The Pentagon and the National Rifle Association have a lot in common these days. They're in love with guns. They maintain powerful lobbies. They refuse to acknowledge the dangerous consequences of their policies.
And they're both on the defensive.
After yet another gun massacre over the weekend in Tucson, the NRA in particular has a lot to answer for. The shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), and the killing of six others, has again focused attention on how easy it is to buy guns and use them in this country.
The NRA has managed to survive attempted and successful assassinations of presidents, the horrifying school shootings at Columbine High School and Virginia Tech, and killing sprees in Omaha (2007), Binghamton (2009), and Appomattox (2010). So many rampages have taken place in shopping malls that trade groups held a conference a couple years ago on how to deal with them. So many workplace rampages have occurred -- eight dead this summer at a Manchester, Connecticut warehouse -- that the Labor Department has issued a fact sheet that cites, for instance, 421 workplace shooting deaths in 2008. Every year, nearly 100,000 Americans are shot and guns kill nearly 10,000 people, according to gun control advocates.
It's practically a war. Yet gun control is still a dirty word for many Americans. Despite a spate of shootings over the last two decades, support for stricter gun laws has declined from 78 percent in 1990 to only 44 percent in 2010. To be sure, the NRA will dig in its heels this time around as well to make sure that "the guys with the guns make the rules," as NRA head Wayne LaPierre phrased it in 2009.
The Pentagon, meanwhile, faces a similar public relations disaster. It's fighting two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and failing to achieve the stated objectives. The Taliban still controls large sections of Afghanistan. Iraq is a mess. Drone attacks in Pakistan have simply disturbed the hornet's nest.
~John FefferCo-director, Foreign Policy In Focus
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-feffer/gun-crazy-nra-and-pentago_b_807516.html
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Rep. Peter King Says American Muslims Aren’t ‘American’ When It Comes To War
Even though Muslims have cooperated with authorities in terrorist investigations, this REPUBLICAN Congressperson smears American Muslims on the radio. Such smears against Christians or Jews wouldn't be tolerated.
King’s assertion that American Muslims aren’t cooperating with authorities and that Muslim organizations in the U.S. aren’t denouncing terrorism is simply false. At an event sponsored by the Center for American Progress, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) reported that, “About a third of all foiled al-Qaida-related plots in the U.S. relied on support or information provided by members of the Muslim community.” Indeed, a Senagalese Muslim immigrant who works as a vendor in Times Square was the first to bring the smoking car that was part of the failed Times Square bombing plot to the police’s attention. And the father of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab — who failed in his attempt to blow up an airplane over Detroit last year — alerted U.S. authorities of his son’s “extreme radical views” months before he tried to carry out the attack.
Moreover, a study from Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy and the University of North Carolina found that “many mosque leaders had put significant effort into countering extremism by building youth programs, sponsoring antiviolence forums and scrutinizing teachers and texts.” “Muslim-American communities have been active in preventing radicalization,” said study co-author David Kurzman. “This is one reason that Muslim-American terrorism has resulted in fewer than three dozen of the 136,000 murders committed in the United States since 9/11.”
~ http://networkedblogs.com/cRYAJ
King’s assertion that American Muslims aren’t cooperating with authorities and that Muslim organizations in the U.S. aren’t denouncing terrorism is simply false. At an event sponsored by the Center for American Progress, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) reported that, “About a third of all foiled al-Qaida-related plots in the U.S. relied on support or information provided by members of the Muslim community.” Indeed, a Senagalese Muslim immigrant who works as a vendor in Times Square was the first to bring the smoking car that was part of the failed Times Square bombing plot to the police’s attention. And the father of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab — who failed in his attempt to blow up an airplane over Detroit last year — alerted U.S. authorities of his son’s “extreme radical views” months before he tried to carry out the attack.
Moreover, a study from Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy and the University of North Carolina found that “many mosque leaders had put significant effort into countering extremism by building youth programs, sponsoring antiviolence forums and scrutinizing teachers and texts.” “Muslim-American communities have been active in preventing radicalization,” said study co-author David Kurzman. “This is one reason that Muslim-American terrorism has resulted in fewer than three dozen of the 136,000 murders committed in the United States since 9/11.”
~ http://networkedblogs.com/cRYAJ
Sunday, January 9, 2011
It's Sunday and the FREE SPEECH continues
From Westboro Baptist Church:
"Your federal judge is dead and your (fag-promoting, baby-killing, proud-sinner) Congresswoman fights for her life. God is avenging Himself on this rebellious house! WBC prays for your destruction--more shooters, more dead carcasses piling up, young, old, leader and commoner--all. Your doom is upon you!"
Well, God Bless America!
"Your federal judge is dead and your (fag-promoting, baby-killing, proud-sinner) Congresswoman fights for her life. God is avenging Himself on this rebellious house! WBC prays for your destruction--more shooters, more dead carcasses piling up, young, old, leader and commoner--all. Your doom is upon you!"
Well, God Bless America!
Tee Partay Ain't Gonna Cool The Rhetoric
After all, the crazies out there are supposed to know it's only bullshit.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/01/tucson-tea-party-leader-we-wont-change-our-rhetoric-after-gifford-shooting.php?ref=fpi
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/01/tucson-tea-party-leader-we-wont-change-our-rhetoric-after-gifford-shooting.php?ref=fpi
Saturday, January 8, 2011
R/W Hate Rhetoric Comes Home To Roost
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was shot in the head Saturday when an assailant opened fire outside a grocery store during a meeting with constituents, killing six people and wounding 13 others.
Giffords was listed in critical condition -- the bullet went straight through her brain -- but the hospital said her outlook was "optimistic" and that she was responding to commands from doctors. The hospital said a 9-year-old child was among the killed, and a U.S. Marshal said a federal judge was also fatally shot in the attack.
Giffords spokesman C.J. Karamargin said three Giffords staffers were shot in the attack. One died, and the other two are expected to survive. Gabe Zimmerman, a former social worker who served as Giffords' director of community outreach, died.
~HuffPo
Gradually, over time, political rhetoric used by politicians and the media has become more inflamatory. The degree to which violent words and phrases are considered commonplace is striking. Candidates are "targeted". An opponent is "in the crosshairs". Liberals have to be "eliminated". Opponents are "enemies". This kind of language eminates largely from those who claim to defend American democracy against those who would destroy it, who are evil, and who want to "take away our freedoms".
Today we have seen the results of this rhetoric. Those with a megaphone, whether provided by public office or a media outlet, have responsibilities. They cannot avoid the consequences of their blatant efforts to inflame, anger, and outrage. We all know that there are unstable and potentially dangerous people among us. To repeatedly appeal to their basest instincts is to invite and welcome their predictable violence.
So long as we all tolerate this kind of irresponsible and dangerous rhetoric or, in the case of some commentators, treat it with delight, reward it, and consider it cute, so long will we place all those in public life, whom the provocateurs dislike, in the crosshairs of danger.
~Gary Hart
I'm not saying that putting a bullseye on Arizona Democrat Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' congressional race - as Sarah Palin did - was an explicit or intentional invitation to violence. Nor am I saying that the "Get on Target for Victory" events held by the guy Giffords beat - "Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly" - was the reason her assassin went after her. This tragedy is still unfolding, and the questions of motive and incitement will be argued about for a long time to come.
But I am saying that the "lock and load"/"take up your arms" rhetoric of American politics isn't just an overheated metaphor. For years, the language of sports has dominated political journalism, and discourse about hardball and the horserace and the rest of the macho athletic lexicon has been a factor in the trivialization of our public sphere. This has helped dumb down democracy, making a serious national discussion about anything important too wonky for words.
The "second amendment solution," though, does something worse than make politics a branch of entertainment. It makes it a blood sport. I know politics ain't beanbag. But words have consequences, rhetoric shapes reality, and much as we like to believe that we are creatures of reason, there is something about our species' limbic system and lizard brainstems that makes us susceptible to irrational fantasies.
~Marty Kaplan
Giffords was listed in critical condition -- the bullet went straight through her brain -- but the hospital said her outlook was "optimistic" and that she was responding to commands from doctors. The hospital said a 9-year-old child was among the killed, and a U.S. Marshal said a federal judge was also fatally shot in the attack.
Giffords spokesman C.J. Karamargin said three Giffords staffers were shot in the attack. One died, and the other two are expected to survive. Gabe Zimmerman, a former social worker who served as Giffords' director of community outreach, died.
~HuffPo
Gradually, over time, political rhetoric used by politicians and the media has become more inflamatory. The degree to which violent words and phrases are considered commonplace is striking. Candidates are "targeted". An opponent is "in the crosshairs". Liberals have to be "eliminated". Opponents are "enemies". This kind of language eminates largely from those who claim to defend American democracy against those who would destroy it, who are evil, and who want to "take away our freedoms".
Today we have seen the results of this rhetoric. Those with a megaphone, whether provided by public office or a media outlet, have responsibilities. They cannot avoid the consequences of their blatant efforts to inflame, anger, and outrage. We all know that there are unstable and potentially dangerous people among us. To repeatedly appeal to their basest instincts is to invite and welcome their predictable violence.
So long as we all tolerate this kind of irresponsible and dangerous rhetoric or, in the case of some commentators, treat it with delight, reward it, and consider it cute, so long will we place all those in public life, whom the provocateurs dislike, in the crosshairs of danger.
~Gary Hart
I'm not saying that putting a bullseye on Arizona Democrat Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' congressional race - as Sarah Palin did - was an explicit or intentional invitation to violence. Nor am I saying that the "Get on Target for Victory" events held by the guy Giffords beat - "Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly" - was the reason her assassin went after her. This tragedy is still unfolding, and the questions of motive and incitement will be argued about for a long time to come.
But I am saying that the "lock and load"/"take up your arms" rhetoric of American politics isn't just an overheated metaphor. For years, the language of sports has dominated political journalism, and discourse about hardball and the horserace and the rest of the macho athletic lexicon has been a factor in the trivialization of our public sphere. This has helped dumb down democracy, making a serious national discussion about anything important too wonky for words.
The "second amendment solution," though, does something worse than make politics a branch of entertainment. It makes it a blood sport. I know politics ain't beanbag. But words have consequences, rhetoric shapes reality, and much as we like to believe that we are creatures of reason, there is something about our species' limbic system and lizard brainstems that makes us susceptible to irrational fantasies.
~Marty Kaplan
Friday, January 7, 2011
Republicans 'r Backpedaling and Teebaggers 'r Mad!
(NEWSER) – Well, that was fast. Republicans are already backpedaling on a number of provisions of their “Pledge to America,” including promises to cut spending and reform Congressional rules. The GOP had railed against Democrats’ strong-arm legislative tactics, pledging to send all bills through a full committee process and to “let any lawmaker—Democrat or Republican—offer amendments.” Yet with its very first act—health care reform repeal—it will break both pledges, Politico reports.
Republicans also haven’t put the constitutional citations they promised on any early bills, though they say they may add them later when the bill hits the floor. The GOP has also ditched a promise to publicly reveal who attends committee meetings, something that could be used against reps who play hooky. Oh, and that pledge to cut $100 billion in spending in the first year? They’ve admitted that’s not actually feasible, the AP reports, thanks to the vagaries of the budget cycle.
http://www.newser.com/story/109142/gop-already-breaking-campaign-promises.html
Republican leaders are already on thin ice with Tea Party leaders before their incoming majority even takes the oath of office. Activists are upset that various GOP lawmakers cut deals with Democrats on tax cuts, an arms-control treaty with Russia, the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, and a bill providing health care to 9/11 first responders rather than fight Democrats to the end. "Do I think they've recognized what happened on Election Day? I would say decisively no," Mark Meckler, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots told The New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/us/politics/02teaparty.html?_r=2&src=twt&twt=nytimespolitics
I tried to warn teebaggers. But did they listen to me? Nooooooooo. Gotta find out for themselves, I guess:
Texas Tee Partay Voters In For A Shock!
http://politicsoflies.blogspot.com/2010/12/texas-tee-partay-voters-in-for-shock.html
Republicans also haven’t put the constitutional citations they promised on any early bills, though they say they may add them later when the bill hits the floor. The GOP has also ditched a promise to publicly reveal who attends committee meetings, something that could be used against reps who play hooky. Oh, and that pledge to cut $100 billion in spending in the first year? They’ve admitted that’s not actually feasible, the AP reports, thanks to the vagaries of the budget cycle.
http://www.newser.com/story/109142/gop-already-breaking-campaign-promises.html
Republican leaders are already on thin ice with Tea Party leaders before their incoming majority even takes the oath of office. Activists are upset that various GOP lawmakers cut deals with Democrats on tax cuts, an arms-control treaty with Russia, the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, and a bill providing health care to 9/11 first responders rather than fight Democrats to the end. "Do I think they've recognized what happened on Election Day? I would say decisively no," Mark Meckler, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots told The New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/us/politics/02teaparty.html?_r=2&src=twt&twt=nytimespolitics
I tried to warn teebaggers. But did they listen to me? Nooooooooo. Gotta find out for themselves, I guess:
Texas Tee Partay Voters In For A Shock!
http://politicsoflies.blogspot.com/2010/12/texas-tee-partay-voters-in-for-shock.html
Job Growth Worse Than Expected.. But Companies Primed For Record Profits
With all the bullshit from Republicans about how we gotta help the 'job creators' to create jobs with all kind of financial gifts from American taxpayers, all I gotta say is that these 'job creators' are taking the help but they don't create jobs.
Even as unemployment remains high and Americans' finances slowly mend, big companies may be set for their most profitable fourth quarter on record.
Profits at S&P 500 companies are expected to have increased 20 percent between October and December, Bloomberg News reports. It would make for the best fourth quarter since Bloomberg started keeping records in 1992.
Companies benefited from stimulative government policy, but they also made money the old-fashioned way. Consumer spending, which constitutes about 70 percent of the nation's economic activity, helped boost profits,Bloomberg says, noting that estimated net income at Apple, one of the quarter's best performers, rose 47 percent last quarter. As demand for its products grew, Apple became the world's second most valuable company.
Big companies got a boost from rock-bottom interest rates, which have allowed them to hoard cash rather than use it to add jobs. In the third quarter, the most recent period for which such data are available, companies increased theircash holdings 7.3 percent, hitting a new record of $1.9 trillion in liquid assets. Relative to their short-term liabilities, U.S. companies haven't been this flush since 1956.
The jobless rate last year, meanwhile, hasn't been this high for nearly three decades.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/07/companies-profit_n_805696.html
Tax incentives to 'job creators' doesn't seem to create jobs. Consumer demand will create jobs. So, you tell me where the tax incentives should go. It's a no-brainer.
Even as unemployment remains high and Americans' finances slowly mend, big companies may be set for their most profitable fourth quarter on record.
Profits at S&P 500 companies are expected to have increased 20 percent between October and December, Bloomberg News reports. It would make for the best fourth quarter since Bloomberg started keeping records in 1992.
Companies benefited from stimulative government policy, but they also made money the old-fashioned way. Consumer spending, which constitutes about 70 percent of the nation's economic activity, helped boost profits,Bloomberg says, noting that estimated net income at Apple, one of the quarter's best performers, rose 47 percent last quarter. As demand for its products grew, Apple became the world's second most valuable company.
Big companies got a boost from rock-bottom interest rates, which have allowed them to hoard cash rather than use it to add jobs. In the third quarter, the most recent period for which such data are available, companies increased theircash holdings 7.3 percent, hitting a new record of $1.9 trillion in liquid assets. Relative to their short-term liabilities, U.S. companies haven't been this flush since 1956.
The jobless rate last year, meanwhile, hasn't been this high for nearly three decades.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/07/companies-profit_n_805696.html
Tax incentives to 'job creators' doesn't seem to create jobs. Consumer demand will create jobs. So, you tell me where the tax incentives should go. It's a no-brainer.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
The World is Flat: GOP Kills Climate Change Committee
Good-bye clean energy jobs. It was nice thinking about you. Good-bye stabilization of the global climate. Good-bye science. The corporate funded science-denier wolves hiding beneath witch hunters’ robes are back.
Politics USA
Politics USA
Today's Reading From AlterNet
Needed: A 12-Step Program for the Warmongers -- The Pentagon Been Hooked on Empire for 30 Years
If, as 2011 begins, you want to peer into the future, enter my time machine, strap yourself in, and head for the past, that laboratory for all developments of our moment and beyond.
Just as 2010 ended, the American military’s urge to surge resurfaced in a significant way. It seems that “leaders” in the Obama administration and “senior American military commanders” in Afghanistan were acting as a veritable WikiLeaks machine. They slipped information to New York Times reporters Mark Mazzetti and Dexter Filkins about secret planning to increase pressure in the Pakistani tribal borderlands, possibly on the tinderbox province of Baluchistan, and undoubtedly on the Pakistani government and military via cross-border raids by U.S. Special Operations forces in the new year.
In the front-page story those two reporters produced, you could practically slice with a dull knife American military frustration over a war going terribly wrong, over an enemy (shades of Vietnam!) with “sanctuaries” for rest, recuperation, and rearming just over an ill-marked, half-existent border. You could practically taste the chagrin of the military that their war against... well you name it: terrorists, guerrillas, former Islamic fundamentalist allies, Afghan and Pakistani nationalists, and god knows who else... wasn’t proceeding exactly swimmingly. You could practically reach out and be seared by their anger at the Pakistanis for continuing to take American bucks by the billions while playing their own game, rather than an American one, in the region.
If you were of a certain age, you could practically feel (shades of Vietnam again!) that eerily hopeful sense that the next step in spreading the war, the next escalation, could be the decisive one. Admittedly, these days no one talks (as they did in the Vietnam and Iraq years) about turning “corners” or reaching “tipping points,” but you can practically hear those phrases anyway, or at least the mingled hope and desperation that always lurked behind them.
The GOP Is Spreading a Big Fat Lie About the Economy -- We Need Obama to Put an End to It
Republicans are telling Americans a Big Lie, and Obama and the Democrats are letting them. The Big Lie is our economic problems are due to a government that’s too large, and therefore the solution is to shrink it.
The truth is our economic problems stem from the biggest concentration of income and wealth at the top since 1928, combined with stagnant incomes for most of the rest of us. The result: Americans no longer have the purchasing power to keep the economy going at full capacity. Since the debt bubble burst, most Americans have had to reduce their spending; they need to repay their debts, can’t borrow as before, and must save for retirement.
The short-term solution is for government to counteract this shortfall by spending more, not less. The long-term solution is to spread the benefits of economic growth more widely (for example, through a more progressive income tax, a larger EITC, an exemption on the first $20K of income from payroll taxes and application of payroll taxes to incomes over $250K, stronger unions, and more and better investments in education and infrastructure.)
But instead of telling the truth, Obama has legitimized the Big Lie by freezing non-defense discretionary spending, freezing federal pay, touting his deficit commission co-chairs’ recommended $3 of spending cuts for every dollar of tax increase, and agreeing to extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.
Will Obama stand up to the Big Lie?
Republicans' Radical Plans for Budget Could Threaten the Economic Security of Millions
Through new budget rules that are expected to pass on a party-line vote in the House this week, and an upcoming battle over raising the government's “debt ceiling,” the new Republican leadership is preparing to codify a discredited far-right economic agenda into law, forcing deep cuts to public spending at precisely the moment when the economy needs that spending to build momentum.
If the GOP wins the very public fights to come over the next year, it'll deliver a grievous dose of anti-stimulus to our painfully ailing economy. What's more, after a campaign season of fear-mongering about the federal government's budget picture and shrill calls for greater transparency in Congress, if they have their way, the Tea Party Republicans in the House will institute rules that would allow them to run up massive piles of new debt, with at best limited public debate.
It'll be up to us to make sure President Obama and Senate Dems don't cave before the onslaught to come.
www.alternet.com
If, as 2011 begins, you want to peer into the future, enter my time machine, strap yourself in, and head for the past, that laboratory for all developments of our moment and beyond.
Just as 2010 ended, the American military’s urge to surge resurfaced in a significant way. It seems that “leaders” in the Obama administration and “senior American military commanders” in Afghanistan were acting as a veritable WikiLeaks machine. They slipped information to New York Times reporters Mark Mazzetti and Dexter Filkins about secret planning to increase pressure in the Pakistani tribal borderlands, possibly on the tinderbox province of Baluchistan, and undoubtedly on the Pakistani government and military via cross-border raids by U.S. Special Operations forces in the new year.
In the front-page story those two reporters produced, you could practically slice with a dull knife American military frustration over a war going terribly wrong, over an enemy (shades of Vietnam!) with “sanctuaries” for rest, recuperation, and rearming just over an ill-marked, half-existent border. You could practically taste the chagrin of the military that their war against... well you name it: terrorists, guerrillas, former Islamic fundamentalist allies, Afghan and Pakistani nationalists, and god knows who else... wasn’t proceeding exactly swimmingly. You could practically reach out and be seared by their anger at the Pakistanis for continuing to take American bucks by the billions while playing their own game, rather than an American one, in the region.
If you were of a certain age, you could practically feel (shades of Vietnam again!) that eerily hopeful sense that the next step in spreading the war, the next escalation, could be the decisive one. Admittedly, these days no one talks (as they did in the Vietnam and Iraq years) about turning “corners” or reaching “tipping points,” but you can practically hear those phrases anyway, or at least the mingled hope and desperation that always lurked behind them.
The GOP Is Spreading a Big Fat Lie About the Economy -- We Need Obama to Put an End to It
Republicans are telling Americans a Big Lie, and Obama and the Democrats are letting them. The Big Lie is our economic problems are due to a government that’s too large, and therefore the solution is to shrink it.
The truth is our economic problems stem from the biggest concentration of income and wealth at the top since 1928, combined with stagnant incomes for most of the rest of us. The result: Americans no longer have the purchasing power to keep the economy going at full capacity. Since the debt bubble burst, most Americans have had to reduce their spending; they need to repay their debts, can’t borrow as before, and must save for retirement.
The short-term solution is for government to counteract this shortfall by spending more, not less. The long-term solution is to spread the benefits of economic growth more widely (for example, through a more progressive income tax, a larger EITC, an exemption on the first $20K of income from payroll taxes and application of payroll taxes to incomes over $250K, stronger unions, and more and better investments in education and infrastructure.)
But instead of telling the truth, Obama has legitimized the Big Lie by freezing non-defense discretionary spending, freezing federal pay, touting his deficit commission co-chairs’ recommended $3 of spending cuts for every dollar of tax increase, and agreeing to extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.
Will Obama stand up to the Big Lie?
Republicans' Radical Plans for Budget Could Threaten the Economic Security of Millions
Through new budget rules that are expected to pass on a party-line vote in the House this week, and an upcoming battle over raising the government's “debt ceiling,” the new Republican leadership is preparing to codify a discredited far-right economic agenda into law, forcing deep cuts to public spending at precisely the moment when the economy needs that spending to build momentum.
If the GOP wins the very public fights to come over the next year, it'll deliver a grievous dose of anti-stimulus to our painfully ailing economy. What's more, after a campaign season of fear-mongering about the federal government's budget picture and shrill calls for greater transparency in Congress, if they have their way, the Tea Party Republicans in the House will institute rules that would allow them to run up massive piles of new debt, with at best limited public debate.
It'll be up to us to make sure President Obama and Senate Dems don't cave before the onslaught to come.
www.alternet.com
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Monday, January 3, 2011
Out of Lehman's Ashes Wall Street Gets Most of What It Wants
Wall Street’s biggest banks, whose missteps caused a global financial crisis and economic slowdown two years ago, were more agile when it came to countering the political and regulatory response.
The U.S. government, promising to make the system safer, buckled under many of the financial industry’s protests. Lawmakers spurned changes that would wall off deposit-taking banks from riskier trading. They declined to limit the size of lenders or ban any form of derivatives. Higher capital and liquidity requirements agreed to by regulators worldwide have been delayed for years to aid economic recovery.
“We continue to listen to the same people whose errors in judgment were central to the problem,” said John Reed, 71, a former co-chief executive officer of Citigroup Inc., who estimated only 25 percent of needed changes have been enacted. “I’m astounded because we basically dropped the world’s biggest economy because of an error in bank management.”
The last two years have been the best ever for combined investment-banking and trading revenue at Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, 56, and his top deputies are in line to collect more than $100 million in delayed 2007 bonuses -- six months after paying $550 million to settle a fraud lawsuit related to the firm’s behavior that year. Citigroup, the bank that needed more taxpayer support than any other, has a balance sheet 14 percent bigger than it was four years ago.
Bloomberg.com
The U.S. government, promising to make the system safer, buckled under many of the financial industry’s protests. Lawmakers spurned changes that would wall off deposit-taking banks from riskier trading. They declined to limit the size of lenders or ban any form of derivatives. Higher capital and liquidity requirements agreed to by regulators worldwide have been delayed for years to aid economic recovery.
“We continue to listen to the same people whose errors in judgment were central to the problem,” said John Reed, 71, a former co-chief executive officer of Citigroup Inc., who estimated only 25 percent of needed changes have been enacted. “I’m astounded because we basically dropped the world’s biggest economy because of an error in bank management.”
The last two years have been the best ever for combined investment-banking and trading revenue at Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, 56, and his top deputies are in line to collect more than $100 million in delayed 2007 bonuses -- six months after paying $550 million to settle a fraud lawsuit related to the firm’s behavior that year. Citigroup, the bank that needed more taxpayer support than any other, has a balance sheet 14 percent bigger than it was four years ago.
Bloomberg.com
Faux Noise's Favorite Scandal To Return Bigtime!
Scary black man with weapon outside a polling place somewhere!!! It's a scandal!!! A "voter suppression" outrage!!! And Obama's scary black men are coming to get you next!!!
I don't care much about this silly story and, apparently, neither did any voters. Not a single one of them filed a complaint of "voter intimidation" during the 2008 "incident" captured on video for a minute or so outside a polling place in a largely minority area of Philadelphia and then played endlessly on Fox "News" ever since. Naturally, the footage is always accompanied by some sort of pretend "outrage" from the Fox host in each instance.
As the incident has even less relevance to the lives of Americans as the death of Natalie Holloway, we haven't covered it more than once or twice here, most recently last July when Washington Post Ombudsman Andrew Alexander took the bait in support of his paper's regard of the non-story as some sort of "political bombshell".
But, with the death-by-fake-scandal of ACORN, the Republicans need something on which to hang their fake, vaguely "voter fraud"-related, very much black people-related investigations in Congress as they take over the majority in the House. So, get used to it. We're all gonna be forced to hear about this silly story --- over and over again --- whether we like it or not, in the coming months (and, probably even years!) as the GOP hold hearings and "investigations" on this story, rather than on ones which actually matter.
So to that end, if you're not already familiar with the ridiculous "scandal" concerning the "intimidation" by two jackasses from the so-called "New Black Panther Party" at a polling place in 2008, Adam Serwer's summary at WaPo today (of all places) has you covered. He's even honest enough to take his paper on directly for the ink they continue to give to the non-story courtesy of their Rightwing columnist (one of many) Jennifer Rubin.
Gosh, I wonder if, when the GOP hold their hearings on "voter intimidation" at the polling place, they'll also be demanding that Eric Holder prosecute this guy as well. Somehow, I'm doubting it.
The Brad Blog
How the status quo media failed on climate change
The Washington Post has one of the best, short analyses of the climate bill’s death that I’ve seen in the status quo media. In the print edition, it’s titled “How Washington failed on climate change.”
The author, Stephen Stromberg, gets two thirds of the main blame about right. First, he notes, “With few exceptions, Republicans have behaved shamefully on climate issues in this Congress, opposing policies that their party embraced in the 1990s (think cap-and-trade). Yet none of them will pay a price in November, and many GOP challengers will benefit.” Second, he makes a good case that “The president had the political capital and the numbers in Congress to pass something big. He chose health care” over climate.
The irony is that Stomborg is “Deputy opinions editor of washingtonpost.com,” and he is strangely silent on the role of the media, which I think deserves much more blame than Obama (but less than the GOP). The dreadful media coverage simply creates little space for rational public discourse. The media has for a long time downplayed the importance of the issue, miscovered key aspects of the debate, given equal time to pro-pollution disinformers, and generally failed to inform the public. And the Washington Post itself is worse than most, which is why it won the 2009 “Citizen Kane” award for non-excellence in climate journalism.
Human civilization is on the precipice
This week marks the one-year anniversary of what the anti-science crowd successfully labeled ‘Climategate’. The media will be doing countless retrospectives, most of which will be wasted ink, like the Guardian’s piece — focusing on climate scientists at the expense of climate science, which is precisely the kind of miscoverage that has been going on for the whole year!
I’ll save that my media critiques for Part 2, since I think that Climategate’s biggest impact was probably on the media, continuing their downward trend of focusing on style over substance, of missing the story of the century, if not the millennia.
The last year or so has seen more scientific papers and presentations that raise the genuine prospect of catastrophe (if we stay on our current emissions path) that I can recall seeing in any other year.
Perhaps the media would have ignored that science anyway, but Climategate appears to be a key reason “less than 10 percent of the news articles written about last year’s climate summit in Copenhagen dealt primarily with the science of climate change, a study showed on Monday.”
Polluter-funded Tea Party climate zombie astroturfing
Assuming we destroy a livable climate for our children and countless future generations, future historians (and our other billions of victims) will have many decades (if not centuries) of misery to contemplate why the richest country in the world, one built on scientific and technological ingenuity, refused to spend a small fraction of our wealth to avert multiple ever-worsening catastrophes that science projected we risk on our current emissions path (see “A stunning year in climate science reveals that human civilization is on the precipice” and “ Why even strong climate action has such a low total cost“).
They will no doubt study the failure of the Obama administration to seize the once-in-a-generation opportunity — the one brief shining moment where we had a Democratic president plus large majorities in the House and Senate (see “The failed presidency of Barack Obama, Part 2: He let die our best chance to preserve a livable climate and restore US leadership in clean energy — without a serious fight”). They’ll examine How the status quo media failed on climate change.
But ultimately, they will focus on the most successful and immoral disinformation campaign in human history — the anti-science, pro-pollution lies of the Merchants of Doubt. They will marvel at how that disinformation campaign captured an entire political party (see National Journal: “The GOP is stampeding toward an absolutist rejection of climate science that appears unmatched among major political parties around the globe, even conservative ones”).
Climate Progress
They will no doubt study the failure of the Obama administration to seize the once-in-a-generation opportunity — the one brief shining moment where we had a Democratic president plus large majorities in the House and Senate (see “The failed presidency of Barack Obama, Part 2: He let die our best chance to preserve a livable climate and restore US leadership in clean energy — without a serious fight”). They’ll examine How the status quo media failed on climate change.
But ultimately, they will focus on the most successful and immoral disinformation campaign in human history — the anti-science, pro-pollution lies of the Merchants of Doubt. They will marvel at how that disinformation campaign captured an entire political party (see National Journal: “The GOP is stampeding toward an absolutist rejection of climate science that appears unmatched among major political parties around the globe, even conservative ones”).
Climate Progress
South Korea tells Pyongyang door to dialogue open
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea said on Monday it was open to dialogue with Pyongyang if it was ready to dismantle its nuclear facilities, as the U.S. envoy for North Korea prepared to travel to the region to discuss how to reduce tensions.
North Korea has also signaled a willingness for dialogue after a year of confrontation that included the sinking of a South Korean ship in March, killing 46 sailors, a deadly exchange of artillery fire in November, and threats of war that rattled global markets.
But a breakthrough may prove elusive with both Seoul and Washington saying that before they head back to the negotiating table they want to see proof of North Korea's seriousness to eventually disarm -- something a number of analysts do not believe Pyongyang would ever do.
SKorean activists rally against NKorea near border
South Korean activists have rallied against North Korea near the heavily fortified border, burning placards with the images of North Korean leaders.
The activists criticized leader Kim Jong Il over North Korea's artillery attack on the South in November during a rally at the South Korean border town of Imjingak on Sunday.
The activists also unsuccessfully tried to launch thousands of propaganda leaflets by balloons toward North Korea. The balloons flew southward and burst in mid-air in a southern town before crossing the border because of strong winds.
The activists burned placards with the images of a North Korean national flag and the photos of Kim and his son and heir-apparent Kim Jong Un before flying the balloons.
AntiWar Newswire
The activists criticized leader Kim Jong Il over North Korea's artillery attack on the South in November during a rally at the South Korean border town of Imjingak on Sunday.
The activists also unsuccessfully tried to launch thousands of propaganda leaflets by balloons toward North Korea. The balloons flew southward and burst in mid-air in a southern town before crossing the border because of strong winds.
The activists burned placards with the images of a North Korean national flag and the photos of Kim and his son and heir-apparent Kim Jong Un before flying the balloons.
AntiWar Newswire
Most Americans say tax rich to balance budget: poll
(Reuters) - Most Americans think the United States should raise taxes for the rich to balance the budget, according to a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll released on Monday.
Sixty-one percent of Americans polled would rather see taxes for the wealthy increased as a first step to tackling the deficit, the poll showed.
The next most popular way -- chosen by 20 percent -- was to cut defense spending.
Four percent would cut the Medicare government health insurance program for the elderly, and 3 percent would cut the Social Security retirement program, the poll showed.
America in Decline: Why Germans Think We're Insane
The European Union has a larger economy and more people than America does. Though it spends less -- right around 9 percent of GNP on medical, whereas we in the U.S. spend close to between 15 to 16 percent of GNP on medical -- the EU pretty much insures 100 percent of its population.
The U.S. has 59 million people medically uninsured; 132 million without dental insurance; 60 million without paid sick leave; 40 million on food stamps. Everybody in the European Union has cradle-to-grave access to universal medical and a dental plan by law. The law also requires paid sick leave; paid annual leave; paid maternity leave. When you realize all of that, it becomes easy to understand why many Europeans think America has gone insane.
Der Spiegel has run an interesting feature called "A Superpower in Decline," which attempts to explain to a German audience such odd phenomena as the rise of the Tea Party, without the hedging or attempts at "balance" found in mainstream U.S. media. On the Tea Parties:
Full of Hatred: "The Tea Party, that group of white, older voters who claim that they want their country back, is angry. Fox News host Glenn Beck, a recovering alcoholic who likens Obama to Adolf Hitler, is angry. Beck doesn't quite know what he wants to be -- maybe a politician, maybe president, maybe a preacher -- and he doesn't know what he wants to do, either, or least he hasn't come up with any specific ideas or plans. But he is full of hatred."The piece continues with the sobering assessment that America’s actual unemployment rate isn’t really 10 percent, but close to 20 percent when we factor in the number of people who have stopped looking for work.
Some social scientists think that making sure large-scale crime or fascism never takes root in Europe again requires a taxpayer investment in a strong social safety net. Can we learn from Europe? Isn't it better to invest in a social safety net than in a large criminal justice system?
AlterNet
WikiLeaks: Israel Plans Total War on Lebanon, Gaza
The Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten has summarized an Israeli military briefing by Israeli Chief of Staff Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi of a US congressional delegation a little over a year ago and concludes that:
The memo on the talks between Ashkenazi and [Congressman Ike] Skelton, as well as numerous other documents from the same period of time, to which Aftenposten has gained access, leave a clear message: The Israeli military is forging ahead at full speed with preparations for a new war in the Middle East.The paper says that US cables quote Ashkenazi telling the US congressmen, "I'm preparing the Israeli army for a major war, since it is easier to scale down to a smaller operation than to do the opposite."
The new, major war will be a total war on civilians, Ashkenazi boasted: "In the next war Israel cannot accept any restrictions on warfare in urban areas." (I den neste krigen kan Israel ikke godta noen restriksjoner på krigforing i byområder in Norwegian, or let us just translate it into the original German: In den nächsten Krieg, den Israel kann keine Beschränkungen Kriegsführung in städtischen Gebieten.) Mind you, the civilian deaths deriving from this massive and unrestricted bombing campaign on targets in the midst of civilian urban populations will be "unintentional." Planning to bomb civilian areas with foreknowledge that you will thereby kill large numbers of civilians is a war crime.
Juan Cole
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)