Politics, Everyday, All day... morning, noon and night....

[EvilDustBooger]

...I was more impressed with Jeannie Tripplehorns giggly-melons.

[Ugly Dougly]

Look out, here comes a black man with a political machine, and he knows how to use it:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ghb- ... QD9105LO00

Wasn't Tripplehorn in Waterworld?

[EvilDustBooger]

Wasn't Tripplehorn in Waterworld?

.......MmmmmmmmmmHmmmmm !

[DVD Burner]

Congressman wants McClellan to testify under oath

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former Bush spokesman Scott McClellan should testify under oath on Capitol Hill about his explosive new book in which he sharply criticizes his old boss, a Democratic congressman said Friday.

Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Florida, said McClellan, who served as the president's press secretary before leaving the White House in 2006, would be able to provide valuable insight into a number of issues that the House Judiciary Committee is investigating.

The committee is looking into the use of prewar intelligence, whether politics was behind the firing of the firing of eight U.S. attorneys in 2006 and the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson's identity, Wexler said.

In the book, McClellan wrote that President Bush told him that he had authorized the leaking of Plame Wilson's identity to the press.

"The administration has always called for different kinds of privileges to avoid their officials testifying, but because Mr. McClellan has put all this information in a book, these privileges, I do not believe, would be available to the administration, so we would have a free flow of information," Wexler said.

Wexler is a senior member of the Judiciary Committee.

Wexler said he did not know whether McClellan would fight a subpoena to testify before the committee, but suggested that any White House claims that McClellan should be barred from testifying due to executive privilege would be invalid because McClellan had put much of the information in the public domain with book and multiple television appearances

McClellan has not said whether he would be willing to to testify before Congress.

Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino said Friday that the White House says it could invoke executive privilege and prevent McClellan from testifying before the committee, but it has not decided whether to do so.

"The law would allow for that," Perino said, "but by saying that I am not suggesting that's what would happen or not.

"We don't have a formal request yet," she said. "It's not a decision we would make prior to getting a formal request."

McClellan's new memoir, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," is scheduled for publication Monday. In it he says the administration became mired in "propaganda" and political spin and played loose with the truth at times.

McClellan will appear in CNN's "Situation Room" at 6 p.m. Friday.

As White House spokesman, McClellan defended Bush's policies during much of the war in Iraq, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the scandal that followed the leak of Plame Wilson's identity.

He said Thursday the latter episode was a "defining moment that caused me to become dismayed and disillusioned with the way things were going in Washington, D.C."

In his book, McClellan wrote that President Bush had decided to go war with Iraq shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks, and then ordered his aides to make the arguments for it.

"I think very early on, a few months after September 11, he made a decision that we're going to confront Saddam Hussein, and if Hussein doesn't come fully clean, then we're going to go to war. There was really no flexibility in his approach," McClellan told NBC's "Today" show Thursday, referring to the former Iraqi dictator. "Then it was put on the advisers: How do we go about implementing this, how do we go about doing this?"

Wexler said McClellan should testify because the public has a right to know what went on behind closed doors.

"The American people deserve to know under oath what is true and what isn't [and] what this administration engaged in in terms of a conspiracy to obstruct justice," Wexler said.

[DVD Burner]

Looks like the Bushies suckered all of the Bushites.

What a bunch of suckers.

Oh and Booger, you owe me a monitor. I broke my last one due to that bug thingie running around in your avatar.

[Ugly Dougly]

Hillary is "open" to Barack's VP "slot". Film at 11 (after the kids are in bed)...

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008 ... rs-say/?hp

Mrs. Clinton prefaced the remarks by noting that she would do “anything to make sure a Democrat would win'’...

"She said that if it’s offered, she would take it.'’

That conjures up an interesting picture, but then again I haven't had sex in hours.

[Ugly Dougly]

...

[Apollonaris Zeus]

Sounds like more fun in the whitehouse!

[Ugly Dougly]

Apparently there are some ex-Hillary supporters who are refusing to back Obama. It's probably not due to vast policy differences.

[cowboyangel]

One of the chief architects of the sub prime mortgage scheme was Penny Pritzker of the famous Hyatt Hotel owning family chain. Superior Bank in Chicago, that failed and left many depositors stranded, was owned by Penny as well. She is Obama's main financial adviser. I am not kidding. Obama does not want to remove the glut of subsidies that went to nuclear power under Bush's energy policy. Think about this as you gleefully embrace the talk of "Change".

[Ugly Dougly]

I am afraid the nucular option is still on the table Mr. Chairman.

[mdmf007]

More nuclear plants for everyone -

[Kinetik V]

More nuclear plants for everyone -

Seriously, I sure hope so.

[cowboyangel]

Kinetic, others, before you guys flip the nuclear power switch I think you ought to consider this intelligent article from Christian Parenti. There is a damning economic component that many pro-nuke people often miss, and Parenti covers it quite well in this piece. More at the link.

Also, Obama just appointed an ex-Wal-Mart lawyer (spokesperson?) as his chief financial advisor. Change? little if any significant.





If you listen to the rhetoric, nuclear power is back. Smashing atoms will replace burning carbon-based coal, gas and oil. In the face of a disaster movie-like future of runaway climate change--bringing drought, floods, famine and social breakdown--carbon-free nukes are cast as the deus ex machina to save us at the last minute.


Even a few greens support nuclear power--most famously James Lovelock, father of the Gaia theory. In the popular press, discussion of nuclear energy is dominated by its boosters, thanks in part to sophisticated industry PR.

In an effort to jump-start a "nuclear renaissance," the Bush Administration has pushed one package of subsidies after another. For the past two years a program of federal loan guarantees has sat waiting for utilities to build nukes. Last year's appropriations bill set the total amount on offer at $18.5 billion. And now the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill is gaining momentum and will likely accrue amendments that will offer yet more money.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) expects up to thirty applications to be filed to build atomic plants; five or six of those proposals are moving through the complicated multi-stage process. But no new atomic power stations have been fully licensed or have broken ground. And two newly proposed projects have just been shelved.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080512/parenti

[can't sit still]

This is good news and bad news. Habeus Corpus has been reinstated by the supreme court. The bad news is that it was approved by only a 5--4 vote. 4 members of our supreme court believe that 1 of our fudamental constitutional rights does not apply Dan
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/ ... index.html

[Kinetik V]

Here's a new government tracking database that warrants setting off the alarm bells....

Cite:
http://www.freedomworks.org/newsroom/pr ... ss_id=2571

************
FreedomWorks
June 19, 2008

Senate Housing Bill Requires eBay, Amazon, Google, and All Credit Card Companies to Report Transactions to the Government
Broad, invasive provision touches nearly every aspect of American commerce.

Contact: Adam Brandon
Phone: 202-942-7698
Email: [email protected]

Washington, DC - Hidden deep in Senator Christopher Dodd's 630-page Senate housing legislation is a sweeping provision that affects the privacy and operation of nearly all of America’s small businesses. The provision, which was added by the bill's managers without debate this week, would require the nation's payment systems to track, aggregate, and report information on nearly every electronic transaction to the federal government.

FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey commented: "This is a provision with astonishing reach, and it was slipped into the bill just this week. Not only does it affect nearly every credit card transaction in America, such as Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express, but the bill specifically targets payment systems like eBay's PayPal, Amazon, and Google Checkout that are used by many small online businesses. The privacy implications for America's small businesses are breathtaking."

"Privacy groups like the Center for Democracy and Technology and small business organizations like the NFIB sharply criticized this idea when it first appeared earlier this year. What is the federal government's purpose with this kind of detailed data? How will this database be secured, and who will have access? Many small proprietors use their Social Security number as their tax ID. How will their privacy be protected? What compliance costs will this impose on businesses? Why is Sen. Chris Dodd putting this provision in a housing bailout bill? The bill also includes the creation of a new national fingerprint registry for mortgage brokers.

"At a time when concerns about both identity theft and government spying are paramount, Congress wants to create a new honey pot of private data that includes Social Security numbers. This bill reduces privacy across America's payment processing systems and treats every American small business or eBay power seller like a criminal on parole by requiring an unprecedented level of reporting to the federal government. This outrageous idea is another reason to delay the housing bailout legislation so that Senators and the public at large have time to examine its full implications."

From the Senate Bill Summary:

Payment Card and Third Party Network Information Reporting. The proposal requires information reporting on payment card and third party network transactions. Payment settlement entities, including merchant acquiring banks and third party settlement organizations, or third party payment facilitators acting on their behalf, will be required to report the annual gross amount of reportable transactions to the IRS and to the participating payee. Reportable transactions include any payment card transaction and any third party network transaction. Participating payees include persons who accept a payment card as payment and third party networks who accept payment from a third party settlement organization in settlement of transactions. A payment card means any card issued pursuant to an agreement or arrangement which provides for standards and mechanisms for settling the transactions. Use of an account number or other indicia associated with a payment card will be treated in the same manner as a payment card. A de minimis exception for transactions of $10,000 or less and 200 transactions or less applies to payments by third party settlement organizations. The proposal applies to returns for calendar years beginning after December 31, 2010. Back-up withholding provisions apply to amounts paid after December 31, 2011. This proposal is estimated to raise $9.802 billion over ten years.

[cowboyangel]

It would be nice if the fuck heads did some decent accounting on the Pentagon instead.....

[Kinetik V]

The Death and Taxes poster...

http://www.wallstats.com/deathandtaxes/

The poster on that site lays out a very graphic representation of where our tax money goes. I can't link the image over here but AZ and a few others who always read this thread might like what you see.

[Ugly Dougly]

The Death and Taxes poster...

http://www.wallstats.com/deathandtaxes/

The poster on that site lays out a very graphic representation of where our tax money goes. I can't link the image over here but AZ and a few others who always read this thread might like what you see.

Interesting graphic. It gives new meaning to the phrase "a billion here, a billion here..."

[cowboyangel]

THE MYTH OF CHANGE

Ya, change. What does it mean? Will we get real change with an Obama presidency? I seriously doubt it. Consider this from Naomi Klein, and also visit http://revbilly.com to see the Church of Stop Shopping's take on how wonderful Wal-Mart is! Also http://www.nlcnet.org/article.php?id=503
to see Charlie Kernagan's expose of the "real" China work force

Obama's Chicago Boys
by Naomi Klein


Barack Obama waited just three days after Hillary Clinton pulled out of
the race to declare, on CNBC, "Look. I am a pro-growth, free-market guy.
I love the market."

Demonstrating that this is no mere spring fling, he has appointed
37-year-old Jason Furman to head his economic policy team. Furman is one
of Wal-Mart's most prominent defenders, anointing the company a
"progressive success story." On the campaign trail, Obama blasted
Clinton for sitting on the Wal-Mart board and pledged, "I won't shop
there." For Furman, however, it's Wal-Mart's critics who are the real
threat: the "efforts to get Wal-Mart to raise its wages and benefits"
are creating "collateral damage" that is "way too enormous and damaging
to working people and the economy more broadly for me to sit by idly and
sing 'Kum-Ba-Ya' in the interests of progressive harmony."

Obama's love of markets and his desire for "change" are not inherently
incompatible. "The market has gotten out of balance," he says, and it
most certainly has. Many trace this profound imbalance back to the ideas
of Milton Friedman, who launched a counterrevolution against the New
Deal from his perch at the University of Chicago economics department.
And here there are more problems, because Obama--who taught law at the
University of Chicago for a decade--is thoroughly embedded in the
mind-set known as the Chicago School.

He chose as his chief economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, a University of
Chicago economist on the left side of a spectrum that stops at the
center-right. Goolsbee, unlike his more Friedmanite colleagues, sees
inequality as a problem. His primary solution, however, is more
education--a line you can also get from Alan Greenspan. In their
hometown, Goolsbee has been eager to link Obama to the Chicago School.
"If you look at his platform, at his advisers, at his temperament, the
guy's got a healthy respect for markets," he told Chicago
magazine. "It's in the ethos of the [University of Chicago], which is
something different from saying he is laissez-faire."

Another of Obama's Chicago fans is 39-year-old billionaire Kenneth
Griffin, CEO of the hedge fund Citadel Investment Group. Griffin, who
gave the maximum allowable donation to Obama, is something of a poster
boy for an unbalanced economy. He got married at Versailles and had the
after-party at Marie Antoinette's vacation spot (Cirque du Soleil
performed)--and he is one of the staunchest opponents of closing the
hedge-fund tax loophole. While Obama talks about toughening trade rules
with China, Griffin has been bending the few barriers that do exist.
Despite sanctions prohibiting the sale of police equipment to China,
Citadel has been pouring money into controversial China-based security
companies that are putting the local population under unprecedented
levels of surveillance.

Now is the time to worry about Obama's Chicago Boys and their commitment
to fending off serious attempts at regulation. It was in the two and a
half months between winning the 1992 election and being sworn into
office that Bill Clinton did a U-turn on the economy. He had campaigned
promising to revise NAFTA, adding labor and environmental provisions and
to invest in social programs. But two weeks before his inauguration, he
met with then-Goldman Sachs chief Robert Rubin, who convinced him of the
urgency of embracing austerity and more liberalization. Rubin told PBS,
"President Clinton actually made the decision before he stepped into the
Oval Office, during the transition, on what was a dramatic change in
economic policy."

Furman, a leading disciple of Rubin, was chosen to head the Brookings
Institution's Hamilton Project, the think tank Rubin helped found to
argue for reforming, rather than abandoning, the free-trade agenda. Add
to that Goolsbee's February meeting with Canadian consulate officials,
who left with the distinct impression that they had been instructed not
to take Obama's anti-NAFTA campaigning seriously, and there is every
reason for concern about a replay of 1993.

The irony is that there is absolutely no reason for this backsliding.
The movement launched by Friedman, introduced by Ronald Reagan and
entrenched under Clinton, faces a profound legitimacy crisis around the
world. Nowhere is this more evident than at the University of Chicago
itself. In mid-May, when university president Robert Zimmer announced
the creation of a $200 million Milton Friedman Institute, an economic
research center devoted to continuing and augmenting the Friedman
legacy, a controversy erupted. More than 100 faculty members signed a
letter of protest. "The effects of the neoliberal global order that has
been put in place in recent decades, strongly buttressed by the Chicago
School of Economics, have by no means been unequivocally positive," the
letter states. "Many would argue that they have been negative for much
of the world's population."

When Friedman died in 2006, such bold critiques of his legacy were
largely absent. The adoring memorials spoke only of grand achievement,
with one of the more prominent appreciations appearing in the New
York Times--written by Austan Goolsbee. Yet now, just two years
later, Friedman's name is seen as a liability even at his own alma
mater. So why has Obama chosen this moment, when all illusions of a
consensus have dropped away, to go Chicago retro?

The news is not all bad. Furman claims he will be drawing on the
expertise of two Keynesian economists: Jared Bernstein of the Economic
Policy Institute and James Galbraith, son of Friedman's nemesis John
Kenneth Galbraith. Our "current economic crisis," Obama recently said,
did not come from nowhere. It is "the logical conclusion of a tired and
misguided philosophy that has dominated Washington for far too long."

True enough. But before Obama can purge Washington of the scourge of
Friedmanism, he has some ideological housecleaning of his own to do.



This article can be found on the web at:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080630/klein




VOTE GREEN FOR GOD's SAKE
http://www.gp.org/index.php

[Ugly Dougly]

Thank you cowboy. And what a wondergul president John will be.

[cowboyangel]

I'm reminded of what Ralph once said about similar circumstances regarding his entry into presidential politics....something like, "we might as well have the republican win, go to hell in a hurry, rather than drag the process out for a longer period of time with the democrat". The democrats are more evil than the republicans because as watchdogs for what's left of our constitution, they have been utter failures. At least the republicans have a Machiavelli integrity about the shit they do and they all get on the same page together. Take the recent democratic capitulation to Bush thinking on the wiretap bill, Shameful.
I am so fucking tired of democrats caving into the machinery of wayward US financial defects, ultra out of control military adventures and spending, lack of vision on media reform and anti-trust reform, lack of passion in defense of the environment and a range of other issues. The democrats are more evil than the republicans. That is why I place my energy and efforts on a third party. Greens? Why not? You have to start somewhere. Would I get behind an independent Ron Paul campaign? Sure thing. America needs a third party like humans need air. When is it going to start? When is it going to attain legitimacy? America is already imploding with those disastrous 8 years of the fool from Texas and his neo-nazi dominionist religious wacko friends. McCain will hasten the collapse of America and while as terrible a thing that is to contemplate, it will springboard the remedies that are really needed to save America and its soul, rather than wallow in the false promises and depressing betrayals that an Obama presidency will undoubtedly bring.

[Apollonaris Zeus]

Give CowboyA another month and see where he waffles to next!

If I had read every article from every party boy or girl, I too would shift back and forth.

The color of the Green party is brown. It's just marketing ploy for hippy
whanabees who wish they could run a country like its as easy as running a recycling company.

On the real reason I wanted to post here, it seems that oil barrel pricing is creating a Pricing Ceiling. We will see within the next week if it holds. The pricing has to bounce off the higher end or close to it for it to be a strong ceiling. If so then it would mean that all the talk about re-regulation of energy commodities and ending the Enron Loophole is helping, but we can't wait until Obama is in office and McCain hasn't said a word on ending the Enron Loophole- in fact McCain has spoken against changing it- read more below;

McCain Defends 'Enron Loophole'
by Jason Leopold
http://www.baltimorechronicle.com/2008 ... pold.shtml

John McCain May 19, 2008—Sen. John McCain says he opposes the $307 billion farm bill because it would dole out wasteful subsidies, but his chief economic adviser Phil Gramm also wants to stop its proposed regulation of energy futures trading, a market that was famously abused when Enron Corp. manipulated California’s electricity prices in 2001.

Clearing the way for that California price gouging, Gramm, as a powerful Texas senator in 2000, slipped an Enron-backed provision into the Commodities Futures Modernization Act that exempted from regulation energy trading on electronic platforms.

Then, over the next year, Enron – with Gramm’s wife Wendy serving on its board of directors – worked to create false electricity shortages in California, bilking consumers out of an estimated $40 billion.

Gramm left the Senate in 2002 but now has emerged as what Fortune magazine calls “McCain’s econ brain,â€

[can't sit still]

"With little fanfare, a staggering 750,000 Chinese have settled in Africa over the past decade. More are on the way.

The strategy has been carefully devised by officials in Beijing, where one expert has estimated that China will eventually need to send 300 million people to Africa to solve the problems of over-population and pollution."
Let's see,,, a 300 million addition will solve overpopulation... OK
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/arti ... article.do

"The government in Khartoum has helped the feared Janjaweed militia to rape, murder and burn to death more than 350,000 people."
In Africa, corruption is a multi-billion pound industry and many experts believe that China is fuelling the cancer.

"The Chinese are contemptuous of such criticism. To them, Africa is about pragmatism, not human rights. 'Business is business,"
"Where will it all end? As far as Beijing is concerned, it will stop only when Africa no longer has any minerals or oil to be extracted from the continent. "
They'll leave when the last tree is cut down. Africa doesn't stand a chance. What a mess.

[DVD Burner]

Meh!

Looks like every place sucks except for Canada.

[can't sit still]

The really scary part is the mentality and Modus Operandi of the Chinese. They have knowingly polluted their own country severly. They change an area the size of Rhode Island into desert every year. They are very aware of Hubbert's peak [peak oil] but they build cars by the millions.
They know that pollution is costing them enormously but they bring online a new coal plant every 5 days. They're denuding Africa of timber. They're well aware of the huge dead-zones in the ocean but don't build marine preserves for safeguarding fish stocks.
Corporate America obviously has a somewhat rapacious attitude. The Chinese are in a hurry to burn down the whole world if will get them one step ahead of the west.
The planet is going to get a good thrashing if mother nature doesn't kick some ass, Dan

[Apollonaris Zeus]

Everyone I spoke to is upset at the Republicans for not closing the Enron Loophole.



On another note, McCain is going to make an appearance at Buffalo chips Campground in Sturgis where there is a nightly nude wet tee shirt contest.

I wonder if he will get his wife to enter?


AIIZ

[can't sit still]

Everyone I spoke to is upset at the Republicans for not closing the Enron Loophole.
AIIZ

Sounds like business as usual to me.
The latest estimates are calling for a loss of about 2 trillion dollars.
http://www.rgemonitor.com/roubini-monit ... %e2%80%9d/
No,,,,, I don't know how to do a "tiny URL"
The Enron loophole just shifts the losses and costs to the public. That is the whole M.O. of GOV these days. Privatise the gains and socialise the losses.
"The taxpayer's bill is going to be huge. I estimate this financial crisis will lead to credit losses of at least $1 trillion and most likely closer to $2 trillion" Enron is small potatoes.
We're going into Depression II. Just like the previous depression, the big banks are working to eliminate their competition; "That includes the Wachovias and Washington Mutuals of the world. Half of this group might go bankrupt. "
You can bet that we'll get the shit end of the deal no matter what. There is an old Indian saying; "when the elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers"

It's difficult to be optimistic if you consider the fact that no fiat currency and no democracy have ever survived.

[DVD Burner]

[youtube][/youtube]

[DVD Burner]

Best part about all this is coming up next.

all the suckers out there that believe in American politics are gonna flip when they find out I was right 6 years ago on this board when I posted there will be no 2008 election.

Suckers!