Some sectors of the economy, Big Oil, the Pharmaceutical Industry, Banking and Investment, Insurance companies, the Defense industry and Lawyers made heavy contributions to politicians, gaining unprecedented clout in regard to influencing government policy.  

Huge contributions to political campaigns became essential if a politician wanted to keep his or her job. Campaigns became more expensive and many elected officials realized that corporate support was a necessity.  

If Barack Obama's idea of ending the occupation in Iraq is to transfer most of the troops to Afghanistan, he won't have accomplished much.

He's right that we should not be in Iraq, but we also shouldn't be in Afghanistan.  

Our sole interest in Afghanistan should be to get Osama bin Laden. After that, we should bring our guys home.

The Pope christened Australia the “great southern land of the Holy Spirit” and urged young people troubled by the state of the world to seek answers in faith. 

from Crikey …..

The more information that emerges about Frank Lowy's multifarious tax arrangements, the more damage is being inflicted on Lowy's formidable reputation.

At one point during the five and a half years John McCain spent as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, he was tortured and beaten so badly he tried to kill himself.  

After four days of this brutality, he gave in and agreed to make a false confession, telling lies to end the unbearable pain.  

The speculation-driven skyrocketing price of petroleum is savaging all Australian citizens, and destroying our agricultural and trucking industries, among many others. 

How can a government that maintains more than 800 military facilities in more than 140 different foreign countries be anything other than an imperial power?  

Pope Benedict XVI conducted a Mass with four sexual abuse victims this morning, but the father of two other victims said he was "disgusted" to have been sidelined from the meeting. 

In the BBC series The Blue Planet, David Attenborough's epic documentary on the Earth's oceans first televised seven years ago, he nails us all.  

That is when Attenborough tells us there is now more carbon dioxide in our atmosphere than at any time "in the last 650,000 years".  

Quaint Arse has confirmed it will cut 1500 jobs as it grapples with higher fuel prices that have hit the global aviation industry. 

Transport Workers Union national airline officer Scott Connolly criticised for not consulting Qantas employees before the announcement. 

With the economic news of the week of July 14 - the continuing crisis among mortgage lenders, the onset of bank failures, the announced downsizing of General Motors, the slide of the Dow-Jones below 11,000 - we are seeing the ongoing collapse of the U.S. economy. 

Even the super-rich are becoming nervous as cries for an emergency suspension of short selling ring out. 

President Bush invoked executive privilege to keep Congress from seeing the FBI report of an interview with Vice President Dick Cheney and other records related to the administration's leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity in 2003. 

The president's decision drew a sharp protest Wednesday from Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of House Oversight Committee, which had subpoenaed Attorney General Michael Mukasey to turn over the documents. 

It's the scariest book of any year in recent memory, if "scary" is understood to reach beyond mere bumps in the night and encompass the horrifying ways in which a great nation can utterly fail in upholding its own ideals.

"If there be one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American," Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1791, "it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest."  

We are here today because our bipartisan governing elite and its media apologists have turned Mr. Jefferson on his head to America’s detriment.