Warren Jeffs, 55, could face life in prison if he's convicted of sexually assaulting two underage girls.[...]
[The] polygamist sect leader defending himself against sexual assault charges broke his silence Friday with a 55-minute sermon defending plural marriages as divine and later said God would visit "sickness and death" on those involved if his trial wasn't immediately stopped.
Because God is his henchman, I guess.
July 18 Tom Tomorrow toon:
Three days ago, Democratic Rep. John Conyers, appearing at a meeting of the Out of Poverty caucus, said: "The Republicans -- Speaker Boehner or Majority Leader Cantor -- did not call for Social Security cuts in the budget deal. The President of the United States called for that."[...]
The reported deal on the debt ceiling is [...] completely one-sided -- brutal domestic cuts with no tax increases on the rich and the likelihood of serious entitlement cuts in six months with a "Super Congressional" deficit commission.
[...]
[A] slew of millionaire politicians who spent the last decade exploding the national debt with Endless War, a sprawling Surveillance State, and tax cuts for the rich are now imposing extreme suffering on the already-suffering ordinary citizenry, all at the direction of their plutocratic overlords, who are prospering more than ever and will sacrifice virtually nothing under this deal (despite their responsibility for the 2008 financial collapse that continues to spawn economic misery).
No matter how the immediate issue is resolved, Mr. Obama, in his failed effort for greater deficit reduction, has put on the table far more in reductions for future years’ spending, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, than he did in new revenue from the wealthy and corporations. He proposed fewer cuts in military spending and more in health care than a bipartisan Senate group that includes one of the chamber’s most conservative Republicans.[...]
And despite unemployment lingering at its highest level in decades, Mr. Obama has not fought this year for a big jobs program with billions of dollars for public-works projects, which liberals in his party have clamored for. Instead, he wants to extend a temporary payroll tax cut for everyone, since Republicans will support tax cuts, despite studies showing that spending programs are generally the more effective stimulus.
[...]
Mr. Obama tentatively agreed to a plan that was farther to the right than that of the majority of the fiscal commission and a bipartisan group of senators, the so-called Gang of Six. It also included a slow rise in the Medicare eligibility age to 67 from 65, and, after 2015, a change in the formula for Social Security cost-of-living adjustments.
The temporary payroll tax cut for everyone! That’s his generous offering to the unemployed and the underpaid. And it gave us all such relief last year, eh? Our President is always thinking about us.
I think I can change that Charlie Brown photo to put Obama with the football, and his hopeful supporters in the air.
The U.S. State Dept. is in charge of deciding whether to issue a permit for the proposed TransCanada pipeline because it would cross the U.S. border as it moves diluted bitumen from Alberta, Canada to refineries on the Gulf Coast.
Cross the US border? How about cross the whole US?
The pipeline would also cross several major watersheds and the Ogallala aquifer, and against he backdrop of significant recent pipeline spills in Michigan and Montana — and 33 spills on the first phase of the Keystone line in just over a year — many are concerned about the potential environmental impact of the project.
And here’s the best part…
In testimony to Congress last month the director of DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration, Cynthia Quarterman, said that current regulations were not designed for tar sands, that the agency has done no study on tar sands, and has not assessed existing regulations to see if they address the risks of diluted bitumen.[...]
Gooey raw tar sands is mixed with lighter chemicals (natural gas condensate) to make it thin enough to pump through pipelines. A recent report prepared by the National Resources Defense Council, Pipeline Safety Trust and Sierra Club warned that diluted bitumen is more acidic, has more abrasive quartz sand particles, and is moved at higher temperatures, significantly increasing corrosion dangers on pipelines.
[...]
Last year’s spill of a million gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River in Calhoun County has demonstrated how much more difficult it is to clean up tar sands oil than conventional crude one it hits the water. Because it is so much heavier, much of the tar sands oil has sunk to the bottom of the river and is now breaking down and being released back into the water months after the spill was thought to be contained.
[...]
“We also need a study of the risks and cleanup challenges that tar sands spills create so new spill response methods can be devised and first responders can be prepared,” [Anthony Swift of the NRDC] said. “The pipeline safety bill does not yet address that problem.”
“It is ironic that some of the same Congressmen supporting the pipeline safety bill have advocated that Keystone XL be built before those safety measures are in place.”
Ironic is one of Congress’ defining characteristics.
[T]he House as a whole recently passed a bill that requires that a decision on the Keystone XL permit be reached by Nov. 1
The House, as a hole.
The House, as A-hole.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
Are you aware that the Egyptian situation we hailed and quickly turned our back on is being overrun by “Islamists?” I seem to recall a few stray people voicing some concern about what might actually happen when all was said and done. But, hey, we don't have time for that kind of analysis.
A pipeline that carries gas from Egypt to Israel was attacked for the fifth time in the past six months.The attack July 30 on the natural gas pipeline is the third this month. The targeted pipeline, which serves Israel exclusively and will not affect the delivery of gas to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, according to The Jerusalem Post reported, had still been shut down from a previous attack on July 11.
Why aren’t we doing something? After August 2, will we?
BTW, has anyone said anything about cutting funding to Israel as part of the spending cuts? I don’t think so.
Tony Blair is likely to be criticised heavily by the official inquiry into the Iraq war, which is expected to focus on his failure to consult the cabinet fully in the run-up to the 2003 invasion.
”Official inquiry into the Iraq war?” What a crazy idea.
Angus Robertson, the SNP's leader at Westminster, said: "The tapestry of deceit woven by Tony Blair over the past decade has finally unravelled. Despite his best attempts to fudge the issue when he was called to give evidence, the Chilcot inquiry have recognised the former prime minister's central role in leading the UK into worst foreign policy disaster in recent history.
They’re doomed. Everyone knows the best thing is to not look back.
There has been speculation at senior levels of Whitehall that Chilcot and the members of his inquiry are planning to criticise Blair when they publish their report in the autumn.
Criticism. Well, I guess that’s better than the total pass George & Company are getting over here.
....and hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
Aside from the tanks rolling on protesters in Syria...
Nato warplanes have bombed Libyan state TV satellite transmitters in Tripoli in an attempt to stem the incitement of violence against those not loyal to Muammar Gaddafi, the military alliance has said.
It’s just straight-up regime change. And we don’t care who knows.
Government airstrikes targeting Islamist militants in southern Yemen have accidentally killed 14 allied tribesmen in a further deterioration of the country's security situation.[...]
Anti-government tribes in the mountainous Arhab region north of the airport have been battling Yemen's army for months. The tribes, which have long complained of neglect, say the elite Republican Guard is shelling and bombing their villages, killing civilians.
So, maybe it wasn’t so much an accident. Everybody just knows to call whomever they want to kill Islamist. Or even better, just say you were aiming at Islamists. That works, too.
BP has been accused of taking a "stranglehold" on the Iraqi economy after the Baghdad government agreed to pay the British firm even when oil is not being produced by the Rumaila field, confidential documents reveal.The original deal for operating Iraq's largest field – half as big as the entire North Sea – has been rewritten so that BP will be immediately compensated for civil disruption or government decisions to cut production.
Sounds like the accusation is well-founded.
Apparently BP can afford all the bad publicity they can accrue.
"Iraq's oil auctions were portrayed as a model of transparency and a negotiating victory for the Iraqi government," said Greg Muttitt, author of Fuel on the Fire: Oil and Politics in Occupied Iraq. "Now we see the reality was the opposite: a backroom deal that gave BP a stranglehold on the Iraqi economy, and even influence over the decisions of Opec."
Son, in politics and commerce, there is always a backroom deal.
Except this is why I only check on the attorney Jonathan Turley's blog rarely. There's just too much of this kind of stomach-turning story.
Video linked on the post indicates that the cops tased him five times before they beat him to death.
At least 45 civilians have reportedly been killed and dozens of others wounded after Syrian tanks stormed the city of Hama, shooting indiscriminately, residents said.
But "Everybody" could give a shit. They get where they are because we don't know how to focus, and now corporations can legally elect.
In the famous words of Dick Head Cheney: So what?
And Obama thinks it's because the American public doesn't know what the term "debt ceiling" means.
[Libya’s] transitional government's oil minister said that General Abdel Fatah Younis had been shot dead by Islamist-linked militia within the anti-Gaddafi forces, provoking fears of future unrest and instability among those fighting the old regime.
Are these guys American minions or what?
I still say it was a Jalil job.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
Why are we doing this? Even Republicans don't like the Republicans these days.
On [Thursday], Matthews’ guest was Bruce Bartlett, “former deputy assistant treasury secretary under the first George Bush and a policy adviser to Ronald Reagan.”[...]
BARTLETT:
”And don’t forget also that Ronald Reagan raised the capital gains tax rate to 28 percent in 1986 and now it’s only 15 percent. And of course, the wealthier you are, the more of your income comes from capital gains.
[...]
”We—the Republicans keep saying that tax cuts are the key to prosperity. Well, the 2000s is evidence that that’s not true. And also we raised taxes in 1982. They said it would be a recession. We raised taxes again in 1993. They said it would be a recession. We had booming economies in the 1980s and 1990s. I think if we went back to the taxes we had the 80s and 90s, we’d be a lot better off."
And, from Paul Craig Roberts, Reagan’s Asst. Secretary of the Treasury…
President Obama has said that he will not resort to the various powers open to him to keep the government running should Congress fail to deliver a debt ceiling increase. This is a suspicious statement, as it is not credible that a president would leave troops at war unpaid and without supplies, Social Security checks unsent and stand aside while the US dollar collapses and the credit rating of the US government is destroyed.There are national security directives and executive orders already on the books, as well as the 14th Amendment, that Obama can invoke to set aside the debt ceiling. Congress would sigh with relief that Obama had prevented the lawmakers from destroying the country.
So what might be going on?
One possibility is that the political theater is operating to bring about otherwise politically impossible cuts in the social safety net.
[...]
If Bush and Cheney were still in office, they would use the debt ceiling impasse to seize more power from Congress. Obama, however, might be so well aligned with financial interests that the opportunity he sees is to cut Social Security, Medicare and education loose from the federal budget. Then Wall Street can privatize them.
Whatever emerges from the debt ceiling impasse, it will not be in the interest of the American people.
I think that’s been pretty obvious all along.
The violations of other countries’ sovereignties, the naked aggressions that constitute war crimes, the murder of noncombatants, and the horrible moral and economic expense inflicted by the maximization of the military/security complex’s profits are somehow not a crisis.[...]
The offshoring of US jobs, GDP, tax base, and consumer demand that has eroded away the US economy and the government’s tax base, thus elevating the deficit, is somehow not a crisis.
[...]
The US has become such a ridiculous collection of fools that no real crisis can be recognized. Instead, the country is mesmerized by a fake crisis.
[...]
The debt ceiling needed to be quietly raised. Instead, the Republicans started a fire and then threw gasoline on it.
[...]
This level of irresponsibility is seldom seen even from American politicians.
[...]
While the world media fixates on the orchestrated debt ceiling crisis, the US government continues to bomb civilians in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia and continues with preparations to do the same thing to Syria and Iran.
And that may be the other shoe for Roberts’ earlier question: So what might be going on?
Americans need desperately to ask themselves why they put into political office such utterly irresponsible and incompetent people capable of creating such a totally unnecessary crisis loaded with such disastrous potential outcomes.
Are there any other kind?
If the President can declare on his own authority, without statutory basis and in defiance of the US Constitution, that he can assassinate US citizens who he considers to be a threat to national security, he certainly can declare that default is a threat to national security and that it is within his powers as commander-in-chief to ignore the debt ceiling.
Well, yes. There is that.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
A Federal Judge (appointed by W) has blasted the DOJ for its case against Thomas Drake – the man who tried to report waste and corruption in the secretive NSA.
The DOJ prosecutor asked for a $50,000 fine (specifically stated as a hopeful deterrent to future whistleblowers!) even as he dropped the case against Drake.Drake's leak involved no conceivable harm to national security, but did expose serious waste, corruption and possible illegality. When Drake was indicted back in April, 2010, I wrote at the time: "the more I think about this, the more I think this might actually be one of the worst steps the Obama administration has taken yet, if not the single worst step -- and that's obviously saying a lot." The effect of prosecuting Drake with multiple "espionage" counts, threatening him with decades in prison, and financially ruining him is clear: to frighten future whistleblowers into silence, and thus enable the government and the National Security State to do whatever it wants free of one of the only true checks it has.[...]
[A]fter the Bush DOJ executed a search warrant of Drake's home in 2007, the Obama DOJ -- 2 1/2 years later -- finally indicted him.
[...]
[The] court condemned what it called the "extraordinary position taken by the government, probably unprecedented in this courthouse" of dropping the whole case on the eve of trial after "an extraordinary period of delay." Judge Bennett added: "I find that unconscionable. Unconscionable. It is at the very root of what this country was founded on against general warrants of the British."
[The] court reviewed the difficult circumstances of Drake's childhood (he was raised in poverty and sent himself to school with risky military service), his complete lack of any prior criminal record, and -- most of all -- the multiple ways in which the failed prosecution destroyed his life ("the financial devastation wrought upon this defendant"), and flatly refused to impose any fine at all, explaining: "I'm not going to add to that in any way."
Furthermore, a District Court Judge has refused to force New York Times reporter James Risen to name his source on a report of a botched CIA plot against Iran – eleven years ago.
Despite being largely vindicated, Thomas Drake's life was all but destroyed, while Jim Risen spent years facing the prospect that he'd have to go to prison in order not to reveal his source. That climate of fear aimed at those who expose government wrongdoing is the prime outcome, if not the prime goal, of the Obama administration's war on whistleblowers.
The National Asset Management Agency, which has been tasked with clearing the mountain of bad debt amassed by Ireland's property developers, has launched a firesale of 850 properties including pubs in Somerset, towers blocks in Canary Wharf and golf courses in Ireland.[...]
Properties in Ireland include golf courses, five-star hotels, medical centres, homes in Dublin's salubrious Ballsbridge district and an airport in county Kildare.
At the top end of the list are trophy buildings in London including the flagship Louis Vuitton store in New Bond Street and a site destined for a Norman Foster-designed tower in the Docklands.
[...]
Those interested in buying a house or apartment in London could do well to check the list for potential knock-down prices.
There are residential properties on Cromwell Road, Clapham Common, Hampstead, Gloucester Road and whole apartment blocks on the Isle of Dogs.
Appropriate.
The show is getting old. But the only other channel is the quagmire in the Middle East. And people were way tired of that.
[In changing their debt plan - otherwise known as Boehner's Blunder - to include Tea Party demands so it could pass the House] Republicans made it clear they would rather pander to the right of their own party in order to spare their own blushes – rather than appeal to the Senate and seek a workable compromise there.
Can’t get much clearer. And I think you can probably lay this one squarely at the feet of John Boehner. It’s his blushes that were to be spared at all costs, and including heavy-handed browbeating on his own party members.
"If you want to see a bipartisan compromise, let your members of Congress know. Call, write, tweet," Obama told his TV audience, making history by being the first US president to officially call on citizens to use a #compromise hashtag.
As though John Boehner – or the GOP – give a rat’s ass what any TV audience cares. Oh, oh! They’re TWEETING! We have to change!
We will get our debt ceiling raised. All this drama has been for show and it hasn’t been about the economy, but about tearing down Obama. Because why? You guess. It’s not because he hasn’t been working a GOP agenda the whole time he’s been in office. If we’re only going to have two parties who can hold that office, and both of those parties are going to carry out essentially the same policies, then why don’t we just alternate the presidency – GOP 8 years, Democrats 8 years. Then maybe they could spend time actually trying to run the country –not run the country into the ground – instead of expending all their efforts on claiming the throne.
The Democrats and Republicans have totally lost sight of the fact that they’re supposed to be running this country for the benefit and betterment of all. The Tea Party acts as though they believe the job is bigger than the personality, but they are seriously looney-tunes, so they’re probably not who you want driving the bus. In fact, they will never get the driver’s seat as long as there is a corporation left functioning in this country. Come to think of it, the corporations are getting out of Dodge as quickly as they can.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
A journalism student at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas who used the online alias "No" and "MMMM" faces 15 years in prison and $500,000 in fines if she is convicted of hacking charges related to the group "Anonymous."[...]
The DDoS attacks against PayPal violated federal laws against "unauthorized and knowing transmission of code or commands resulting in intentional damage to a protected computer system," according to the FBI. The attacks flood websites with meaningless web traffic to slow them down and can sometimes knock websites offline entirely.
Haefer was one of 14 individuals arrested nationwide for participating in the attacks against PayPal. She faces a charge of conspiracy to "commit Intentional Damage to a Protected Computer" and for alleged damage caused by the attack.
Okay, number one, denial of service is not “damage” to a computer. That may be an interruption of business, but it is not damaging a computer. And number two, fifteen years? That seems a bit steep for slowing down a website. Would you get 15 years if you were driving while intoxicated and ran over a kid?
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
Reid hopes to entice Republicans to support his plan in two ways. First, with slightly deeper cuts. Second, by adopting an idea, first proposed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, that would delegate the authority to raise the debt limit to President Obama -- and give Congress the prerogative to attempt to block Obama from taking that action.[...]
It's unclear if Reid is willing to go any further.
Well, it’s pretty clear to me.
Late update: At a late Friday press conference, Reid suggested that the door is still open to further tweak his proposal, including by adding failsafes to assure future entitlement and tax reforms.
Yeah, and he’ll tweak until they say yes.
"It's up to the Republicans, right now we have a proposal...we are waiting for them to do something, anything, move toward us."
But if they don’t, we’ll move toward them. Hell, you guys are in bed together already. And you know you’re going to let them go all the way sooner or later. So do they. Indeed, it is up to the Republicans. You got that part right.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
By a vote of 218 to 210, the House of Representatives has passed the version of debt ceiling legislation promoted by Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner.Twenty-two Republican members voted against the bill, along with every Democrat who was present.
And now it can fail the Senate. Thanks, Boehnhead.
Most House Republicans will not swallow Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-NV) proposal without some significant changes. Their biggest problem with the bill is its raising of the debt ceiling that carries the country into 2013 without a vote. Setting that aside, both proposals are actually very similar in that they don't include any revenues or tax increases and would produce roughly $1 trillion over the next decade with a plan for $1.5 trillion more in cuts hashed out by a bipartisan debt committee.
Do you want the Republican plan or the Republican plan? We’re offering both. Cuts only. Thanks, Boneheads.
[The] government scientist who first warned of the threat to polar bears in a warming Arctic has been suspended and his work put under official investigation for possible scientific misconduct.[...]
In 2010 the Obama administration began an investigation into his work. The scientist was suspended with pay on 18 July. He is said to be under a gagging order and forbidden from communicating with his colleagues.
[...]
The Obama administration has been accused of hounding the scientist so it can open up the fragile region to drilling by Shell and other big oil companies
[...]
Oil firms, which want to drill in the pristine environment of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, have been complaining of delays caused by environmental reviews. This month Obama issued an order to speed up Arctic drilling permits.
[...]
’You have to wonder: this is the guy in charge of all the science in the Arctic and he is being suspended just now as an arm of the interior department is getting ready to make its decision on offshore drilling in the Arctic seas," said Jeff Ruch, president of the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
Flanked by representatives of the automotive industry, the US president said: "This agreement on fuel standards represents the single most important step we've ever taken as a nation to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.""And just as cars will go further on a gallon of gas, our economy will go further on a barrel of oil."
[...]
The new corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards will increase from 2017 at 5% annually for cars and 3.5% for light trucks through 2021, with an overall target of a fleetwide average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.
Are those “fuel efficient” trucks?
I just can never forget the high school assembly where some guy from I don’t know where came to tell us all about the marvelous inventions we’d see in the future. He said that right then, they were creating a gas engine that got 100 mpg. That was decades ago. Was he making up some whopper? Or was he telling tales that the corporate kings did not really want known?
Revised government data released this morning shows the recession was significantly worse than previously thought.
What that really means is that it was significantly worse than previously admitted.
Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), a hard "No" vote on the Boehner plan, just announced to reporters following a GOP conference meeting that he would now vote "Yes" on a revised version of the Boehner plan.
According to TPM, the revision includes a provision to raise the debt ceiling for one year. And then go through all this again. I guess everybody who got called in on the carpet is going to get called back in for this.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator at the centre of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, has said that he only ever acted on instructions from his employers.
Surely that makes doing illegal and immoral things okay.
No doubt this sterling example of humanity is one of those Rupert Murdoch says he trusted (or someone those persons trusted, as he explained it) and can’t be blamed for whatever they did.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
But here on Galveston Island, TS Don is thrilling us with oodles of rain. Of course, we need 12 - 15 oodles.
Former President George W. Bush says his apparent lack of reaction to the first news of the September 11 2001 attacks was a conscious decision to project an aura of calm in a crisis.
Sure it was, dipshit. You were calm because you knew it was coming and had been told what was going to happen and what you were going to do. You were calm because they told you that you’d better not act excited about your “trifecta” in public.
"I had been in enough crises to know that the first thing a leader has to do is to project calm," he added.
And what crises were those?
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
The House Judiciary Committee approved legislation on Thursday that would require Internet service providers (ISPs) to collect and retain records about Internet users' activity.
Not a bit fascist.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
I think my case has just been strengthened.
[Jalil] old reporters that rebel security had arrested the head of the group behind the killing but had not found the dead men's bodies.By Friday, however, it appeared that the bodies had been found and returned to their relatives.
Abdul Hakim, a nephew of Younes, told the Reuters news agency that Younes's body had been returned to his family on Thursday, burned and bearing bullet wounds.
Apparently some people outside the building where Jalil made his announcement about Younes being killed figured Jalil did it, too. There was a bit of a scene.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
Police in the southwestern state of Texas have arrested a US soldier for planning what they called a "terror plot" against Fort Hood, the military base where a fellow serviceman went on a deadly shooting rampage in 2009.Army private Naser Jason Abdo, who gave several television interviews last year saying he was opposed to deployment in Afghanistan, became the target of suspicion after a gun shop owner noticed his unusual purchases of weapons and tipped off police.
Police tracked down the 21-year-old to a motel near Fort Hood and arrested him on Wednesday afternoon, police said on Thursday. A Texas native, Abdo served at Fort Campbell in Kentucky but had deserted since July 4. He had gone AWOL since early this month after being charged with possessing child pornography.
Wow. A Muslim and a pedophile.
Military officials said Abdo was approved as a conscientious objector to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but that status was put on hold after he was charged with possessing child pornography.Abdo said he had received critical emails about his conscientious objector case and was worried about his safety as an increasing number of soldiers were returning to Fort Campbell from Afghanistan.
An Article 32 military hearing last month had recommended that Abdo be court-martialed over military charges that 34 images of child pornography were found on a computer he used.
A computer "he used." Yeah, that couldn’t have been set up.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
I would actually like to be able to root for the Democrats to win, and short of Obama tapping out and substituting his wife or Al Franken or somebody else with some bigger, firmer balls to finish this off...
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
Historian Bruce Bartlett, a former domestic policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan, sat down with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Wednesday to discuss the national debt.Bartlett said it was a myth that tax cuts are the key to prosperity, noting that Reagan raised the capital gains rate. He was also skeptical that Congress would be able to solve the current budget crisis.
“I think at this point, there’s nothing that can pass the House of Representatives,” he said.
“I think a good chunk of the Republican caucus is either stupid, crazy, ignorant or craven cowards, who are desperately afraid of the tea party people, and rightly so.”
How about all three.
House Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) just announced there will be no vote tonight on the Boehner debt bill.A remarkable turn of events. Simply no reason for Boehner to bring up his own bill if it was doomed to fail, and clearly it was.
But will he continue bludgeoning fellow Congressmen to try to get enough votes? According to TPM, he isn’t near it and never will be.
But here we are on the brink of default, with the world economy in the balance, and we've spent an entire day or more now on a bill that is never going to pass the Senate, was never going to be signed by the President, and which we now know doesn't even have the support of enough of the Speaker's own party to pass.To give you some idea where this is potentially headed, investors pulled billions out of money market funds today, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Yes, as the report says, there is not enough support for it in the Senate – we’ve known that for a long time – and the president was going to veto it anyway – or so he said. Boehnhead should be put out to pasture. An obvious megalomaniac. But hey, he has his date – August 2 – and he can screw around all he wants until then. And then he has to move on. For him, it's simply a personal thing. Either way, the fat cats are going to win, and the rest of us are going to suck it up, because the "Democrats" plan is only slightly less odious.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
I don't know, but read it for yourself - alzheimer's treated with coffee.
Dispatches from the Capitol via our reporters and others' indicate a steady stream of Republican Members of Congress -- who are already announced "No" votes on the Boehner plan -- being summoned to the Speaker's office.On his way in to the Speaker's office, Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX) -- a strong "No" vote -- said he had been called to the principal's office. On the way out, Gohmert said he was still a "bloody, beaten down no."
Good for you, Texan Boy, but your compatriot isn’t so courageous.
Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX), who has been considered either undecided or a no vote for Speaker Boehner's debt plan, tells reporters he's now a yes vote.Does Boehner have the votes now? "Apparently not, or we'd be upstairs voting," Burgess said.
As for Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), he told reporters, "I haven't changed my mind about anything ... I'm looking for a restroom, you gonna follow me in?" Franks is considered a "No" vote.
This kind of thing is just awful in my opinion. Trying to bludgeon or blackmail a vote because you don’t have enough is really shameful. I know it’s done routinely, but I think it’s very bad form.
Hopefully, Boehnhead won’t drag it out all night like they’ve been known to do. But at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if he did; he seems like the kind of guy who can’t handle being embarrassed.
....and hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
The head of the Libyan rebel's armed forces and two of his aides were killed by gunmen Thursday, the head of the rebel leadership said.[...]
Security officials said at the time that Younes was to be questioned about suspicions his family still had ties to Muammar Gaddafi's regime.
Younes was Gaddafi's interior minister before defecting to the rebels early in the uprising, which began in February.
[...]
[Head of the rebels' National Transitional Council - recognized by the US as legitimate authority in Libya -] Abdul Jalil said that Younes had been summoned for questioning regarding "a military matter." He said Younes and his two aides were shot before they arrived for questioning.
[...]
While he criticised Gaddafi for seeking to break the unity of rebel forces, he did not say directly that Younes' killers were associated with the regime.
Instead, he issued a stiff warning about "armed groups" in rebel-held cities, saying they needed to join the fight against Gaddafi or risk being arrested by security forces.
I don’t know about you, but I’m reading this to be a sign that the jockeying for top dog position has begun in earnest, and whether the CIA is clearing the path for Jalil or Jalil is simply eliminating contenders on his own, I couldn’t say, but I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts that’s what happened to Younes, and the reason for the warning.
Eritrea tried to attack an African Union summit in neighbouring Ethiopia in January and is bankrolling al-Qaeda-linked Somali rebels through its embassy in Kenya, a UN report has revealed.[...]
The plan was to attack the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, with a car bomb as African leaders took breaks, according to the report.
The attackers also planned to blow up Africa's largest market to "kill many people" and attack the area between the office of Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia's prime minister, and the Sheraton Hotel where most heads of state stay during AU summits.
[...]
Araya Desta, the Eritrean ambassador to the UN, told Al Jazeera on Thursday that the report is "a [work of] fiction", calling it a "fabricated drama" which is "outrageous and ridiculous".
[...]
He said that the report shows the UN monitoring group's bias against Eritrea and that it is "part of a wider scheme to push for more sanctions on Eritrea".
These guys were part of the “Coalition of the Willing” – the COW – that attacked Iraq to fight terrorists at our insistence. And bribery, no doubt. I wonder how many troops they actually had in the bargain (I'm guessing zero), and how much we paid them to say they were part of the COW.
Of course, ambassador Desta could be right. It could all be a big UN snow job. That is not entirely implausible.
I just can't wait until we become mired in African wars. And we will.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
The UK Guardian is attempting to get some answers regarding Prime Minister Cameron's appointment of a Murdoch man in a highly sensitive government position. It is currently running a column of letters to and from 10 Downing which began with a list of fourteen questions regarding the affair from the Guardian to the PM's offices. There is then a response from Downing Street, and then begins a series of (I assume) ongoing replies and counters beginning with the Guardian's opening: "Thank you for your response which, you'll be aware, doesn't answer a single one of the 14 questions we submitted."
"....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway," they did not say.
A fine concise piece of telling it like it is from Felicity Lawrence....
BSkyB's board announced it was back to business as usual on Thursday. Despite parliament's question mark over the integrity of its chairman, James Murdoch, the rest of the board said they fully supported him.
Of course they do. They’re all in this boat together.
The fact is that the modern globalised corporation is not a state within a state so much as a power above and beyond the state. International development experts stopped talking about multinationals years ago, preferring instead the tag of transnational corporations (TNCs), because these companies now transcend national authorities.Developing countries, dealing with corporations whose revenue often exceeds their own GDPs, have long been aware of their own lack of power. They are familiar with the way world trade rules have been written to benefit corporations and limit what any one country can impose on them.
[...]
While traditional multinationals identified with a national home, TNCs have no such loyalty. Territorial borders are no longer important.
[...]
If restrained by legitimate legislative authorities, they can appeal to WTO rules to enforce their rights, as the tobacco company Philip Morris has threatened recently. It says it will sue the Australian government for billions of dollars for violating its intellectual property rights if it goes ahead with its plan to ban branding on cigarette packets.
TNCs can and do locate their profits offshore to thwart any individual country's efforts to take revenue from them.
[...]
If labour laws or environmental regulations become too onerous for them, they can move operations to less regulated jurisdictions.
Which is why the US economy can go to Hell and no one with any power will lift a hand to stop it if there’s enough economic base for the corporate titans in another country.
The transnational banks have been past masters at playing off one jurisdiction against another and using the threat of relocation to resist government controls. Much of their activity still takes place in a shadow system beyond the states that have bailed them out.Nearly three years on from the near collapse of the whole system, the structural reform that everyone agreed was needed has not materialised. Lobbying at the heart of governments in Europe and the US has seen off calls for the separation of investment banking from the retail banking that takes ordinary people's deposits.
[...]
Angela Merkel – wanting to make sure private banking corporations would share the pain for the Greek loans they made as that country hovers around default – was threatened with not just relocation but with the whole banking system being brought down again. Not surprisingly, she backed off.
And the only thing standing between transnationals and the total slavery and destruction of entire populations, and even countries, is activists and whistleblowers, whether you like them or not. It’s how rainforests and indigenous people manage to survive, if they do, against the onslaught of TNCs that rape the land and dispossess the people. And how did the Murdochs get tripped up? By government regulations? Ha. By the law? Double Ha.
After the Milly Dowler phone-hacking revelation, it was neither our compromised elected representatives nor our law enforcers the police, but activists on Twitter that brought them down. Attacking not just the brands owned by the Murdochs but those owned by their advertisers until they withdrew from the News of the World's pages, they played by the globalised market's rulebook.
And it surely can’t be long now before access to the internet is severely curtailed.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
The heads of Wall Street's top banks on Thursday urged President Barack Obama and Congress to reach a deal on the debt ceiling, warning of "very grave" dangers if agreement is not reached."We strongly urge you to reach an agreement this week," the chief executives of Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs,JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and other top financial firms wrote in a joint letter.
Hey, I have an idea. Maybe the bankers, who we bailed out, could loan us the money to pay our debts, eh?
"The consequences of inaction -- for our economy, the already struggling job market, the financial circumstances of American businesses and families, and for America's global economic leadership -- would be very grave."
Jesus, the size of those balls. They weren’t too concerned about all that when they were playing funny with the mortgages and hedge funds and nearly smashed us to bits just a few short years ago.
The reaction to the heinous Oslo attack by Norway's political class has been exactly the opposite [of American politicians to similar situations]: a steadfast refusal to succumb to hysteria and a security-über-alles mentality.[...]
Similarly inconceivable for American political discourse is the equally brave response of the country's Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg, whose office was the target of the bomb and whose Labour Party was the sponsor of the camp where dozens of teenagers were shot:
He called on his country to react by more tightly embracing, rather than abandoning, the culture of tolerance that Anders Behring Breivik said he was trying to destroy.“The Norwegian response to violence is more democracy, more openness and greater political participation,” Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg insisted at a news conference. . . .
Stoltenberg strongly defended the right to speak freely -- even if it includes extremist views such as Breivik’s. We have to be very clear to distinguish between extreme views, opinions — that’s completely legal, legitimate to have. What is not legitimate is to try to implement those extreme views by using violence,” he said in English.
Norway's government understandably intends to investigate what happened and correct any needed gaps in security, such as slow police response; but what it refuses to do is transform itself into a closed, secret surveillance state.
Clearly they need CIA intervention.
Top be fair, however, if the 9/11 attacks had turned out to be perpetrated by “right-wing extremists” instead of “Islamic terrorists,” there would have been a very different response here, too.
The American Revolutionaries were long revered in our political culture because -- by risking everything, including their lives, to wage war against the most powerful empire on Earth -- they chose liberty and freedom from state intrusion over personal security.[...]
All of this has given way -- among the political class in the U.S. -- to a supreme fixation on safety at the expense of every other value: a fixation that is in equal measures cowardly, authoritarian and exploitative. Patrick Henry's long celebrated tribute to courage has been turned on its head by the degraded cowardice of GOP tough-guy leaders -- such as Pat Roberts, John Cornyn, and Rush Limbaugh -- shrieking that civil liberties are worthless if you're dead: i.e., that safety is the paramount goal. Meanwhile, as virtually every other country that suffers a horrendous Terrorist attack puts the accused perpetrators on trial in their real court system in the city where the attack occurred -- the subway bombers in London, the train bombers in Madrid, the shooters in Mumbai, the Bali nightclub bombers in Indonesia -- it is only the U.S., the self-proclaimed Home of the Brave, that is too frightened to do so, instead concocting military tribunals and sticking accused terrorists in cages on a Caribbean island, as members of both parties spew base fear-mongering to bar trials on American soil.
Yeah, well, you got me there.
So drowning in secrecy is the National Security State that the Obama administration refuses even to explain how it interprets and applies surveillance powers enacted by Congress. [...] As a new ACLU report documents -- one co-authored by former FBI agent Mike German -- "We are now living in an age of government secrecy run amok."
And, Glenn would like to set me straight on the US record…
[The] U.S. Government most certainly did pursue vastly increased security powers in the name of McVeigh's attack: the Clinton administration, citing the Oklahoma City attack, demanded a full-scale prohibition on all computer encryption that the Government could not access, as well as significantly increased domestic eavesdropping powers, while Congress -- by an overwhelming majority -- enacted the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 that severely infringed due process rights, created new Terrorism crimes, and vested the government with a litany of vast new prosecutorial powers -- all galvanized by the McVeigh attack
I stand corrected. We are totally fascist, heading toward totalitarian fascist.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
While the "Third World" has been turning away from neoliberalism and Western-controlled dictators, the "First World" has been driving to the right. When all is said and done, the Third World will become democracies with middle classes whose economies grow stronger, while the First World, as we are experiencing already, will collapse into fascism and look more like the Third World as we think of it. That is, if somebody doesn't nuke the whole thing.
The American Taliban keep expecting a "rapture" at the "end times." This is something somebody pulled out of his ass one day, but if they'd actually read their Bible, as buggered as it is, they would realize that they're already there, when "the first shall become last and the last shall become first." (Matthew 20:16)
Click the pic for interactive site.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
We’ll eventually have to just declare victory and leave if Obama’s going to cut spending in the Middle East “defense” budget.
At least 12 people have been killed and 28 more wounded after two bombs exploded in the Iraqi city of
Tikrit, as police and soldiers were collecting their salaries at a local bank, according to a police official.[...]
Iraqi forces say they can contain internal threats but acknowledge they need more training to plug capability gaps.
How’s that for a self-contradictory statement?
As US troops prepare to leave Iraq in six months time, the country will be left with no effective defence from external threats.The army is ill-equipped, with no Iraqi pilots train to fly modern jet fighters and no missile defence system.
Iraq currently does not possess any such aircraft, and if it were to purchase such planes it would take two to three years to fill a single squadron of pilots.
And in Afghanistan…
Suicide bombers armed with guns have stormed government offices in the capital of Uruzgan, a province in southern Afghanistan, the Reuters news agency reports.The compounds of both the provincial governor and the police chief were targeted during Thursday's attack by up to six bombers, the reports said.
Oh, yeah, we’re almost there.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
I'm plugging for Russ Feingold, who's the most credible candidate on [the Stop Hoping] ballot. Bernie Sanders is currently in first place and Dennis Kucinich is a 2nd. Russ is in third. Personally, as much as I like them, I don't feel that Bernie and Dennis make as marketable candidates as Feingold would.The perfect candidate, in my way of thinking, would be Howard Dean. So I added him in as a write-in candidate. Of course Governor Dean, along with many of the others, figure to be reluctant candidates: they would have to be drafted by a groundswell of popular support, as yet un-materialized.
I would definitely go with Russ Feingold, but I bet he wouldn’t run. And he did get voted out of office recently, so maybe he's not as marketable as we might like to think. (On the other hand, the reason he got voted out is probably the reason no progressive will ever be president in our lifetime. And why in the end this ploy is an exercise in curiosity.) I like Bernie Sanders, too. Dennis I think would be too subject to winds and pressure as president. I like what he says, but I think sometimes he says it because he knows he doesn't have to back it up. Just my gut feeling about Dennis.
But frankly, I don’t think there’s any politician that I’d really trust or put any weight behind (not that I have any weight that counts in politics). I want a man of compassion with complete honesty and integrity – a man whose life has been devoted to understanding and making the world a better place. I’d draft Bill Moyers. (And, whaddya know - he's already on the list.)
But let’s go ahead and play the game, want to?
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
I keep seeing that as saying "stop hopping," which works, too.
“I don’t know what is going on in this man’s mind,” he continued. “I like Obama so much, I’m always trying to understand what he is dealing with, and I understand he’s got a lot to deal with. Washington is very tough and the Republicans are certainly assholes — oh, sorry, wrong network for that — but I just don’t get this giving away the store. I mean, I never thought he would be caving on the revenue side of it.”
He went on to say…
I never thought he would be caving on the revenue side of it. I thought that was his line in the sand. And he has this reputation for always caving to the Republicans. I thought he can’t do it this time. If he does it again, they will just own him. They will know that all you ever have to do with this guy is wait and you get everything you want. And he does it.
Glad you could catch up, Bill.
He’s always arguing with them about their agenda. He never argues the Democratic agenda. … Wouldn’t it be a tragedy if we elected a Democratic president and four years go by and we never attempt Democratic policies.
We’re halfway there. I suspect we’ll make that challenge. I don’t think “we elected” a Democratic president, “we elected” a Manchurian candidate.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
They never expected anyone to notice.
The US debt crisis has escalated after Republicans were forced to rewrite their proposal to lift the debt ceiling, because they miscalculated how much the original plan would cut spending.In an embarrassing development for John Boehner, the Republican Congress speaker, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) ruled on Tuesday night that his bill would have only cut spending by $850bn (£517bn)over the next decade, not the $1.2tn he had aimed for. Republicans are now racing to rewrite the legislation, and have pushed back a congressional vote on the plan from Wednesday to Thursday at the earliest.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
Senior Indian and Pakistani officials have held discussions in New Delhi, India's capital, that will lay the groundwork for formal peace talks set for Wednesday.The meeting between the foreign ministers of the neighbouring South Asian countries is expected to focus on confidence-building measures, trade and people-to-people exchanges.
Salman Bashir, Pakistan's foreign secretary, said on Tuesday that he hopes the dialogue will boost ties between the two countries.
"We have every reason to be satisfied with our joint endeavours for the cause of peace and stability and for good relations between our two countries," he said.
Now that’s the way to have successful peace talks – you know, don’t actually be at war when you do it. Brilliant.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
He said so himself. Check out his latest speech.
In the year 2000, the government had a budget surplus. But instead of using it to pay off our debt, the money was spent on trillions of dollars in new tax cuts, while two wars and an expensive prescription drug program were simply added to our nation's credit card.
Which was all apparently fine and dandy with him when he stepped into the office and increased the wars, bailed out the banks, etc., etc., instead of paying off our debt.
As a result, the deficit was on track to top $1 trillion the year I took office.
And of course, he did not say what it is now. ($1.5 trillion.)
To make matters worse, the recession meant that there was less money coming in, and it required us to spend even more - on tax cuts for middle-class families; on unemployment insurance; on aid to states so we could prevent more teachers and firefighters and police officers from being laid off. These emergency steps also added to the deficit.
And of course, he didn’t mention the gigantic banker bail out.
[If] we stay on the current path, our growing debt could cost us jobs and do serious damage to the economy. More of our tax dollars will go toward paying off the interest on our loans. Businesses will be less likely to open up shop and hire workers in a country that can't balance its books. Interest rates could climb for everyone who borrows money - the homeowner with a mortgage, the student with a college loan, the corner store that wants to expand. And we won't have enough money to make job-creating investments in things like education and infrastructure, or pay for vital programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
Pretty scary. And amazingly like a raft tour guide taking you to within 10 feet of the waterfall and telling you how important it is that “we” turn around.
The [Democrats] approach says, let's live within our means by making serious, historic cuts in government spending. Let's cut domestic spending to the lowest level it's been since Dwight Eisenhower was President. Let's cut defense spending at the Pentagon by hundreds of billions of dollars. Let's cut out the waste and fraud in health care programs like Medicare - and at the same time, let's make modest adjustments so that Medicare is still there for future generations. Finally, let's ask the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to give up some of their tax breaks and special deductions.
OMG! Give up “some” of the “tax breaks and special deductions.” How will they survive? And of course, he doesn’t say just where those domestic spending cuts will be taken. And, I assure you he is planning on his already proposed troop drawdown in Afghanistan and Iraq (which are neither one settled) to make up those hundreds of billions of dollars being “cut” from Pentagon spending.
This balanced approach asks everyone to give a little without requiring anyone to sacrifice too much.
Let’s balance the social program cuts with “some” reduction in tax breaks for ultra-wealthy corporations. Which is the bigger sacrifice? It’s quite possible that someone who requires assistance with medical expenses is going to be sacrificing his livelihood, and maybe his life. Is that “too much?” What about just having less money to spend on nutritious food for his family? Is that “too much?” Apparently not in Obama’s mind.
And the cuts wouldn't happen so abruptly that they'd be a drag on our economy.
A drag on that man’s life, perhaps, but not our economy.
The only reason this balanced approach isn't on its way to becoming law right now is because a significant number of Republicans in Congress are insisting on a cuts-only approach - an approach that doesn't ask the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations to contribute anything at all.
Can you believe our “leaders” are actually considering this? And yet, here we are.
The debate is about how it should be done. Most Americans, regardless of political party, don't understand how we can ask a senior citizen to pay more for her Medicare before we ask corporate jet owners and oil companies to give up tax breaks that other companies don't get. How can we ask a student to pay more for college before we ask hedge fund managers to stop paying taxes at a lower rate than their secretaries? How can we slash funding for education and clean energy before we ask people like me to give up tax breaks we don't need and didn't ask for?
Well, “we” are not asking that. He is. In degree only does he differ from the GOP. “Before.” Not “rather than.”
And again, he quotes Ronald Reagan, and I’m not even going to copy that. He always wants to compare himself favorably with Ronald Reagan. That must make every Democrat proud. The second part of that is to make Republicans ashamed that they’ve gone even beyond Saint Ronald’s standards of conservatism, as if you could make a Republican ashamed of anything.
Now, what makes today's stalemate so dangerous is that it has been tied to something known as the debt ceiling - a term that most people outside of Washington have probably never heard of before.
What bubble is he in? Thank you for patronizing your subjects, King Peace Laureate. That’s been a third of the news headlines for weeks. I bet even Fox News uses that term in its reports on how Obama is driving the country to economic ruin. And well he may be, but he doesn’t know what country it is.
The older we grow the greater becomes our wonder at how much ignorance one can contain without bursting one's clothes. --Mark Twain
Understand - raising the debt ceiling does not allow Congress to spend more money. It simply gives our country the ability to pay the bills that Congress has already racked up.
And how are we supposed to do that without spending more money? If we don’t need to raise the debt ceiling to pay our bills, then what the fuck is the problem?
We can't allow the American people to become collateral damage to Washington's political warfare.
Too damned late. Washington’s political and actual warfare. That 98% of us he says won’t see our taxes raised by his proposal have all become collateral damage.
I have told leaders of both parties that they must come up with a fair compromise in the next few days that can pass both houses of Congress - a compromise I can sign.
He tells us what he says he’s told them. He thinks that gets him off the hook. As though him telling them anything has ever brought about any result beside their telling him how it’s really going to be.
Despite our disagreements, Republican leaders and I have found common ground before.
He finds common ground with the Republican leaders every time they tell him where to step.
Yes, many want government to start living within its means. And many are fed up with a system in which the deck seems stacked against middle-class Americans in favor of the wealthiest few. But do you know what people are fed up with most of all?They're fed up with a town where compromise has become a dirty word.
And where their president is the most compromised person of all.
But no, they're fed up the most with what he said first: the deck is stacked against them. Not "seems" stacked against them. Is.
[Obama] quoted Jefferson: “Every man cannot have his way in all things.”Then John Boehner came out, to rebut the crazy idea that he cannot have his way in all things.
He was amazed that the federal government does not work in exactly the same way as a small business in Ohio. In fact, he was amazed that it doesn’t work like “every other business in America.” Well see, that’s the source of your amazement right there: government is not actually a business.
It is these days. And that's what's wrong with it.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
Corexit: More toxic than the oil
IVAW: Iraq Veterans Against the War
