I Was Wrong...

... & am very glad to have been. Back in post #3, 24 October 2007, I predicted a Cheney-ordered attack on Iran by this time. Instead, I woke up this morning to find Barack Obama to have become the winner of this ugly presidential election. Now it remains to be seen if he will be allowed to take office let alone the sheer magnitude of problems he will find once he takes power and what range of solutions he will find available, that is still in the future. But as of today I am quite relieved to find there is no attacks on Iran at present and that this endless election is finally over.

Not sure where I'm going with this weblog. Originally it was an experiment to see if I had the discipline to maintain a weblog and a year later I see that I do. The problem now is that I do not feel compelled to coment on most items I first see elsewhere, most of the time those that see them first have better or at least more insightful comments than mine and I feel no urge to "join the crowd" as it were. Furthermore I find that I'm either burnt out on or just do not care about all that many political items these days. Yes, Obama won and for that I am grateful, of the two presidential candidates we ended up with he was by far the better person and a leader I could be inspired by. But what am I to make of (AK) Senator Ted Stevens winning re-election despite his recent 7 felony convictions for corruption? As cynical as I am these days, I simply cannot muster enough cynicism to explain that little item, let alone comment on it or on the multitudes of other head-slappers in the results many as 'WTF-worthy'.

Ah well, time will tell...

20 January 2009 - corrected some stupid spelling errors...

How the Chicago Boys Wrecked the Economy

Found an absolutely brilliant interview over at Jesse's Café Américain under the same title (which I 'borrowed') which you may find here. I've been following http://www.naomiklein.org/main after reading most of her shock doctrine book in which she goes on to explain much of the last 40 years' economics nastiness caused by Milton Friedman and his 'Chicago School' of economists. When I say nastiness I'm referring to situations like Chile under Pinochet, Russia when it 'privatized', New Orleans after Katrina - massive deregulation, crony capitalism, public assets pretty much given away to the connected and the general public stuck with the bill after the dust settled.

Jesse quotes an article by Mike Whitney over at counterpunch in which Mike interviews Michael Hudson, a respected & highly accomplished former Wall Street economist, a distinguished Research Professor at University of Missouri, Kansas City, and an author of many books on economics. I will not quote the entire article but here's what for me are the money graphs:

MW: The housing market is freefalling, setting new records every day for foreclosures, inventory, and declining prices. The banking system is in even worse shape; undercapitalized and buried under a mountain of downgraded assets. There seems to be growing consensus that these problems are not just part of a normal economic downturn, but the direct result of the Fed's monetary policies. Are we seeing the collapse of the Central banking model as a way of regulating the markets? Do you think the present crisis will strengthen the existing system or make it easier for the American people to assert greater control over monetary policy?

Michael Hudson: What do you mean “failure”? Your perspective is from the bottom looking up. But the financial model has been a great success from the vantage point of the top of the economic pyramid looking down? The economy has polarized to the point where the wealthiest 10% now own 85% of the nation’s wealth. Never before have the bottom 90% been so highly indebted, so dependent on the wealthy. From their point of view, their power has exceeded that of any time in which economic statistics have been kept.

You have to realize that what they’re trying to do is to roll back the Enlightenment, roll back the moral philosophy and social values of classical political economy and its culmination in Progressive Era legislation, as well as the New Deal institutions. They’re not trying to make the economy more equal, and they’re not trying to share power. Their greed is (as Aristotle noted) infinite. So what you find to be a violation of traditional values is a re-assertion of pre-industrial, feudal values. The economy is being set back on the road to debt peonage. The Road to Serfdom is not government sponsorship of economic progress and rising living standards; it’s the dismantling of government, the dissolution of regulatory agencies, to create a new feudal-type elite.

If this catches your interest I highly recommend you read the whole thing!

I Am A Statistic

I may be intelligent but sometimes I'm quite slow. Case in point, although I was fired/'laid off' back at the end of April, I did not until a couple of days ago realize that there are people right now being paid to do the exact same job I used to do on the exact same equipment for the exact same employer. Problem is, those people are in Bangalore, India. I have been outsourced. The tax dollars I pay each & every year were used in part to subsidize the very same people who stole my livelihood. Anger doesn't come close to describing what I am feeling.

(No, I'm not interested in the upcoming election. I'm sick of the horserace and the bullshit that passes for 'issues' these days. Worse I'm pretty certain that regardless who wins, nothing much will change and that no matter who wins, Bushco will walk free w/all their ill-gotten gains intact. Justice? Rule of law? Hardeharharhar.)

Why The Silence?

Frankly, all I post here are stories & commentary about things that interest me and these days that isn't much. I am disgusted at the rush to remake this country into a fascist dictatorship and see no signs this will stop nor will the situation improve in my lifetime. The best thing I can say is I'm glad I do not have children.

Someone I've read for years, Skimble, recently shutdown his blog leaving us with these words:

Outrage fatigue. I have ceased to care about McStupid's Britney video and Obama's acting presidency. Or the New Yorker cover. Or Cindy McCain's 20 painkillers a day. Or the endless hand-wringing about the fucking narrative.

The 24/7 minutiae of yet another artificial campaign horserace cannot captivate me. The big story is this: The Democrats have failed to hold the existing administration accountable for its flagrant and abundant crimes against Americans and Iraqis and Afghanis and all humanity. History will not be kind to Nancy and Harry, thanks to their perfect ineffectuality. History will also judge the present crop of American citizens as unbearably privileged and hopelessly idiotic for sitting complacently watching CNN while the oily machinery behind this administration waltzed off with the contents of the US Treasury and whatever coin it found in the pockets of the American working class.

If McCain wins, it will be because Americans deserve him, just as we have deserved Bush Junior. If Obama wins, he will be a glorified janitor for the endless piles of shit the GOP left in its wake. Just as Bill Clinton was for Reagan and Bush Senior.

Our complacency will be our downfall, and I no longer care. Let Rush Limbaugh and ExxonMobil have America — it's becoming a crumbling shithole anyway.

And on that happy note, we end the blog.

Unfortunately, I concur wholeheartedly...

I Won't Make A Habit Of This, But,,

Today's post is "What Digby said" WRT to Nancy Pelosi on The Daily Show recently. Just read her, ok?

Her money graph -

And, by the way, one thing she says is undoubtedly true: the Democratic congress will give President Obama a much harder time than they ever gave Bush. No rubber stamps, that's for sure. The only time Democrats ever put up a fight is against their own.

Mandatory Binding Arbitration

Ever read the tiny print at the end of your credit card agreement? Did you notice the clause that "all disputes with the issuing credit card company had to be settled via mandatory binding arbitration" meaning that you couldn't take the credit card company to court? Did you ever wonder if that might be fair to you, the consumer? Did you think that a private arbitration firmed paid for by the credit card company might rule solely based on the merits of your case? Psst - 1, it's not, 2, they don't, they rule in favor of them what brung 'em as the arbitration companies depend on repeat business which they will only get from the companies, not the consumers. Better yet, the arbitration companies are only accountable to companies & not the public as you, the consumer, signed away your right to sue when you signed up! Slick, 'eh?

Via Credit Slips this AM I stumbled onto to Senate Judiciary Committee testimony from a Professor Elizabeth Bartholet of Harvard Law School on July 23, 2008 about this very issue. It seems Professor Bartholet was for a brief time herself an arbiter for the National Arbitration Forum, her service ending when she dared to rule against a credit card company. Her testimony is here and excerpted from that link are what I think to be two important point she makes:

"My own experience over the past two decades as an arbitrator has led me to conclude that in many instances corporate players are in fact benefitting from a system of purchased justice in both the employment and the consumer credit areas. My experience as an arbitrator for the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) is but one example, although it may be the most telling."

"All this, together with my other experience as an arbitrator, and my reading of the literature, is what has led me to conclude that the Supreme Court’s approval of pre-dispute arbitration has led to a private justice system in which banks and credit card companies are able to purchase the results they want, at the expense of the debtors forced into the system."

I read the news quite closely but didn't find this anywhere else for some reason. Sure found lots of garbage WRT to Brittany Spears, et al., though. Do ya' think that might be the point? "We the people' are the mushrooms of this land?

Original Intent

At least that's what four of the Supremes, Thomas, Scalia, Roberts & Alito seem to blather on & on about WRT to the criteria they claim to base their decisions on. Funny, though, when you pick and chooose exactly which founder's words to use & when and even funnier, when the words you pick seem to support the decision you wanted to make all along, it seems as if Original Intent is just another code word. Stare decis indeed.

Obviously I read way too much, couple that with too much free time and you've got me wandering through all sorts of treasure troves finding all sorts of things.

Today I stumbled on a fascinating paper by Nathan Newman & J.J. Gass entitled A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM: THE FORGOTTEN HISTORY OF THE 13TH, 14TH, AND 15TH AMENDMENTS (pdf). It's relevant today as the Rehnquist court cited many of the decisions used to restore white supremacy in the 1870's south when his court overturned many civil rights laws starting in the 1990's. Rather than excerpt the paper, here's the introduction & if you're a student of history and interested in history that's been disappeared, you'll follow the link. (are you amazed I found republicans I have good things to say about? But they're not today's version)

"THE FORGOTTEN HISTORY OF THE 13TH, 14TH, AND 15TH AMENDMENTS

The Supreme Court’s recent turn away from civil rights and toward states’ rights claims legitimacy from a familiar – but false – history: the Constitution of 1787 carefully preserved the states’ sovereignty; Congress operated for 150 years within narrow constraints on its enumerated powers; the courts zealously policed the boundaries of proper federal action; and the half-century starting with the New Deal, when the Supreme Court allowed the federal government to do more or less what it wanted, was an anomaly.
None of this is true. If there is an anomalous period in the relationship between the Court and Congress, it began shortly after the Civil War and ended with the “switch in time” of 1937. The Court commenced its first sustained campaign to cut back on congressional power by striking down civil rights statutes passed during Reconstruction. These decisions betrayed Lincoln, who had promised a “new birth of freedom” at Gettysburg, and the people who enacted the constitutional amendments and legislation to make that promise a reality – not to mention the thousands of blacks slaughtered while defending their rights and the millions condemned to live under Jim Crow in the wake of the Court’s rulings.
Whatever else might be said of “originalist” constructions of constitutional provisions adopted in 1787, the Rehnquist Court’s decisions on the New Birth Amendments are utterly indefensible as a matter of history. Like the reactionary Court of the 1870s – whose infamous precedents it unabashedly cites – the states’-rights bloc on today’s Court has struck down federal civil rights legislation enacted pursuant to the New Birth Amendments without regard for the widely understood meaning and purpose of those amendments at the time they were ratified. This paper aims to revive the memory of the New Birth Framers and their work and to debunk the claim that the Court’s anti-equality agenda has any support in the history of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments."

Who Caused The Current Financial Crisis?

Say you're in the business of making loans. Say you offer me a $500,000 mortgage with a low adjustable interest rate and do not require a down payment. Even better, say you offer me an option ARM note with an adjustable payment that can be low enough to not only not pay back the principal which I borrowed but not even cover the month's interest with a net effect that after paying for a couple of years I'll owe more money than I originally borrowed! (negative amortization) And for the clincher, you're not even going to check my income or my credit history!

Why would you, the loan originator want to do these things? For starters, it's not your money, you'll make your money upfront by large fees & commissions then you'll take my loan along with a number of others and, have one of your 'associates' at one of the rating companies declare it to be 'AAA' rated and sell it to "someone else" as an 'investment security' (at another fat commission, of course).

Uh, oh, bad news, I can't make the payments and the note goes into default & foreclosure, looks like it's time to blame somebody. Is this debacle my fault for being greedy in wanting, say, a nice house and lazy or confused by the sheer complexity of the loan you made me? Or is it your fault for being greedy (remember all those fat fees & commissions?) and irresponsible as you didn't require a down payment or a credit/income verification? Should I get a bailout? Maybe I'm too small to help? Or should the note-holder get a bailout as they're likely too big to fail? These are taxpayer funds that will pay for this bailout, should we then 'privatize the profits' yet 'socialize the risk'?

Numerian at the Agonist has an excellent albeit lengthy post that gives a clear, concise & detailed explanation at the slow-motion collapse of the enormous Ponzi scheme that is our economy these days. If this is something that you find interesting (and no doubt confusing as well) it would be well worth your time to read the post, the comments and the linked articles.

"By the time the scheme collapsed, the averaged household had $115,000 in total debt, was using as much as 40% of disposable income each year to service this debt (and all the fees involved), and had only $392 each year to put away as savings. You can see now how ridiculous it is to call the consumer equally at fault in such a system."

At the risk of seeming sanctimonious, other than needing another job I don't have a lot at risk these days, everything I own is paid for and we have savings, not debt. I had a beloved grandmother who survived & prospered through the depression of the 1930s and what I learned about the importance of savings and the avoidance of debt, I learned from her.

No Cocktail Weenies For You!

Thanks to both Think Progress & ultimately, the Washington Post, we now know The New (thanks, Cindy, “At least I don’t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you ****") Straight Talk Express Boeing 737-400 version now has a section featuring a couch and two captain's chairs and an area for cameras, a section in which, McCain senior aide Mark Salter quipped this morning, "only the good reporters" would get to sit in the specially-configured section for interviews. "You'll have to earn it."

So what's the price of access to those precious cocktail weenies these days, those petite porcine protuberances which permit the possessor to pass as persons possessing the pulchritude of privilege in protest of us plebeians? Aye, the paucity of perspicacity!

The Lex Gabinia

Paul Krugman is an excellent commentator as his facts are accurate and whether one agrees with his points (as I usually do) or not, he speaks truth and his words are worthy of consideration. This blog entry of his on a certain aspect of Roman law resonated with me as it seems to fit these days & times and so, I wish to share.

People on the right are constantly comparing the United States to ancient Rome, saying we are on the face of a moral decline and so, will be subject to the same sort of fall. While I have and do agree, it is for entirely different, albeit non-moral reasons - The United States is going to fall as we have given supreme power to a wannabe dictator, hence the parallel. Especially if we keep going in the same direction as we have these last 8 years.

From a linked NY Times Article:

In the autumn of 68 B.C. the world’s only military superpower was dealt a profound psychological blow by a daring terrorist attack on its very heart. Rome’s port at Ostia was set on fire, the consular war fleet destroyed, and two prominent senators, together with their bodyguards and staff, kidnapped.
But such was the panic that ensued after Ostia that the people were willing to compromise these rights. The greatest soldier in Rome, the 38-year-old Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (better known to posterity as Pompey the Great) arranged for a lieutenant of his, the tribune Aulus Gabinius, to rise in the Roman Forum and propose an astonishing new law.

The Lex Gabinia

Pompey was to be given not only the supreme naval command but what amounted in fact to an absolute authority and uncontrolled power over everyone,” the Greek historian Plutarch wrote. “There were not many places in the Roman world that were not included within these limits.

From the Wikipedia article:

The powers Pompey was granted were proconsular powers in any province within 50 miles of the Mediterranean Sea with a fleet of 500 warships, 120,000 and around 5,000 cavalry to fight the growing problems of pirates disrupting trade in the Mediterranean Sea.

From the linked NY Times Article:

Pompey eventually received almost the entire contents of the Roman Treasury — 144 million sesterces — to pay for his “war on terror,” which included building a fleet of 500 ships and raising an army of 120,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry. Such an accumulation of power was unprecedented, and there was literally a riot in the Senate when the bill was debated.
But it was too late to raise such questions. By the oldest trick in the political book — the whipping up of a panic, in which any dissenting voice could be dismissed as “soft” or even “traitorous” — powers had been ceded by the people that would never be returned. Pompey stayed in the Middle East for six years, establishing puppet regimes throughout the region, and turning himself into the richest man in the empire.

& ten years later Julius Caesar received similar powers and was followed by a long line of Roman dictators, each more greedy, foolish & bloodthirsty than the last. And thus ended the power of the Roman Senate & years later, the Roman Empire itself.

In 2002, did the United States do a similar thing to itself when GW was granted his now all-encompassing authorization to use military force in Iraq?

"Someone Else’s Sacrifice"

(photo: Barry Gutierrez of The Rocky Mountain News.)

Sgt. Ryan John Baum finally got to hold his daughter Leia, born 11 days after his death last May in Iraq.

I could try to write more on this, but jurassicpork at Welcome To Pottersville (oops, this link is now dead, Jurassicpork, please repost this to your new blog if possible) writes something far more eloquent than I ever could including the title of this post which I 'borrowed'. Please read his words instead...

Update 7 August 2008

jurassicpork pulled the plug on Welcome To Pottersville last month (new digs at Welcome Back To Pottersville) which of course hosed the link. But he graciously sent me the original text of his post which I am quoting below in its entirety. Thanks, JP!

Originally, I was going to upload today pictures and videos of my grandson’s birthday party from yesterday. Then I was going to kick back and work on my novel. But this, for the moment, is more important and takes precedence.

Stan Banos at Reciprocity Failure refuses to make any partisan political statements “for respect of the subject matter at hand.” I’ll try to do the same here although I’m not going to pretend to succeed. But, still, I have to ask:

Why didn’t this picture of Sgt. Ryan John Baum lying in his coffin make the front page of the NY Times or the Washington Post instead of the back pages of the Rocky Mountain News? Baum’s widow Dana tells us that her husband desperately wanted to get out of Iraq so he could hold his daughter Leia, born 11 days after his death last May in Iraq, on his chest. The next best thing was to put her picture on him as he lie in state. So, again, why is this prize-winning photograph restricted to a few dying blogs instead of on the august pages of the NY Times or the WaPo? Well, that still wouldn’t have been humanistic as much as subversive or controversial.

We’re not supposed to be reminded that war has consequences, that it involves dead, shattered bodies and living, shattered families. This is why the coffins are not allowed to be photographed as they stream off the transports at Dover Air Force Base, why Senator Joe Biden is not even allowed to meet with and comfort the families, why Bush and Cheney never go to a funeral for a single one of them.

Why Barbara Bush’s beautiful mind can’t be allowed to contemplate ugly images such as a body bags, why the 1000th, 2000th, 3000th and 4000th deaths were just numbers and why makeshift memorials for the troops get mowed down less than a mile from the presidential retreat in Crawford, Texas.

That's why this picture never made the front page of a major newspaper and never will. We as a nation, as Frank Rich reminds us today, desperately are trying to put Iraq behind us and we never seem capable of realizing this absurdly simple fact- We can’t put it behind us without leaving 155,000 troops behind. We can afford to put behind us a war that still silently rages on from 6000 miles away.

It’s someone else’s sacrifice, so we can afford to turn away. In a nation of 300,000,000, only about 150,000 of us are in Iraq. Lacking a draft, many of us haven’t a dog in this fight and are afforded the luxury of turning our attention to things closer to home and our wallets.

We turn our attention, instead, to $4+ a gallon gas, rising food prices, our home foreclosures, rising unemployment, all worthy and serious considerations. But we need, also, to remind ourselves that Iraq and the tremendous strain and drain this little country is imposing on us is the root cause of many of these campaign issues and national ills that are assuming much more importance than the war in Iraq.

This photograph of Sgt. Baum, a picture of the infant daughter that he never lived to see poignantly and tragically sitting atop his cold chest, makes for a poor partisan political statement for either side. It’s an image so intensely personal to the Baum family, that those of us on either side should step away and let the family grieve in peace. We should be ashamed to gawk at such intensely personal pictures. It is not even synecdochal except for those other families that had suffered other losses through our involvement in Iraq or Afghanistan.

In the vast, almost cosmic machinery of this war effort, Sgt. Baum and his simple dream of holding his infant daughter on his chest would seem insignificant and meaningless. It’s one family’s tragedy that is reflexively met with condolences and the usual bromides of selfless sacrifice and a nation’s gratitude for such sacrifice. But the human toll in even the most just and necessary of wars is often, with truth, the first casualty.

And if that’s a partisan political statement, then sue me.

JP

Insert Title Here

Every time I try to write about something, something else intrudes that is even worse. Whether it's the wholesale looting of the American treasury & infrastructure, the revelations that the United States supports advocates torture & unlimited detention w/o charge of even American citizens, or the idea that if one does not agree with & wholeheartedly support the idea that "if the president does it, that means it's not illegal", one is by definition someone who 'hates America' and 'loves the terrorists', I am so appalled by what is going on around me I find it impossible to write about such things.

Of course, as always, something even uglier lurks around the corner. Assuming there is an election next November, one that is not stolen, and a Democrat, probably Obama, takes the White House next January, will it all change? Change in the sense that suddenly the rule of law matters once again, that the press has an obligation to confront? That we will see endless investigations in Congress & in the press of the slightest Democratic transgressions, real or imagined, after all the current Republicans are safely pardoned and ensconced in their think tanks & executive boardrooms? Remember, once upon a time, Phil Gramm was a Democrat...

I made a commitment when I started this weblog, a commitment I intend to keep, at least for now.

Rumsfeld Speaks...

...or at least spoke, at a luncheon Rumsfeld hosted for his "message force multipliers" on December 12, 2006, and what he said was remarkable. (Yeah, I know, there's been nary a word of this from any media outlet save the 20 April 2008 story in the New York Times and follow ups in the blogosphere _{thanx, skippy}. But you certainly know that Obama is a lousy bowler, right?) From an audio recording in response to a question from paid shill Lieutenant General Michael DeLong, he says:

Delong: Politically, what are the challenges because you're not going to have a lot of sympathetic ears up there.

Rumsfeld : That's what I was just going to say. This President's pretty much a victim of success. We haven't had an attack in five years. The perception of the threat is so low in this society that it's not surprising that the behavior pattern reflects a low threat assessment. The same thing's in Europe, there's a low threat perception. The correction for that, I suppose, is an attack. And when that happens, then everyone gets energized for another [inaudible] and it's a shame we don't have the maturity to recognize the seriousness of the threats...the lethality, the carnage, that can be imposed on our society is so real and so present and so serious that you'd think we'd be able to understand it, but as a society, the longer you get away from 9/11, the less...the less...

Amazing. What was needed on 12 December 2006 in order for the GOP to prevail was another terrorist attack on the US. Much better commentary here, here & especially at Newsvine but as for myself, I am dumbfounded. The bastards, the sorry bastards, please tell me again that Bushco did not have foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks and did not let it happen on purpose in order to wreck this country, as they have done, and to destroy this constitutional republic, again as they have done.

Freebie

Apparently Nine Inch Nails (Trent Reznor) is giving away downloads of his latest album, The Slip. Just sign up with an email address and it's yours... (Review to follow)

Capitalist Piggies

1-Never trust a boss. Ever.

2-When all the big cheeses call a meeting and tell you "We're not liquidating the company", you have about a week of employment left before they - [beat] - liquidate the company.

3-When the big cheese hisself sez "_____, we need to talk with you" and there's only three in the room including a stranger, your time is done.

Stupid me, forgot rule #1 in the corporate life, "Never trust a boss, ever". Even if you give them 8 years of your life, if - stupid you - you're still "low man on the totem pole", when the hard times come, even if self-inflicted by said big cheese(s), you, my friend, are el-toast-ola. As in gone, outta here, sayronara. Well, that was my week. And your humble narrator doesn't have a fucking clue where to go from here. The US electronics industry is dead, all the big guys shipped it overseas.

I won't badmouth my ex-employer, there are some good people there, maybe not those holding the reigns but some good folks there nonetheless.

I reserve my scorn for the HR/payroll bunch brought in circa 2005 or thereabouts, Administaff. HR folks are usually pretty cold and impersonal especially at RIF/layoff/firing time, but you guys take the fucking cake - your hatchet folks are goddamn reptiles, what flows through their & your veins is not blood but icewater - they demanded I put a notary seal on the release of liability document that authorized my severance pay. Fire me, make me release you from any liability in order to get what's due me and charge me up to $25 for the 'privilege'? Fuck you, Administaff, you are now a flag and where you are, I will not again be. Dammit. Wish I could show you what those reptiles made me sign and notarize but I did make them notarize it for free.

BTW, Mike Judge's movie Office Space is the real thing. If your boss ever announces Hawaiian shirt day is Friday be afraid. Very afraid.

update 05 May - SOS, the folks at the top make the big mistakes, the folks on the bottom pay the price. I've had my fill of this. Anyone else?

The "Compassionate Conservative"

1) This is the most powerful person in the world. Wouldn't he look more appropriate stuffing firecrackers into frogs, lighting the fuses and watching them suffer, instead of being, again, the most powerful person in the world? One word - "pathetic".

2) This is a "Christian", a follower of Jesus, allegedly the "savior of mankind" . Can you offer me a better proof that there is no god whatsoever, let alone a "savior"? Friday we learned this man authorized authorized "interrogation techniques the UN considers to be (and has prosecuted as) war crimes. The United States has previously prosecuted these techniques as Federal Crimes. Yet this guy is an emissary for christ. An atheist does not believe in religion. An indifferenest does not care enough to discuss it.

John "Keating Five" McCain should never be president. Although pissed on by George W. Bush in 2000, McCain thought enough of George in 2008 to release campaign photos with the frog snuffer, aka the most powerful person in the world.



mega thanx for the image from Blue Texan at FireDogLake

Hosed!

Major "Open Office" crash two weeks ago took out my C drive and toasted my XP computer... $600 & two weeks later finally got something back (first & last time somebody else does my computer work, dammit, been using PCs since 1988 or so). The big surprise is that my C drive was trashed so I lost a lot of stuff... Good news (if any) is that the new box is dual-boot linux. Oh and I'm also not soliciting (from my non-readers) any $ for the new PC.

New Graphic!



from fubar at Needlenose, thanks guys!



"He Tried To Kill My Dad!!"

Uh George, after a review of over 600,000 captured Iraqi documents, no one seems to be able to find any mention of that particular plot (looks like you lied to us yet again). But there is a great quote from you in that CNN article linked above, namely

Houston is the adopted hometown of the president's father, former President Bush, and in discussing the threat posed by Saddam, the current president offered his staple list of complaints about Iraq's defiance of the United Nations and his contention that Iraq is working aggressively on chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. "This is a man who continually lies," Bush said.

Takes one to know one, eh?

Here's ABC News' link to the executive summary of the military study that the Bushies have now decided not to release after all...

update 26 March - the entire report (big *.pdf) has finally been released and is available here. The FAS also has an overview.

Tin-Foil Hat Alert!

Via Digby, we learned tonight that Bushco may be on the verge of firing CENTCOM commander Adm. William Fallon, replacing him with someone more 'attuned' to the Bushco world view. This is important as Adm. Fallon last year personally blocked the deployment of a third aircraft carrier group tp the Persian Gulf last summer, vowing

privately there would be no war against Iran as long as he was chief of CENTCOM, according to sources with access to his thinking.

& just in time for a new war w/Iran late September/early October, too. Hmmmmm...

update 26 March - Admiral Fallon is gone! Worse, Cheney was just in Saudi Arabia and now (22 March) we read:

RIYADH - The Saudi Shura council will secretly discuss national plans to deal with any sudden nuclear and radioactive hazards that may affect the kingdom following experts’ warnings of possible attacks on Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactors, media reports said Saturday.

The Saudi-based King Abdul-Aziz City for Science and Technology has prepared a proposal that encapsulates the probabilities of leaking nuclear and radiation hazards in case of any unexpected nuclear attacks in Iran, the Okaz Saudi newspaper said.

The Saudi Shura or consultative council plans to debate the proposal on Sunday.

The power plants in the south-western Iranian port of Bushehr were built with German assistance in 1974 and resumed with Russian aid in 1992, after it had been stopped by the Islamic revolution.

Let The Markets Decide!

Or so 'they' say, as they warn you of the "evils" of socialism or of governmental regulation. So what if there's lead in the finishes on your children's toys, melamine in your cat's food, ethylene glycol in your cough medicine instead of propylene glycol or major explosions because of unsafe practices at your place of work. It's the "free market" and only the "free market" that will keep you safe. Funny thing about that socialism, however, certain types like single-payer healthcare or public highways, that sort of socialism is anathema to the ruling class but government-bailouts of for greedy, foolish investors? No problem at all - the motto of the capitalists these last twenty years or so? Privatize the profits, socialize the risk. Once upon a time the whole reason for the corporation/investor making profits was justified by the corporation/investor taking on the risks of a particular investment, but not anymore. Just look at the current housing bubble crisis: not only was Bank Of America looking for a $740,000,000,000 bailout last week, today I read Treasury Secretary Ben Bernanke asking for the same thing only bigger.
What got me to thinking about this was a post at Corrente called "Mailing in the keys to my citizenship" which in turn was inspired by a post at Scriptoids. Normally I won't quote so much of another's, but this was too good to pass up. From Scriptoids a reminder of some of the recent "free market" bailouts -

* US Federal Reserve and Treasury relief package to Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil during their debt crises (1982-1992)
* $4 billion Federal Reserve, Treasury, and FDIC rescue package for the Continental Illinois Bank (1984)
* $250 billion bailout of hundreds of mismanaged/insolvent Savings and Loans (1989-1992)
* $4 billion bailout of the Bank of New England plus government help in infusing Saudi money into Citibank (1990-1992)
* US Treasury-arranged rescue of the Mexican peso in support of US investors in high-yield Mexican debt (1994-1995)
* Asian currency bailout, in which the US government pressured the International Monetary Fund to rescue East Asian currencies to save American and other lenders (1997)
* Greenspan-arranged bailout of the shaky Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund (1998)
* Y2K Federal Reserve liquidity extravaganza, which helps to inflate the final Nasdaq bubble (1999)
* Federal Reserve interest rates cuts, reaching nearly 50-year lows, to reflate US financial and real estate assets (2001-2005)

The bailouts and rescues are bad enough, but it’s the unabashed and unhinged free market/deregulation boosterism that sends me into a rage. Like nobody knows the game is rigged, and who’s always on the losing side. There are days when I really do feel like mailing in the keys of my citizenship.

Just how dependent is the moneyed class on keeping "we, the sheeple" ignorant and uninformed on recent history? Isn't it about goddamned time to start coupling the rhetoric of the moneyed class to the actual deeds of the moneyed class? Remember, much of the current housing bubble would not exist if Glass-Steagall Act has not been repealed thereby allowing commercial banks into the retail banking sector and thus enabling the perils of structured-finance to enter the housing markets? And "we, the people" are going to bail the financial sector out, the same sector that for years has been paying millions to their executives and their buddies? Reprehensible.

Deja Vu, All Over Again

Where were we last time? A temporary blocking of the PAA Extension w/retroactive immunity for the telcos in the Senate. Since then, the Senate once again caved to the Bushies' demands for unchecked surveillance authority and passed the permanent extension w/the retroactive immunity 12 February and it was expected the House would soon follow suit. Yet 14 February the House blocked a 21-day extension (w/o the retroactive immunity) which GW had already promised to veto (because of the missing retroactive immunity) and did not work on the Senate version (w/) before they adjourned. All of a sudden we're greeted with shouts of "OMG, We're all gonna dieee" and such because GW's authorization to spy illegally would expire at 12 midnight 16 February. Glenn Greenwald had a good report on this fear-mongering including a discussion of the Heritage Foundation's 'countdown to doomsday' clock.
Let's recap - back in 1978 a law was passed & signed called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that for the first time spelled out the precise requirements for intelligence wiretap procedures. This was needed as all sorts of abuses had previously been instituted in the name of 'national security', including the COINTELPRO program and Hoover's surveillance of MLK. Warrantless spying on foreign->foreign communications was made legal. Warrants would be required, however, for foreign->domestic, domestic->foreign and of course domestic->domestic eavesdropping yet the warrants themselves could be retroactive and would come through a series of secret FISA courts who, out of thousands of warrant requests since 1979, have only denied 5. The Protect America Act was a bill legalizing GW's abuse of the FISA act. it was rammed through the House and Senate last August with claims (later retracted) of an 'impending terrorist attack' that only be 'thwarted' by retroactive immunity for the Bushies' warrantless wiretapping program that had been in place since February 2001 but only revealed summer 2008. The law did not include retroactive immunity for the telcos and was set to expire in 180 days (since extended to 17 February 2008). If these extralegal powers were all that important why did GW promise to veto a permanent extension w/o retroactive telco immunity and why did the House Rethugs block any temporary extension? It's not exactly as if GW is being honest on who is being spied on, indeed, any inquiry by the congress or the courts is immediately blocked with claims of state secrets or by plaintiffs lack of standing due to an inability on the plaintiffs part to prove they are actually being spied on. Indeed, the only possibility we, the people, will find out who the Bushies have been spying on is discovery in several lawsuits filed against various telecommunications companies who illegally spied for the Bushies, lawsuits that will be thrown out when/if the retroactive telco immunity becomes law. GW claims these lawsuits will bankrupt the multi-billion dollar telco industry yet the lead lawyers in these lawsuits are with the EFF & the ACLU. organizations not usually in the top ten list of moneygrubbers. GW claims this retroactive immunity is essential for the continued cooperation of the telcos, yet we have seen what happens when the FBI doesn't pay their bills. What is it Mr. Bush - protection for the American people or protection for you & your cronies from the American people?

Update 29 February - Acording to Glenn Greenwald, looks like Lil' Boots screwed up and told the truth during his press conference yesterday:

Allowing the lawsuits to proceed could aid our enemies, because the litigation process could lead to the disclosure of information about how we conduct surveillance.

(Is it respomsible to speculate? Methinks 'tis irresposible not too so, my thoughts-) i.e. that we've been spying on domestic political opponents, industrial espionage on behalf of our supporters against their less-generous competitors.
Please read the rest (after the short ad), he writes better than I

No Immunity For Telcos (Nor For Bushco) Yet

The Bushies have been wiretapping every single packet on the internet, not to mention all other forms of electronic communication, since on or thereabouts 27 February 2001, over 8 months before the WTC 9/11 attacks, and they've been doing this spying w/o warrants as well, contrary to FISA at the time and contrary to the 4^th amendment as well. That's not an opinion, that is a fact and if you disagree, you simply haven't been paying attention. Last August just prior to the traditional August congressional recess the Democratic majority was railroaded into passing the Protect America Act of 2007 (don'cha just love those Bush euphemisms?) which legalized what the Bushies had been doing all along & progressives like myself were once again disgusted that the new Democratic majority would cave once again so easily to fear mongering and other garbage. (Ohh, those scary Moooooslims are gonna kill us all!). Fortunately the bill that was passed and signed was 1) only for a 6-month extension and 2) did not include retroactive immunity for the telcos meaning civil lawsuits against the telcos could proceed. The reason these civil suits are important has nothing to do with financial damages per se, their importance is that in light of all the presidential stonewalling (executive privilege, state secrets), these lawsuits are the only way any information about these illegal & unconstitutional spying programs will come to light.

Bush has been demanding a permanent extension to these wiretapping/spying rules and retroactive amnesty for the telcos as well. This of course would throw out any and all lawsuits against these the telcos meaning the plaintiffs would automatically lose any and all rights of discovery as well, meaning Bush, Cheney & all their minions would escape any liability as well for their illegal spying as all information would be hidden. The Democrats were expected to cave again on another extension + retroactive amnesty for the telcos but apparently Mitch McConnell pushed a little too hard and today, the Democrats in the Senate stood up to the Republican's filibuster tactics and refused to vote for cloture which in effect scuttled the retroactive amnesty for the telcos along with the PAA extension. Furthermore McConnell managed to scuttle any PAA extension at all, at least for now, meaning Bush's warrantless spying will once again be illegal as of 01 February 2008. 44 Dems and 1 Rethug, Spector, voted against cloture. TPM has a brief summary of what happened plus lots of other articles (please search their site) about FISA. No, the issue is not over, but dollars to doughnuts, tonight in GW's SOTU address, we'll hear a line about how Democrats are freedom-hating terrorist-lovers who want a new terrorist attack against America. Also, McConnell blocked any short-term extension at this time to the PAA law, meaning FISA reverts to the existing rules as of 01 February 2008.

Wow, 44 Democrats (& 1 Republican, Spector) stood up for the Constitution. Please note the 4 "Democrats" who did not:

Mark Pryor (D-AR)
Ben Nelson (D-NE)
Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
Mary Landrieu (D-LA)

these sorry-ass folks need another job!

Why Financial Crises Will Keep Happening

Ian Welsh made a point back on 6 January 2008, one that I seem to agree with - Once upon a time, the United States had a tax code that would whack one with an income level above a certain amount at a rate of 90%; there were scandals and ripoffs to be sure (Billie Sol Estes or Robert Vesco anyone?), yet for the most part major financial scandals after 1940 in my opinion were local and contained, restricted to either individuals or small groups, not on a national scale like today. While this upper bracket tax rate had been fiddled with in the the intervening years, it wasn't until Saint Ronald that this upper tax rate declined from (then) 70% to 28% (Reaganomics. scroll down a little) - all of a sudden we get the S&L scandal, BCCI, the dot.com bubble, and now, the mortgage bubble. Funny. do you think these "bubbles" are a coincidence that the folks that took home the money (loot) were taxed on it from 10% (dividends) to 28% max, do ya think that maybe that's why these 'bubbles' occurred in the first place? Well? I quote Ian -

What would you do, or rather, what wouldn't you do, if you knew that by working hard for five years you'd have enough money that you need never, ever, work again for the rest of your life? Not just that, but for most executives, you would be rich. Want a house on the Riviera? Want to spend the rest of your life traveling? Have a hobby? Whatever it is, you'll be able to indulge it, because you'll be rich and money is freedom.

So even if, in the end, Merrill Lynch was going to be stuck with a bunch of bad debt, or Citigroup was going to have problems, why should you give a damn? Making record profits for a few years allows you pay yourself, or to be awarded commissions and bonuses, that add up to more money than a normal person earns in 45 years.

From the perspective of self-interest you'd have to be a fool not to do it. And for most people, even some CEOs, even if you don't like it you'd still be a fool not to do it, because if you opt out, someone else will just take your place, run the scams and reap the windfall of ill-gotten gains.

What Really Protects Your Privacy?

Let's say the government wants to spy on you but doesn't care to 'bother' with a warrant. What protects you from them? The laws? The courts? Privacy agreements with your telco? Guess again - How about the government not paying their bills?

Yikes.

Update 26 February - fixed link

Sibel Edmonds Speaks!

I hate wearing the tinfoil hat, but any sane person who has been paying attention knows that there have been strange doings afoot in these United States for quite some time. Starting around the time of the original 'October Surprise' (1980), next came Iran-Contra & the rise of the cocaine trade by our Contra 'allies', the demise of BCCI, the S&L debacle, strange doings in Panama around 1989, the 9/11 attacks, the anthrax attacks, the lead-up to the illegal war in Iraq, the authorized use of torture by the United States government - all these things have received lengthy 'investigations' but never do we the people get the honest truth behind these shady dealings, these 'investigations' always somehow peter out before the entire truth and precise range of complicity is publicly revealed. We do not even have the precise membership nor plan of action from Cheney's energy task force meetings in the spring of 2001. You may quibble with the details but no sane honest person can truthfully deny that serious details from all these 'investigations' are seriously lacking, and I'm not about to discuss the massive spying on United States' citizens by the Bushies.

Sibel Edmonds was hired by the FBI to translate secret intercepts 20 September 2001. She is fluent in Turkish, Persian and Azeri. She was fired by the FBI 22 March 2002 for (official) reasons unknown but she had complained repeatedly to her superiors that the intercepts she was translating involved massive bribes to US government officials, evidence of moles & spies throughout the state, defense & justice departments, evidence of government (US, Turkey & others) involvement, and transfer of US nuclear secrets to the A.Q.Khan network in Pakistan, the nice guys who supplied North Korea, Pakistan, Iran & Libyan nuclear weapons programs. Her reward as a whistleblower was to be slapped with a State Secrets Privilege gag order that prohibits her from speaking this information. She has tried many times to get a public hearing on this information but she has met with a strangely reticent Democratic congress, despite promises to the contrary, even Congressman Waxman has been unwilling to hear her testimony. (Remember Valerie Plame Wilson? She and her front company Brewster-Jennings were working on nuclear weapons proliferation in that very same region when she was outed by Armitage & Rove on the presumed instructions of Cheney - oops! Yet another incomplete investigation)

Ms. Edmonds finally published part of her story in the UK Timesonline 06 January 2008 which you can read here. There is also useful commentary & names named at Let Sibel Edmonds Speak, The Brad Blog & Antiwar.com among others and the list is certain to grow. I f you are interested in this topic may I recommend you view & possibly print these links as I am not certain exactly how long these links will be live. I will not attempt to quote or paraphrase, there's just too much information there.

Welcome to the future - flying cars my ass...

Update 10 January 2008
Tin foil hat mein arse - it's down the rabbit hole we go! Let's start with Chris Floyd's take on this in which he shows strong links between Sibel's stuff and our old friends at BCCI including links to both the Carter presidency (Bert Lance) and our old buddy Henry Kissinger. (Here (thanks to the FAS) is the entire unexpurgated Senator John Kerry's CFR report on BCCI circa December 1992)

Oh look, it's the White Rabbit and he's late! Time to go! I bring you AMERICAN JUDAS 2nd Edition, a well researched & linked post that ties in way too many elements, from AIPAC to Dick Cheney with a special bonus of the 9/11 conspiracy and its plotters, funders & links to the actual terrorists themselves...

Wouldn't you love to read the history books a hundred years from now? Let me leave you with a quote from the Let Sibel Edmonds Speak article -

"Let me repeat that for emphasis: The #3 guy at the State Dept (Mark Grossman) facilitated the immediate release of 9/11 suspects at the request of targets of the FBI's investigation." - "Sibel heard the targets tell Marc Grossman: 'We need to get them out of the US because we can't afford for them to spill the beans.' Grossman duly facilitated their release from jail and the suspects immediately left the country without further investigation or interrogation."

Oh, wait a minute - isn't it the liberal progressives like me who are supposed to hate America?

Update 18 January 2008
Some more info regarding the transfer of nuclear technology through Turkish & Pakistani companies. Still nothing in the United States press however...

Update 18 August 2008
Sibel Edmonds Case: FBI files "formal complaint" with Sunday Times at Daily Kos. Why do you suppose the FBI has a problem w/Ms. Edmunds talking to the London Times, eh? Might that be yet another indication that she might be telling the (inconvenient) truth?

Update 25 August 2008
bmaz at Marcie Wheeler's Emptywheel has a superb post up in which we learn, thanks to The New York Times & others, that

The president of Switzerland stepped to a podium in Bern last May and read a statement confirming rumors that had swirled through the capital for months. The government, he acknowledged, had indeed destroyed a huge trove of computer files and other material documenting the business dealings of a family of Swiss engineers suspected of helping smuggle nuclear technology to Libya and Iran.

The files were of particular interest not only to Swiss prosecutors but to international atomic inspectors working to unwind the activities of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani bomb pioneer-turned-nuclear black marketeer. The Swiss engineers, Friedrich Tinner and his two sons, were accused of having deep associations with Dr. Khan, acting as middlemen in his dealings with rogue nations seeking nuclear equipment and expertise.
...
The United States had urged that the files be destroyed, according to interviews with five current and former Bush administration officials. The purpose, the officials said, was less to thwart terrorists than to hide evidence of a clandestine relationship between the Tinners and the C.I.A.

I'm getting tired of updating this nightmare, when will it all end? In a giant smokin' crater?? The powers-that-be missed the powers & profits that came with the cold war so much they squandered their fellow citizens’ blood & treasure in order to create a new ‘cold war’.