs" and "triggers," which threaten to weaken the public option to the point of meaninglessness.
Q: What were the instructions? A: The instructions were to kill [Morris Dees].
Q: How close did you get to killing Mr. Dees? A: Within days. - Testimony of former neo-Nazi, Nov. 12, 2008
Dear Friend,
Thankfully, this plot to kill Morris was thwarted by an FBI informant. But according to the same informant, there are many other white supremacists bent on seeing Morris dead because of his courtroom victories against violent hate groups.
That's why I'm asking you to make a special contribution to help us pay for our critical security measures. We need your help to keep Morris, the SPLC, and our staff safe so that we can continue to do our vital work.
Just since 2000, hate groups have increased in number by 50 percent. As the number of hate groups grows — currently 926 active groups — so does the threat against us.
Help us ensure the safety of our staff. Donate today.
President Barack Obama's historic election has boiled white supremacists' anger to a new level, resulting in real violence — such as the murder of a guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the killing of five other law enforcement officers by white supremacists.
Our security analyst, a former CIA agent, has stressed the need for enhanced security measures at the SPLC, "in light of recent attacks in 2009 against high profile targets associated with Civil and Human Rights causes."
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"Under Winer's money-obsessed leadership, TAREX has become the poster child for unsustainable, endangered-species-killing sprawl," said Adam Keats, director of the Center's Urban Wildlands Program. "He specializes in finding massive, remote estates far from urban centers and turning them into a sea of condos, malls, golf courses, and resorts. There is good reason that even Wall Street commonly calls TAREX a ‘real-estate vulture'."
Zinn gingerly took up the cudgel. 
Carroll weighed in. 
Goodman said she found it "shocking, but I'm going to be the resident optimist." The man hasn't been president for a year, let alone a term. "We're very impatient," she said, and that's not fair. 
Gordon invoked Henry James: "Things are much more complicated than you ever think," she quoted, then adding from Voltaire to build her perspective: "The best is the enemy of the good. The perfect is the enemy of the good." 
