Tidbits

Tom Tancredo, wingnut former Colorado congressman, says Obama withheld his long-form birth certificate as a strategy to make Republicans look bad. (Click here; HuffPo.) Tancredo has a long history of right-wing lunacy. Last October, he said Obama was a worse threat to the U.S. than al Qaeda.

Tancredo is joined in this belief by such Republican luminaries as Jonah Goldberg, Karl Rove, and Newt Gingrich.

Seriously? Obama and those scheming Dems are to blame for birthers' insanity?
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Click here for a HuffPo article about the over-the-top adulation of the media for George Bush eight years ago today over his "Mission Accomplished" carrier landing photo-op. Fawning admiration from Richard Perle, Chris Matthews, Gwen Ifill, Brian Williams, Bob Schieffer, Joe Klein, Elizabeth Bumiller, Michael Gordon, and Maureen Dowd. Dowd was being sarcastic with her reference to W as Maverick in Top Gun:

MAVERICK: What's your problem?

ICEMAN: Your ego's writing checks your body can't cash. You didn't need to take all that water survival training in the White House swimming pool. The Abraham Lincoln was practically docked, only 30 miles off shore, after 10 months at sea. They had to steer it away from land for you. If you'd waited a few hours, you could've just walked aboard. You and Rove are making a gorgeous campaign video on the Pacific to cast you as the warrior president for 2004, but back on shore, things are ugly. The California economy's bleeding, even worse than other states'. When you took office, the unemployment rate in San Jose was 1.7 percent; by February of this year, it had risen to 8.5 percent. Your motorcade didn't bother to stop in the depressed high-tech corridor in Silicon Valley. Every time you cut taxes and raise deficits while you're roaring ahead with a pre-emptive military policy, you're unsafe. National unemployment goes up to 6 percent and you just hammer Congress to pass your tax cut. The only guys sure about their jobs these days are defense contractors connected to Republicans and the Carlyle Group, which owns half of the defense plant you visited here. You're dangerous.

MAVERICK: That's right, Iceman. I am dangerous.

.... Like greed, aggression is good. Aggression has marked the upward surge of mankind. Aggression breeds patriotism, and patriotism curbs dissent. Aggression has made Democrats cower, the press purr and the world quake. Aggression -- you mark my words -- will not only save humanity, but it will soon color all the states Republican red. Mission accomplished.

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Montana GOP congressman Denny Rehberg told a town hall audience that he is "cash poor" and "struggling" as a small businessman; he says his wife, also a small businessman, hasn't taken a salary in ten years "as a result of business". Rehberg's 2009 net worth: $31 million.
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Medicare is forbidden by U.S. federal law to negotiate with drug companies for a lower price. Even though it could use its massive buying power as leverage, it is forced to pay market rates without negotiation.
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"Among OECD countries, the United States ranks second to last in social spending, ahead of only Turkey." (ThinkProgress)
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Laurence Lewis at Daily Kos:

This will be a shock to everyone, but in the 1970s The Donald's real estate company was sued by the federal government for discriminating against black renters. Three years after a settlement was reached, the government again had to step in because The Donald's real estate company wasn't holding up its end of the agreement.

General Jerry Boykin (USMC, ret.) as General Jack D. Ripper

Great mashup from David Niewert in an article entitled
Sarah Palin to share stage with Gen. Jerry 'Jack D. Ripper' Boykin at 'troop tribute', starring General Jack D. Ripper and General Jerry Boykin.

"'Former Alaska governor and vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin will be the keynote speaker for Tribute to the Troops, a military and veterans appreciation rally at Colorado Christian University on May 2, 2011.'

"Boykin will speak on 'Our Debt of Gratitude'. Not sure what that means -- but since it's coming from the guy who brought you both Abu Ghraib and Waco, it could be anything."

After giving a bit of information about Boykin's long, illustrious, and increasingly weird military career (click here for Wikipedia entry), Niewert says:

"Combined with Palin's presence ... well, let's just hope that the critical mass of wingnuttery coming together in one place like that doesn't open a hole in the space-time continuum."

The Birthers Roll On! Birth Certificate Debunked.

From Digby at Hullabaloo:






Gosh, if he's a graphic artist, I guess he must be right.

With the entire resources of the CIA at his disposal, you'd think Obama could have done a better forgery.

Lookin' Good!

I'd stay away from helicopters, if I were you.

Click here (WARNING: Some may find this picture offensive).

"Oh! what a tangled web we weave" (Sir Walter Scott)

Once upon a time ...

We used to be pretty confident that our news stories were at least reasonably truthful. We were always taught not to believe everything we read or heard; but the "mainstream media", though sometimes politically biased, were not straight-up lying.  If Noam Chomsky or William F. Buckley said something, you knew which political direction they were coming from and could make your judgement accordingly.

But it seems as though that was a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. Nowadays, you can never be sure that something you read or hear is not an out-and-out lie.

Two instructors at the University of Missouri at Kansas City -- Judy Ancel, Director of Labor Studies at UMKC, and David Giljum, business manager for the International Union of Operating Engineers in St. Louis, Missouri, gave a 30-hour course on labor studies, labor politics, and society. The course was taught through a video conference between two UMKC campuses.

Two short clips from the videos were posted, first on YouTube, and then on a major blog called Big Government by someone named "Publius". The title of the post was Union Official, Professor Teach How-to College Course in Violent Union Tactics. Part of Publius's text was:

"In the class, the Professors not only advocate the occasional need for violence and industrial sabotage, they outline specific tactics that can be used. As one of our colleagues pointed out, its the matter-of-factness of it all that is so disturbing.

"And yes, the schools, and the professors’ salaries, are funded by taxpayers."

Reporter Barb Shelly at The Kansas City Star compared the Big Government video clips to a transcript of the proceedings and wrote an article describing how she considered the videos to have been deceptively edited. In her article, she said:

"... the video skips among excerpted segments and places no value on context. The professors sound pretty far-out and irresponsible, but of course that’s the point."

Someone named "P.J. Salvatore" responded on Big Journalism, a sister blog of Big Government, with a posting entitled Kansas City Star Decides to Show Up for the Game, defending the Publius post and videos and essentially doubling down, saying at one point:

"The thought never occurs to Purely Partisan Shelly that the professors in the videos actually said the things they are saying."

Salvatore has a lot more, including discussion of the terms "excerpt", "edited", and "doctored". There is also reference to controversial videos posted on the Big Government site several months ago.

Two other major blogs, Crooks & Liars and Media Matters for America, got into the fray, siding with Shelly at The Star and condemning the videos as being deceptively edited.

The Crooks & Liars article by "karoli" excerpts a statement from Judy Ancel saying that the version presented by Publius is that “Violence is a tactic, and it’s to be used when it’s the appropriate tactic.”

"The real version", says Ancel:

"After students had watched a film on the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers’ Strike and the assassination of Martin Luther King, they were discussing nonviolence. I said, 'One guy in the film. . . said "violence is a tactic, and it’s to be used when it’s the appropriate tactic." . . . The class proceeded to discuss and debate this.'"

Ned Resnikoff at Media Matters says: "... they intentionally warped the meaning of Ancel and Giljum's words to score a cheap point."

Transcripts and videos compared after the jump.

2006 Guantanamo Triple "Suicide" Back In The News

On April 25, 2011, after the Wikileaks Guantanamo publication, the charming Michelle Malkin wrote a column entitled The Suicide Stunts At Gitmo Revisited. There you can link to three pieces Malkin wrote at the time: The Gitmo suicide was staged; The Gitmo suicide stunt; and Gitmo suicide pact, boo-freaking-hoo part deux. You can also click here for video of Michelle giving her opinion at the time.

Her "Suicide Stunts Revisited" post was in response to an article in the New York Times dated April 24, 2011, by Charlie Savage, entitled As Acts of War or Despair, Suicides Rattle a Prison. The article contains one reference to the possibility that the three had been murdered: "The three deaths have gained particular notoriety among prison critics, with some skeptics even saying that they may have been homicides." The phrase "some skeptics" links to an article in Harper's Magazine by Scott Horton dated January 18, 2010, entitled The Guantánamo “Suicides”: A Camp Delta sergeant blows the whistle.

Other than that one sentence, the Times article calls the events "suicide" and presents the U.S. military's version of what happened. As Horton says in his Harper's article: "The commander at Guantánamo, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, then declared the deaths 'suicides'. In an unusual move, he also used the announcement to attack the dead men. 'I believe this was not an act of desperation', he said, 'but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.'”

I recently posted an item entitled "A Few Bad Men": Murders, Lies, And Coverup At Guantanamo Bay that includes quotations from and links to Horton's article. An excerpt:

"According to the NCIS [U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service] documents, each prisoner had fashioned a noose from torn sheets and T-shirts and tied it to the top of his cell’s eight-foot-high steel-mesh wall. Each prisoner was able somehow to bind his own hands, and, in at least one case, his own feet, then stuff more rags deep down into his own throat. We are then asked to believe that each prisoner, even as he was choking on those rags, climbed up on his washbasin, slipped his head through the noose, tightened it, and leapt from the washbasin to hang until he asphyxiated. The NCIS report also proposes that the three prisoners, who were held in non-adjoining cells, carried out each of these actions almost simultaneously."

I highly recommend that you read my post (if only because it includes Jack Nicholson's awesome "You can't handle the truth" clip!), the articles in Harper's and the Times, and Malkin's "suicide stunt" material. Compare the two views and see what you think. "An act of symmetrical warfare"? Or a triple homicide?

Lies About Shell Drilling In Alaska Waters - Atlas Shrugs, Fox News

Poisonous Pam Geller at Atlas Shrugs published a story (click here) from one of her readers about how the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) denied Shell/BP a drilling permit off Alaska's North Slope, refusing to issue an air quality permit because their environmental impact statement failed to include the emissions from an icebreaker, when the companies had already invested $6.2 billion. Actually the EPA granted the permit; an opposing party protested, wanting the additional information. In December 2010, the EPA asked for the information -- and on 3 February, 2011, Shell/BP announced they are postponing the project until the 2012 season.

Geller's correspondent wrote: "The EPA rejected the AQ permit because they claim Shell did not include the  exhaust emissions of the icebreaker ship transporting men and equipment to the site! You can't make this shit up, Atlas." Well, apparently you can. He also wrote: "...destroying the economy is one form of terrorism," and "This destruction of America is simply NO accident."

Although this happened nearly three months ago, our good friends at Fox News have been pushing the story recently, trying to link it to the present high gas prices -- imagine! That terrible gubmint bureaucracy forcing the poor oil majors to lose all that money over such a triviality! Keeping all that oil off the market, with gas prices so high! -- but Media Matters shoots them out of the water here: Fox Pushes Months-Old Shell Oil Story To Hit Obama Over Gas Prices. Of course, if Shell had started drilling yesterday, it would be something like six years before any of that oil would come to the pumps after refining.

The project still has not been given final approval and may yet be refused because of Shell's grossly inadequate plans in the event of what could be a massive spill, but not because of the exhaust emissions from one ship.

Corporation v. Consumer In The Roberts Court

In an article at Daily Kos entitled Supreme Court rules against consumers. Again., Adam B. explains the case AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, and it's not a good outcome for consumers.

In 1992, Vincent and Liza Concepcion bought an AT&T cell phone that was advertised as "free." But they were charged $30.22 sales tax on the value of the phone. They went to court in California as part of a class action suit, along with thousands of others. That's the benefit of a class action: Who would sue individually for $30?

But in the fine print in the contract, AT&T had stipulated that any disputes regarding the transaction had to be pursued individually through binding arbitration rather than as a class action. The state court ruled for the consumers. From the decision: “The realistic alternative to a class action is not 17 million individual suits, but zero individual suits, as only a lunatic or a fanatic sues for $30.”

The decision was confirmed by the California Supreme Court, and was appealed to the Roberts Gang. Scalia wrote the 5-4 decision in favour of the corporation (surprise, surprise). Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion that would have gone further.

The Alliance For Justice wrote:

"After today’s ruling, corporations will now be able to decide on their own which civil rights and consumer protections they want to obey, knowing that there will be no effective means available to their victims to find redress. By including fine-print provisions in consumer and employment contracts that compel binding arbitration and restrict the ability to file class-actions, the Court has ensured that victims of consumer abuse or civil rights violations will always be at a disadvantage in the fight for justice."

So besides the loss of $30 each, what was at stake here? Well, quite a lot. According to Ian Milhiser at ThinkProgress:

"After Concepcion, it is only a matter of time before nearly every credit card provider, cell phone company, mail-order business or even every potential employer requires anyone who wants to do business with them to first give up their right to file a class action."

Obama Spending Binge? Not So.

Once again, Jonathan Chait at The New Republic debunks a Republican talking point. In an article titled The Mythical Obama Spending Binge, he shows that the expanded deficit is almost entirely as a result of the recession: If the economy had continued to grow at its 2001-2007 rate, federal spending as a percentage of GDP would be 1.8% instead of 4%; in dollar figures, the increase has been almost totally due to increased spending on programs like unemployment insurance and food stamps, which kick in automatically in economic downturns.

Obama hasn't been out buying diamonds and champagne on the national credit card. (This one's an easy read!)

Send In The Clowns - Or WSJ Editorial Writers

UPDATE: WALL STREET JOURNAL WAS WRONG, ISSUES CORRECTION:

"An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the total taxable income of Americans earning over $100,000 in 2008 was $1.582 trillion. The correct figure is $3.4 trillion." (FactCheck.org)

[But of course, the original incorrect story was spread all over the Web before it was retracted, so you're going to keep on hearing this error stated with complete conviction - it was in the Wall Street Journal!]

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[I've heard this before: Even if you taxed the top wage-earners 100% of their income, it wouldn't fix the debt problem!

In fact, I heard it just yesterday from an embattled Republican congressman at a town hall meeting.

Jonathan Chait at The New Republic debunks this claim in an article entitled WSJ Edit Page Disproves Own Point. (It's not too difficult, but there are a lot of numbers; you may want to have a pencil and pad handy. But it's worth it.)]

"To be clear, nobody is proposing a 100% tax rate on the rich, or anything close to it, and nobody believes that such a tax rate wouldn't severely depress the income base. The point is that the arithmetical illiterates at the Journal set out to prove one point and wound up proving the very opposite. I don't know who wrote this particular editorial, but the method of setting out to prove a point, using a series of obvious statistical fallacies to cheat, and then proving the opposite of your point anyway without realizing it is a trademark of Journal editorial writer Stephen Moore." [Moore is someone I find particularly odious on Fox News or the Sunday talk shows.]

"....

"There's always a problem involved in wasting one's time examining very bad arguments. But organs like the Journal editorial page -- which just won a Pulitzer Prize! -- are influential and prestigious. I think very few people realize that these people are just pure clowns. They're not messing up complex economic theories here. They're messing up basic arithmetic."

Obama = Pol Pot! Mountain Of Skulls!

Ever hear Michael Savage? If not, this will be a treat for you. (His real name is Michael Weiner - no kidding.) I guess the comparisons to Hitler and Stalin are getting old. Caligula, maybe? Genghis Khan?

Shep Smith - Fox News' One Redeeming Feature

Why hasn't Shep Smith been fired? (On birtherism: Just freakin' stop it!)

Atlas Slumped

[An article in the L.A. Times (which knows its movies) writes of Atlas's rapid fall. The planned trilogy may become an unfinished monology. It was universally panned by critics (Rotten Tomatoes rated it 7% fresh). The N.Y. Times knows a little about movies too: It didn't review Atlas.]

"EXCLUSIVE: Twelve days after opening Atlas Shrugged: Part 1, the producer of the Ayn Rand adaptation said Tuesday that he is reconsidering his plans to make Parts 2 and 3 because of scathing reviews and flagging box office returns for the film.

"'Critics, you won,' said John Aglialoro, the businessman who spent 18 years and more than $20 million of his own money to make, distribute and market Atlas Shrugged: Part 1, which covers the first third of Rand's dystopian novel. I’m having deep second thoughts on why I should do Part 2.'"

President Paul Ryan?

Jason Linkins has an article at HuffPo, Late Returns: Paul Ryan 2012? suggesting that since the Ryan budget proposal will be the basis of the GOP economic platform, its architect should carry the party standard in the 2012 presidential election. Since Ryan left his last town hall meeting hastily, through a side door, in a different car than he had arrived in, due to "security concerns," I don't think that's likely to happen.

"The Economist" Weighs In On U.S. Budget Proposals

How many times have you seen or heard Paul Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" budget proposal, otherwise known as the "Road to Ruin", described as "courageous"? Far too many. Much more courageous, in my opinion, was the plan released on April 6 by the Congressional Progressive Caucus. How many times have you seen or heard about that one at all?

Here's an excerpt from an article at the Economist entitled The courageous Progressive Caucus budget:

"Mr Ryan has been fulsomely praised for his courage. The Progressive Caucus has not.

"I'm not really sure what 'courage' is supposed to mean here, but this seems precisely backwards. For 30 years, certainly since Walter Mondale got creamed by Ronald Reagan, the most dangerous thing a politician can do has been to call for tax hikes. Politicians who call for higher taxes are punished, which is why they don't do it."

Be skeptical, though; The Economist, of course, is known to be a radical left-wing rag.

Congress Asks: How Many 9/11 Responders Were Terrorists?

From The Daily Beast: 9/11 Responders to Be Screened by FBI, linking to an article at HuffPo entitled 9/11 Responders ...

"There really is something inherently wrong in this. A provision in the new 9/11 health bill requires all 9/11 responders to be screened through the FBI’s Terrorism Watch List to receive treatment, The Huffington Post reported Thursday. Failure to comply will result in the responder not receiving treatment for ailments relating to the disaster. 'It’s comical at best, and I think it’s an insult to everyone who worked on The Pile and is sick and suffering from 9/11,' said John Feal, a former construction worker who lost half a foot at ground zero. After a heated debate, Congress passed a bill in December that would provide medical care to 9/11 responders, despite objections from Republicans that the bill was not funded properly. The terrorism watch list was added as an amendment by Florida Rep. Cliff Stearns, a Republican, and Democrats agreed to it to get the bill passed."

[Jon Stewart, who was such an effective voice on the passage of the Zadroga bill last December, dedicated a third of his program to this. I'll see if I can find a clip or two, though the original Comedy Central broadcast of The Daily Show is not available in Canada. (Another third of his program was an interview with Elizabeth Warren; all in all, a great episode. Stewart quote: You wonder sometimes how our government puts on its pants in the morning.

This is the best I could do. The segment is at mediaite.com, and you'll have to search for it there -- but it's worth it.]

More On Bush's Poisonous Legacy

From the Daily Beast Cheat Sheet: Classified Gitmo Files Leaked

"WikiLeaks has dumped another trove of classified military documents, this time revealing tantalizing new details about the United States' extra-legal military prison camp at Guantánamo Bay. The documents give the most thorough picture yet of how the prison took shape, how its inhabitants were captured, and how many of them actually posed a threat to the U.S. They also reveal shocking treatment: Mohammed Qahtani, a Saudi believed to have been an intended participant in the September 11 attacks, was leashed like a dog, sexually humiliated, and forced to urinate on himself. An Al Jazeera cameraman was held for six years for questioning about the television network's supposed training program. The documents also shed new light on the 172 men still locked up in the prison—almost all of whom are classified 'high risk,' though the files also say a third of the 600 detainees already released also once had that classification. The big picture is of an institution stuck in the past: No new prisoners have arrived at Guantánamo since 2007, and many have been there for several years, yet interrogators continue to question them about crimes increasingly distant in time. One detainee was captured in 2002, but was still being questioned about the wherabouts of Taliban chief Mullah Muhammad Omar six years later."

Best Practices (Tea Party Style)

Remember those ugly, angry town-hall meetings held by Democrats who were trying to explain the health care plan to their constituents? Now the Republicans are facing anger at their meetings when they try to explain and defend Paul Ryan's "Road To Ruin" budget proposal. No doubt there will be great GOP resentment at the boorish actions of the thuggish left. Don't forget this leaked memo, a PDF entitled Rocking The Town Halls - Best Practices - A Political Action Memo. It was circulated by Bob MacGuffie, a volunteer with the FreedomWorks website Tea Party Patriots, and it gives advice on infiltrating town halls and harassing Democratic members of Congress. As ye sow, so shall ye reap?

More Of The Poisonous Legacy Of Bush's Policy On Torture

[This is a link to a NY Times article dated April 24, 2011, Judging Detainees’ Risk, Often With Flawed Evidence, by Scott Shane and Benjamin Weiser.]

"Said Mohammed Alam Shah, a 24-year-old Afghan who had lost a leg as a teenager, told interrogators at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, that he had been conscripted by the Taliban as a driver before being detained in 2001. He had been caught, he said, as he tried to 'rescue his younger brother from the Taliban.'

"These articles are based on a huge trove of secret documents leaked last year to the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks and made available to The New York Times by another source on the condition of anonymity.

"Military analysts believed him. Mr. Shah, who had been outfitted with a prosthetic leg by prison doctors, was 'cooperative' and 'has not expressed thoughts of violence or made threats toward the U.S. or its allies,' according to a sympathetic 2003 assessment. Its conclusion:
'Detainee does not pose a future threat to the U.S. or U.S. interests.'

"So in 2004 Mr. Shah was sent back to Afghanistan — where he promptly revealed himself to be Abdullah Mehsud, a Pakistan-born militant, and began plotting mayhem. He recorded jihadist videos, organized a Taliban force to fight American troops, planned an attack on Pakistan’s interior minister that killed 31 people, oversaw the kidnapping of two Chinese engineers, and finally detonated a suicide bomb in 2007 as the Pakistani Army closed in. His martyrdom was hailed in an audio message by none other than Osama bin Laden."

[Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Dish points out that this happened under the Bush administration, and we never heard a peep from the press (I certainly don't remember seeing it before.) What if it happened today under Obama, Sullivan wonders.]

"The Guantánamo analysts’ complete misreading of Abdullah Mehsud was included among hundreds of classified assessments of detainees at the prison in Cuba that were obtained by The New York Times. The unredacted assessments give the fullest public picture to date of the prisoners held at Guantánamo over the past nine years. They show that the United States has imprisoned hundreds of men for years without trial based on a difficult and strikingly subjective evaluation of who they were, what they had done in the past and what they might do in the future. The 704 assessment documents use the word 'possibly' 387 times, 'unknown' 188 times and 'deceptive' 85 times."

[There's much more about the flawed analysis of Guantanamo detainees (only about 20 of those currently held have given evidence not obtained under torture that might hold up in court; 150 are being held, many for up to ten years, and though there is no credible evidence against them, their detention under "enhanced interrogation techniques" may have radicalized them to the point where they would be dangerous to the U.S. if now released.) Click the link.]

"Among the most revealing of the leaked documents is a 17-page guide for analysts, evidently prepared by military intelligence trainers, on how to gauge the danger posed by a detainee....

"The guide shows how analysts seized upon the tiniest details as a potential litmus test for risk. If a prisoner had a Casio F91W watch, it might be an indication he had attended a Qaeda bomb-making course where such watches were handed out — though that model is sold around the world to this day. (Likewise, the assessment of a Yemeni prisoner suggests a dire use for his pocket calculator: 'Calculators may be used for indirect fire calculations such as those required for artillery fire.')

"A prisoner caught without travel documents? It might mean he had been trained to discard them to make identification harder, the guide explains. A detainee who claimed to be a simple farmer or a cook, or in the honey business or searching for a wife? Those were common Taliban and Qaeda cover stories, the analysts were told.

"And a classic Catch-22: 'Refusal to cooperate,' the guide says, is a Qaeda resistance technique."

Ski-Diving! Incredible!

It looks like they might ski off the edge of the world at any moment -- and then they do.

"A Few Bad Men": Murders, Lies, And Coverup At Guantanamo Bay

"According to the NCIS [U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service] documents, each prisoner had fashioned a noose from torn sheets and T-shirts and tied it to the top of his cell’s eight-foot-high steel-mesh wall. Each prisoner was able somehow to bind his own hands, and, in at least one case, his own feet, then stuff more rags deep down into his own throat. We are then asked to believe that each prisoner, even as he was choking on those rags, climbed up on his washbasin, slipped his head through the noose, tightened it, and leapt from the washbasin to hang until he asphyxiated. The NCIS report also proposes that the three prisoners, who were held in non-adjoining cells, carried out each of these actions almost simultaneously."

"You can't handle the truth!" (But Col. Jessep was convicted.)

[This is from a January 18, 2010, article by Scott Horton in Harper's Magazine entitled The Guantánamo “Suicides”: A Camp Delta sergeant blows the whistle. The three men who died at Guantanamo on the night of June 9, 2006, had been held for years; none of them had been charged with a crime. Horton's article recounts the horrifying details.]

"This is the official story, adopted by NCIS and Guantánamo command and reiterated by the Justice Department in formal pleadings, by the Defense Department in briefings and press releases, and by the State Department. Now four members of the Military Intelligence unit assigned to guard Camp Delta, including a decorated non-commissioned Army officer who was on duty as sergeant of the guard the night of June 9, have furnished an account dramatically at odds with the NCIS report—a report for which they were neither interviewed nor approached."

Keith's Back! (Well, Soon.)

5, 8, and 11 o'clock Pacific, starting June 20: Countdown With Keith Olbermann

A Contrarian View

This is a comment by lvliberty1 in reply to an anti-Ryan-budget post at The Nation by John Nichols, entitled As Congressional GOP Faces Voter Anger at Town Meetings, Senator Urges Hiding Out in DC.

"What is needed are conservative members of Congress who will actually tell the public the truth: that the Democrats and the MSM are lying to them about the facts. That is the primary reason for the idiotic poll responses. Most Americans are ignorant of the facts because of the liars in the MSM and the left.

1.Tell them the truth that the wealthy already carry the tax burden in this country.
2.Tell them the truth that nearly 50% of taxpayers pay NO income taxes.
3.Tell them the truth that the bottom 50% pay only 2.7% of income taxes
4.Tell them the truth that income tax revenues are up over 500% in the past 30 years.
5.Tell them the truth that domestic spending has increased by 200% in the past two years since Obama became president.
6.Tell them the truth that Medicare has an unfunded liability of over 40 TRILLION dollars
7.Tell them the truth that Social Security taxes will have to be raised by 300% by 2040 in order to pay full benefits.
8.Tell them the truth that our country is bankrupt due to unconstitutional Socialist spending for the past 75 years.

Points 1,2,3, and 8 are nonsense. The rest, I'll have check the figures and get back to you.

However, I have to agree with another criticism of this same article. It references an article at The Hill entitled Kirk: Senate Should Not Have Taken A Break.

Here's a comment by limoman:

"Here we have ANOTHER gem of Mr Nichols and another example of 'This is what journalism looks like at The Nation.'

"The article from the hill.com said [Senator Kirk] thought they shouldn't have taken a break so they could debate on the bills and get more work done. But what do we get from Mr Nichols?? His false assertion that the senator urged his fellow republicans to 'hide out' in DC so they don't have to hear from their constituents. NOWHERE in the article that Nichols cited was there ANY reference to Sen Kirk urging anyone to avoid their constituents.

"Indeed, this is what journalism looks like at [The Nation]: Just make it up as you go."

[Unfortunately, limoman has a point. The headline puts an unfair spin on the subject. I wish our side could stick to the facts and leave the twisting and distortion to the other guys.]

From The "Oldies But Goodies" File - U.S. Support For Disgraceful Dictators - Today!

[Unfortunately, this is an article I saved months -- or years -- ago, without attribution. It isn't mine; apologies to the author.]

It Ain't Just Mubarak -- 7 of the Worst Dictators the U.S. Is Backing to the Hilt
From Saudi Arabia to Uzbekistan to Chad, the U.S. keeps some very bad autocrats in power.

Embattled Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, whose regime has received billions in U.S. aid, has been in the global media spotlight of late. He's long been “our bastard,” but he's not alone.

Let's take a look at the other dictators from around the planet who are fortunate enough to be on Uncle Sam's good side.

1. Paul Biya, Cameroon

Biya has ruled Cameroon since winning an “election” in 1983. He was the only candidate, and did pretty well, getting 99 percent of the vote.

According to the country's Wikipedia entry, “The United States and Cameroon work together in the United Nations and a number of other multilateral organizations. While in the UN Security Council in 2002, Cameroon worked closely with the United States on a number of initiatives. The U.S. government continues to provide substantial funding for international financial institutions, such as the World Bank, IMF, and African Development Bank, that provide financial and other assistance to Cameroon.”

Amnesty International details unlawful executions, journalists being thrown in jail and a host of other nasty business.

As part of a strategy to stifle opposition, the authorities perpetrated or condoned human rights violations including arbitrary arrests, unlawful detentions and restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly. Human rights defenders and journalists were harassed and threatened. Men and women were detained because of their sexual orientation.

2. Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov (or Berdymukhamedov), Turkmenistan

Berdymuhammedov came to power in 2006 when his predecessor died and the constitutionally mandated successor was thrown in jail.

According to the State Department, “For several years in the 1990s, Turkmenistan was a key player in the U.S. Caspian Basin Energy Initiative, which sought to facilitate negotiations between commercial partners and the Governments of Turkmenistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey to build a pipeline under the Caspian Sea and export Turkmen gas to the Turkish domestic energy market and beyond--the so-called Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline (TCGP).” Parade Magazine's list of the world's worst dictators notes that “the U.S. continues to import oil from Turkmenistan ($100 million worth in 2008), while Boeing provides airplanes to the Turkmen government. Chevron ... opened an office in Turkmenistan’s capital, Ashgabat.”

Human Rights Watch says that while Berdymuhammedov has taken some steps “to reverse some of the most ruinous social policies” of his predecessor's rule, “the government remains one of the most repressive and authoritarian in the world.”

[More charming blood-soaked American allies after the jump!]

Well Done, Bernie!

Bernie Sanders, the lone Independent in the U.S. Senate.

VT-Sen, VT-AL: Sen. Bernie Sanders raised $770K in Q1 (not bad for the 49th-largest state in the nation) and has over a million in the bank. The Burlington Free Press pegs an uptick in donations to Sanders after his now-famous eight-hour speech on the Senate floor in which he blasted tax cuts for the wealthy.

[I've read that if Republican President Dwight Eisenhower were restored to life and dropped in the U.S. Senate today, he and Bernie Sanders would be soulmates.]

Just A Helpful Suggestion From Your Boss ...

Karoli at Crooks & Liars, by way of The Nation, discusses a mailer Koch Bros. have sent out to their employees. An excerpt from that mailer:

As Koch company employees, we have a lot at stake in the upcoming election. Each of us is likely to be affected by the outcome on Nov. 2. That is why, for the first time ever, we are mailing our newest edition of Discovery and several other helpful items to the home address of every U.S. employee.

This Discovery features election-related information about how government decisions affect us, and about the proper role of business in society (creating value). Charles Koch's editorial reminds us why it is the policies and actions of politicians -- not their personalities or political parties -- that matter most. To help set the record straight, we've also included an informative reprint from the Washington Examiner.
[...]
For most of you, we've also enclosed a listing of candidates supported by Koch companies and KOCHPAC, the political action committee for Koch companies. Of course, deciding who to vote for is a decision that is yours and yours alone, based on the factors important to you. Koch and KOCHPAC support candidates we believe will best advance policies that create the economic conditions needed for employees and businesses such as ours to survive and prosper. [Emphasis added by Karoli]

Classic: Colbert at Correspondents Dinner, 2006

This is a link to Colbert's marvellous contribution to the White House Correspondents Dinner, 2006. 

This was an incredible performance.  Colbert was invited by Mark Smith, outgoing president of the White House Press Corps Association, who later said he had seen little of Colbert's work.  The fact is that some Republicans believe that Colbert does actually hold the outrageously right-wing beliefs that he expresses on his show.  It's satire, people!

This is a hard-hitting criticism of Bush's policies, delivered with W himself sitting and glaring 20 feet away.  Colbert was also poisonously critical of the White House press corps.

His performance was largely ignored by the giants of the media; they reported at length on the dinner, but left out any mention of Colbert.

"Only The Little People Pay Taxes" (Leona Helmsley)

Click the link for an article by David Gilson at Mother Jones that contains a number of, as digby put it at hullabaloo, "infuriating" charts illustrating today's income inequity.

Plutocracy Now! Only Little People Pay Taxes.

"'We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes,' billionaire hotelier Leona Helmsley famously (and allegedly) sniffed. She wasn't entirely correct: The superrich do still pay taxes. The wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers pay 32 percent of all income tax collected by the federal government.

"But the superrich don't pay as much as they used to—and thanks to a combination of tax cuts and preferential tax policies, their tax obligations can be less demanding than the so-called little people's. In fact, the very wealthiest Americans' tax burden has been steadily dropping for years, even as they've enjoyed astounding income growth not seen by the vast majority of Americans."

This chart shows annual average savings as a result of the Bush tax cuts for 2012, by income percentile.  The horizontal lines are at $20,000 increments, with the top line being $140,000. The long bar at the right is the top 0.1% of all U.S. income-earners. The next two categories are the top 0.1 - 1% and the top 1 - 5%. (Lots more interesting charts.)

"The Fiery Trial" Wins Pulitzer For Non-Fiction (Lincoln, Civil War)

Eric Foner's The Fiery Trial

by tristero (Hullabaloo)

"Eric Foner, author of The Fiery Trial, won the Pulitzer yesterday, something so incredibly well-deserved it would have been a crime against the genre of non-fiction if it hadn’t happened. The Fiery Trial transformed my ideas about what was important about that war. I can’t recommend it too highly for anyone even remotely interested either in the period or for insight into some of the main reasons this country is moving in such ominous directions today - and what to do about it.

"The Fiery Trial is a 'biography' of Lincoln’s changing views on slavery, on what Lincoln believed, how he and other Americans acted, and on how the momentous events of the Civil War caused both Lincoln and the Union to become ever more focused and committed to the most radical of radical ideas of the time: not only the freeing of all black men, women, and children 'held to labor,' but also the conferring upon them of equal rights as citizens of the United States, including the right to vote (for men; unfortunately, women’s suffrage would have to wait for the future). In part, Foner’s book seems to be a response to various revisionist historians of Lincoln and the period, for example Lerone Bennett’s Forced Into Glory, which argued that Lincoln was in fact little different either in attitude or actions than other racists of that time (and now). Foner does not directly answer Bennett’s charge that Lincoln was a white supremacist; instead, he tells us, in meticulously fascinating detail, what Lincoln wrote, what he said, and what he did. Foner also describes, in equally absorbing detail, the (usually deplorable) racial attitudes of the United States in the first half of the 19th Century. It becomes quite clear that Lincoln’s fairly mainstream views changed in many ways, both significant and subtle, during the years before he became president, and then changed dramatically as his presidency unfolded. Foner’s object is not to exonerate Lincoln of the charge of racism, and indeed, the Lincoln that emerges from his book is sometimes dismayingly, inexcusably, on the wrong side of the issue, both rhetorically and politically. Indeed, the character of Foner’s Lincoln is exceedingly complex, much darker and far less consistent than the hagiographies. This Lincoln sometimes becomes deeply irritated, even angry when abolitionists bother him with what he considers trivial issues - such as what to do about the education of young freed slaves. And, of course, there is his twin obsessions with “gradual emancipation” - an oxymoron if ever there was one - and "colonization," which five minutes of serious thought would easily make clear to anyone that it could never happen, or at least not without a bloodbath that would make an “ethnic cleansing” seem downright antiseptic by comparison.

Barlett and Steele: A Magazine Treasure Trove

Want a few hours of great magazine reading? This is a link to a Wikipedia entry on Donald Barlett, where the following articles can be found (dated, but timeless).

• Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (1998-11-09). "States At War"
• Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (1998-11-09). "Corporate Welfare"
• Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (1998-11-16). "Fantasy Islands"
  
• Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (1998-11-23). "Sweet Deal"
• Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (1998-11-23). "Paying A Price For Polluters"
• Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (1998-11-30). "The Empire Of The Pigs"
• Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (1998-11-30). "Five Ways Out"
• Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (2000-02-07). "How The Little Guy Gets Crunched"
• Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (2000-02-07). "How to Become a Top Banana"
• Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (2000-05-15). "Soaked By Congress"
• Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (2000-09-25). "Throwing The Game"
• Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (2002-12-16). "Who Gets The Money?"
• Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (2002-12-16). "Wheel Of Misfortune"
• Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (2002-12-23). "Playing The Political Slots"
• Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (2003-02-03). "The Really Unfair Tax"
• Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (2003-05-19). "The Oily Americans"
• Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (2003-05-19). "Iraq's Crude Awakening"
• Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (2003-07-21). "The U.S. is Running Out of Energy"
• Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (2003-10-13). "The Great Energy Scam"
• Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (2003-10-13). "Asleep at the Switch"
• Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (2004-02-02). "Why We Pay So Much for Drugs"
• Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (2004-02-02). "Has Your Life Become Too Much A Game Of Chance?"
• Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (2004-09-20). "Who Left the Door Open?"
• Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (2005-10-23). "The Broken Promise"
• Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (2005-10-31). "Where Pensions Are Golden"
• Barlett, Donald L.; Steele, James B. (March 2007). "Washington's $8 Billion Shadow"

Inside Job: The Movie

Here's a link to Bud Meyers' article, Inside Job: The Film that Cost Over $20 Trillion to make!

"If you think you're angry at the government and hate the banks now, see Inside Job: How our government (politicians, federal regulators and credit rating agencies) were complicit with the banks in destroying millions of lives."

America: What Went Wrong (20 Years Ago)?

Donald Barlett and James Steele published a series of articles in the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1991 entitled America: What Went Wrong? They expanded the series into a book of the same name.
Twenty years later, their book seems prescient. They identified problems that were growing then and are only now coming to their full, ugly fruition. They're planning to publish a new version of A:WWW? this year.
*****
Excerpts from the first article, America’s 2-class Tax System:

"... a forecast made years ago by William J. Casey, a wily Republican from another era who liked to dabble in the intelligence world’s black arts inside and outside the country, and who helped craft the election of Ronald Reagan, is coming true. After taking office, President Reagan installed Casey as head of the CIA in 1981. After his first staff meeting at the agency, Casey was quoted as saying:

“'We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.'

"One of the more egregious falsehoods being peddled by the corporate tax cutters is that companies doing business in the United States are taxed at an exorbitant rate. Not so. Though the United States has one of the highest statutory rates on the books at 35 percent, the only fair way to measure what companies actually pay is their effective rate – what they ultimately pay after deductions, credits, and assorted write-offs. By that yardstick, companies in the United States consistently pay taxes at rates lower than corporations in Japan and many nations in Europe."

Liberal Philosophy - Are We More Tolerant, Or Just Suckers?

Liberals pride themselves on being tolerant. Are they really just suckers?
By Sally Kohn, Friday, April 15, 1:05 PM, Washington Post

"The list of liberal laments about President Obama keeps getting longer: He extended the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy. Health-care reform didn’t include a public option. In the frantic final hours of the budget negotiations, instead of calling the GOP’s bluff, he agreed to historic cuts in progressive programs. And Wednesday, in response to conservatives’ focus on the deficit, Obama said that we have to 'put everything on the table.'

"What is the problem here? Is it a lack of leadership from the White House, a failure to out-mobilize the tea party or not enough long-term investment from liberal donors?

"The real problem isn’t a liberal weakness. It’s something liberals have proudly seen as a strength — our deep-seated dedication to tolerance. In any given fight, tolerance is benevolent, while intolerance gets in the good punches. Tolerance plays by the rules, while intolerance fights dirty. The result is round after round of knockouts against liberals who think they’re high and mighty for being open-minded but who, politically and ideologically, are simply suckers.

"Social science research has long dissected the differences between liberals and conservatives. Liberals supposedly have better sex, but conservatives are happier. Liberals are more creative; conservatives more trustworthy. And, since the 1930s, political psychologists have argued that liberals are more tolerant. Specifically, those who hold liberal political views are more likely to be open-minded, flexible and interested in new ideas and experiences, while those who hold conservative political views are more likely to be closed-minded, conformist and resistant to change. As recently as 2008, New York University political psychologist John Jost and his colleagues confirmed statistically significant personality differences connected to political leanings. Brain-imaging studies have even suggested that conservative brains are hard-wired for fear, while the part of the brain that tolerates uncertainty is bigger in liberal heads.

"Dissecting Obama’s negotiation strategy in the budget fight, Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times, 'It looks from here as if the president’s idea of how to bargain is to start by negotiating with himself, making pre-emptive concessions, then pursue a second round of negotiation with the G.O.P., leading to further concessions.' The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein has criticized Obama for similarly failing to take a strong position on energy policy. But perhaps the president is only playing out the psychological tendencies of his base.

Link To Digby - For Tax Wonks

Here's a link to Digby's Hullabaloo from April 18 which contains an article entitled Transformational Government.

This link may not work; it seems to point simply to Hullabaloo, and will come up with the current edition. You'll have to look in the archives for April 18, I'm afraid. But it's an excellent article if you want a fairly detailed economic explanation of how U.S. tax revenues and expenditures work.

Bush Tax Cuts Positive For The Economy? I Don't Think So.

This is a link to an article by Bruce Bartlett at capitalgainsandgames.com entitled Republican Tax Nonsense, dated 17 Jul 2010.

In the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Republicans continue to insist that the Bush tax cuts had a positive effect on the tax picture. Bartlett has assembled a list of quotations rebutting this idea from prominent economists -- not lefties, but advisers in W's administration, as follows:

• Andrew Samwick, chief economist at the Council of Economic Advisers during George W. Bush’s first term
  
• Alan Viard, senior economist at Council of Economic Advisers during Bush’s first term
  
• Robert Carroll, deputy assistant secretary for tax analysis at the U.S. Treasury Department during Bush’s second term
  
• Edward Lazear, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in Bush’s second term
  
• Bush’s nominee, later confirmed, to be Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson
  
• economist Greg Mankiw, who chaired the Council of Economic Advisers during Bush’s first term
  
• A 2005 Congressional Budget Office study during the time that Republican Doug Holtz-Eakin was CBO director.
  

Bartlett says: 

"The 2003 Economic Report of the President during Bush’s first term stated (pp. 57-58):

“Although the economy grows in response to tax reductions (because of higher consumption in the short run and improved incentives in the long run), it is unlikely to grow so much that lost tax revenue is completely recovered by the higher level of economic activity.”

Lou Dobbs and Alex Jones - American Patriots

[Okay ...]

Sundown Towns - Racism In The North

[Thank God my generation -- reaching maturity in the '60s -- didn't experience the dark, vile racism of earlier years. (Growing up in an all-white Canada -- except for Natives, which is another ugly story for another time -- I don't think I ever saw a black-skinned person until a black family moved in next door to us in about 1960.) I also knew few Americans; an American family lived across the street from us when I was about 10, and there were a few Americans I knew in high school whose parents had moved to Canada to protect the kids from the draft. Ron Thorsen, Mike Caldwell, Frank Cain ...

My first real experience of Americans was my U.S. immersion when Jeff Clifford and I hitch-hiked to California in 1968. The racism was apparent, north and south. I caught a ride with a guy in Washington who was indignant that a law had just been passed that if you offered your house for sale, you had to sell it at that price, even if the buyer was black! Damn it, that lowers property values in the whole neighbourhood! A man shouldn't be forced to sell to a buyer he didn't like!

According to the review, this book reveals the ugly fact of racism in the North, which in some ways was worse than it was in the South: a novel and interesting position.]


Darkness on the Edge of Town

A bold book argues that thousands of American towns were deliberately kept whites-only.

SUNDOWN TOWNS

A Hidden Dimension of American Racism

By James W. Loewen

In Oct. 2001, James W. Loewen stopped at a convenience store in the small Illinois town of Anna -- a name that, as a store clerk confirmed, stands for "Ain't No Niggers Allowed."

President Trump? The Horror ... The Horror ...

Ever heard of Ben Shapiro? Me neither. Name sounds Irish, though.

Here's a link to an article he wrote, The Magic Of Donald Trump, which proves beyond a doubt he (Shapiro) is a blithering idiot, and why you've probably never heard of him and never will again.

Yes! Elizabeth Warren!

[Apparently potential nominees are reluctant to undercut the idea of Warren leadership of the CFPB: Great! Appoint her!]

Joan McCarter, Daily Kos
White House finding few takers for CFPB chief job

"Elizabeth Warren might end up being the nominee to be permanent head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as the White House can't find anyone willing to take the job. Warren has been spearheading the effort to get the new agency up and running, but is generally not expected to be Obama's permanent nominee because of strong congressional opposition to her, specifically.

"White House officials seeking someone to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have so far failed to find a nominee, with several candidates rebuffing the administration's overtures, according to people familiar with the process.

"One concern of some: That accepting would undercut Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law professor and consumer advocate who is currently a special adviser to the president charged with setting up the bureau. She remains a hugely popular figure among many Democrats and anathema to many Republicans.

"Many on the left want Ms. Warren, a longtime critic of the financial industry who pushed to create the consumer protection agency, to become its director.

"The nascent bureau must have a director in place by July 21 in order to get a slate of broad powers to attack fraudulent and abusive financial practices....

"A White House spokeswoman said Mr. Obama 'will consider a number of candidates for the position of director. The President believes Elizabeth Warren is a powerful voice for American consumers and that she has been extraordinarily effective at standing up the agency thus far. We are not going to get ahead of the President's process by commenting on whether specific individuals are under consideration for specific personnel openings.'

"Ms. Warren, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment.

"Another issue for potential candidates must be the unrelenting efforts of the GOP to dismantle the CFPB, since they have lined up on the side of fraudulent and abusive financial practices against consumers. It's not hard to imagine that few people would want to become the new target in place of Warren, in addition to an unwillingness to try to fill her shoes."

Tidbits

Excerpted rom Meteor Blades, via Daily Kos:

• Percentage of the GDP that will be taken as federal revenue this year: 14.8
• Last year in which the percentage was this low: 1950

• Average salary difference between a starting New York public school teacher and a first-year private lawyer in 1970: $2000
• Today: $106,000

Wall Street Bankers Indicted? Maybe - But Don't Hold Your Breath

[Could It Be? Wall Street Bankers Perp-Walked? This from Susie Madrak via Crooks & Liars]

April 14, 2011 06:15 PM
Sen. Carl Levin Wants Goldman Sachs Execs Prosecuted After His Sweeping Investigation Is Concluded
By Susie Madrak (Crooks & Liars)

WASHINGTON -- Goldman Sachs executives deceived clients in order to profit off the brewing financial crisis and then misled Congress when asked to explain their actions, concluded a top lawmaker who led a two-year investigation into Wall Street's role in the meltdown.

Carl Levin, chair of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, will recommend that Goldman executives who testified before his panel, including chairman and chief executive Lloyd Blankfein, be referred to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution, the Michigan Democrat announced Wednesday. Members of the subcommittee will now deliberate Levin's proposal.

A Goldman spokesman said its executives were truthful in their testimony, adding that the firm disagreed with many of the panel's conclusions.

Two and a half years after a historic crisis that has yielded not a single criminal conviction of anyone who played a leading role in causing it, the prosecution of such a high-profile Wall Street executive may satisfy the public's desire to see culprits brought to justice. Last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission settled a lawsuit it had brought against Goldman.

But the firm was just one target of a sweeping, 639-page report by the Senate panel into the causes of the crisis. Hardly a fluke occurrence, the meltdown was the product of a deeply corrupt financial system, one fueled by profit-hungry banks that deceived their clients, and overseen by lax regulators who were complicit in the firms' chronic abuse of the most fundamental rules of the game, the report concludes.

The investigation found a "financial snake pit rife with greed, conflicts of interest, and wrongdoing," Levin said.

More than any other government report produced in the wake of the crisis, this account names names, blaming specific people and institutions: Goldman Sachs, Washington Mutual, Moody's Investors Service, Standard & Poor's, the Office of Thrift Supervision and others. It targets four types of institutions, all of which it says played key roles in causing the crisis: mortgage lenders that offered prospective homeowners booby-trapped loans; regulators that were paid by the institutions they were regulating and cooperated in widespread deception; rating agencies that gave seals of approval to products they knew to be especially risky, all in the pursuit of market share; and Wall Street banks that duped investors into buying securities that only the insiders knew were destined to go bad.

"Blame for this mess lies everywhere from federal regulators who cast a blind eye, Wall Street bankers who let greed run wild, and members of Congress who failed to provide oversight," said the panel's ranking member, Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican.

John Amato's Plug For Digby (Hullabaloo)

[Digby is a favourite of mine. As John A. at Crooks & Liars says, her writing is brilliant. Bookmark Hullabaloo. And click to her article! It's clearly written and insightful. Ever since about the November elections, it's been my feeling that the deficit "crisis" -- while a serious problem that must be addressed in the long term -- was being assiduously pumped up by the terror-mongering media, when the real and urgent problem is unemployment -- which demands spending on investment!]

April 14, 2011 07:15 PM
Deficit 'Salem Witch' Trials
By John Amato

"This is very cool.

"Digby has crashed the beltway party again and wrote another great op-ed for The Hill.

"DC’s deficit frenzy

"The entire political world has descended into a deficit frenzy that rivals the mass hysteria of the Salem witch trials. The mania has been growing for months, but exploded last week when D.C. heartthrob Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin (R) unveiled what was widely received as the most important document since the Emancipation Proclamation and the entire political establishment started babbling about “brio” and “courage.” Nothing else matters at this point — not anemic economic growth, not sustained, shockingly high unemployment, not a Middle East uprising of world-changing consequence — not even an epic nuclear catastrophe...read on

"Click through and read it. We need to support our own who write so brilliantly."

Obama's Budget Speech

It seems to be cut off at the beginning. I hope it's not missing much.

The Exorbitant Price Of Harper's F-35 Deal

CounterPunch
April 12, 2011
Sticker Shock
Canada and the F-35

By WINSLOW T. WHEELER

"As an American, I am extremely reluctant to presume to offer Canada advice on how to proceed with the purchase of the F-35 "Joint Strike Fighter." However, the airplane is the culmination of such malevolent trends in my own country's defences that I believe any ally and neighbour should be warned about going down the same path.

"Three simple questions show what a poor choice the F-35 is for the United States -and for Canada.

"What will the F-35 cost? Canada's Memorandum of Understanding -it's not a contract -pretends $9 billion (Canadian) will buy 65 F-35s and initial logistics, simulators, spare parts, and more. The unit price for each aircraft in that pitch is "low-to-mid $70M per aircraft."

"That's hogwash. The current unit price in the Unites States for the F-35 is $155 million. Even considering the discount Canada will get, your Parliamentary Budget Officer has estimated a unit cost of either $129 million or $148 million, depending on estimating factors.

"All of those figures are optimistic; both Canada and America should expect to pay more, but neither of us will know the exact amount until all testing is complete in about 2017. If the F-35 price does not increase between now and then, that will be the first time for a combat aircraft in decades, perhaps in history.

U.S. Disgrace

Here's a link to an article by Joan McCarter, at Daily Kos, entitled:
UN, legal scholars criticize administration for treatment of Bradley Manning

"A senior United Nations representative on torture, Juan Mendez, issued a rare reprimand to the US government on Monday for failing to allow him to meet in private Bradley Manning, the American soldier held in a military prison accused of being the WikiLeaks source. It is the kind of censure that the UN normally reserves for authoritarian regimes around the world.

"Mendez, the UN special rapporteur on torture, said: 'I am deeply disappointed and frustrated by the prevarication of the US government with regard to my attempts to visit Mr Manning.'....

"Mendez, who has been investigating complaints about his treatment since before Christmas, said the US department of defence would not allow him to make an 'official' visit, only a 'private' one. An 'official' visit would mean he meets Manning without a guard present. A 'private' visit means with a guard and anything the prisoner says could be used in the planned court-martial.

"Mendez pointed out that his mandate was to conduct unmonitored visits, and that had been the practice in at least 18 countries over the last six years.

"'Since December 2010, I have been engaging the US government on visiting Mr Manning, at the invitation of his counsel, to determine his condition,' Mendez said. 'Unfortunately, the US government has not been receptive to a confidential meeting with Mr Manning.'"

[Read the article. There's much more.]

My Picks For The Republican Nominee In 2012 - Limbo Lower Now. How Low Can You Go?

Pretty low, for sure.

God almighty, what a forlorn bunch.

The present Republican front-runners would be the dregs of any self-respecting campaign. They simply have no one.

I'm going to try to put them in categories, ranging from wildly unlikely to win a general election to unfit to work with Glenn Beck as a rodeo clown.

First, there's Romney.
Second, there's Romney.
And third, there's Romney.

Oh, to hell with categories. That's it, folks. They have no one else.

This is the Mormon perpetual flip-flopper who introduced RomneyCare -- the nearly identical twin of ObamaCare -- in the state of Massachussets when he was governor, including a provision for a public mandate, which is working very well and therefore being vilified through Tea Party megaphones as the worst kind of Marxism and the end of the American Dream.

Who else have we got, stumbling, falling, clawing feebly at each others' backs as they limp dementedly in the general direction of the finish line? We've seen them in zombie movies.

These names are in no kind of order, because it doesn't make any difference anyway; none of them has a chance. Huckabee. Bolton. Giuliani. Trump. Palin. Gingrich. Pawlenty. Bachmann. Daniels. Barbour. And now I'll have to go to double names, because no one ever heard of these guys: Howard Cain and -- I forget; some gay guy. There are more, but I can't think of any right now. There will be updates -- that guy who wears the anti-abortion sandwichboard on 15th Avenue by the hospital, for one. The end is near! Sadly, partner, it's nearer than you think.

Jon Huntsman, Obama's ambassador in Beijing? Jeb Bush (Bush III; keeping his powder dry for 2016, when the name "Bush" may be less toxic than "bin Laden")? Chris Christie?

All around the limbo clock, hey, let's do the limbo rock.
How low can you go?
Charlie Sheen for president!

Excellent, must-see video on the consequences of fracking.

"Word Salad" Explained

I didn't think Sarah's "squirmish" blunder got ridiculed enough. Here's a BBC comedy program, and I love the quote at the end: "You can tell the way she talks that literally every word, she doesn't know what the next one's going to be."

Let's Have A Tea Party! Boehner, McConnell, The White Rabbit, And The Mad Hatter

Here's a link to an article entitled Democrats See Republicans In 'Blazing Saddles' Strategy by Michael McAuliffe at HuffPo:

"Cleavon Little points a gun at his own head and threatens to shoot if the armed townspeople don’t drop their weapons.

“'Listen to him, men. He's just crazy enough to do it!' one says.

“'Nobody knows just how far removed from reality these people are,' {Democratic Senator from Massachussets, Barney} Frank said. 'If we were dealing with just John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, it would be one thing. When you’re dealing with John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, the White Rabbit and the Mad Hatter, it’s unpredictable.'

“This is not Samuel Adams’ Tea Party; this is Lewis Carroll’s Tea Party we’re dealing with here,” Frank said."

The recent posturing over the budget deal and the threat of a government shutdown is insignificant compared to the coming crisis. The U.S. will hit its borrowing limit sometime in May. Apparently they can juggle the books for a few weeks -- and then everything comes to a crashing halt. The budget debate was about how money will be allocated in the future, and shortages can be alleviated by massive cuts; the debt limit ceiling is like a credit card holder who has maxed out and has run out of cash. There is no way out: You default on your debts. How are the U.S. creditors going to take the news that their interest cannot and will not be paid? Uncharted waters, folks. But Rand Paul and other Tea Party lunatics may push the whole world over the edge.

"'If anyone wants to push that button ... I think they're crazy,' Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, said recently at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce."

Even Wall Street doesn't want it -- but how far will these Tea Party lunatics go?

Conservatives Don't Like The Proposed Budget Either?

[From Fox Nation]

Top Conservatives Livid Over Budget Deal: 'A Historic Scam!

[There's a 6.5-minute video here of Neil Cavuto from Fox interviewing radical right-wing radio host Mark Levin.]

It's No Deal, It's a Sellout

"John Boehner has just given away the Republican victory of 2010 at the bargaining table. Like the proverbial Uncle Sam who always wins the war but loses the peace, he has unilaterally disarmed the Republican Party by showing that he will not shut down the government and will, instead, willingly give way on even the most modest of cuts in order to avoid it. He now has no arrows left in his quiver. Read more at dickmorris.com." [Dick Morris is always a treat.]

The Compromise
"...The most depressing bit of all of this is how quickly conservative pundits who promised they were to going to throw off the shackles of fidelity to the Republican Party after Bush and become again true conservative warriors for freedom have descended, automaton like, into guttural cheerleading for a Republican Party that just went from $100 billion in promised cuts to a third of that in actual cuts while selling out the unborn for roughly $1000 per murdered child assuming reports are true that they got the Democrats to increase cuts $1 billion in exchange for dropping the defunding of Planned Parenthood. Read more at redstate.com."

Rep. Allen West Will Vote No on Budget Deal
"Rep. Allen West is against the bipartisan budget deal between Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and the Obama administration. West, R-Fla., told The Hill that $39 billion in cuts is insufficient. Asked whether he was pleased with the agreement on policy riders, West responded, 'It's all about the money.' Read more at thehill.com."

[Actually, unlike RedState, DickMorris and FoxNation, I think thehill.com is pretty widely respected as being more or less centrist. Its site lists as current contributors, for example, both Dick Morris and Markos Moulitsas (of Daily Kos, sometimes referred to in conservative circles as "the Great Orange Satan".]

24/6

Pete Peterson, Right-Wing Multibillionaire

Here's a link to an article in the New York Times, Peter G. Peterson's Last Anti-Debt Crusade.

"He used $1 billion of his Wall Street Fortune to create the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, whose sole purpose is to educate Americans about the dangers of the debt."

He's a former advisor to Nixon; ex-CEO of Lehman Brothers; co-founder of the Blackstone private equity group; ex-president of the Council on Foreign Relations.  Described as having "an odd, even aloof, ignorance" of the Tea Party, their objectives seem to mesh pretty well.


His first book was published in 1982 -- Social Security: The Coming Crash.  He wants to gradually increase the retirement age, institute a means test, and raise the cap on the payroll tax. (I haven't researched this, but as far as I understand, everyone pays a tax on their first $106,000 of income which funds Social Security.  I also understand that having built up enormous surpluses over the years -- which are now diminishing as the ratio of retirees to working, contributing people increases -- SS is approaching a point where it will soon start to operate at a deficit: More will be paid out each year than comes in.  Finally, I understand that the SS surplus can fully fund retirees for the next 30 years, and that if the $106,000 cap were raised to $180,000, SS would be self-sustaining as far into the future as the eye can see.)

“He’s not focused on the debt so much as on cutting Social Security and Medicare,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research. “Even in the late ’90s, when we had a surplus, he was saying the same thing and the debt wasn’t in any obvious way a problem then.”

Digby, at Hullabaloo, says Peterson "once called Social Security a 'taxpayer funded vacation.'"

Tidbits

A federal appeals court upheld Monday a lower court's block of much of Arizona's controversial SB 1070 law aimed at illegal immigration. Surprise, surprise!

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A headline at The Hill: Capitol Police Arrest DC Mayor At Rally Against Budget Deal.

Does no one but Obama and Geithner like this deal?

Washington Mayor Vincent Gray, Council Chairman Kwame Brown, Ward 4 Councilwoman Muriel Bowser and Ward 6 Councilman Tommy Wells were among 41 people who were arrested after protesters blocked Constitution Avenue.

A rider to this federal budget proposal would stop local taxpayer funds -- that's not federal money; it's tax money raised by D.C. itself -- abortions. The feds can't dictate things like that to the states, but D.C. lacks a lot of the rights that the states have (such as congressional representation) -- and DCers aren't happy about it.

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 Here's a link to an excellent article by Sam Pizzigati at OurFuture.org entitled A Ghost from a Ghastly Public Policy Past about Andrew Mellon, of the Pittsburgh banking family, who was appointed Secretary of the Treasury in 1921, a position he held for ten years and eleven months.  His fortune was exceeded only by those of John D. Rockefeller and Henry Ford. 

"Mellon came to Washington as a man on a mission. That mission: to slash federal income tax rates on his fellow rich — and himself, of course, too. He succeeded. In 1921, America’s richest faced a 73 percent tax rate on income over $1 million. By 1925, Mellon had maneuvered that top rate all the way down to 25 percent."

He was the man at the wheel during the Roaring '20s -- and the subsequent crash.

"Mellon opposed, right up until his 1932 exit from Treasury, any efforts to get the federal government to come to the aid of [the tens of millions he had impoverished]. Hard times, he told President Hoover, didn’t have to be 'altogether a bad thing.'

“People will work harder,” Mellon pronounced. “Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people."

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On the budget deal:

Amanpour: How is President Obama playing now? Is this a victory as they are saying now?
George Will: If this is a victory, I wish him many more...

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Here's a link to a posting on Politico giving the results of a nationwide poll by PPP, Public Policy Polling, showing that 51% of Republicans believe that Obama was not born in the U.S. 28% believe that he was; 21% are not sure.

A CNN/Opinion Research poll in August showed that 25% of Americans have doubts about Obama’s citizenship, with 11 percent saying the president was definitely not born in the United States.

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Zaid Jilani at ThinkProgress has an article entitled "CHART:  As Services For Main Street Are Gutted, Richest Pay Lowest Taxes In A Generation."

"As this chart from from Wealth for the Common Good shows, the top 400 taxpayers — who have more wealth than half of all Americans combined — are paying lower taxes than they have in a generation, as their tax responsibilities have slowly collapsed since the New Deal era as working families have been asked to pay more and more:"

Is Libya A Sideshow?

Should our attention be on Bahrain? Here's a link to an article by Peter Lee on CounterPunch, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia's Rulers Goose-Step to the Brink of the Abyss.

The Middle East situation is so twisted and complicated I've often avoided even reading about it; the problem is just too complex. But for years, my fears have been about two countries that I regard as crucial: Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Pakistan is politically unstable, plagued by religious fundamentalists, and has nuclear weapons; Saudi Arabia, home to 17 of the 19 World Trade Center assassins, is a repressive, medieval regime with rulers that live in unimaginable wealth -- Louis The Sun King? Fogeddaboutit! -- and the biggest oil reserves on the planet.

I Don't Think This Guy Likes Cops.

[This is a link to Are Cops Brave? by David Ker Thomson at CounterPunch.]

"After thirty-six months on the job here in our neck of the woods, a provincial constable (first class) can expect to receive $83,483 annual salary. If you add duration incentives and factor in small-town prices such as that of housing in the northern part of the province, at about the career ten-year mark (from the beginning of professional training) an OPP officer based in a mid-sized northern Ontario town makes nearly three times the salary of an arts-and-humanities professor at the University of Toronto, which was Canada’s best university until they inadvisedly let me take a crack at their grad students a few years back.
"[...]
"Of course I make a point of telling my children that when selecting a vocation they shouldn’t think primarily of the money. 'Do what you love,' I tell them, 'and love what you do.' I can’t stress that enough. 'And if it’s killing and torturing you enjoy,' I tell them, 'join the police force. The money’s just extra.'"

"Here’s the kicker: I couldn’t find any mention on the site of officers being positionally asphyxiated in leisurely fashion by seven criminals."

Regulatory Capture

Click here for "Why We Don't Let Foxes in the Henhouse" by David Macary at CounterPunch.

"The Commission is, or can be made, of great use to the railroads. It satisfies the popular clamor for government supervision of the railroads, while, at the same time, that supervision is almost entirely nominal.” [italics added by author]
—Richard Olney, U.S. Attorney General, referring to the ICC (Interstate Commerce Commission), circa 1889.

"If the government is to tell big business men how to run their business, then don't you see that big business men have to get closer to the government even than they are now? Don't you see that they must capture the government in order not to be restrained too much by it? Must capture the government? They have already captured it.” [italics added by author]
—Woodrow Wilson, 1913

"Regulatory Capture is defined as the phenomenon where '….a regulatory agency created to act in the public interest instead advances the commercial or special interests that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. [It] is a form of government failure, as it can act as an encouragement for large firms to produce "negative externality." The agencies are called Captured Agencies.'”

[Ah, yes, 1889 and 1913. Those were the days, my friend. The Gilded Age. No unions; no minimum wage or benefits; unrestricted working hours; no safety standards; child labour; nominal government regulation; low taxes; corrupt cops, judges, Congressmen, and state legislators; no SEC; no EPA -- oh, wait: That's Scott Walker's Wisconsin today.]

Down And Out In Camden, New Jersey

Read The Wisdom of Snooki, by Linh Dinh, at CounterPunch.

Snooki, who is a "wholly untalented and unapologetically stupid" Guidette (feminine of "Guido") from Jersey Shore, was recently paid $32,000 to speak at a New Jersey university -- more than the same university paid Toni Morrison, Nobel laureate for literature. Some students lined up for seven hours to get good seats.

"Three-hundred-and-sixty-five-thousand American cashiers have university degrees. Ditto, 317,000 waiters and 18,000 parking lot attendants.

"Parking lot attendants get paid $19,000 a year, on average, so that’s actually a pretty good job in this economy. When McDonald’s held a job fair recently, 60,000 people applied for 13,000 minimum-wage positions.
"[...]
"Chronically broke and among the most dangerous cities in America, Camden laid off a third of its police force this year."

Libya: An Important Supplier For Europe

Click here for an essay by JEAN-PIERRE SÉRÉNI at CounterPunch entitled Why the Oil Companies Decided Qaddafi Has to Go on the history of Libya's oil development.

"Libya’s crude is excellent in quality, and its oilfields are close to Europe’s refineries, among the biggest in the world. Libyan oil currently represents around 15 per cent of consumption in France, although less than 10 per cent in the European Union. But the main reason is that the balance of power has shifted. In 1960 the British and US oil majors controlled most of the production outside the communist world. The national companies of producer countries have replaced them. They now own their mineral resources, and control access, even if they still need international companies to prospect for new oilfields.

"Looking for oil is risky and expensive, so it requires huge capital and technical expertise. National oil companies have neither. Most of the money they earn is spent elsewhere (the Gaddafi family, with six sons and one daughter, takes more than its share) and their sphere of activity remains confined within their borders. So despite expulsions, revolution and nationalisation, the renewal of ties is inevitable, with or without Gaddafi."

[Libya, unlike the Gulf states, can export to Europe using "capesize" vessels -- huge ships that are too large to negotiate the Suez Canal.]

U.S. Corporate Taxes

Meteor Blades at Daily Kos says:

At CommonDreams, Paul Buchheit writes: A 35% corporate tax rate means zero taxes. So go ahead, cut it to 25%:

"In 2010 General Electric made $14 billion and received a $3 billion tax refund. The response by business? The 35% corporate tax rate is too high. Tax cuts, they continue to say, will spur economic growth and create jobs, and allow American companies to compete in a global economy.
"[...]
"Finally, in a U.S. Treasury report of global competitiveness (Table 5.3), it is revealed that U.S. corporations paid 13.4% of their profits in taxes between 2000 and 2005, compared to the OECD average of 16.1%. (Although the Tax Foundation notes that tax rates of other nations have fallen while the U.S. has remained unchanged.)"

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That's just fine with Newt Gingrich. According to Scott Keyes at Think Progress, Gingrich "... praised the fact that even though many corporations were avoiding taxes, their employees would still be forced to contribute to the government’s coffers.

"Gingrich concluded by enthusiastically championing corporate tax loopholes, telling ThinkProgress that corporations were using 'an incentive…not a loophole.' 'We should celebrate that as a good thing,' Gingrich added."