Credit default swaps The apple of Phil Gramm's eye Brought us to our knees
KarenMrsLloydRichards
· 10 months ago
Haiku for the Obama Administration (#67):
Graveyard of Empires! "This is not the Superbowl . . . " Pat Tillman's ghost warns
grandma
· 10 months ago
Apparently the Right is not even aware of Bush's criminal policies. Yesterday several writers at Nat’l Review Online (The Corner) and other right wing blogs posted that Obama is continuing torture….based on an article in the Los Angeles Times….
As Sullivan states: "Glenn Reynolds has no idea what the difference is between torture and rendition (not that he cares); and Michael Ledeen seems to be just learning the difference between the rendition policy of Bill Clinton and the extraordinary-rendition-to-torturing regimes policy of Bush and Cheney. "
The NY Times last nite also replied to these claims:
In the course of the last week we’ve seen a steady stream of efforts designed to show that Obama is continuing the counterterrorism programs that he previously labeled as abusive and promised to shut down. These stories are regularly sourced to unnamed current or former CIA officials and have largely run in right-wing media outlets. However, now we see that even the Los Angeles Times can be taken for a ride.
It misses the difference between the renditions program, which has been around since the Bush 41 Administration at least (and arguably in some form even in the Reagan Administration) and the extraordinary renditions program which was introduced by Bush 43 and clearly shut down under an executive order issued by President Obama in his first week.
There are two fundamental distinctions between the programs. The extraordinary renditions program involved the operation of long-term detention facilities either by the CIA or by a cooperating host government together with the CIA, in which prisoners were held outside of the criminal justice system and otherwise unaccountable under law for extended periods of time. A central feature of this program was rendition to torture, namely that the prisoner was turned over to cooperating foreign governments with the full understanding that those governments would apply techniques that even the Bush Administration considers to be torture. This practice is a felony under current U.S. law, but was made a centerpiece of Bush counterterrorism policy.
I'm waiting for National Review's retraction of their erroneous reporting.
luvboxer
· 10 months ago
This is not what I expected of Obama..he is catering to the republicans why..he is in charge and so are the dems...when are they going to get some spunk...I am totally disappointed in all of them!
Older_Wiser
· 10 months ago
Jim Douglas, Rethug gov of Vt. on CSPAN right now. Even Rethug govs are lobbying Congressional Rethugs to get this stim bill passed. State govts are drowning in red ink right now, with no money to pay for education, Medicaid, etc., you know, programs that help the unemployed and underemployed, the list of which is growing.
Will they be listened to, or will Rethug members of Congress continue to act as dictators against the will of the People?
Is it too late for the stim bill? After all, those credit default swaps and other CDOs are out there festering...just waiting to take down economies and govts.
grandma
· 10 months ago
A Navy petty officer from Zimmerman, Minn., did not die of natural causes, as the Pentagon first reported.
When a Navy medic from Zimmerman, Minn., nearing the end of his tour of duty in Iraq died on Sept. 11, 2004, family members were told he died of natural causes.
They now know differently: Petty Officer 3rd Class David A. Cedergren, 25, was electrocuted while showering, the third U.S. service member to suffer that fate in Iraq.
And the deaths are now part of a wider criminal investigation, ....
I agree that he should, but Obama "stands behind him."
This has not raised my opinion of either of them by any means. Whatever happened to a return to ethics? Maybe Daschle should have kept closer attention to his own personal income and should fire his accountant.
I'm just getting sick of all the corruption out there while Americans are suffering.
grandma
· 10 months ago
Exactly....and it would raise Obama's stature right now were he to withdraw Daschle from consideration.
KarenMrsLloydRichards
· 10 months ago
B-b-b-BUT! Obama MUST use amoral influence peddlers like Daschle in order to reform "the system" It's the only way reform can happen!
And universal health care and removing the profit motive CAN happen with a "Washington Insider" like Daschle, who is bought and paid for by the insurance industry!
Yes We Can!
Older_Wiser
· 10 months ago
That "businessman" dinosaur, Johnny Isakson (Idiot-GA), (on CSPAN now. Like all greedy bastards, he will not vote for Obama's stim pkg. I've figured out that the Rethugs like Isakson simply want to keep all the money for themselves.
People in GA are really hurting, according to a woman who works credit for a furniture co, reporting that 3 out 10 people in collection accounts ($2-3,000 in debt) are unemployed, or at least 1 partner is unemployed. And like NC, GA is in the top 10 in unemployment. The South may rise again, but not like racist reactionaries like Isakson think it will...
JohnInTexas
· 10 months ago
How do these idiots in Washington consider themselves "lawmakers" when they apparently don't know the law (i.e. Daschle, Geitner, etc.). I find it a little hard to choke down any excuses.
Indigo
· 10 months ago
Watch Mexico. PAN (the Catholic party now holding the presidency) is re-organizing itself to get control over the narcotraficantes. Thing is, PAN is riddled with narcotraficantes. You think the US Obstructionist Party is nasty, wait while PAN pulls its act back together. ¡Falangistas!
Gorgonzola
· 10 months ago
Republicans are doing what they think is best for the country. Destroy unions, shrink the middle class, redistribute wealth upward, strangle public education, dominate the worlds energy resources, replace science with mythology and militarily crush anyone who doesn't go along.
Older_Wiser
· 10 months ago
Apparently, they DO want it all...not good news for the rest of us, either.
Feb. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Bond investors’ bets on bank nationalizations are hindering already reduced lending by the world’s biggest financial institutions.
The market for securities with characteristics of both debt and equity that Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and other financial companies used to bolster their capital is in freefall on concern governments will stop banks that took public cash from paying interest. The hybrids, which typically count as regulatory capital to cushion against losses, fell 11 percent last month in the U.S., more than they did in all of 2008, according to Merrill Lynch & Co. index data. Citigroup and Bank of America bonds lost as much as 34 percent of their value.
“The danger is the government’s going to take over everything and not pay anything,” said Gregory Habeeb, who manages $7.5 billion in fixed-income securities at Calvert Asset Management Co. in Bethesda, Maryland. “It could happen.” (more at Bloomberg.com)
Maybe it should happen...the greedheads in the financial sector have shown they can't manage a damn thing.
(And UBS has hired "experts" from US investment banks to try to get out of losing money for their US depositors who used UBS in Swiss hide-your-income schemes to avoid paying US taxes.)
LuZenMyMnd
· 10 months ago
This morning is an amazing morning! The Grand Old Party is arising from the ashes. Last night on Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow they did a segment on David Duke angryily decrying the election of "Obama Jr." (that would be Michael Steele) to the head of the RNC. He's threatening to take 90% of the repub's w/him. What will Rush do? What will McConnell do?
Negotiate!
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Still pigs in lipstick.
Palin/Duke 2012! Long live the Grand Old Party of Old.
He must have his lies down pat and foolproof by now...
AdrianBrowne
· 10 months ago
The EU has increased its pressure on the US to reconsider the "Buy American" clause in the $800bn (£567bn) economic recovery package now before Congress.
Does everyone really understand that if we inforce the Buy American program, and enforce tarriffs, we will more than likely go to a deep depression. The only thing keeping the USA afloat is exports ! What do you think will happen to our exports if we enforce tarriffs?
Webster
· 10 months ago
It's certainly clear which side the CorporateM$M is on. They keep repeating the Republican talking points over and over and over...and over.
tigergrrldc
· 10 months ago
Don't the members of the Rush Limpballs Party live in this country like the rest of us? It always amazes me that they don't care about polluting the air or water or protecting our food supply. Don't they have to breathe the same air we do? Don't they eat and drink some of the same things as everybody else? They don't care if people lose their jobs or homes or get healthcare. People are freezing to death in their homes. People are sleeping in their cars in parking lots. What is it going to take for these people to wake up? Don't they realize that if people don't have jobs, some of them will resort to stealing. Who will they steal from? Not the person who is homeless, but the person living in the McMansion driving the nice car and wearing the nice clothes. It's in everybody's best interests that we don't allow this situation to get more out of hand than it already is.
Limpballs/Bible Spice 2012!
AdrianBrowne
· 10 months ago
True. You don't have to believe in Global Warming in order to fight pollution.
example
· 10 months ago
Remember when Rudy Guiliani joked about how Democrats all supported universal health care because they couldn't afford private insurance?
It was actually one of his more honest moments, ironically. Dems are more likely to be worse off economically then republicans.
example
· 10 months ago
They need to strip out all the Republican-friendly BS, like business tax cuts. If the republicans aren't going to play along, they shouldn't get all the republican candy they want.
j
· 10 months ago
NC is now the only state in the south with no constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Anything you can do to help us keep it that way would be greatly appreciated. Go to the web site below and contribute anything you can. Thanks.
The word on Jones Street is that Representative Paul Stam (pictured) and his cronies will be announcing introduction of a constitutional amendment against marriage equality in North Carolina within the next two weeks. With Freedom to Marry Week coming up, this must be his special way of wishing us all a Happy Valentine's Day. Aw shucks, isn't he sweet?
Let's say Happy Valentine's Day right back! One of our generous donors has issued a challenge for us to raise $7,500 during February and he'll match every gift dollar for dollar. What a great way to launch our work during this critically important legislative session!
Won't you take the Stam challenge? Click here to make your gift now and have it matched dollar for dollar!
North Carolina's far right is all a-twitter this legislative session because North Carolina is the only state in the Southeast not to have an anti-marriage amendment. We've been able to hold one back for the past five years in a row and they're more determined than ever to stop us. We're actually a bullseye for them now (right).
Your gift of $250, $100, or $50 will make a critical difference for our work during this year's legislative session and will be matched dollar for dollar during February. Click here now to help us say Happy Valentine's Day, Rep. Stam!
Remember, Rep. Stam isn't only about stopping us from marrying. He also sees our anti-bullying bill as the "Trojan horse" we're using to promote a "deviant lifestyle." He could care less about kids being traumatized. They're only a means to his ends.
Is there any better time than Valentine's month to take the Stam challenge?
"You'd like to think that at some point those Republicans would do what's best for the country."
Who cares? We should be focused on spineless DEMOCRATS. We (the voters) did our part. Now it is up to the Congress. Democrats have a big majority (almost Super). With the GOP in such bad shape, it should be ultra easy to get 100% of the Dems and more than a few GOPers.
But when the media -- AND the blogs -- obsess on what the GOP does, it gives them power. Who'd have thought it possible? With the spinelessness of Democrats, it is no wonder.
All Comments
Credit default swaps
The apple of Phil Gramm's eye
Brought us to our knees
Graveyard of Empires!
"This is not the Superbowl . . . "
Pat Tillman's ghost warns
Yesterday several writers at Nat’l Review Online (The Corner) and other right wing blogs posted that Obama is continuing torture….based on an article in the Los Angeles Times….
As Sullivan states:
"Glenn Reynolds has no idea what the difference is between torture and rendition (not that he cares); and Michael Ledeen seems to be just learning the difference between the rendition policy of Bill Clinton and the extraordinary-rendition-to-torturing regimes policy of Bush and Cheney. "
The NY Times last nite also replied to these claims:
In the course of the last week we’ve seen a steady stream of efforts designed to show that Obama is continuing the counterterrorism programs that he previously labeled as abusive and promised to shut down. These stories are regularly sourced to unnamed current or former CIA officials and have largely run in right-wing media outlets. However, now we see that even the Los Angeles Times can be taken for a ride.
It misses the difference between the renditions program, which has been around since the Bush 41 Administration at least (and arguably in some form even in the Reagan Administration) and the extraordinary renditions program which was introduced by Bush 43 and clearly shut down under an executive order issued by President Obama in his first week.
There are two fundamental distinctions between the programs. The extraordinary renditions program involved the operation of long-term detention facilities either by the CIA or by a cooperating host government together with the CIA, in which prisoners were held outside of the criminal justice system and otherwise unaccountable under law for extended periods of time. A central feature of this program was rendition to torture, namely that the prisoner was turned over to cooperating foreign governments with the full understanding that those governments would apply techniques that even the Bush Administration considers to be torture. This practice is a felony under current U.S. law, but was made a centerpiece of Bush counterterrorism policy.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/02...
I'm waiting for National Review's retraction of their erroneous reporting.
Will they be listened to, or will Rethug members of Congress continue to act as dictators against the will of the People?
Is it too late for the stim bill? After all, those credit default swaps and other CDOs are out there festering...just waiting to take down economies and govts.
When a Navy medic from Zimmerman, Minn., nearing the end of his tour of duty in Iraq died on Sept. 11, 2004, family members were told he died of natural causes.
They now know differently: Petty Officer 3rd Class David A. Cedergren, 25, was electrocuted while showering, the third U.S. service member to suffer that fate in Iraq.
And the deaths are now part of a wider criminal investigation, ....
http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/38828...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/opinion/03tue...
I think Howard Dean would be a better choice.
This has not raised my opinion of either of them by any means. Whatever happened to a return to ethics? Maybe Daschle should have kept closer attention to his own personal income and should fire his accountant.
I'm just getting sick of all the corruption out there while Americans are suffering.
And universal health care and removing the profit motive CAN happen with a "Washington Insider" like Daschle, who is bought and paid for by the insurance industry!
Yes We Can!
People in GA are really hurting, according to a woman who works credit for a furniture co, reporting that 3 out 10 people in collection accounts ($2-3,000 in debt) are unemployed, or at least 1 partner is unemployed. And like NC, GA is in the top 10 in unemployment. The South may rise again, but not like racist reactionaries like Isakson think it will...
Feb. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Bond investors’ bets on bank nationalizations are hindering already reduced lending by the world’s biggest financial institutions.
The market for securities with characteristics of both debt and equity that Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and other financial companies used to bolster their capital is in freefall on concern governments will stop banks that took public cash from paying interest. The hybrids, which typically count as regulatory capital to cushion against losses, fell 11 percent last month in the U.S., more than they did in all of 2008, according to Merrill Lynch & Co. index data. Citigroup and Bank of America bonds lost as much as 34 percent of their value.
“The danger is the government’s going to take over everything and not pay anything,” said Gregory Habeeb, who manages $7.5 billion in fixed-income securities at Calvert Asset Management Co. in Bethesda, Maryland. “It could happen.” (more at Bloomberg.com)
Maybe it should happen...the greedheads in the financial sector have shown they can't manage a damn thing.
(And UBS has hired "experts" from US investment banks to try to get out of losing money for their US depositors who used UBS in Swiss hide-your-income schemes to avoid paying US taxes.)
Negotiate!
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Still pigs in lipstick.
Palin/Duke 2012! Long live the Grand Old Party of Old.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/...
He must have his lies down pat and foolproof by now...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7866900.stm
Limpballs/Bible Spice 2012!
It was actually one of his more honest moments, ironically. Dems are more likely to be worse off economically then republicans.
The word on Jones Street is that Representative Paul Stam (pictured) and his cronies will be announcing introduction of a constitutional amendment against marriage equality in North Carolina within the next two weeks. With Freedom to Marry Week coming up, this must be his special way of wishing us all a Happy Valentine's Day. Aw shucks, isn't he sweet?
Let's say Happy Valentine's Day right back! One of our generous donors has issued a challenge for us to raise $7,500 during February and he'll match every gift dollar for dollar. What a great way to launch our work during this critically important legislative session!
Won't you take the Stam challenge? Click here to make your gift now and have it matched dollar for dollar!
North Carolina's far right is all a-twitter this legislative session because North Carolina is the only state in the Southeast not to have an anti-marriage amendment. We've been able to hold one back for the past five years in a row and they're more determined than ever to stop us. We're actually a bullseye for them now (right).
Your gift of $250, $100, or $50 will make a critical difference for our work during this year's legislative session and will be matched dollar for dollar during February. Click here now to help us say Happy Valentine's Day, Rep. Stam!
Remember, Rep. Stam isn't only about stopping us from marrying. He also sees our anti-bullying bill as the "Trojan horse" we're using to promote a "deviant lifestyle." He could care less about kids being traumatized. They're only a means to his ends.
Is there any better time than Valentine's month to take the Stam challenge?
http://eqfed.org/equalitync/join.html?r=511iYdE...
Who cares? We should be focused on spineless DEMOCRATS. We (the voters) did our part. Now it is up to the Congress. Democrats have a big majority (almost Super). With the GOP in such bad shape, it should be ultra easy to get 100% of the Dems and more than a few GOPers.
But when the media -- AND the blogs -- obsess on what the GOP does, it gives them power. Who'd have thought it possible? With the spinelessness of Democrats, it is no wonder.
You can reach the IRS at 1-800-829-1040.
Love,
zdoggy