Necessary News

All you need to know to sound brilliant

97% Of Iraq Deaths Came After “Mission Accomplished”

• Yesterday, we hit you with the sobering news that the U.S. death toll in Iraq has reached the 4,000 mark. [Mic Check]
• And while we hate to do this, we’ve got a new piece of information that may be just as difficult to swallow. The AFP is reporting that “at least 97 percent of the deaths occurred after US President George W. Bush announced the end of “major combat” in Iraq on May 1, 2003, as the military became caught between a raging anti-American insurgency and brutal sectarian strife unleashed since the toppling of Saddam.”
• 140 American servicemembers died before May 1, 2003, out of a total 4,000.
• Despite the losses, President Bush on the eve of the war’s fifth anniversary defended his decision to invade Iraq, vowing no retreat as he promised American soldiers would triumph despite the “high cost in lives and treasure.”
• Casualties, meanwhile, continue to mount. American forces have just experienced the most violent two-week period in Iraq since September 2007. [Vet Voice]

Get ready for a shocker: 25 soldiers have been killed in the past two weeks.

Preying On Broke Americans

• Hundreds of thousands of Americans are falling behind on mortgage payments. More and more are unable to afford staples such as food, heat, gasoline. And so more Americans are turning to predatory lenders to get them out of a tight spot, not realizing they’ve jumped from the frying pan into a very, very hot fire. [Reuters]
• “While figures are hard to come by, evidence from nonprofit credit and mortgage counselors suggests that the number of people using these so-called ‘pay day loans’ is growing as the U.S. housing crisis deepens, a negative sign for economic recovery.”
• What is a predatory loan (also known as a payday loan)? Predatory lenders go after the financially weakest – the millions of Americans who have no savings, who live paycheck-to-paycheck, the elderly, the military. The predator advertises cheap loans fast. Borrowers bite the hook and come in; they get cash and need to show nothing more than a pay stub and a blank check. The borrower hands over a post-dated check; the lender gives them cash and charges a fee (usually somewhere from $15 to $30.) If the borrower can’t pay the full amount in 2 weeks, the lender allows the loan to “roll over”…and charges another round of fees.
• Payday loans average about $350 and will cost anywhere from 390% to 780% annual interest rate. Here’s the math, courtesy of the Center for Responsible Lending: The average guy who borrows $325 will pay $1,105. [DOD Report on Predatory Lenders and the Military]
• The Center for Responsible Lending says payday lenders issued more than $28 billion in loans in 2005. And the recent economy has driven that number way up.
• Predatory lenders know how to get their victims. Check out Ohio, a state reeling from the housing crisis. At the end of the fourth quarter, Ohio had 3.88% of its housing loans in the process of foreclosure. And the payday lenders began to spring up like evil little mushrooms.
• Today in Ohio, there are more payday lenders than McDonald’s, Burger Kings and Wendy’s…combined.
• Robert Frank, econ professor at Cornell, says payday loans are like “handing a suicidal person a noose.”
• Frank: “These loans lead to more bankruptcies and wipe out people’s savings, which is bad for the economy.” He blames all of the banking de-regulation in the 90s.
• Payday lenders can charge up to 400% interest on these short-term loans. In 2007, Congress put a 36% cap on any loans made to military members (another favorite target of these predators.)
• Thirteen states (+ DC) have similar caps in place. States like Ohio, Virginia, Arizona, and Colorado are now trying to follow suit for other Americans.

Loan sharks for the new millennium.

The Anbar Awakening Just Wants To Get Paid

• The Sunni militias that have allied with U.S. forces in Iraq against Al Qaeda are getting a little ticked: they haven’t been getting their pay checks on time. [Guardian]
• Much of the dip in violence over the past year has been the result of these militias, known as the “Sahwa” or “Awakening Councils,” turning against Al Qaeda in what President Bush recently called “the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden.”
• But it seems that in some places, the U.S. is dilly-dallying with their allowance.
• Now, the councils are feeling abandoned saying “they will stop fighting unless payment of their $10 a day wage is resumed.” Some already have.
• A survey from the Guardian found “out of 49 Sahwa councils four with more than 1,400 men have already quit, 38 are threatening to go on strike and two already have.”
• Brian Katulis of the Center for American Progress has serious problems with this strategy of paying cash to stem violence, saying that “by working to strengthen these militias to achieve short-term security gains, the United States may have made it more difficult to achieve a long-term and sustainable security arrangement in Iraq.” [Philadelphia Inquirer]
• The major problem? The Iraqi Shi’ite government is increasingly suspicious of these heavily armed U.S.-backed Sunni tribes. “In short, the policy of supporting these new Sunni militias without a clear end game risks making Iraq’s internal conflicts even more vicious than they were in 2006 and 2007.”
• What is to be done: “The United States must work more forcefully to ensure that [Shi’ite] Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki moves to integrate America’s new Sunni allies into the central government.”
• The best way to do that is to encourage them to foot the bill for these militias, and “with the price of oil hovering around $110 a barrel, the Iraqi government does not lack the resources to fund these groups on its own.”
• Note: If you’re having trouble keeping all these groups straight, you’re not alone. Check out CAP’s background guide on the various factions within and around Iraq: [Center for American Progress]

Money can’t buy us peace.

Good News, Bad News

Pain At The Pump Saves Lives

Sure, high gas prices are tough, but check this out: they may actually save lives. According to a study from the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, “the recent 20 percent increase in gasoline prices may be associated with nearly 2,600 fewer deaths nationwide from motor vehicle crashes and air pollution.” The good news and bad news practically writes itself: [Live Science]

GOOD NEWS

Fewer people are dying.

BAD NEWS

Gas is more expensive.

BETTER NEWS

This doesn’t have to be a trade-off. We can invest in clean cars that emit less, and clean, convenient mass transit that causes fewer accidents.

Quote Of The Day

“America has been the best country on earth for black folks.”

—Conservative pundit Pat Buchanan, who might need a brush-up on African-American history [Buchanan]

Speed Round

WHAT A CHENEY

Asked about the 4,000 Americans who’ve died in Iraq, Dick Cheney tells ABC News, well, they did volunteer to go... [ABC News]

AUDIO: CHRIS MATTHEWS

Chris Matthews thinks we should elect John McCain to end the war. Because irony has always been good at solving global conflicts.

[Think Progress]

WAR, ON THE ROCKS WITH SALT

Marine Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong explains how he and Army Gen. Tommy Franks decided to back Rumsfeld and Cheney in their push for war in Iraq: “Gen. Franks likes margaritas,” DeLong said, “and I’ve got a margarita recipe — of course, I’m a tequila connoisseur. And so we sat down and had some margaritas and tequila and walked through ‘Is this the right thing to do for us, for the country? Can we look our troops in the eyes and say, ‘You’re going to die tomorrow and here’s why?’ And the answer was yes.” [LA Times]

PSSST. WANNA BUY A SENATOR?

Money can’t buy you love, but it sure can buy you influence in DC. Federal lobbyists pulled in $2.9 billion – yes, with a “b”—in fees last year for their work influencing lawmakers, roughly double what they made a decade ago. [National Journal]

$3.26

The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. yesterday, a new record. [MSNBC]

HUNGRY IN OHIO

10% of all people in Ohio are on food stamps, or twice as many as there were in 2001. [Raw Story]

GOP WOES

“At a time when the GOP presidential nominee will need more assistance than ever, a number of state Republican parties are struggling through troubled times, suffering from internal strife, poor fundraising, onerous debt, scandal or voting trends that are conspiring to relegate the local branches of the party to near-irrelevance.” [Politico]

WINGNUTS GO GLOBAL

Check out this British lawmaker who just can’t figure out why folks are so angry that he wants forced sterilization for people on welfare after one child. [Daily Mail]

HEARTBREAKING QUOTE OF THE DAY

“We don’t have any Thomas Jeffersons here.” – Capt. Sean Miller, on the uphill struggle for democracy in Iraq. [Washington Post]

RAISING THE STAKES

Finance giant JP Morgan, which originally wanted to buyout sinking ship Bear Stearns at $2 per share — has raised its offer to $10 per share. [NY Times]

A ROCKY START

“Demonstrators denouncing China’s record on human rights breached strict security in Ancient Olympia on Monday and disrupted a torch-lighting ceremony that launched the Olympic flame’s long journey to Beijing.” [Washington Post]

TRAGEDY

One woman and four children are killed during a shoot-out in Iowa City. [AP]

TERROR CASH

Everyone needs money...and that’s including terrorists. Unfortunately, the American-led effort to choke off funds to al-Qaeda is failing due to setbacks both at home and abroad. [LA Times]

DARFUR

The U.N. peacekeeping mission to the Sudan “is in danger of failing even as it begins its mission because of bureaucratic delays, stonewalling by Sudan’s government and reluctance from troop-contributing countries to send peacekeeping forces into an active conflict.” [NY Times]

FOOD

Food prices are rising worldwide. The causes: erratic weather from global warming, “higher oil prices, lower food reserves and growing consumer demand in China and India.” [AP]

SPITZER OF DETROIT

Prosecutors charge Kwame Kilpatrick, mayor of Detroit, “perjury and other counts after sexually explicit text messages contradicted his sworn denials of an affair with a top aide.” [AP]

GREEN PORT

The Port of Los Angeles, one of America’s busiest, just approved a “Clean Trucks” program to “reduce air pollution from harbor trucks by more than 80 percent within five years.” [San Pedro Bay]

HYPOCRITE TO THE MAX

John Yoo, the author of the notorious Bush administration “torture memo,” has written a Wall Street Journal op-ed chastising the Democratic Party’s super delegate system as “undemocratic.” Torture’s fine, though. [Think Progress]