Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Conyers throws in with Grayson.
It seems that Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) would agree, perpetual war is making you poor. To begin rectifying the situation, he's joined with Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL) in co-sponsoring the "War is Making You Poor Act," which would limit defense spending to $548.9 billion: the exact figure alloted in the fiscal year 2011 budget. The act also seeks to utilize an additional $159.3 billion set aside for "discretionary" operations abroad to relieve the full federal income tax burden on every American's first $35,000 earned per year, or up to $70,000 per year for married couples.Link
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
We are losing our nation to lies.
In Afghanistan, corruption is rife. It is so abundant, in fact, that a senior US lawmaker declared on Monday that she'd be freezing $3.9 billion in Afghan aid dollars until the situation is addressed. Rep. Nita Lowey's declaration of principle was made in response to a Wall Street Journal report that claimed over $3 billion has been legally shipped through the airport in Kabul over just the last three years, leading investigators to believe much of it comes from U.S. aid dollars being diverted by corrupt officials.Link
Monday, June 28, 2010
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Feinstein is a Hawk.
A senior Senate Democrat on foreign policy issues said on Sunday that the president's pledged July 2011 timeline for a troop drawdown in Afghanistan was malleable to the requests of military command. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Cali.), whose hawkish grounding has angered progressive in the past, likely facilitated that anger again, when she told "Fox News Sunday" that if General David Petraeus asked for more troops next summer, he should be granted them.Link
F.U. B.P.
UPDATED: June 26, 2010 - Last May 24, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson promised, "We will conduct our own tests to determine the least toxic, most effective dispersant available in the volumes necessary for a crisis of this magnitude... I am not satisfied that BP has done an extensive enough analysis of other dispersant options." As of today, those tests have not been completed, according to the EPA. In the meantime, BP has dumped 1.4 million gallons of Corexit on the gulf. Next week, we could have a hurricane pushing Corexit inland.Link
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
President Obama picks David Petraeus.
President Barack Obama has relieved Gen. Stanley McChrystal of command of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and replaced him Gen. David Petraeus — putting a general well-known throughout the world for his work in Iraq in charge of the mission in Afghanistan. Obama said Wednesday he made the decision with regret but “with the certainty that it’s the right thing for the mission in Afghanistan, for our military and for our country.” He also said it “saddened” him to lose the services of McChrystal. Obama also stressed that the decision was a change in personnel not of policy — signaling that he would stick with a war plan that was McChrystal’s creation, focused on counterinsurgency, routing the Taliban from its strongholds and supporting the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai.Link
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
The Good War.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s MacArthur Moment was more than an embarrassment for the White House – it was a reminder of just how badly Barack Obama’s “good war” in Afghanistan is going. The challenge facing Obama in responding to his loose-lipped Afghan commander has an obvious parallel in Harry Truman’s firing of Douglas MacArthur at the height of the Korean War. But it may actually be more comparable to a more chronic presidential leadership crisis — Abraham Lincoln’s dilemma during the Civil War, when he was forced to repeatedly reshuffle his general staff in the face of vacillating public opinion, insubordination and, above all else, uncertainty about how best to win a bloody war he couldn’t afford to lose.Link
Monday, June 21, 2010
Schiff is in.
U.S. Senate candidate Peter Schiff, a Tea Party favorite known for his gloomy predictions about the U.S. economy, has qualified for the Aug. 10 Republican primary. Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz said today that Schiff gathered enough petition signatures to challenge the endorsed Republican, former wrestling executive Linda McMahon. "We are thrilled to hear the news that our efforts have proved successful," Schiff said in an emailed statement. "Connecticut Republicans now have a alternative: a wrestling promoter or a businessman and economist. Given the state of our economy, I think the choice is clear."Link
Libertarian-minded............
Ron Paul says he hasn’t decided if he’ll challenge President Obama for re-election in 2012, but he does predict that Republicans will be more open than they were in 2008 to nominating a Libertarian-minded candidate. “I think there’s no doubt about it,” Paul said in an interview with The Daily Caller. This year, Libertarian-Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate — like Paul’s son Rand Paul in Kentucky and Sharron Angle in Nevada — have won Republican primaries with the help of the Tea Party support. Noting the “big Libertarian influence in the Tea Party movement,” Paul says Libertarian beliefs are making their way into the lexicon of traditional Republicans.Link
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Address Obama ’should have given’.
In a somewhat novel take for a talk show host on President Barack Obama's Oval Office address on the BP oil spill, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow delivered a mock address of the speech on her program Wednesday.Link
License To Drill.
At his long-awaited press conference on the Gulf oil disaster last month, President Obama announced a moratorium on new oil drilling and exploration for six months. "We can't do this stuff if we don't have confidence that we can prevent crises like this from happening again," he declared. But while existing rigs may be out of commission for the near future, the administration hasn't exactly put the brakes on new oil and gas drilling ventures. In recent weeks, the government has quietly approved the sale of more than 400 new leases for vast swaths of the Gulf of Mexico. And these contracts—which mark the first step in the drilling process—were subjected to the same slapdash environmental oversight that failed to prevent the BP catastrophe.Link
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Wednesday, June 16, 2010
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Pelosi's new office is House's costliest by far.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has more than quadrupled the rent on her San Francisco district office, making the $18,736-a-month cost of her new South of Market space the highest in the House, according to a new report. The rent - part of Pelosi's budget, which is funded by taxpayers - is nearly double the next-highest rent in the House: Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., pays $10,600 a month for his Manhattan office, while representatives from Sacramento, Boston and Los Angeles pay nearly that much, the report said.Link
60,000 Barrels Per Day.
The government just upped the Deepwater Horizon leak estimate to 60,000 barrels per day: Secretary Chu, Secretary Salazar, and Dr. McNutt convened a group of federal and independent scientists on Monday to discuss new analyses and data points obtained over the weekend to produce updated flow rate estimates. Working together, U.S. government and independent scientists estimate that the most likely flow rate of oil today is between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels per day. The improved estimate is based on more and better data that is now available and that helps increase the scientific confidence in the accuracy of the estimate.Link
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
Fox Business Goes Libertarian.
“Welcome to this struggle,” Andrew Napolitano said triumphantly as he wrapped up the first television episode last weekend of his libertarian talk show, “Freedom Watch.” He saluted the camera and concluded, “From New York, defending freedom, so long America.”.Link
Silent on Afghanistan.....
Earlier this month, the Pentagon released a 151-page report outlining the increasingly grim situation in Afghanistan. The paper highlighted the Afghan government (and its security services)lack of capability; the enduring challenge of endemic corruption and poor governance; and the Taliban insurgency’s ability to maintain influence-often via intimidation-across broad swaths of the country. These challenges have already undermined U.S. military operations in Marjah, and could threaten the upcoming summer offensive planned for Kandahar, the heart of the Taliban insurgency.Link
Insider Trading For Lawmakers.
Even a cynic can find Washington's hypocrisy shocking at times. The Wall Street Journal reports today a House bill that would force lawmakers to make greater disclosures on financial transactions and disallow them from trading on nonpublic information is going nowhere fast.Link
Vast Riches of Minerals.
WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials. The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.Link
Sunday, June 13, 2010
War on Drugs: $1 Trillion Wasted.
Back in 1970, President Richard Nixon was having a lot of trouble trying to get something (anything!) accomplished in Vietnam. So he decided to wage a war that he thought he could win, and most of the American populace would support -- a war on drugs. He signed the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act. He said, "Public enemy no. 1 in the United States is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive." Nixon budgeted $100 million, and the "war on drugs" was off and running. Unfortunately, this new "war on drugs" was as flawed and ill-conceived as his plan to burglarize the Watergate Building. President after president took up the same war, and each one upped the amount of money sunk into the program. Now it is 40 years later, and the only thing that has been accomplished is the spending of over a trillion dollars on this exercise in futility. That money has not slowed down the import of drugs into this country or the use of the illegal drugs.Link
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
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Thursday, June 10, 2010
Will Afghanistan's Military Ever Be Fit to Fight?
When a fuel tanker overturned on Highway 1 outside Kandahar earlier this year, the villagers saw it as a gift from Allah. They flocked to the leaking tanker with pots, pans, even plastic bags, to steal the leaking gasoline. Several Afghan army jeeps screeched up, and the soldiers jumped out, pushing away the villagers. But not to protect the fuel: the Afghan soldiers simply wanted it for themselves.Link
Bernanke Puzzled by Gold Rally.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says he’s a bit puzzled by surging gold prices. The 30% rally from a year ago, on top of gains in previous years, might be interpreted as a loud signal from markets that big inflation pressures are building in the U.S. Gold is seen by many investors as a hedge against inflation risk. In this case, it might instead be a risk against risk broadly. Mr. Bernanke notes that the inflation signal isn’t confirmed by movements in other asset classes. Yields on Treasury bonds tend to rise when investors worry about inflation, but those yields have been falling recently. Inflation expectations as measured in Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) markets remain low. And other commodity prices are falling. Gold is breaking records, but copper prices are down 17% so far this year.Link
Conservatives v. Libertarians.
It’s hard to imagine a greater victory for the conservative legal movement than the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, which overturned D.C.’s ban on handguns. Not only did the Court definitively settle the long-contested question of whether the Second Amendment secures an individual right to keep and bear arms, but it did so using the language of “originalism”—the school of thought, long championed by conservatives, that says the Constitution should be read according to its original public meaning.Link
Obama Pledges New Aid to Palestinians.
WASHINGTON — President Obama urged the Israeli government to loosen its blockade of Gaza on Wednesday, as the United States continued to scramble to find a way out of the stalemate in the Middle East and address the outcry over Israel’s deadly raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla last week. Mr. Obama, meeting with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, at the White House, also promised a $400 million aid package for the West Bank and Gaza, though only about $70 million represented a new commitment. White House officials said the money would be spent on housing, schools, efforts to provide access to drinking water and other health and infrastructure projects.Link
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
I Don't Know.
Fed chairman Ben Bernanke has warned about a tough recovery ahead, in an interview with CNN. The U.S. economy will most likely continue to recover, but it won't feel 'terrific' for a lot of Americans who will remain 'under financial stress'. It will take many years for unemployment to return to historically normal levels. Yet while everybody agrees that the budget deficit needs to be brought under control, it remains to be seen how, or if, this will be done. Even Bernanke isn't quite sure:Link
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Massive Flow Of Bullshit.
LONDON—As the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico entered its eighth week Wednesday, fears continued to grow that the massive flow of bullshit still gushing from the headquarters of oil giant BP could prove catastrophic if nothing is done to contain it. The toxic bullshit, which began to spew from the mouths of BP executives shortly after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in April, has completely devastated the Gulf region, delaying cleanup efforts, affecting thousands of jobs, and endangering the lives of all nearby wildlife.Link
Remembering D-Day, 66 years ago.
Yesterday was June 6th, the 66th anniversary of the successful 1944 Allied invasion of France. Several operations were combined to carry out the largest amphibious invasion in history - over 160,000 troops landed on June 6th, assisted by over 5,000 ships, aerial bombardment, gliders and paratroopers. Thousands of soldiers lost their lives on those beaches on that day - many thousands more would follow as the invasion succeeded and troops began to push German forces eastward, eventually leading to the Allied victory in 1945. Collected here are some photographs of the preparation, execution and immediate aftermath of the 1944 D-Day invasion of Normandy, and a few images from 2010.Link
Monday, June 7, 2010
Oil touches down on Florida beaches.
PENSACOLA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Gov. Charlie Crist came to Pensacola Beach on Saturday and brought tropical troubadour Jimmy Buffett with him to drive home the message that Florida's beaches are open. What he didn't say is that the famed white-sand beaches are the defense of last resort against tar balls, contamination and oily sheen. Oil showed up from here to Grayton Beach halfway across the Panhandle to the east. Forecasts for the rest of the weekend predict more oil on Florida beaches as far east as Apalachicola.Link
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