www.kokeshforcongress.com/

White House to Go After Iran's Oil Income...

The Obama administration is planning to push for new sanctions against Iran, targeting its energy, financial and telecommunications sectors if it does not comply with international demands to come clean about its nuclear program, according to U.S. officials. The officials said the U.S. would expand its own penalties against Iranian companies and press for greater international sanctions against foreign firms, largely European, that do business in the country unless Iran can prove that its nuclear activities are not aimed at developing an atomic weapon...Link

Congress Tackles Afghanistan Strategy......

President Barack Obama is taking out a blank sheet of paper this week as he weighs his options in Afghanistan, and Congress stands more than willing to fill it in. The Senate on Sept. 29 is expected to debate amendments to the 2010 defense appropriations bill that are likely to include everything from timelines for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan to proposals to send upwards of 40,000 more. But, unlike health-care reform, this isn't a decision Obama can leave in the hands of the Legislative Branch — however undecided he remains today...Link

Who Loves the Weak Dollar?........

The beleaguered U.S. dollar isn't getting much love these days, except from one small but powerful group: deep-pocketed institutional traders, who are piling into dollars with ever greater enthusiasm because it is so weak and cheap to borrow. "Dollar borrowing picked up steam after the G-20 summit [that ended in Pittsburgh on September 25] when traders concluded that interest rates in the U.S. were going to stay low for a long time," says Mark Matthews, chief Asia strategist for Fox-Pitt Kelton Securities. Adds Olivier Desbarres, a currency strategist for Asia with Credit Suisse: "Hedge funds, pension funds, and the trading desks of investment banks are now all putting this trade on."...Link

Obama loves Bush Employee's.....

A key senior figure in a Bush administration covert Pentagon program, which used retired military analysts to produce positive wartime news coverage, remains in the same position today as a chief Obama Defense Department spokesman and the agency’s head of all media operations. In an examination of Pentagon documents the New York Times obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request — which reporter David Barstow leveraged for his April 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning exposé on the program – Raw Story has found that Bryan Whitman surfaces in over 500 emails and transcripts, revealing the deputy assistant secretary of defense for media operations was both one of the program’s senior participants and an active member...Link

Dirty..........

BREAKING 10:08 AM ET:Vanity Fair will report in the next issue of the magazine that US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson — a former head of the investment bank Goldman Sachs — tried to orchestrate secretive deals in the midst of the financial crisis but got blowback from prominent investor Warren Buffett. The following press release was obtained by Raw Story; the magazine appears today on newsstands in New York and Los Angeles...Link

Ron Paul on the Daily Show..........

Texas Rep. Ron Paul was on the Daily Show last night, where he went through his standard spiel about personal liberty and why the Federal Reserve should be abolished. In noting that Mr. Paul’s radical ideas about the Fed have gained wider acceptance in the wake of the financial crisis Daily Show host Jon Stewart compared Paul to a “cool indie band” that is a cult favorite but suddenly goes mainstream. “It scares the daylights out of me,” was Paul’s response to this observation. Paul has become something of a regular on late night shows like the Daily Show and its Comedy Central cousin, The Colbert Report. And while hosts don’t exactly agree with him, it’s hard for a comedian to resist a man whose views rattle both Democrats and Republicans...Link

Dealignment and Ron Paul.............

It is now evident that the widely prophesized national partisan realignment is not going to happen. The election of Barack Obama did not cause a huge and permanent shift to the Democrat Party. Instead, it appears that the longer-term trend toward dealignment is still operant. Neither political party is making much headway, independent candidates are popping up at the state and local levels, and potential independent or third-party presidential candidate Ron Paul is up to something worth monitoring...Link

Update - HR 1207 - 296 Co-sponsors.....

Title: To amend title 31, United States Code, to reform the manner in which the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is audited by the Comptroller General of the United States and the manner in which such audits are reported, and for other purposes.