The End of the Middle Class as We Know It

The End of the Middle Class as We Know It: "

This is how it ends. Or at least, this is how the latest, sad chapter in a story that has been ending for three decades is written.

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(Via Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines.)

The Clinton Bubble

The Clinton Bubble: "Robert Scheer Obama's allowing the same Clinton-era policy makers who set us up for financial crisis make economic policy. What happened to the socially conscious guy we voted for?"

(Via The Nation: Top Stories.)

Reagan On Torture Prosecutions

Reagan On Torture Prosecutions: "

From his signing statement ratifying the UN Convention on Torture from 1984:

'The United States participated actively and effectively in the
negotiation of the Convention . It marks a significant step in the
development during this century of international measures against
torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the
Convention by the United States will clearly express United States
opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still
prevalent in the world today.

The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called universal jurisdiction. Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.'

My italics. Reagan was admant about prosecuting torture, but also prosecuting inhuman treatment that some might claim was not full-on torture. Now go read National Review or The Weekly Standard. And look what has happened to conservatism in America.

"

(Via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.)

Torture and the Law: Where 'Those Methods' Ultimately Lead

Torture and the Law: Where 'Those Methods' Ultimately Lead: "The many roads of inquiry into the Bush administration's abusive 'interrogation techniques' all lead to one stubborn, inconvenient fact: Torture is not just immoral but also illegal. This means that once we learn the whole truth, the law will oblige us to act on it."

(Via Eugene Robinson.)

Op-Ed Columnist: Reclaiming America’s Soul

Op-Ed Columnist: Reclaiming America’s Soul: "The only way for the nation to regain its moral compass is to investigate how the government’s interrogation abuses happened, and, if necessary, to prosecute those responsible."

(Via NYT > Opinion.)

Churchill vs Cheney

Churchill vs Cheney: "

The West has been attacked many times before by barbarians. As someone who grew up in Southern England between London and the Channel, this was perhaps more obvious to me than to some Americans. In the countryside around my home, there were still occasional concrete constructions designed to impede Nazi tanks left rotting in the woods. My high-school playground retained its air-raid shelters (we stored our dirty books there). My great aunt was blind in one eye from a bomb blast in the blitz; my grandfather lived with a brain injury when he was a prison guard in the war and was attacked by a prison inmate during an air-raid; my mother was knocked over by the impact of a rocket at the end of the war; my parents and aunts and uncles were evacuated. Most ordinary people lived through the Blitz, a random 9/11 a week, from an army poised to invade, and turn Englands democratic heritage into a footnote in a Nazi empire.

As all that was happening, and as intelligence was vital, the British captured over 500 enemy spies operating in Britain and elsewhere. Most went through Camp 020, a Victorian pile crammed with interrogators. As Britains very survival hung in the balance, as women and children were being killed on a daily basis and London turned into rubble, Churchill nonetheless knew that embracing torture was the equivalent of surrender to the barbarism he was fighting. The chief interrogator at Camp 020 was someone out of the movies:

Colonel Robin ‘Tin Eye’ Stephens was the commander of the wartime
spy prison and interrogation centre codenamed Camp 020, an ugly
Victorian mansion surrounded by barbed wire on the edge of Ham Common.
In the course of the war, some 500 enemy spies from 44 countries passed
through Camp 020; most were interrogated, at some point, by Stephens;
all but a tiny handful crumbled.

Stephens was a bristling,
xenophobic martinet; in appearance, with his glinting monocle and
cigarette holder, he looked exactly like the caricature Gestapo
interrogator who has ‘vays of making you talk’.

Stephens had
ways of making anyone talk. In a top secret report, recently
declassified by MI5 and now in the Public Records Office, he listed the
tactics needed to break down a suspect: ‘A breaker is born and not made
. . . pressure is attained by personality, tone, and rapidity of
questions, a driving attack in the nature of a blast which will scare a
man out of his wits.’

The terrifying commandant of Camp 020 refined psychological intimidation to an art form.

Suspects often left the interrogation cells legless with fear after an
all-night grilling. An inspired amateur psychologist, Stephens used
every trick, lie and bullying tactic to get what he needed; he deployed
threats, drugs, drink and deceit. But he never once resorted to
violence. ‘Figuratively,’ he said, ‘a spy in war should be at the point
of a bayonet.’ But only ever figuratively. As one colleague wrote: ‘The
Commandant obtained results without recourse to assault and battery. It
was the very basis of Camp 020 procedure that nobody raised a hand
against a prisoner.’

Stephens did not eschew torture out of mercy. This was no squishy
liberal: the eye was made of tin, and the rest of him out of tungsten.
(Indeed, he was disappointed that only 16 spies were executed during
the war.) His motives were strictly practical. ‘Never strike a man. It
is unintelligent, for the spy will give an answer to please, an answer
to escape punishment. And having given a false answer, all else depends
upon the false premise.’...

Torture is the weapon of cowards and bullies and monsters. Cheney is all three. Prosecute him.

"

(Via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.)

Cheney's Standards: Lower Than The Luftwaffe's

Cheney's Standards: Lower Than The Luftwaffe's: "

We know that civilized countries have resisted the very torture techniques Dick Cheney was so eager to grasp and wield. What many do not know is that even evil regimes understand the flaws of torture as a form of actionable intelligence and have used it primarily as a tool to get propagandistic false confessions (as, increasingly, it seems, Cheney was intent on as well). Here is part of the Wiki profile of Hanns Scharff, Hitlers chief intelligence interrogator. He had more disdain for torture than Dick Cheney:

Hanns-Joachim Gottlob Scharff (December 16, 1907 – September 10, 1992)
was a German Luftwaffe interrogator during the Second World War. He has
been called the 'Master Interrogator' of the Luftwaffe and possibly all
of Nazi Germany; he has also been praised for his contribution in
shaping U.S. interrogation techniques after the war.

Merely an
Obergefreiter (the equivalent of a senior lance corporal), he was
charged with interrogating every German-captured American fighter pilot
during the war after his becoming an interrogation officer in 1943. He
is highly praised for the success of his techniques, especially
considering he never used physical means to obtain the required
information. No evidence exists he even raised his voice in the
presence of a prisoner of war (POW)....

Scharff was opposed to physically abusing prisoners with the intent
to obtain information. Taught on the job, Scharff instead relied upon
the Luftwaffes approved list of techniques which mostly involved
making the interrogator seem as if he is his prisoners greatest
advocate while in captivity.

Scharff’s interrogation techniques
were so effective that he was often called upon to assist other German
interrogators in their questioning of bomber pilots and aircrews,
including those crews and fighter pilots from countries other than the
United States. Additionally, Scharff was charged with questioning
V.I.P.s (Very Important Prisoners) that funneled through the
interrogation center, namely senior officers and world-famous fighter
aces.

After the end of WWII, Scharff was invited by the United States Air
Force to give lectures on his interrogation techniques and first-hand
experiences. The U.S. military later incorporated Scharff’s methods
into its curriculum at its interrogation schools. Scharffs methods are
still taught in US Army interrogation schools...

"

(Via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.)

Taliban Seize Vital Pakistan Area Closer to the Capital

Taliban Seize Vital Pakistan Area Closer to the Capital: "Taliban militants have established control in the strategically important area of Buner, only 70 miles from Islamabad, law enforcement officials said. "

(Via NYTimes.)

Quote For The Day

Quote For The Day: "'I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture...' - Official proclamation by President Bush, June 26, 2003."

(Via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.)

The Torture And The Iraq War

The Torture And The Iraq War: "To put this in plain English: We had a president determined to torture a prisoner to get false evidence on which to justify a war."

(Via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.)

Holding Pelosi Accountable For Torture

Holding Pelosi Accountable For Torture: "

The speaker was briefed on waterboarding and other torture techniques used by the White House. She was part of the select group of congressmen and women told of the program. She did nothing to stop it and now claims she was never told it was going to be used. Porter Goss has a different recollection:

‘We
were briefed, and we certainly understood what C.I.A. was doing,’ Mr.
Goss said in an interview. ‘Not only was there no objection, there was
actually concern about whether the agency was doing enough.’

For what its worth, I believe Goss. Getting to the bottom of how the US became a torturing nation is not about one party or another. Its about getting accountability from all those who made it happen.

"

(Via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.)

Nathan Gardels: The Coming Demise of the Dollar Reflects the Rise of the Rest

Nathan Gardels: The Coming Demise of the Dollar Reflects the Rise of the Rest: "

One of the more momentous power shifts in the last 500 years is taking place as we sift through the debris of America's busted credit bubble. The dominance of the West built up across those centuries is now yielding to the East. The latest sign of this shift is that those nations with surplus savings earned through our over-consumption of imports -- in particular China -- are proposing a new global reserve currency to replace the waning dollar. In order to protect their accumulated assets and diversify their risk they want to store their wealth in a basket of currencies instead.

"

(Via Huffington Blog.)

Robert Scheer: Thievery Under the TARP

Robert Scheer: Thievery Under the TARP: "As with the entire banking bailout, the new plan of Obama's treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, is likely to enrich the very folks who impoverished the rest of us, as the report notes: 'The significant government-financed leverage presents a great incentive for collusion between the buyer and seller of the asset, or the buyer and other buyers, whereby, once again, the taxpayer takes a significant loss while others profit.'

At the heart of this potentially massive fraud was the original decision of Henry Paulson, President Bush's treasury secretary and a former Goldman Sachs chairman, to not require the recipients of the bailout, such as his old firm, to account for how the money was spent. Unfortunately, President Obama's administration continued that practice.

The only difference is that the amount of public money being put at risk is now far greater, and the hedge funds, which are totally unregulated, have been brought in as the central players. One of the largest of those hedge funds, D.E. Shaw, carried Obama's top economic adviser, Lawrence Summers, on its payroll to the tune of $5.2 million last year. He may have reason to trust these secretive enterprises that operate beyond the law, but the public does not."

(Via Huffington Blog.)

Sen. Carl Levin: New Report: Bush Officials Tried to Shift Blame for Detainee Abuse to Low-Ranking Soldiers

Sen. Carl Levin: New Report: Bush Officials Tried to Shift Blame for Detainee Abuse to Low-Ranking Soldiers: "

Today we're releasing the declassified report of the Senate Armed Services Committee's investigation into the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. The report was approved by the Armed Services Committee on November 20, 2008 and has, in the intervening period, been under review at the Department of Defense for declassification.

In my judgment, the report represents a condemnation of both the Bush administration's interrogation policies and of senior administration officials who attempted to shift the blame for abuse - such as that seen at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and Afghanistan - to low ranking soldiers. Claims, such as that made by former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz that detainee abuses could be chalked up to the unauthorized acts of a 'few bad apples,' were simply false.

"

(Via Huffington Blog.)

Robert Creamer: Does Torture Work?

Robert Creamer: Does Torture Work?: "

Former CIA Director Hayden and Bush's Attorney General Mukasey published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal last week that argued, in essence, that using torture works.

The fact that they, and former Vice President Cheney, are still making the argument is more than enough reason why President Obama needed to lay bare the 'torture memos' that provided both the details and justification for the use of torture during the Bush regime.

As a country, we need to emerge from this debate having placed the argument that 'torture works' outside of the boundaries of acceptable political discourse once and for all.

"

(Via Huffington Blog.)

Talibanistan

Talibanistan: "Robert Dreyfuss - Make no mistake, though: this is the most dangerous problem in the world."

(Via The Nation: Top Stories.)

Are the Republicans Going Galt?

Are the Republicans Going Galt?: "Are Republicans turning into libertarians?

Last week's Tea Party protests had their origins in the libertarian movement. Although many conservative groups were eager to co-opt their purpose, the core of the message -- anti-tax, anti-big government -- was about as libertarian as it gets. Participation in the rallies was also proportionately quite high in areas like New Hampshire and the Interior West, which are traditionally more sympathetic toward libertarian concerns.

We can argue about the significance of the tea paries and we can argue about whether they represent the way forward for Republicans. But they are just one manifesation of what seems like an increasing drift toward libertariansim within the party. Consdier also:

-- A new Gallup survey suggests that 80 percent of Republicans think that big government is a bigger threat to the government than big business, versus just 10 percent who think the opposite. This represents an enormous partisan split from Democrats, among whom a majority think that big business is the greater threat. Moreover, the partisan split has grown significantly since 2006; it has now become almost a definitional issue for Republicans.



"

(Via FiveThirtyEight.com: Politics Done Right.)

Whitewashing Torture

Whitewashing Torture: "Ok, I understand these are hard-working civil servants. A lot of them do wonderful, conscientious, vital work, etc. I understand the importance for a new president to show he supports them, "feels their pain," etc. But his whitewashing of the past was pretty disgusting. He said something to the extent of "mistakes that were potentially made in the past." Sorry. That's not good enough. Not at all. Forcing water down someone's throat to trigger the drowning reflex six times a day every day for a month is not a "mistake potentially made in the past," and no degree of euphemism, spinning or wanting to "look forward" makes it anything other than a war crime."

(Via The Nation: Top Stories.)

Obama Stands Nuremberg on Its Head

Obama Stands Nuremberg on Its Head: "

President Obama’s decision to spare CIA torturers from prosecution stands the Nuremberg principles on their head. ‘Good Germans who were only following orders’ are not exempt from the bar of justice. Individuals must be held responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity.'

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(Via Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines.)

Editorial: The Torturers’ Manifesto

Editorial: The Torturers’ Manifesto: "The Obama team must investigate the lawyers who wrote the memos on prisoner interrogation, which were written not to set legal limits, but to provide legal immunity for illegal and immoral acts."

(Via NYT > Opinion.)

If the Economy Were a Plane ...

If the Economy Were a Plane ...: "

"

(Via Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines.)

The Government Is Spying On Us

The Government Is Spying On Us: "The revelation that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been intercepting Americans' emails and phone calls in what the New York Times terms a "significant and systemic" manner is hardly surprising.
Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, The Nation and the American Civil Liberties Union have been complaining for years about the lax federal regulation and oversight of the spying agency."

(Via The Nation: Top Stories.)

We Are Now Indonesia

We Are Now Indonesia: "

Greenwald points to this nugget:

They explicitly recognized that the techniques they were authorizing were ones that we condemned other countries for using -- including as 'torture' -- but nonetheless approved them, explicitly saying that the standards we impose on others do not bind us in any way.

And this is, in fact, the Bush-Cheney position. Because America did these things, they are not torture. This is also, by the way, the position of the news reporters and editors at the New York Times and the Washington Post. Does anyone believe that if Iran, say, captured an American soldier, kept him awake for eleven days straight, bashed his head and body against plywood walls with a towel around his neck, forced him to stand and sit in stress positions finessed by the Communist Chinese, stuck him in a dark coffin for hours, and then waterboarded him, that the NYT would describe him as a victim of 'harsh interrogation techniques'? Do you think Mike Allen would give anonymity to a top Iranian official who defended these techniques as vital to Irans national security?

The last seven years have revealed that almost the entire American establishment views itself as immune to the moral and ethical rules it applies to every other country in the world. Now we know, at least. And you can be sure they will protecting each other to the bitter end."

(Via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.)

The Nuremberg Principle

The Nuremberg Principle: "

'The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.'

This much we know: under Bush, the United States insisted that these principles did not apply to its own government. Our standards are now lower for the US than they were once for Nazi Germany."

(Via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.)

How Obama Excused Torture

How Obama Excused Torture: "Former Reagan Justice Department official Bruce Fein writes that Obama's decision to release CIA memos without prosecuting Bush administration officials flouts his constitutional duty.
On Thursday, April 16th, in response to a lawsuit initiated by the..."

(Via The Daily Beast - Blogs and Stories.)

Hey Rick, Can We Talk?

Hey Rick, Can We Talk?: "Maybe Democrats should take Rick Perry up on his idea that Texas should secede from the Union.

Consider:



-- If Texas were not in the Union, the Democrats would currently have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate -- or at least they would once Al Franken gets seated.

(Via FiveThirtyEight.com: Politics Done Right.)

Elizabeth Warren, TARP Oversight Chair, Denied Results of Stress Tests; Calls on Americans to Get Involved

Elizabeth Warren, TARP Oversight Chair, Denied Results of Stress Tests; Calls on Americans to Get Involved: "

The Boston Globe has posted an interview with Elizabeth Warren (chair of TARP Congressional Oversight Panel).

In the interview she describes what the TARP plan is supposed to accomplish, 'Treasury has given us multiple contradictory explanations for what it's trying to accomplish,' the difficulty in getting any information from Treasury, 'I've spent four weeks now looking for someone who can give me the details of the stress test so that we can do an independent evaluation of whether the stress test is any good' and lots more.

The interview is short and ends with this question:

Q: Is there anything else that you would want people to understand?

A: I don't have a badge and a gun. The power of this panel is derived entirely from the voice of the American people. If they stay out of the policy debates, then Treasury can spend at will and reshape the American economy with no one in the room but insiders. If they are involved, the policies will look different.

It's the design of the rules going forward that will tell us or that will determine whether we are moving to a cyclical economy with high wealth, high risk, and crashes every 10 to 15 years. Or whether we will emerge, as we did following the new regulatory reforms in the Great Depression, with a more stable economic system that benefits people across the economic spectrum. It's an amazing moment in history.

For anyone wanting to know more about Warren, I highly recommend her 2007 interview with Harry Kreisler, The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class: Higher Risks, Lower Rewards, and a Shrinking Safety Net.

Share

"

(Via Firedoglake.)

Legal left cools toward Obama

Legal left cools toward Obama: "It’s not just Paul Krugman anymore.

A growing chorus on the legal left is cooling toward President Barack Obama as a result of recent actions by the Justice Department vigorously defending the Bush administration in what it termed the war on terror.

“Obama Position on Illegal Spying: Worse Than Bush,” a large graphic declared over the weekend on the home page of a respected group advocating freedom on the Internet, Electronic Frontier Foundation. "

(Via Politico.com: Politics '08.)

The Bush Six to Be Indicted

The Bush Six to Be Indicted: "Spanish prosecutors will seek criminal charges against Alberto Gonzales and five high-ranking Bush administration officials for sanctioning torture at'Guantánamo.
Spanish prosecutors have decided to press forward with a criminal..."

(Via The Daily Beast - Blogs and Stories.)

Change Your Corporate Overlords Can Profit From

Change Your Corporate Overlords Can Profit From: "

Goldman Sachs, in another sign that banks may be turning around, beat Wall Street’s earnings expectations as it reported a profit of $1.66 billion for the first three months of this year. The bank also said it planned to raise $5 billion in stock to help it pay back government bailout funds.

The New York-based bank said it earned $3.39 per share, easily surpassing analysts’ forecasts for profit of $1.64 per share. This compares with earnings of $1.47 billion, or $3.23 per share, in the quarter ended Feb. 29 of last year, and is a huge improvement over the $2.29 billion Goldman lost in the fourth quarter.

Hey, who knew that having all of your executives involved in the Obama administration could be so… PROFITABLE:

One has to love the sequence of events here. Back in 2004, Goldman chief Hank Paulson goes to SEC chief William Donaldson and petitions to have lending restrictions relaxed for the top five investment banks. Donaldson rolls over, the restrictions are relaxed, and it’s a disaster, as the top five banks immediately overleverage themselves — two of the five, Bear Stearns and Lehman, would actually collapse, at least partially as a result of being insanely overleveraged.

In the midst of this disaster, Paulson is named Treasury secretary. He does nothing about the worsening financial crisis until it is far too late, then allows one of Goldman’s biggest competitors, Lehman, to fail while at the same time intervening on a huge scale to save AIG, which just happens to owe Goldman a ton of money.

When AIG is bailed out, its government regulator is not in the room, but the new chief of Goldman, Lloyd Blankfein, is. In fact, Goldman Sachs ultimately receives about $13 billion of the money paid to AIG by the government in the bailout, reportedly getting paid 100 cents on the dollar for its AIG exposure, despite the fact that the bank claimed it wasn’t going to suffer severe losses if AIG collapsed.

"

(Via Prose Before Hos.)

Obama's Brand Of Bipartisanship

Obama's Brand Of Bipartisanship: "

Nate Silver defines it:

...bipartisanship, as Obama intended the term, should not necessarily be confused for 'compromise'. Rather, it implied behaving in good-faith -- hearing out opinions from different sides of the aisle and identifying the best ideas regardless of their partisan origin. Bipartisanship, to Obama, was a process rather than an outcome. He could plausibly have been acting in a bipartisan manner, even if he hadnt gotten many Republicans to go along with his agenda."

(Via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.)

The Lobbyocracy Explained

The Lobbyocracy Explained: "

Amazing fact from WaPo:

In a remarkable illustration of the power of lobbying in Washington, a
study released last week found that a single tax break in 2004 earned
companies $220 for every dollar they spent on the issue -- a 22,000
percent rate of return on their investment.

Somehow I doubt the average American gets that return on his 42-cent postage stamp.

--Michael Crowley"

(Via The Plank.)

Running on Fumes

Running on Fumes: "

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(Via Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines.)

What Do They Know That We Don't?

What Do They Know That We Don't?: "Even as he talks up the stock market, a Daily Beast exclusive shows the president's top economic advisor trounced the indexes (and Tim Geithner) by putting most of his millions into municipal bonds.
Lawrence Summers' bullish economic sentiments helped..."

(Via The Daily Beast - Blogs and Stories.)

Drug Decriminalization In Portugal

Drug Decriminalization In Portugal: "

In 2001, one country decided to end the criminal treatment of possession or use of street drugs, to counter alarming numbers of deaths and HIV infections. Dealers and traffickers are still locked up. Users arent. Glenn Greenwald put the study together for CATO. Its results are striking:

The number of deaths from street drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290 annually, and the number of new HIV cases caused by using dirty needles to inject heroin, cocaine and other illegal substances plummeted from nearly 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006, according to a report released recently by the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C, libertarian think tank.

'Now instead of being put into prison, addicts are going to treatment centers and theyre learning how to control their drug usage or getting off drugs entirely,' report author Glenn Greenwald, a former New York State constitutional litigator, said during a press briefing at Cato last week.

The paper is available here.

(Via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.)

Robert Scheer: Living Large and in Charge

Robert Scheer: Living Large and in Charge: "Why was someone as compromised as Summers made the White House's point man overseeing $2.86 trillion in bailout funds to the financial moguls whom he had enabled in creating this mess and many of whom had benefited him financially? Will no congressional panel ever quiz Summers about his grand theory that the derivatives market required no government supervision because, as he testified to a Senate subcommittee in July of 1998: 'the parties to these kinds of contracts are largely sophisticated financial institutions that would appear to be eminently capable of protecting themselves from fraud and counterparty insolvencies. ... '

"

(Via Huffington Blog.)

Norman Solomon: Meet the New Escalators

Norman Solomon: Meet the New Escalators: "Top Democrats and many prominent supporters -- with vocal agreement, tactical quibbles or total silence -- are assisting the escalation of the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The predictable results will include much more killing and destruction. Back home, on the political front, the escalation will drive deep wedges into the Democratic Party.

The party has a large anti-war base, and that base will grow wider and stronger among voters as the realities of the Obama war program become more evident. The current backing or acceptance of the escalation from liberal think tanks and some online activist groups will not be able to prevent the growth of opposition among key voting blocs.

In their eagerness to help the Obama presidency, many of its prominent liberal supporters -- whatever their private views on the escalation -- are willing to function as enablers of the expanded warfare. Many assume that opposition would undermine the administration and play into the hands of Republicans. But in the long run, going along with the escalation is not helping Obama; by putting off the days of reckoning, the acceptance of the escalation may actually help Obama destroy his own presidency."

(Via CounterPunch.)

Something Is Rotten

Something Is Rotten: "

Glenn Greenwald notes it:

Note how warped our political culture is: Sen. Dick Durbin was forced to tearfully apologize on the Senate floor for accurately comparing our treatment of detainees at Guantanamo to the techniques used in Soviet gulags and by Gestapo interrogation squads, but those who perpetrated these war crimes have apologized for nothing, remain welcome in decent company, and are still shielded by our Government from all accountability."

(Via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.)

It's 1930 time

It's 1930 time: "Barry Eichengreen and Kevin O'Rourke have an alarming paper in Vox EU, showing that if you take a global view, the world slump since early 2008 is as bad or worse than the slump from 1929-30. It's full of pictures like this one, showing monthly volume of world trade:

What this says is that the [...]"

(Via Paul Krugman.)

Dean Baker: A Trillion Dollars for the Banks: How About a Second Opinion?

Dean Baker: A Trillion Dollars for the Banks: How About a Second Opinion?: "Suppose that Congress appropriated a modest chunk of money to have independent economists put together teams to construct alternative plans. Why not give M.I.T. professor Simon Johnson, a former chief economist of the IMF, $5 million to hire a crew to outline his preferred path? Congress could give Joe Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winner and one-time chief economist to President Clinton, who is also a harsh critic of the Geithner plan, a similar sum to put together his own team.

These economists could develop their best plans and put them out for public consumption. Geithner's crew can then tell us why their plans are unworkable and we must instead hand over the money to banks.

Given how much money Geithner wants to spend -- putting it in the hands of the folks that brought on this economic crisis -- it would seem appropriate to first examine all the alternatives. After all, we could find out what our options are in this case for the price of just a few AIG executive bonuses. That has to be a good deal in anyone's book."

(Via Huffington Blog.)

Wilkerson's Case Against Afghan Escalation

Wilkerson's Case Against Afghan Escalation: "Dr. Seth Jones, a political scientist with the RAND Corporation, also pointed to the seemingly impossible task of General Petraeus' counterinsurgency strategy. He said the ratio requirement "needed to win a counterinsurgency is 20 security forces per 1000 inhabitants… [Given] the population estimates in provinces where most of the insurgency is taking place, [this] translates into a force requirement of approximately 271,652 forces." (Other estimates are as high as 400,000 troops needed to execute the Petraeus Playbook.) So it really comes as no surprise that Petraeus already signaled he will ask for another 10,000 troops even before the dust had settled on Obama's announcement of an additional 21,000 troops"

(Via The Nation: Top Stories.)

Kentucky gun show features Obama-Hitler shirts and warnings to ‘prepare for Obama’s citizen army.’

Kentucky gun show features Obama-Hitler shirts and warnings to ‘prepare for Obama’s citizen army.’: "

As ThinkProgress has noted, the right wing continues to escalate its fear-mongering that President Obama will take away Americans’ Second Amendment rights. In a New York Times op-ed this weekend, Charles Blow reported that such rhetoric ‘has helped fuel the panic buying of firearms.’ On Saturday, the Washington Independent’s Dave Weigel went to the bi-annual Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot in Kentucky and saw this phenomenon first-hand:

Weigel noted that all three boxes of the Hitler-Obama shirt had sold out by 3:00 p.m. on Saturday. In November, ThinkProgress went to The Nation’s Gun Show in Chantilly, VA, which featured similar fear-mongering. For example, an ad in the Washington Post for the event read, ‘GET YOUR GUNS WHILE YOU STILL CAN!!!’

"

(Via Think Progress.)

GOP threatens Obama’s legal nominees over release of torture memos.

GOP threatens Obama’s legal nominees over release of torture memos.: "A reliable Justice Department source advises me that Senate Republicans are planning to ‘go nuclear’ over the nominations of Dawn Johnsen as chief of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice and Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as State Department legal counsel if the torture documents are made public. The source says these threats are the principal reason for the Obama administration’s abrupt pullback last week from a commitment to release some of the documents. A Republican Senate source confirms the strategy. It now appears that Republicans are seeking an Obama commitment to safeguard the Bush administration’s darkest secrets in exchange for letting these nominations go forward."

(Via Think Progress.)

Veteran Regulator Calls Geithner a Failure

Veteran Regulator Calls Geithner a Failure: "

William K. Black made a name for himself busting bad bankers and the lawmakers who loved them during the savings and loan scandal. His book, ‘The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One,’ says it all. Here he tells Bill Moyers that the treasury secretary is a failed regulator engaged in the cover-up of a massive fraud.

READ THE WHOLE ITEM"

(Via Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines.)

Wall Street Showered Obama’s Top Economic Adviser With Riches

Wall Street Showered Obama’s Top Economic Adviser With Riches: "

Lawrence Summers is the man President Obama turns to for insight into the economy, so it’s more than a little disturbing that the very financial institutions the taxpayers are now rescuing—to the tune of nearly $3 trillion—paid Summers almost $8 million last year. Goldman Sachs & Co., a major beneficiary of the government’s largesse, paid him $135,000 for one speech.

Such revelations can be found in a financial disclosure form released by the White House over the weekend. Read it here (PDF).

Wall Street Journal:

A financial disclosure form released by the White House Friday afternoon shows that Mr. Summers made frequent appearances before Wall Street firms including J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers. He also received significant income from Harvard University and from investments, the form shows.

Financial Disclosures

In total, Mr. Summers made a total of about 40 speaking appearances to financial sector firms and other places, with fees totaling about $2.77 million. Fees ranged from $10,000 for a Yale University speech to $135,000 for an appearance paid for by Goldman Sachs & Co."

(Via Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines.)

Ticking Financial Nukes (OTC Derivatives) - The Market Ticker

Ticking Financial Nukes (OTC Derivatives) - The Market Ticker: "As with the phony reinsurance contracts that AIG and other insurers wrote for decades, when AIG wrote hundreds of billions of dollars in CDS contracts, neither AIG nor the counterparties believed that the CDS would ever be paid. Indeed, one source with personal knowledge of the matter suggests that there may be emails and actual side letters between AIG and its counterparties that could prove conclusively that AIG never intended to pay out on any of its CDS contracts."

(Via .)

Michael Moore: "We the People" to "King of the World": "You're Fired!"

Michael Moore: "We the People" to "King of the World": "You're Fired!": "Friends,

Nothing like it has ever happened. The President of the United States, the elected representative of the people, has just told the head of General Motors -- a company that's spent more years at #1 on the Fortune 500 list than anyone else -- 'You're fired!'"

(Via Huffington Blog.)

60 Days

60 Days: "

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(Via Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines.)