Saturday, April 18, 2009

Headlines - Saturday

So here we are, 6 months after the brink of "financial armageddon," upwards of $7.5 Trillion-yes trillion with a "T"- promised, printed, and perq-ed away, and what have we gained?

After being told that our major financial institutions and banks were so nearly insolvent that only massive amounts of taxpayer funded infusions could save life as we knew it, we now have the major banks of the country boasting huge quarterly profits-in some cases, record profits.

Either Obama's economic policies (built on the back of the Bush recovery plan) are as close to a miracle as it comes or something smells rather rotten. If you ask me, its time to put on a gas mask.

 
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                           Even donkeys don't get along in Afghanistan. 
 
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If "just following orders" is an excuse now, should the courts-martial of Lynndie England, Ivan Frederick, Charles Graner, Javal Davis, Megan Ambuhl, Sabrina Harman, Jeremy Sivits not be reconsidered?
 
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The right wing is all worked up over a statement by Secretary Nepolitano regarding potential right wing threats to national security. Like we should just ignore them?

Lest we forget that the second deadliest terrorist attack on the U.S. Mainland… the only one that involved the bombing of a day care center and murder of babies… was carried out by right wing militia nut job Christians who were born in the USA and served in the U.S. Army.

And can we also forget that a recent triple murder of police in Pittsburgh, PA was triggered by right wing nut job Fox Noise common tater Glenn Beck, who had urged Americans to take up their guns because Obama was going to take them away.

 
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A study of Iraq air raids conducted by OUR country shows that 39 per cent of those killed were children and 46 per cent were women. Fatalities caused by mortars, used by American and Iraqi government forces as well as insurgents, were 42 per cent children and 44 per cent women.

Twelve per cent of those killed by suicide bombings, mainly the tool of militant Sunni groups, were children and 16 per cent were females. One in five (21 per cent) of those killed by car bombs, used by both Shia and Sunni fighters, was a child; one in four (28 per cent) was a woman.

Juan Cole: I have long maintained that it is likely a violation of the Geneva Conventions for the US air force to systematically bomb cities that the US military is already occupying. Typically such close air support in urban areas is called in by infantry or armor patrols to deal with snipers atop tenement buildings. But since families live in the tenement buildings, taking out a sniper or two often results in significant civilian deaths. It is likely that the death toll of women and children is much greater than the Iraq Body Count suggests, since pulverized buildings are not always cleared away in a slum, and when they are, bodies are not always exhumed.
 
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Awesome! CEO of Fannie Mae is going to be running the TARP program!
 
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The Lesser Evil
 
So. As advertized, President Obama decided not to prosecute the Bush torturers – despite in your hand, black and white evidence that extreme torture took place (all in the name of the United States, doncha know). But that's OK by Obama. Lock someone in a box with bugs? Fine. Bash some poor son-of-a-bitch's head against a wall until he loses consciousness? Peachy. All this from a man who ran on the promise that torture would become anathema in America.
http://blondesense.blogspot.com/2009/04/better-angels.html
 
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The Director of National Intelligence, a gent named Dennis Blair, released two statements yesterday regarding the release of the torture memos and the revelation that the NSA was engaged in broad spying on Americans. You can read the statement to the press here and the letter to the intelligence community here. Both are PDFs.

Both, frankly, are deeply self-serving pieces of shit. The first one ends with this corker:
What we must do is make it absolutely clear to the American people that our ethos is to act legally, in as transparent a manner as we can, and in a way that they would be proud if we could tell them the full story.
Note that is another way of saying "yes, we did bad things, but if you knew what we know, you'd agree."

I say to that: Bullshit. You will explain, sooner or later, why your people engaged in acts of torture and murder by torture. You can justify yourselves to us, now, or you can justify yourselves to a skeptical war crimes tribunal down the road. But you will give a full explanation.

The second statement basically restates the first one and additionally sidesteps the allegations that the NSA was grossly overbroad in its eavesdropping.

Both statements reiterate the whiny-ass excuse of "we were told to do this and the lawyers working for those who told us to do it said it was legal." Which is a fancy way of restating the old German excuse of "befehl ist befehl", or "orders are orders."

That excuse didn't play very well in the Nuremberg Tribunals. I doubt if it will play very well now.
 
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Televangelist Pat Robertson comes to the rescue of the poor, poor wingnuts who are insulted by the DHS warning of right wing extremism
 
From the 700 Club: 

ROBERTSON: It shows somebody down in the bowels of that organization is either a convinced left winger or somebody whose sexual orientation is somewhat in question. But it's that kind of thing, somebody who doesn't think that we should have abortion on demand, is labeled a terrorist! It's outrageous!

Crooks and Liars also points out that Robertson urged his viewers to "jam up" the homeland security phone lines by calling in to complain. Watch it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upnUn2LSQA8&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fthinkprogress%2Eorg%2F&feature=player_embedded

Note that Robertson, the man who is criticizing the notion that there are right-wing extremists, once called for the assassination of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.

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Income inequality gap hits record high in 2006
 
in 2006, the top 1 percent of households had a larger share of the nation's after-tax income, and the middle and bottom fifths of households had smaller shares, than in any year since 1979, the first year the CBO data cover." http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/17/cbo-income-inequality/
 
 
 
 

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