Sunday, February 28, 2010
Debra Medina, new star..............
Lytle is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it kind of town, one of hundreds that dot the vast flat ranchlands of southern Texas. A smear of houses by the main highway between San Antonio and Laredo. Population: 2,383. The first streets only got paved here in the years after the second world war. A sewage system took a little longer, not being built until the 1960s. In short, Lytle, Texas, has never been big enough to have much impact on the politics of the Lone Star state. And few Texas politicians have ever paid much attention to it...Link
Obama Loves the Patriot Act.
If the Patriot Act hadn't been approved for another year, Sunday would have looked much different. Sunday could have meant the government was no longer given permission to wiretap the phones of Americans and seize their records and property. But since the bill was approved by Congressional Democrats earlier this week and signed into law by President Obama on Saturday, this Sunday is just another Sunday for Americans living with the Patriot Act...LinkPaul burned by Tea Party blowback......
Rep. Ron Paul, the libertarian-oriented Republican whose 2008 presidential run provided kindling for the Tea Party movement, suddenly finds himself dealing with the blowback: a handful of Tea Party-inspired candidates are seeking to dislodge him in Tuesday’s Texas Republican primary. It’s an unusual turn of events for a veteran congressman who has reached stardom in conservative populist circles and who just last week emerged as the victor of the presidential straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference...Link
Saturday, February 27, 2010
AIG posts quarterly loss of $8.9 billion.
American International Group on Friday posted a fourth-quarter loss of $8.9 billion, or $65.51 per share, as the company sold large stakes in its insurance businesses in an effort to whittle down its massive debt to taxpayers...Link
New Reserve Currency.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, suggested Friday the organization might one day be called on to provide countries with a global reserve currency that would serve as an alternative to the U.S. dollar. "That day has not yet come, but I think it is intellectually healthy to explore these kinds of ideas now," he said in a speech on the future mandate of the 186-nation Washington-based lending organization. Strauss-Kahn said such an asset could be similar to but distinctly different from the IMF's special drawing rights, or SDRs, the accounting unit that countries use to hold funds within the IMF. It is based on a basket of major currencies...Link
Friday, February 26, 2010
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
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Weird.
The exact length of Tran Van Hay's unwashed hair was unclear but some estimates put it as long as 6.8 metres. China's Xie Qiuping is on record as having the world's longest hair, measured at 5.6 metres in 2004, according to the Guinness World Records. Hay began to let his hair grow more than 50 years ago because he often got sick after a haircut, the Vietnam News quoted his wife, Nguyen Thi Hoa, as saying. Media reports said he lived a simple life as a herbalist, but his hair could complicate things. Reports said no motorcycle taxi would carry him because he could not wear a helmet. In the daytime he balanced his hair on his head like a basket, protected by a scarf. Hay, whose hair weighed several pounds, died at home Wednesday in the southern province of Kien Giang at the age of 79, Vietnam News said...Link
Thursday, February 25, 2010
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
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Jail for photographing police?........
The relationship between photographers and police could worsen next month when new laws are introduced that allow for the arrest - and imprisonment - of anyone who takes pictures of officers 'likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism'. Set to become law on 16 February, the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 amends the Terrorism Act 2000 regarding offences relating to information about members of armed forces, a member of the intelligence services, or a police officer...Link
Bizarre?
Ron Paul: ...a lot of cash was passed through - and a lot of people suppose it was passed through the Federal Reserve - when there was a provisional government [in Iraq] after the 2003 invasion. That money was not appropriated by the Congress as required by law...
Ben Bernanke: Congressman, these specific allegations you've made are absolutely bizarre, and I have no knowledge of anything remotely like what you just described.
Let's ask Henry Waxman (July 2009)
Henry Waxman: In a 13 month period from May 2003 to June 2004, the Federal Reserve sent nearly $12 billion in cash, mainly in $100 bills from the United States to Iraq. To do that, the Federal Reserve Bank in New York had to pack 281 million individual bills ... onto wooden pallets to be shipped to Iraq. The cash weighed more than 363 tons and was loaded onto C-130 cargo planes to be flown into Baghdad...
Link
Ben Bernanke: Congressman, these specific allegations you've made are absolutely bizarre, and I have no knowledge of anything remotely like what you just described.
Let's ask Henry Waxman (July 2009)
Henry Waxman: In a 13 month period from May 2003 to June 2004, the Federal Reserve sent nearly $12 billion in cash, mainly in $100 bills from the United States to Iraq. To do that, the Federal Reserve Bank in New York had to pack 281 million individual bills ... onto wooden pallets to be shipped to Iraq. The cash weighed more than 363 tons and was loaded onto C-130 cargo planes to be flown into Baghdad...
Link
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
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Has America Already Had 'O-nough'?......
(Feb. 24) -- In 1946, Republicans ran on a campaign slogan of "Had Enough?" to mobilize voters who had grown tired of 16 years of Democratic control of Congress. Yet only one year after electing him to office, voters have grown tired of President Barack Obama, or more precisely, his agenda to "transform" the United States. So much so, in fact, that the 1946 slogan is again finding traction. With a nod to the ubiquitous Obama campaign logo, the simple question that frustrated Republicans, Democrats and Independents are asking family and friends is now: "Had O-nough?" There's a joke going around Washington. President Obama can take credit for exactly three new jobs since he's been in the White House: one in Massachusetts, one in Virginia and one in New Jersey...Link
Senate votes to renew Patriot Act..........
The Senate Wednesday evening passed a one-year extension to the Patriot Act, a Bush-era homeland security law that has been much maligned by Democrats but described by Republicans as key to the war on terror. Several key components of the law are set to expire Sunday, including wire-tapping, surveillance and seizure provisions. If passed by the House, they will expire on Feb. 28, 2011. The law was passed by voice vote, which does not require debate on the Senate floor...Link
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Reshaping the Fed..........
Regardless of one’s opinion on Ben Bernanke, there is no denying the extraordinary impact he has had on the Federal Reserve since taking over as Chairman in 2006. A case can be made that the very nature and scope of the Fed has changed under Bernanke’s stewardship. Originally envisioned as a politically neutral institution meant to contain systemic risks and head off banking panics, the Federal Reserve has taken a considerably more “hands-on” role in the economy of late. It began in March 2008 with the fire sale of Bear Stearns to J.P. Morgan Chase – a maneuver largely engineered by Bernanke in conjunction with then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. The Fed’s response to the recession continued with a $182 billion rescue of troubled financial services firm AIG, characterized by the Huffington Post as a, “…backdoor bailout” due to a lack of transparency about its execution. Wikipedia also reveals troubling testimony from Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning, who, “…said on CNBC that he had seen documents which show Bernanke overruled recommendations from his staff in bailing out AIG.” Even more significant than how AIG’s bailout was executed, however, is the pretext it created for future bailouts and government takeovers – including the TAARP program. Furthermore, the Fed’s initial responses to the recession were hardly the last of its politically consequential changes. By August, Bloomberg observed that Chairman Bernanke had, “…led the biggest expansion of the central bank’s power in its 95-year history.”..Link
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
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| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
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Government Stimulus, One Year Later.
Last week marked the one year anniversary of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, or the stimulus bill, passing into law. While the debate over its success has been focused on whether or not it is stimulating the economy and on various questionable uses of funds, in my estimation this legislation is accomplishing exactly what it was intended to accomplish – grow the government. Those of us concerned about the ever increasing level of government debt gasped at the astonishing $787 billion cost estimates for this bill. True to form it has actually cost 10 percent more at $862 billion. We heard over and over that government could not sit around and do nothing while people lost their jobs and houses. The administration claimed that unemployment would not go above 8 percent if the stimulus bill passed. Now, a year later, the government estimates that unemployment is over 10 percent. The real number is closer to 20 percent. It appears that those promises were total fabrications in order to close the deal...Link
Monday, February 22, 2010
Admit it....You Know He's Right
The CPAC straw poll is in, and the winner is Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), the doctor of the rEVOLution (he's got the cure you're thinkin' of!). And let us be clear: Any poll that shows any number of votes for Haley Barbour, Rick Santorum, or John Thune for el presidente or le gant de baseball de chien (full disclosure: that's Babel Fish's translation of "dog catcher" compounded with my Jethro Clampett level of French) is not to be taken seriously...Link
Israel has drones.
Israel's air force has unveiled a fleet of unmanned aircraft that its says are able to reach the Gulf, putting Iran within range. The Heron TP drones, which have a wingspan the size of a Boeing 737 passenger jet, were presented to the media on Sunday, as Israel pushes for international action against the Islamic republic over its nuclear programme...Link
Seriously..........wtf.
KABUL – The Afghan cabinet said Monday that at least 27 civilians were killed in a NATO airstrike in central Afghanistan. The incident was the third time a mistaken coalition strike has claimed civilian lives since a major offensive was launched in the southern region of the country. NATO said that U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystalhe, the top NATO commander, apologized to President Hamid Karzai...Link
Sunday, February 21, 2010
The GOP's "small government" tea party fraud.
There's a major political fraud underway: the GOP is once again donning their libertarian, limited-government masks in order to re-invent itself and, more important, to co-opt the energy and passion of the Ron-Paul-faction that spawned and sustains the "tea party" movement. The Party that spat contempt at Paul during the Bush years and was diametrically opposed to most of his platform now pretends to share his views. Standard-issue Republicans and Ron Paul libertarians are as incompatible as two factions can be -- recall that the most celebrated right-wing moment of the 2008 presidential campaign was when Rudy Giuliani all but accused Paul of being an America-hating Terrorist-lover for daring to suggest that America's conduct might contribute to Islamic radicalism -- yet the Republicans, aided by the media, are pretending that this is one unified, harmonious, "small government" political movement...Link
A Herpes Bomb.........wtf.
Not long after Amy Bishop was identified as the professor who had been arrested in the shooting of six faculty members at the University of Alabama in Huntsville on Feb. 12, the campus police received a series of reports even stranger than the shooting itself. Several people with connections to the university’s biology department warned that Dr. Bishop, a neuroscientist with a Harvard Ph.D., might have booby-trapped the science building with some sort of “herpes bomb,” police officials said, designed to spread the dangerous virus...Link
Drug War May Become Its Iraq.....
The no-nonsense government ads flash onto prime time Mexican TV between soccer games and steamy soap operas. Bullet-filled corpses are shown sprawled on the concrete; ski masked special forces are seen storming down residential streets; and bearded bulky capos are dragged before the cameras in handcuffs. "Today these killers are behind bars," says a booming voice-over. "We work using force for your security."...Link
Feel the "Ronmentum".................
There may have been some boos, but Paul was by far one of the more popular speakers at CPAC this year. “End the Fed!” was one of most-heard chants and his “Campaign for Liberty” group was everywhere. Heck, a lot of the time, it seemed like they, not the American Conservative Union, was CPAC’s host. Even Ann Coulter, who drew a huge crowd herself, felt compelled to give a shout out to Paul-mania, saying she agreed with everything he stands for outside of foreign policy — a statement met with cheers. Paul supporters were the most visible and vocal throughout CPAC — waving posters, signs, and passing out pamphlets. Unlike the 2012 wannabes, Paul doesn’t play coy: He has a manifesto and wants to broadcast it. Period. No worries about the media spin or whether the speech gets headlines (see Pawlenty, Tiger doctrine). And, instead of the usual anti-Obama talk, Paul framed a hefty chunk of his CPAC address upon a critique of Woodrow Wilson. And the crowd dug it...Link
Ron Paul Wins Big..............
In a strong reflection of just how strong his standing remains within the die-hard conservative community, Texas Republican and 2008 presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul won the Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll on Saturday, earning nearly one-third (31 percent) of the entire vote. The crowd, however, booed heavily when the results were announced. Paul was far and away the most widely anticipated speaker at the three-day conference, with his base of "Paulites" streaming into the main auditorium to hear him rail against government overreach and neoconservativism on Friday afternoon. In many respects, his win in the CPAC poll seemed pre-ordained -- his band of followers having a well-earned reputation for flooding polls and forums like these...Link
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Obama promises $1.5 billion for home owners.
President Barack Obama Friday unveiled a 1.5 billion dollar package of measures aimed at helping victims of the US housing crisis, in Nevada, where the collapse hit particularly hard. "This fund's going to help out-of-work home owners prevent preventable foreclosures," Obama said, adding that the program would also help threatened homeowners pay their mortgages. The plan will include help for borrowers who now owe more than their home is worth after real estate prices collapsed, and will also aid those who took out second mortgages in a desperate bid to keep their houses...Link
Bob Barr jeered at CPAC.
Republican congressman-turned-Libertarian Bob Barr got a chorus of jeers at the CPAC conference Friday when he declared that waterboarding is torture. Debating the issue of whether terrorist suspects should be read Miranda rights and should have access to civilian courts, Barr argued that politicians are being allowed "to have their cake and eat it too" by choosing whether to place defendants in civilian courts or military tribunals. Barr said the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 provided the framework for how to deal with terrorist suspects, and said government officials should stick to that law...Link
Friday, February 19, 2010
California Bill to Legalize, Tax Marijuana.
Assemblyman Tom Ammiano has reintroduced his pioneering bill seeking to legalize and tax pot in California. In a statement released this afternoon, Ammiano's office said the San Francisco Democrat hopes the new legislation will build on support garnered by AB 390, his first pot-legalization measure, which passed out of committee in Sacramento but overran its deadline for consideration by the rest of the Legislature.The bill's expiration last month appeared more or less in line with the grand strategy of Ammiano, who said he wanted to take plenty of time to build consensus on the issue. Now AB 2254, the latest incarnation of the Marijuana Control, Regulation, and Education Act, will get a second shot...Link
A new name will make it different?
ABC News has learned that the Obama administration has decided to give the war in Iraq -- currently known as Operation Iraqi Freedom -- a new name. The new name: "Operation New Dawn." In a February 17, 2010, memo to the Commander of Central Command, Gen. David Petraeus, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the "requested operation name change is approved to take effect 1 September 2010, coinciding with the change of mission for U.S. forces in Iraq." You can read the memo -- a copy of which was sent to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen...Link
The $555,000 Student-Loan Burden.
When Michelle Bisutti, a 41-year-old family practitioner in Columbus, Ohio, finished medical school in 2003, her student-loan debt amounted to roughly $250,000. Since then, it has ballooned to $555,000...Link
Thursday, February 18, 2010
How does a patriot act?
The Patriot Act, One of the things Obama said he would eliminate during his campaign. Now they want to renew it and Obama is endorsing it. Don’t let them get away with it twice. The Patriot Act has done nothing to guard against terrorism but can and has been used to harass our own citizens and rob us of freedoms , like the freedom of speech. They can monitor all your private mail, telephone calls, e-mail, Track where you go, what you do, who you speak to, all in the name of national security...Link
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Trust in Government Nears All-Time Low.
The latest CBS News/New York Times Poll finds Americans cynical about and dissatisfied with government. At 75 percent, the percentage that disapproves of Congress now matches the highest level recorded in this poll; only in October 2008 and March 1992 was disapproval so high. The two parties themselves have also fallen in public estimation -- more than half the public views the Democratic Party and the Republican Party unfavorably...Link
Lone voice warns of debt threat to Fed.
The US must fix its growing debt problems or risk a new financial crisis, Thomas Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, warned on Tuesday, adding a mounting deficit could spur inflation. Mr Hoenig said that rising debt was infringing on the central bank’s ability to fulfil its goals of maintaining price stability and long-term economic growth. “Stunning” deficit projections were putting political pressure on the Fed to keep interest rates low, infringing on its independence at the risk of inflation, he said...Link
Obama stimulus plan halted economic freefall.
WASHINGTON, Feb 16 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama's $787 billion stimulus prevented another Great Depression while creating or preserving 2 million jobs, according to a White House report to be released on Wednesday. The report, signed by Vice President Joe Biden who oversees how stimulus money is spent, stressed the depth of the crisis confronting Obama when he took office 13 months ago, as the President constantly reminds Americans in his speeches. But it also highlighted Obama's challenge of trying to cut a 9.7 percent jobless rate that has fueled voter discontent...Link
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Ron Paul is back!..........................
Once more, after being written out of the script by the newspapers and television producers, the scrappy congressman from Texas, Ron Paul is back in the mix. And big time. Sarah Palin, of all people, put him there. After turning down thousands of speaking invitations over a six month period Sarah Palin finally accepted a gig for the National Tea Party, a grass roots phenomenon that owes its life to that unstoppable old man from Texas. And then the news that she is endorsing Rand Paul, the congressman’s son, and an emerging star in the Kentucky Senate race. Who says Sarah Palin is dumb? She is tapping into the hottest political movement going...Link
Foreign demand for Teasury securities falls.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government said Tuesday that foreign demand for U.S. Treasury securities fell by the largest amount on record in December with China reducing its holdings by $34.2 billion. The reductions in holdings, if they continue, could force the government to make higher interest payments at a time that it is running record federal deficits. The Treasury Department reported that foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury securities fell by $53 billion in December, surpassing the previous record of a $44.5 billion drop in April 2009...Link
Monday, February 15, 2010
Executive Power Lives on....
WASHINGTON — With much of his legislative agenda stalled in Congress, President Obama and his team are preparing an array of actions using his executive power to advance energy, environmental, fiscal and other domestic policy priorities. Mr. Obama has not given up hope of progress on Capitol Hill, aides said, and has scheduled a session with Republican leaders on health care later this month. But in the aftermath of a special election in Massachusetts that cost Democrats unilateral control of the Senate, the White House is getting ready to act on its own in the face of partisan gridlock heading into the midterm campaign.“We are reviewing a list of presidential executive orders and directives to get the job done across a front of issues,” said Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff...Link
Debt is what we do best............
President Barack Obama has signed legislation lifting the cap on government borrowing to $14.3 trillion. The new law also puts in place new budget rules to curb growing annual deficits. Known as "paygo" — for "pay as you go" — the rules require future spending increases or tax cuts to be paid for with tax increases or other spending cuts. If the rules are broken, the White House budget office would force automatic cuts in programs like Medicare and farm subsidies. Most other benefit programs, including Medicaid, Social Security and food stamps, would be exempt. The debt limit was increased from $12.4 trillion to keep the U.S. from going into default. Obama signed the bill privately Friday at the White House...Link
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Can chocolate lower your risk for stroke?....
While some of the staples of eating healthy are pretty easy to remember—eating balanced meals that include veggies, protein and starch, and eating lots of fiber, not too much sugar and not too much fat—sometimes keeping track of all of the little ways that diet can influence our health can be a challenge. Yet, if there's one thing that is easy to remember, it's chocolate. And, according to research that will be presented this April at a meeting of the American Academy of Neurology, because of the high concentration of antioxidants called flavonoids found in dark chocolate, indulging every now and then might decrease the risk for stroke, and may also reduce the risk of death after suffering a stroke...Link
Friday, February 12, 2010
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
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Liberals and libertarians finally break up.....
One mini-saga of the past decade in American politics has been the flirtation—with talk of a deeper partnership—between progressives and libertarians. These two groups were driven together, in the main, by common hostility to huge chunks of the Bush administration's agenda: endless, pointless wars; assaults on civil liberties; cynical vote-buying with federal dollars; and statist panders to the Christian right. This cooperation reached its height during the 2006 election, in which, according to a new study by David Kirby and David Boaz, nearly half of libertarian voters supported Democratic congressional candidates—more than doubling the support levels from the previous midterm election in 2002. (As Jonathan Chait noted after the first Kirby/Boaz study of libertarian voting, their definition is overly broad, encompassing 14 percent of the electorate.) At the time, left-wing blogger Markos Moulitsas hailed the influx of "libertarian democrats" into the Democratic coalition. Soon, even the Cato Institute's Brink Lindsey was proposing a permanent alliance of what he called "liberaltarians."..Link
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Assuming It Supports War..........
THE OREGON WILDERNESS—Frustrated by the widely held assumption that he unequivocally endorses the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a bald eagle said Monday that his thoughts on the conflicts were far more nuanced than many Americans might expect. Speaking to reporters from his nest in the upper branches of a 175-foot ponderosa pine tree, the eagle explained that each member of his species was different and none should be taken for granted as a lockstep supporter of American military policy...Link
Douche.
Beck is a neocon......douche
If there is one thing Glenn Beck can do, it’s blow pretty smoke. Credit to the conservative, “libertarian” talking head for bringing more topical irrelevance to American, and in this case, Texas politics.
In an interview with Texas governor candidate, Debra Medina, Beck led a line of questioning having to do with 9/11, and the truth conspirators who have suggested everything from United States government involvement to a massive cover up. Obviously catching wind that Medina was neither hot nor cold on the issue, and possessing a few “9/11 Truthers” on her staff, he opened the can of worms and shoved it in her face, asking her if she actually believed in the possibility of conspiracy. Medina was caught off-guard for the question, but she responded:..Link
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