Paul Singer likes to breakfast on decayed carcasses. What he chews down is sickening, but just as nausea-inducing are his new table mates: Ken Langone and the Koch Brothers, Charles and David.

Singer has called together the billionaire boys club for the purpose of picking our next president for us. The old fashioned way of choosing presidents—democracy and counting ballots and all that—has never been a favorite of this pack. I can tell you that from my investigations of each of these gentlemen for The Guardian. When the Statue of Liberty has nightmares, she dreams that these guys will combine to seize America via a cash-and-carry coup d'état.

Welcome to the nightmare. Singer, Langone and the Kochs last month decided to elect Chris Christie for us. The Jersey Governor's pseudo-campaign went belly-up before it began. But that's besides the point. Now that the Supreme Court has effectively ended campaign finance limits and allowed secretive contributions through "corporations", this new combine of the ultra-wealthy should not be viewed as just a political threat to the Democrats, but a threat to democracy.

That’s one of the chants of about 200 people who marched down Pennsylvania Avenue on Oct 6, toward the end of day 1 of the October2011 protests for human needs and against corporate greed. As Food Not Bombs D.C. and other community groups provided pizza, bananas and vegetables, and as David Rovics lyrically counterspun American history and current events for the couple of thousand or so gathered in Freedom Plaza, a somewhat different event was taking place down the road at the Newseum: the 2011 Washington Ideas forum.

That’s where the 200 or so marchers gathered for about 20 minutes. They banged drums and chanted “we got sold out, banks got bailed out,” and “arrest Cheney now.” The former vice president was listed as one of the speakers at the exclusive event.

An activist and a few others unrolled a long sheet of brown paper.

The board of trustees at Wilberforce, the nation’s oldest private, historically Black university are the focus of a case accusing them of mismanagement of resources, conflicts-of-interest, and gross negligence. On behalf of the Wilberforce Faculty Association and Concerned Citizens of Greene County, attorneys Bob Fitrakis and Connie Gadell-Newton filed the case with the Ohio Attorney General last week.

The board of trustees has failed to include faculty, staff, and students in decisions affecting the university, said participants at the press conference last week where Fitrakis and Gadell-Newton formally announced the case.

“Communication could definitely be a lot better. We filed approximately 12 grievances without any replies or responses,” said Everett Jones, Professor of Piano, and secretary of the Wilberforce Faculty Association.

“In a collectively governing body such as a university with faculty, staff, students, and administration, along with upper administration, everyone has to work together for there to be success,” Jones said.

Wilberforce Professor of Religion and Philosophy, Daniel Iselaiye said the same thing.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency may have used Bangkok's former Don Muang International Airport as its secret prison to torture a suspected Muslim terrorist, the first time a specific location has ever been described within Thailand, according to statements by the Libyan who survived.

It was impossible to immediately confirm Abdel Hakim Belhaj's allegations of being "hung," "injected," and refrigerated with "ice" at the airport, but if true, it is the first description of any site in Thailand pinpointed by a prisoner held the CIA.

Thai officials in this Buddhist-majority Southeast Asian country have consistently denied knowledge of any CIA secret prison.

London's Guardian newspaper reported on Sept. 5, however, that Britain's M16 intelligence agency helped the CIA in March 2004 arrest Mr. Belhaj, who is now a powerful commander in Tripoli for the anti-Moammar Gadhafi transitional government.

Republicans up in arms about the infamous failed federal $535 million loan guarantee for the Solyndra solar panel producer are finally tasked to apply the same standards to nuclear power.

If that happens, there will be no more commercial reactors built in the United States.

Unlike solar power, atomic energy cannot attract private capital.  So if the GOP succeeds in dragging down the entire federal energy loan program, the "Nuclear Renaissance" could be definitively done.  

The Solyndra story is complex, and full of opportunity---for the Chinese.  The Bush-era loan didn't add up from the start.  Though it was for a solar company involved in cutting-edge technology, there was much reason to question the corporate numbers.

Numerous other loans for Solartopian technologies have succeeded admirably.  No matter what Tea Party Republicans may wish, the future of the world's energy is with the sun, wind, tides, waves, sustainable bio-fuels, geothermal, ocean thermal, increased efficiency, conservation, and the like.