cryptogon.com

Under the agreement reached late Wednesday afternoon, more than 200 unionized employees of Republic Windows & Doors will receive pay for an additional 60 days. They also will receive vacation pay.

Last week, the factory notified its nearly 300 employees, of which about 80% are unionized, that it would close by Friday because Bank of America Corp. (BAC) had told the company it would be cutting off all financing.

On Tuesday, Bank Of America said it would provide a “limited amount” of additional loans to Republic, a day after the protests escalated into an intense labor-relations fight that threatened to have financial ramifications for the banking giant.

On Monday, one day before being arrested on unrelated corruption charges, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich called on state agencies to suspend business with the bank.

The agreement announced Wednesday is the result of negotiations under way since Monday between local, state and federal officials; the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America; Bank of America; JPMorgan; and Operation PUSH.

Gogulski, 36, renounced his citizenship on 8 December 2008 at the American embassy in Bratislava, surrendering his US passport and culminating a two-week process and months of personal preparations. He currently awaits a Certificate of Loss of Nationality of the United States confirming his loss of American citizenship. As Gogulski has no other citizenship, he is now a stateless person.

“I was disgusted to be associated through citizenship with the most dangerous gang of criminals in the world, the United States government. Renouncing my citizenship is a means of achieving a political divorce with that vile institution,” Gogulski said. “American politicians extol their state in terms of liberty, human rights, free markets and the rule of law. Examination of the country’s history and present actions reveals nothing but lies and hypocrisy. The genocide of Native Americans, slavery, nuclear slaughter at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, support for brutal dictators, the torture of innocents at places like Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, the massive robberies for the benefit of big business in the name of ‘rescuing’ the economy, the world’s biggest prison population, the growth of a domestic police state and the brutal wars of oppression underway in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia paint a rather different picture. America, via its government agents, is truly exceptional – exceptionally evil,” he stated.

Gogulski says that when he receives the Certificate of Loss of Nationality he will apply to the Slovak Interior Ministry for a Travel Document – similar to a passport – under the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons, which Slovakia signed in 2000. He says that he has no plans to leave Bratislava until then, and that he recognizes that his life without citizenship will be more difficult, especially with respect to travel. But, “if the Schengen Zone is to be my cage,” Gogulski states, “I think it’s large enough for me. There’s enough to explore within Europe to last a lifetime.”

On his personal blog, Gogulski indicates that he works as a freelance translator and editor. He also writes about anarchism and supports the revolutionary theory called agorism, which posits that free-market service providers will compete with and eventually supplant states, giving rise to a voluntary society. “Governments pride themselves on notions of ‘equality’ and ‘rule of law’, but fail to apply the same standards to themselves that their subjects must endure,” he says, explaining his political philosophy. “The foundation of state power, taxation, is robbery. That the robbers have fancy uniforms, impressive titles and the sanction of law does not in the slightest way change the basic formula for extortion: pay us, or we will kill you.”

In just the first two months of the budget year that started Oct. 1, the deficit totaled $401.6 billion, nearly matching the record gap of $455 billion posted for all of last year, according to Treasury Department data released Wednesday. If the deficit does top $1 trillion for the current budget year, it also would be a post-World War II high when measured as a percentage of the economy.

The increased red ink stems from both lower tax revenue and increased spending that is a result of the recessionary economy. The government is receiving less in business and personal income taxes while spending more on programs such as unemployment insurance and food stamps.

Elsewhere, emergency aid for the nation’s imperiled auto industry was thrown into jeopardy Wednesday as some Republicans revolted against a hard-fought deal between Democrats and the Bush White House to speed $14 billion to the ailing carmakers.

Then there’s the $700 billion bank rescue program. The Treasury report showed that the government spent $76.5 billion from the program in November and $191.5 billion over the past two months.

A congressional oversight panel on Wednesday questioned whether Treasury is following a clear strategy in its use of those funds. The panel, which includes academic and labor representatives, also asked in a report whether the rescue effort has helped any homeowners avoid foreclosure.

The 37-page oversight report offers no specific conclusions, but the questions suggest sharp disagreements with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s stewardship of the program and echo some of the criticism raised in a Government Accountability Office audit of the program last week.

Many Democrats in Congress have criticized Treasury for not using the funds to help homeowners.

The department said Wednesday that the gap between the government’s revenue collections and what it paid out last month totaled $164.4 billion, the largest deficit ever recorded for the month of November. The deficit was $98.2 billion in November 2007.

An annual deficit of $1 trillion would equal 6.7 percent of the gross domestic product, the economy’s total output in a single year. That would surpass the previous postwar record in GDP terms of 6 percent sent in 1983 when Ronald Reagan was president.

The strike shut down schools, public services, hospitals and flights, increasing pressure on the fragile conservative government of Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis.

The police involved in the fatal shooting were testifying behind closed doors when youths hurled Molotov cocktails at the courthouse and smashed a television satellite truck. Riot police fired tear gas. At least two people were hurt.

Riot police and youths also clashed in the city center during a demonstration by more than 10,000 people to protest the conservative government’s economic policies. But outbreaks of fighting were smaller and less widespread than in previous days, an indication that the most violent nationwide unrest Greeks have seen in years may be ending.

Based in Oslo, Det Norske Veritas has in the past four years validated and certified almost half of the 1,200 projects approved under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). At its meeting on 28 November in Pozna?, the CDM’s executive board temporarily withdrew Det Norske Veritas’s accreditation after a spot check carried out in early November at the firm’s headquarters revealed serious flaws in project management.

At the Long Beach port near Los Angeles, Toyota Motor Corp vehicles including Prius hybrids, FJ Cruiser sport utility vehicles and Lexus IS 250 luxury sedans are being stored on a vast construction site that will one day be a new container terminal.

The site became a gigantic parking lot when Toyota and Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz asked the port for space to store thousands of vehicles that dealerships have not been able to take on due to sluggish sales.

“It’s unusual that they would be here longer than a few days, but that’s the situation now,” said Art Wong, a spokesman for the Port of Long Beach. “They can’t move it through their pipeline fast enough so they are asking for additional space while they keep their vehicles here more than a few days, and in some cases more than a few weeks.”

The port has not counted how many additional cars were being stored, but Wong said Toyota has leased an additional 23 acres of space while Mercedes-Benz has leased about 20 more acres.

Nissan Motor Co Ltd, which brings its cars in through the neighboring Los Angeles port, had been talking to Long Beach about leasing space, Wong said, though that arrangement fell through.

A Port of Los Angeles spokeswoman, Theresa Adams-Lopez, said Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics (WWL), which operates the terminal that brings in Nissan’s vehicles, had shifted vehicle storage to another state.

Nissan spokeswoman Katherine Zachary said the company last increased its space at the Port of Los Angeles in February.

“As a normal course of business, we’ve got cars moving out of there all the time to various points across the country,” Zachary said in an e-mail.

WWL, which is based in Norway, would not comment on specific customers, but said auto inventories were building up across the United States.

“We are seeing cargo buildup at ports of entry on both coasts as well as at other inventory points such as factories and rail yards and dealerships,” Christopher Connor, the head of WWL’s business in the Americas, said in a statement.

Other ports are also seeing a buildup of cars, though not all of them are leasing large tracts of land to automakers. The San Diego port, which brings in Honda Motor Co, Volkswagen AG and Mitsubishi Corp vehicles, has about 14,000 cars on its property. That’s about 2,000 more vehicles than usual, according to spokesman John Gilmore, who said the additional cars belong to a range of manufacturers.

COLLAPSING DEMAND

Global automakers have been sideswiped by the collapsing demand for new cars and trucks. A market slowdown that began in the United States has spread to Europe and Asia.

Blagojevich was also accused of threatening to withhold substantial state assistance to the Tribune Company in connection with the sale of the Chicago Cubs’ baseball home Wrigley Field “to induce the firing of Chicago Tribune editorial board members sharply critical” of him.

The 51-year-old Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, were charged in a 76-page federal indictment with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and solicitation of bribery. Both were taken into custody at their homes in Chicago.

In Illinois, the governor selects a successor when there is a mid-term Senate vacancy. Obama resigned from the Senate soon after winning the Nov. 4 presidential election.

Blagojevich allegedly was caught on court-authorized wiretaps during the last month.

He was seeking a “substantial” salary for himself at a nonprofit foundation or union affiliated organization, a spot on a corporate board for his wife, promises of campaign cash, as well as a cabinet post or ambassadorship in exchange for his Senate choice, the FBI affidavit added.

Blagojevich, in his second term, is the latest in a string of Illinois governors to run afoul of the law. His immediate predecessor. George Ryan, is in jail following a federal corruption conviction.

“Many, including myself, thought that the recent conviction of a former governor would usher in a new era of honesty and reform in Illinois politics,” Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said in a statement.

“Clearly, the charges announced today reveal that the office of the Governor has become nothing more than a vehicle for self-enrichment, unrestricted by party affiliation and taking Illinois politics to a new low.”

A three-year federal corruption investigation of pay-to-play politics in Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s administration has expanded to include his impending selection of a new U.S. senator to succeed President-elect Barack Obama, the Tribune has learned.

Federal authorities got approval from a judge before the November general election to secretly record the governor, sources told the Tribune, and among their concerns was whether the selection process might be tainted. That possibility has become a focus in an intensifying investigation that has included recordings of the governor and the cooperation of one of his closest friends.

The governor has not been accused of any wrongdoing. The specific contents of the recent recordings have not been disclosed. Blagojevich has said the appointment of a Senate successor, which is his choice alone, could come in a matter of weeks.

Speaking to reporters Monday for the first time since the Tribune revealed federal investigators had recorded him and others as part of their corruption probe, Blagojevich said his discussions were “always lawful.” He also defended close confidant John Wyma, whose cooperation with federal agents helped lead to the recordings, as “an honest person who’s conducted himself in an honest way.”

“I should say if anybody wants to tape my conversations, go right ahead, feel free to do it,” he said. “I appreciate anybody who wants to tape me openly and notoriously, and those who feel like they want to sneakily, and wear taping devices, I would remind them that it kind of smells like Nixon and Watergate.”

Unlike the recordings that the federal government has of Blagojevich, the tapes that led to President Richard Nixon’s 1974 resignation over the burglary of Democratic offices at the Watergate complex and the ensuing coverup were made by Nixon himself.

Regardless of “whether you tape me privately or publicly, I can tell you that whatever I say is always lawful and the things I’m interested in are always lawful,” Blagojevich said. “And if there are any things out there like that, what you’ll hear is a governor who tirelessly and endlessly figures out ways to help average, ordinary working people.”

Blagojevich’s comments came amid increasing concern by Democrats that the governor’s pending appointment of a Senate successor may become politically tainted as a result of the investigations surrounding his administration. Federal investigators have been looking into allegations of corruption regarding state jobs, appointments and contracts in connection with Blagojevich’s prolific fundraising.

Blagojevich has not been charged with any wrongdoing and contended that if federal investigators are?s “going to those lengths and extents [of obtaining recordings], if in fact that’s true, that would suggest all the past has been pretty good.”

“I don’t believe there’s any cloud that hangs over me. I think there’s nothing but sunshine hanging over me,” the governor said.

Blagojevich made the remarks at a Monday morning visit to laid-off workers staging a sit-in at the Republic Windows & Doors plant on Goose Island.

Later Monday, he met for 90 minutes with Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., the South Side and southwest suburban congressman who has been the most visibly active campaigner for the appointment to replace Obama. Jackson, who was among the last high-profile Senate successor candidates to speak with Blagojevich, has had disagreements with the governor and is not close to him.

Blagojevich issued a strong defense of Wyma and accused the Tribune of publishing misinformation and possibly defamatory material.

“To begin with, they didn’t get it right,” he said. “John Wyma’s lawyer put out a statement. The Tribune was wrong and very well may have defamed him.”

But the statement from Wyma’s lawyer did not directly address the Tribune story and instead appeared directed at media outlets and others who reported Wyma wore a wire.

The Tribune noted that Wyma’s cooperation with federal investigators helped lead to recordings of Blagojevich but did not report that he wore a wire.

Wyma’s lawyer also did not respond to the Tribune’s report that Wyma was cooperating with investigators. “John Wyma is a friend of mine, he was my chief of staff, and I’m sure whatever he does, he does ethically and follows the rules,” the governor said.

Blagojevich said he would not remove Wyma from his inner circle of advisers. He also told the Tribune that Wyma was not involved in the deliberations over an Obama successor. “No, I consider him a friend. and I don’t consider him as anything but a friend. And to someone who, as I’ve known him, always has been an honest person who’s conducted himself in an honest way,” Blagojevich said of Wyma. “That’s the John Wyma I know and it’s the John Wyma that [Obama’s incoming chief of staff, Rep.] Rahm Emanuel knows and a lot of other people know.”

Blagojevich said he had last spoken to Wyma the day before Thanksgiving, when he offered holiday wishes and “talked a little bit about the plight of the Detroit Lions. He’s from Michigan.”