Where honest journalism hardly exists anymore in the newspapers or television, Wikileaks is real journalism at its best. Like Vietnam, Afghanistan is an imperial war of aggression disguised for the benefit of the American people as self-defense against "terrorism". But the real truth about Vietnam, which is that the Kennedy assassination was a coup by the military-industrial complex, which has been running the country ever since, never came out, and the country has continued in a steady downhill course toward a full police state and military dictatorship ever since. Now I am praying that Wikileaks will not only expose that Afghanistan is nothing but senseless butchery that benefits only war profiteers, arms and drug dealers, just like Vietnam, but they will actually get into 9/11 itself and expose that 9/11 was in fact an inside job engineered by our own covert agencies, our own national security apparatus which is completely out of any kind of civilian control and riddled with gangsters and psychopaths. Only that will finally break the fifty-year grip of the military-industrial complex on our country. Of course, anybody who would like to look into this does not have to wait for Wikileaks; the facts are already available at the website of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, ae911truth.org.

Sorry, posted this comment on the wrong article.

I am hoping Dudley can do right by this mess.... ;)

Tony Hayward's parting shot
3:30p ET July 27, 2010 (MarketWatch)

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- As BP chief Tony Hayward prepares to tackle new challenges in Russia, he's hit on a way to choke off some of the cost of that pesky Gulf oil spill.

For BP shareholders, it's pure genius.

Here's how it works: Citing the $32 billion charge BP is taking to cover the cost of the spill and the $17 billion second-quarter loss this caused the company, BP is entitled to a $9.9 billion tax credit. That's nearly half of the $20 billion Hayward agreed to set aside to cover the job when he met last month with President Barack Obama. Read about BP's tax credit.

And, because it's part of the nation's corporate tax code, it's perfectly legal.

Hayward, fielding questions Tuesday about BP's second-quarter results, wasn't terribly eager to discuss the move. But he reassured everyone that it follows "current" IRS regulations. In other words, this will save BP nearly $10 billion that Washington had probably been counting on to help clean up the Gulf.

American taxpayers are likely to take a darker view of this development than BP shareholders. Despite President Barack Obama vowing to make BP pay for this mess, it suddenly looks like a big chunk of the cost will be coming out of their pockets after all.

Of course this might just be a temporary state of affairs. Once Washington lawmakers catch wind of a populist backlash, you can bet there will be calls to change the law.

That's where things get really interesting. Remember when Hayward was on the hot seat in June, testifying before a mostly hostile gang of U.S. legislators? One of them really stood out. Representative Joe Barton of Texas took it upon himself to apologize to Hayward for what he called Obama's $20 billion "shakedown" of the oil company. He later apologized for the apology, but his initial message stuck.

A month later, BP appears to be the one doing the shaking down, using a good old-fashioned American corporate tax loophole.

If lawmakers close that loophole, it would set a dire precedent for other companies counting on tax breaks to survive their own financial setbacks. Citigroup alone has built up $21 billion in deferred tax assets due to losses from the financial crisis.

No matter how this shakes out, Washington looks like it got caught flat-footed. And with nothing left to lose in the arena of public opinion, Tony Hayward suddenly doesn't look so clueless after all.

-- Jim Jelter