Yeah, Cantor's press secretary flipped out - and was wrong. Reagan did raise taxes several times. He did some other not very conservative things too. But why let the truth get in the way of some great hagiography.
Read the rest of this post...
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Monday, January 02, 2012
What Chase & Goldman Sachs did to Greece
I've known about this for a while, and haven't found the right explanation. So thank you Matt Taibbi, from a post that keeps on giving.
I focused on the hubristic, feet-never-touch-the-ground aspect of banker life in this post. Now I want to look at what Taibbi says about Greece.
Greece is most people's designated Tabloid Demon, one of whom no good can be said and all wickedness is assumed — Michael Jackson's doctor, for example, or OctoMom.
(Tabloid Demons are the opposite of Tabloid Saints, those of whom no ill can be said. Any number of cute white actresses with philandering husbands fill that bill. A Tabloid Saint who deals drugs won't get called out; a Tabloid Demon who saves crippled kittens will do so unnoticed.)
Greece is the "known bad actor" in the European drama. What "everyone knows" about Greece is that the government was corrupt, the people lazy and spendy, and by running debt high they destroyed their country. What "everyone knows" is that the undeserving of Greece deserve all the austerity they're getting, and let the rest of the world take note.
Well, in that list of Greece's sins, one statement is actually true — those in positions of power, in the government, were indeed corrupt. And the corrupt are easy targets — and eager partners — of looters.
Enter Jamie Dimon & JP Morgan Chase. Taibbi tells the tale, starting with what Chase did to Jefferson County, Alabama, home of Birmingham (my emphasis throughout):
Yes, the government was eagerly corrupted. But an addict needs a seducer, a leech, an enabler, someone to bleed his wallet in trade for his supply. That leech, that predator, is the international branch of the U.S. banking system.
It's the leech that caused the crisis in Greece; and the leech that marketed the evils of one bad addict as the reason the entire continent needs to go on food stamps for a generation or so.
Sweet deal, being a banker. Sort of a racket, wouldn't you say? On some planets, they call it organized crime. On others they call it a public-private partnership.
Either way it's looting.
GP Read the rest of this post...
I focused on the hubristic, feet-never-touch-the-ground aspect of banker life in this post. Now I want to look at what Taibbi says about Greece.
Greece is most people's designated Tabloid Demon, one of whom no good can be said and all wickedness is assumed — Michael Jackson's doctor, for example, or OctoMom.
(Tabloid Demons are the opposite of Tabloid Saints, those of whom no ill can be said. Any number of cute white actresses with philandering husbands fill that bill. A Tabloid Saint who deals drugs won't get called out; a Tabloid Demon who saves crippled kittens will do so unnoticed.)
Greece is the "known bad actor" in the European drama. What "everyone knows" about Greece is that the government was corrupt, the people lazy and spendy, and by running debt high they destroyed their country. What "everyone knows" is that the undeserving of Greece deserve all the austerity they're getting, and let the rest of the world take note.
Well, in that list of Greece's sins, one statement is actually true — those in positions of power, in the government, were indeed corrupt. And the corrupt are easy targets — and eager partners — of looters.
Enter Jamie Dimon & JP Morgan Chase. Taibbi tells the tale, starting with what Chase did to Jefferson County, Alabama, home of Birmingham (my emphasis throughout):
[Jefferson County] is now in bankruptcy proceedings primarily because Dimon’s bank, Chase, used middlemen to bribe local officials – literally bribe, with cash and watches and new suits – to sign on to a series of onerous interest-rate swap deals that vastly expanded the county’s debt burden. ... Jamie Dimon handed Birmingham, Alabama a Chase credit card and then bribed its local officials to run up a gigantic balance[.] ... As a result, the citizens of Jefferson County will now be making payments to Chase until the end of time.What they did to Birmingham, they did to Greece:
Having seen how well interest-rate swaps worked for Jefferson County, Alabama, Chase “helped” countries like Greece and Italy mask their debt problems for years by selling a similar series of swaps to those governments. The bank then turned around and worked with banks like Goldman, Sachs (who were also major purveyors of those swap deals) to create a thing called the iTraxx SovX Western Europe index, which allowed investors to bet against Greek debt.The world of propaganda news — the world of "what everyone knows" (the propagandist's best friend) — won't change because you now know what the bankers did to Greece.
In other words, banks like Chase and Goldman knowingly larded up the nation of Greece with a crippling future debt burden, then turned around and helped the world bet against Greek debt. ... [D]oes a human being do that deal?
Operations like the Greek swap/short index maneuver were easy money for banks like Goldman and Chase – hell, it’s a no-lose play, like cutting a car’s brake lines and then betting on the driver to crash – but they helped create the monstrous European debt problem that this very minute is threatening to send the entire world economy into collapse, which would result in who knows what horrors.
Yes, the government was eagerly corrupted. But an addict needs a seducer, a leech, an enabler, someone to bleed his wallet in trade for his supply. That leech, that predator, is the international branch of the U.S. banking system.
It's the leech that caused the crisis in Greece; and the leech that marketed the evils of one bad addict as the reason the entire continent needs to go on food stamps for a generation or so.
Sweet deal, being a banker. Sort of a racket, wouldn't you say? On some planets, they call it organized crime. On others they call it a public-private partnership.
Either way it's looting.
GP Read the rest of this post...
Why Romney is getting the nomination
An interesting essay from Politico's Roger Simon that's getting some traction on Twitter:
[T]he Iowa caucuses do not pick winners as much as they eliminate losers. And the Iowa caucuses Tuesday are likely to eliminate from serious contention the only two men who might have blocked Romney’s path to victory: Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry.Read the rest of this post...
With those two out of the way, Romney faces Ron Paul, who could come in first, second or third here on Tuesday or Rick Santorum, who could do the same.
But neither of those men has a credible route to the nomination no matter how well they do in Iowa.
What does signing the NDAA really mean?
Lets recap: For seven years the Bush administration flouted the constitution committing a series of criminal acts including torture, murder, kidnapping and war crimes. In an attempt to provide post-facto justification for these crimes, the Republican faction in Congress accompanied by some of the usual traitors insisted on a clause in the defense bill (NDAA) purportedly granting the President the power to commit some of the clearly illegal and unconstitutional acts.
Obama has now signed the NDAA with a rider to point out the rather obvious fact that Congress cannot grant unconstitutional powers to the President, let alone force him to exercise them.
People are telling me that this is some sort of epic cave on the theory that a future President might choose to go round imprisoning people without trial, in short behave just like Bush did. So what difference does signing the NDAA make?
The only difference I can see is that the courts might be more inclined to keep their oath to defend the constitution when faced with an abstract grant of clearly unconstitutional powers to al presidents than they have been when faced by the criminal acts of the last president. Read the rest of this post...
Obama has now signed the NDAA with a rider to point out the rather obvious fact that Congress cannot grant unconstitutional powers to the President, let alone force him to exercise them.
People are telling me that this is some sort of epic cave on the theory that a future President might choose to go round imprisoning people without trial, in short behave just like Bush did. So what difference does signing the NDAA make?
The only difference I can see is that the courts might be more inclined to keep their oath to defend the constitution when faced with an abstract grant of clearly unconstitutional powers to al presidents than they have been when faced by the criminal acts of the last president. Read the rest of this post...
The latest on the Iowa caucuses
The Iowa caucuses are Tuesday, and in a nutshell, from Chris Cillizza at the Wash Post: Romney is the favorite, Santorum is picking up momentum, Ron Paul's base is at 15% and 19%, but he's having a hard time reliable going beyond that, and Gingrich, Perry and Bachmann are irrelevant (for now).
Romney has spent a lot of money recently in the state, so for him this is a must-win. Ron Paul certainly is playing a spoiler role in various ways - to Romney, but also to the relevance of the caucuses themselves (if Paul wins, then maybe Iowa doesn't matter). And Gingrich is waiting for South Carolina on January 21.
Next up after Iowa, New Hampshire on January 10. Read the rest of this post...
Romney has spent a lot of money recently in the state, so for him this is a must-win. Ron Paul certainly is playing a spoiler role in various ways - to Romney, but also to the relevance of the caucuses themselves (if Paul wins, then maybe Iowa doesn't matter). And Gingrich is waiting for South Carolina on January 21.
Next up after Iowa, New Hampshire on January 10. Read the rest of this post...
18 year old does YouTube about longtime heart illness one week before he dies, on Christmas day
There is no good title for this post.
An 18 year old kid with a dangerous heart condition does two YouTube videos before Christmas, talking about his condition, and the remarkable visions he had in two near-death experiences, one taking place only two weeks before the video was made. A week later, on Christmas night, he dies. (More from ABC News.)
Here are his videos. Watch them. They're not that long, and seriously worth a look.
Read the rest of this post...
An 18 year old kid with a dangerous heart condition does two YouTube videos before Christmas, talking about his condition, and the remarkable visions he had in two near-death experiences, one taking place only two weeks before the video was made. A week later, on Christmas night, he dies. (More from ABC News.)
Here are his videos. Watch them. They're not that long, and seriously worth a look.
Read the rest of this post...
Former British PM's email was hacked
It's going to be interesting to see who was behind the alleged hacking and who used the information. Rupert Murdoch's News of the World has already denied links but their credibility is not very high. The alleged hacking occurred before Gordon Brown became Prime Minister, during his days as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Either way, this is a very serious charge. The question now is who was profiting from the hacking, which is not yet known or confirmed. The Independent:
Police investigating computer hacking by private investigators commissioned by national newspapers have uncovered evidence that emails sent and received by Gordon Brown during his time as Chancellor were illegally accessed. Mr Brown's private communications, along with emails belonging to a former Labour adviser and lobbyist, Derek Draper, have been identified by Scotland Yard's Operation Tuleta team as potentially hacked material. They are currently looking at evidence from around 20 computers which hold data revealing that hundreds of individuals may have had their private emails hacked. The links discovered from the seized computers suggest that the email investigation could involve as many victims as those involved in the News of the World phone-hacking scandal.Read the rest of this post...
New calls for Arab League monitors to leave Syria
Even with their presence in Syria, the violence continues. If Assad isn't going to change his murderous ways with international monitors, it makes no sense to leave them around to congratulate the government for behaving. Al Jazeera:
An advisory body to the Arab League has called for the immediate withdrawal of the group's observer mission in Syria, saying its monitors are inadvertently helping the government cover up continued violence. The Arab Parliament, an 88-member advisory committee of delegates from each of the League's member states, said on Sunday that the violence in Syria was continuing to claim victims despite the presence of observers. The monitors are on a month-long mission to ensure the government of President Bashar al-Assad complies with the terms of the League's plan to end the crackdown on dissent.Read the rest of this post...
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