Ray LaHood Warns Sequester Will Cause Air Travel Delays
If it's disingenuous you're talking about, Exxon, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, are counting taxes (payroll taxes on the workers, sales taxes on the consumers) that they don't pay.
Exxon's income tax rate, for example, is below the 35% rate mandated by corporate tax law (but that most US companies don't pay thanks to generous loopholes in the tax code) - For the past six years Exxon's averaged about 29% according to security filings. Exxon certainly doesn't need the $4 billion a year it gets in tax breaks when we have a budget deficit.
So you work for the oil industry, do you?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Redefining the Meaning of Success: Hillary Clinton's Next Great Challenge?
Sunday, February 10, 2013
The single-most important decision that any member of Congress can make is whether to give a president the authority to use military force against another nation. Hillary claims that she did not discuss her vote to give Bush the AUMF with her husband. She claims she based her vote on Bush's claim that Iraq had WMD. We know from the NIE that it wasn't true, and that there were no legal grounds to attack Iraq. Not only was it illegal, taking Saddam out was bad policy, a bad strategy that would destabilize the entire region, open up a Pandora's box and have us in a quagmire for years and decades.
Bush, no fool he (Bush and Cheney wanted Congress's heads on the line, too, should it all go bad), made that NIE available to all members of Congress. It was in a locked on the Hill (a table, chair and lamp in the room), an armed guard standing outside. You had to show your ID as a member of Congress and sign in to enter the room. Bush wanted a record of it.
Senator Bob Graham, who didn't vote to give Bush the AUMF (Authorization To Use Military Force against Iraq) was one of a handful who availed himself of the opportunity, and went to the room (we can't find out precisely who did read it because the sign-in sheet is classified).
After Graham read it, he told Hillary that she'd better get herself to the room and read it. When the existence of the NIE originally became known (during Plamegate) and the little room on the Hill, certain members of Congress were asked if they'd read it before their vote to AUMF. Hillary said she hadn't. She said she knew enough about Iraq and didn't have to read the NIE. She also said that she never discussed her vote or the situation with her husband.
It's important to realize that as a former president, Bill Clinton got the same PDB that George W. Bush got. He knew Bush was lying us into a war in Iraq, he backed Bush up; still does to this day. Is anybody seriously going to say that Hillary and her husband didn't know the truth, that Bush and Cheney were about to spend us into servitude, push us into third world nation status, all the while the Clintons were making HUNDREDS of millions from hedge funds?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
CIA Drone Base In Saudi Arabia: Location Disclosed By The New York Times
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
If you'll check out the chart of military suicides, broken down by year and by service, in Diane Sweet's post Military Suicides: 154 in 155 Days you'll see that Air Force suicides for 2012 exceed Air Force suicides in any previous year, 18 for each of 2008 and 2009, 25 for 2010, 20 for 2011, and 32 for 2012.
No reason is given. But we know the Air Force now trains more drone pilots than conventional, and studies show how stressful drone piloting can be. They also find that being separate from the battlefield creates its own problems, since the drone pilot cannot aid his comrades directly and, as the main post points out, often sees a lot of the carnage he (or she) would not likely see in theatre.
So, since the spike in Air Force suicides corresponds directly with the uptick in drone killings, I think it's reasonable to conclude the spike of Air Force suicides is a result of the stress of drone warfare.
Turns out it's not as antiseptic and free of risk for the military as one might think.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
CIA Drone Base In Saudi Arabia: Location Disclosed By The New York Times
They say war is hell. Don’t believe it? Ask any of the US servicemen suffering from the battlefield blues, as a new study reveals that launching strikes overseas is overtly stressful, even from thousands of miles away from warzones.
According to new study released by the US Air Force, an overwhelming number of the pilots that command unmanned robotic drones from operation centers in America are suffering from intense stress, even if they are on the other side of the world from where their attacks are being carried out. With the US continuing drone strikes despite opposition from allies overseas such as Pakistan, the toll that the task of commanding the controversial crafts could be having on its pilots could be detrimental to the Department of Defense, who insists on pushing through with the program even with the end result including droves of dead civilians since the missions began.
When quizzed by Air Force personnel to gauge their level of stress on a scale of 0-to-10, with 10 representing the most stress, 46 percent of pilots commanding Reaper and Predator drones say that their stress level meets or exceeds a standing of 8 points, according to the new study.
Additionally among the findings is the fact that a smaller but significant number of pilots also suffer from what the Air Force describes as “clinical distress,” a condition which includes symptoms such as anxiety, depression and severe enough stress that job performance is impacted.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
CIA Drone Base In Saudi Arabia: Location Disclosed By The New York Times
REMOTE DRONE WARFARE: Robots Kill, But The Blood Is on Our Hands
Dreams in Infrared: The Woes of an American Drone Operator - Pain Continues After War For American Drone Pilot
From 2 Years Ago (It's only gotten worse) - Report: High Levels of 'Burnout' in U.S. Drone Pilots
Drones have even killed Americans in “friendly fire,” including on April 6, 2011, in Afghanistan. And there have been cases of drone “pilots” working in the United States committing suicide. They are suffering extremely high rates of stress and burnout, according to the Air Force, because while pilots who actually fly in planes often don’t see who they kill, drone pilots may watch a family for days and come to know their faces, only to blow them all up and watch the suffering.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Extraordinary Rendition Report Finds More Than 50 Nations Involved In Global Torture Scheme
And how was it that Congress didn't question it, a 400 page document written before 9/11? That bunch had been trying to pass it since Reagan. I'd wager that 535 people could be selected at random off of blogs who have more integrity, loyalty and commitment to the nation and the Constitution than all of those who have been in office for the past 40 years.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Extraordinary Rendition Report Finds More Than 50 Nations Involved In Global Torture Scheme
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Extraordinary Rendition Report Finds More Than 50 Nations Involved In Global Torture Scheme
Over the course of US history, corporations have managed to game our political system, and done it so effectively that the two-party system competes to serve corporate interests while defending that service as, "What's good for GM (corporations) is good for America (We the People)".
Democrats (controlled by the DLC/Third Way/No Labels, and that's important to remember) and Republicans are corporate tools. Like siblings competing for the attention and approval (campaign contributions) of a parent, Republicans and DLC-controlled Democrats try to outdo each other in delivering for their real constituent, BigCorporations. The trick for them has been to make it seem as if they were really working on behalf of WeThePeople.
Democratic voters have mistakenly believed that Obama & Democrats were for strong regulations on banks, WallStreet, investigations, prosecutions, restitution of what has been robbed from the middle class and poor for the past 30+ years, environmental clean-up, clean, sustainable renewable energy (and that isn't nuclear), putting an end to the wars and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, affordable, quality universal healthcare (which ACA isn't), and more. The DLC-controlled DemocraticParty gives lip service to these & all populist issues, because like the RepublicanParty, the DLC works for the benefit of transnational corporations.
If you must continue to delude yourself into thinking Obama's a good guy who never would have started those wars, and who has only the best of intentions, but got a bad deal, then think of all this as a business plan where the Corporate Masters of the Universe have charted out their plans years in advance (governments do them, too) and select the politician/personality best able to achieve those plans in 4 year increments. If you want to l!e the country into war for oil and war-profiteering, then GeorgeWBush is your man to front it (with DickCheney, the former Secretary of Defense who initiated the privatizing of the military a decade earlier, actually running the operation from the shadows).
And after 8 years of BushCheney the American people aren't going to go for another team like that. They're going to want HOPE and CHANGE, with a persona they can believe in and trust. BarackObama.
The truth is that Obama is no better than BushCheney. Not better, not worse, but the same. His 'most ardent admirers' just like the packaging better. I'm not talking skin color, although that may be a factor for some of them; I'm talking about how a 'D' after the name is a brand they trust believe and trust in, despite the fact that it's the same 'soap' (product).
Unless and until there is drastic and uncompromising change to our campaign financing system, until corporations are no longer 'persons' and are prohibited from participating in elections and politics, all efforts to reform government are useless.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Extraordinary Rendition Report Finds More Than 50 Nations Involved In Global Torture Scheme
To believe as you do is right out of a page of Orwell's Animal Farm.
Democrats have been running on lies, that they support the planks of the Democratic Party's platform, but once in power they work to accomplish the Republican Party's platform. Think about that.
Privatization and deregulation are not Democratic Party positions, yet Democrats have been supporting both. When Democratic presidents get into office, they get rid of regulations by not enforcing them or eliminating them under the ruse of "making government more efficient".
When a president puts a top lobbyist for Monsanto in as food czar at the FDA, you think that's because he's really a closet liberal, hiding until Republicans wear out their welcome with voters, waiting until it's safe for liberal Democrats to come out?
When BP destroyed the Gulf of Mexico, and Obama put this weasel Michael Bromwich in as head of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and Regulation and Enforcement to issue permits to drill in the Gulf using the same faulty blowout preventers responsible for BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster, you think it was because Obama was merely overlooking (or was naive or ignorant of) the opportunity that comes with disasters, to change our energy policy in America to what he and Democrats proclaim is really where they stand (on the side of environmentalists)?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Extraordinary Rendition Report Finds More Than 50 Nations Involved In Global Torture Scheme
Real Democratic policies aren't that hard to sell to Americans. When most Americans want Medicare and other government programs which they've benefitted from to continue and teabaggers shout "No government control of healthcare; Get your hands off my Medicare", the answer is EDUCATION.
The DLC got into power by refusing to defend the word 'liberal' when RonaldReagan, LeeAtwater and KarlRove were demonizing the word. Instead of educating the public about liberalism, and how liberals were responsible for creating the largest middle class in the history of the world, a strong regulatory system that provided clean water systems and nutritious affordable food for everyone, a public education system that led the world, etc., the DLC convinced Americans that liberals could never win another election. The DLC attributed to ideology what is more accurately explained by lousy campaigns outgunned by election dirty tricks and fraud.
When informed of the issues, most Americans agree with liberal policies. Neither they (nor I) would characterize themselves as far-anything or extreme, but mainstream. For example, nobody likes the idea of abortion, but most Americans do not want the government involved if they find themselves in the predicament of an unwanted pregnancy. And if you frame it as, "You like to kill babies?!?! ?!?!", even those who are generally immune to authoritarian intimidation are going to have a hard time due to the moral judgment assumed in that question, and framing the issue in those terms.
If the Bush years taught us anything, it's that anyone can sell anything to Americans, if you're stolid and relentless in your sales pitch and tactics. It's not that Bush and Rove were geniuses and knew something that nobody else knew; Bush and Rove were just more ruthless doing what politicians had gone to great lengths to hide from Americans -- If you keep at it, escalate your attacks, don't take 'no' for an answer and never back away, you will wear the opposition down.
But Obama only does that to progressives.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Extraordinary Rendition Report Finds More Than 50 Nations Involved In Global Torture Scheme
We spend our national treasure to find out facts, and our intelligence agencies knew that Saddam Hussein did NOT have WMD. When they knew it isn't certain, but BushCheney certainly knew it before taking us to war in 2003. That much is a fact. It's what Plamegate was all about. And that BushCheney would FABRICATE evidence of WMD is the equivalent of OJ's Bronco chase.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Extraordinary Rendition Report Finds More Than 50 Nations Involved In Global Torture Scheme
So, do we keep going back through all Presidents or do we just stop at this one?
========================
That's not a decision for me to make; the laws govern that. Laws have guidelines, statutes of limitations.
You might want to watch this (and all parts of it, beginning with this one).
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost Read more...
Extraordinary Rendition Report Finds More Than 50 Nations Involved In Global Torture Scheme
Yes and no. I don't mean to be glib, but the actual story of what they knew or didn't know and when they knew (or didn't know) unearths smoking guns that catch both parties (along with the CIA) red-handed on not just torture but on the big impeachable offense of lying to Congress. See here (scroll down to my comments).
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Extraordinary Rendition Report Finds More Than 50 Nations Involved In Global Torture Scheme
Marco, it is my opinion that Democrats have agreed with the Republicans all along.
==========================
I think you're absolutely right, although I don't agree with the rest of what you're suggesting.
When put together with everything else that we do know to date, I think it's clear that they knew (at least top Democrats knew) that Saddam didn't have WMD, but that they would have plausible deniability based on how Bush-Cheney had lined up all their ducks in a row, from Tony Blair to Colin Powell.
Regarding NancyPelosi: One interesting footnote in the history of the time is how Bush-Cheney managed to go around Congress, specifically the House of Representatives. It also speaks to all of Bush-Cheney's efforts to thwart Congress.
There actually is evidence of Bush's criminality, both lying to Congress and torture, and it leads from the Bush-Cheney White House to Democratic congressman John Murtha and a subcommittee he chaired. Dick Cheney, along with his aide-de-camp David Addington, called upon his time in Congress back in the 1980s to figure out a "way 'round and through" Congress, past Democrats and Pelosi. I chronicled it here (scroll down to my comments there).
FYI: Cheney's aide, David Addington, it was recently announced, is now joining Jim DeMint at the Heritage Foundation to plan the renewal and rebirth of the Republican Party and how to achieve conservatives' goals in government.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost Read more...
Extraordinary Rendition Report Finds More Than 50 Nations Involved In Global Torture Scheme
Nothing that Bush did was without Democrats' help. And within days of Obama taking the oath to a second term, the powers-that-be began stuffing Hillary down our throats. Hillary, who only moved away from her Iraq War vote as a US Senator after Obama positioned himself as the "peace candidate".
The single-most important decision that any member of Congress can make is whether to give a president the authority to use military force against another nation. Hillary claims that she did not discuss her vote to give Bush the AUMF with her husband. She claims she based her vote on Bush's claim that Iraq had WMD. We know from the NIE that it wasn't true, and that there were no legal grounds to attack Iraq. Not only was it illegal, taking Saddam out was bad policy, a bad strategy that would destabilize the entire region, open up a Pandora's box and have us in a quagmire for years and decades.
Bush, no fool he (Bush and Cheney wanted Congress's heads on the line, too, should it all go bad), made that NIE available to all members of Congress. It was in a locked on the Hill (a table, chair and lamp in the room), an armed guard standing outside. You had to show your ID as a member of Congress and sign in to enter the room. Bush wanted a record of it.
Senator Bob Graham, who didn't vote to give Bush the AUMF (Authorization To Use Military Force against Iraq) was one of a handful who availed himself of the opportunity, and went to the room (we can't find out precisely who did read it because the sign-in sheet is classified).
After Graham read it, he told Hillary that she'd better get herself to the room and read it. When the existence of the NIE originally became known (during Plamegate) and the little room on the Hill, certain members of Congress were asked if they'd read it before their vote to AUMF. Hillary said she hadn't. She said she knew enough about Iraq and didn't have to read the NIE. She also said that she never discussed her vote or the situation with her husband.
It's important to realize that as a former president, Bill Clinton got the same PDB that George W. Bush got. He knew Bush was lying us into a war in Iraq, he backed Bush up; still does to this day. Is anybody seriously going to say that Hillary and her husband didn't know the truth, that Bush and Cheney were about to spend us into servitude, push us into third world nation status, all the while the Clintons were making HUNDREDS of millions from hedge funds?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Congress Ignores Jobs, Despite Americans Ranking Issue Their Top Priority
Monday, February 4, 2013
Creating significant and massive infrastructure projects that require labor is what ONLY the government can do.
Whether it's repairing our crumbling infrastructure (roads, highways, bridges, railways, etc.) or setting up conditions that encourage domestic hiring (ending tax breaks for outsourcing, incentives and tax breaks for domestic hiring, contracts for good and services used by the government, etc.), members of Congress can end the crisis now, but they won't. It's not in their own personal self-interest to do it. They make much more money operating against the best interests of the American people.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Assault Weapons Ban Likely To Die So That Broader Gun Policy Legislation Can Live
It's unlikely that the kind of people who commit the crimes that this legislation is directed at would 1) have a 3d printer in their living rooms, and 2) be able to form the intent and skill and take the time to fabricate one.
It's impressive how outlawing something prevents it. For instance, even though there are some who would break the law, others wouldn't, for many reasons, and those others mean fewer opportunities for someone with the desire and intent (but lacking skills to make one) getting their hands on it. The Sandy Hook shooter, perhaps.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Assault Weapons Ban Likely To Die So That Broader Gun Policy Legislation Can Live
Except a background check wouldn't have prevented Sandy Hook, or other high capacity gun crimes that this legislation is supposed to be responding to. The guns used in those crimes were all purchased legally through gun shops that performed background checks.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Assault Weapons Ban Likely To Die So That Broader Gun Policy Legislation Can Live
Background checks wouldn't have stopped Sandy Hook, or Virginia Tech, etc. These are the shootings that the people are reacting to and want action on, and these would only have been prevented with restrictions on large magazine, adding classes of people who can't legally possess guns and violating HIPAA laws.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Assault Weapons Ban Likely To Die So That Broader Gun Policy Legislation Can Live
The problem with "mental health issues" precluding someone from obtaining guns is HIPAA, which must be left intact, because the actual numbers of people with mental health problems who are violent (and who gun control laws would are needed for) is a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the total number.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Energy Secretary Steven Chu Resigns, Chastises Climate Deniers And Clean-Energy Critics
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Seriously?
Seriously??
If you have to ask, you need to get out more, read a little. Start with these:
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/02/matt-taibbi-on-big-banks-lack-of-accountability/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-scahill/will-obama-block-release_b_187245.html
http://www.alternet.org/story/137056/it's_official%3A_obama_will_not_prosecute_cia_torturers
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/13/jeremy_scahill_reveals_cia_facility_prison
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Energy Secretary Steven Chu Resigns, Chastises Climate Deniers And Clean-Energy Critics
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Cabinet secretaries do no manage the day-to-day operations of the agencies under them. Their job is the politics of their agencies.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Energy Secretary Steven Chu Resigns, Chastises Climate Deniers And Clean-Energy Critics
At every turn, the media has gone out of its way to highlight the scandal and not the successes,
======================
The media loves controversy. If they were given alternatives to report, they'd do it. The media doesn't see it as their job to beat the bushes for the other side's argument, for or against.
It's the job of the administration to provide spokesmen for policies, as it has done whenever it sincerely wants some policy (ACA, is one example, and most recently gun control advocates).
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost Read more...
Energy Secretary Steven Chu Resigns, Chastises Climate Deniers And Clean-Energy Critics
That's what cabinet secretaries do, friend; engage in the politics of the division of government they oversee. They further the agenda and the policies of the administration that it serves. They do not manage the day-to-day operations of their agencies. That's the role of the government's permanent employees. In Chu's case, his job was to further government investment in clean energy, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, address the global climate crisis, and create millions of new jobs.
Keeping the public informed about what the government is doing and what's been accomplished isn't the job of the media. There are publicity departments in just about every agency in government that interface with the White House's own publicity (media) department for the express purpose of influencing public opinion. And when the Obama administration wants to do it, they do it expertly.
The 68 responses to my comment proves my point. See how the political arm of the government springs into action when it wants to? Many, if not all, of the responses here are sock puppets, people/software programs, paid to comment, to lend the impression of support for Obama's policies. Your tax dollars at work.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)