NY Times editorial on banks stopping payments to WikiLeaks

This is a very troubling problem with Big Finance. NY Times:

Our concern is not specifically about payments to WikiLeaks. This isn’t the first time a bank shunned a business on similar risk-management grounds. Banks in Colorado, for instance, have refused to open bank accounts for legal dispensaries of medical marijuana.

Still, there are troubling questions. The decisions to bar the organization came after its founder, Julian Assange, said that next year it will release data revealing corruption in the financial industry. In 2009, Mr. Assange said that WikiLeaks had the hard drive of a Bank of America executive.

What would happen if a clutch of big banks decided that a particularly irksome blogger or other organization was “too risky”? What if they decided — one by one — to shut down financial access to a newspaper that was about to reveal irksome truths about their operations? This decision should not be left solely up to business-as-usual among the banks.

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The rich get richer as everyone else falls behind

Everyone knows the problem. But is anyone in Washington bothered enough to care and do something about it? Not likely. Both parties are much too interested in receiving a windfall from the richest of the rich for their campaigns to really be bothered. This is not your parents Democratic Party, so don't hold your breath for any serious action. The day Geithner was hired and Bernanke re-confirmed was all we needed to see. CNN:

The richest 1% of U.S. households had a net worth 225 times greater than that of the average American household in 2009, according to analysis conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. That's up from the previous record of 190 times greater, which was set in 2004.

The widening gap came even as wealthy households' average net worth tumbled 27% -- to about $14 million -- between 2007 to 2009. That's the first time that they suffered a decline since the three-year period of 1992 to 1995.

Meanwhile, the average family's net worth plunged 41% -- to just $62,200 -- from 2007 to 2009, according to EPI's calculations.

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Assange: Women who accused him feared STDs and went to the police, who 'jumped in and bamboozled' them

Apparently, Julian Assange is hearing from others what went on in Sweden. From Yahoo News (h/t maxwellhill at reddit for the link):

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Tuesday the Swedish women who have accused him of sexual assault had got into a "tizzy" about the possibility they had caught a sexually transmitted disease from him.

Assange told the BBC that one account of what happened in August -- the month at the centre of allegations against him -- was that the two women had panicked when they found out they had both slept with him and went to police who "bamboozled" them.

He insisted he was fighting a Swedish extradition warrant because he believes "no natural justice" would occur in Sweden.

And there's this:

Assange claimed that the Swedish authorities had asked that his Swedish lawyer be "gagged", adding that his offers to be interviewed by video link or by Swedish officials in Britain had been rejected.

I've been calling Assange an "Enemy of the State", but that can't be accurate, since the "state" in this case is the Worldwide Assembly of Global Elites. Good thing he's got that nuclear datafile, or he'd be looking at the sky through a coffin lid.

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Alleged rape victim refuses TSA grope and is arrested

One glaring lie from the TSA is that "security is not optional." We know that the "security" is in fact optional for politicians as well as diplomats. This is an organization that can't seem to learn anything other than how to smear travelers who dare question the TSA. Read the rest of this post...

WikiLeaks: DEA now a global intelligence organization

This isn't your father's DEA. How does an organization change like this in a system like ours? NY Times:

The Drug Enforcement Administration has been transformed into a global intelligence organization with a reach that extends far beyond narcotics, and an eavesdropping operation so expansive it has to fend off foreign politicians who want to use it against their political enemies, according to secret diplomatic cables.

In far greater detail than previously seen, the cables, from the cache obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to some news organizations, offer glimpses of drug agents balancing diplomacy and law enforcement in places where it can be hard to tell the politicians from the traffickers, and where drug rings are themselves mini-states whose wealth and violence permit them to run roughshod over struggling governments.

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Sunday morning open thread

Joe is going to be very upset that's he's missing a potential winter storm in DC. The city is expecting anywhere from 3 to 7 inches, last time I checked. Here in the Chicago area there's a nice couple of inches on the ground, and another couple expected tonight. It's beautiful and upper 20s. Not too shabby. (Ignore the false date stamps on the photos, it's a cute little thing my iPhone program does to the photos.)


I was walking the dog earlier this evening, and for a moment remembered what it was like, all bundled up as a kid, walking around at night in the snow and the cold, looking at the Christmas lights as the entire town seemed asleep. My town goes nuts for Christmas lights, and I love it. It was a light snow, but coming down hard enough that I could hear it hitting my down coat.

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Crossing the bridge, entering my home town. God, does that shot just reeks of the midwest. Low and flat, as far as the eye can see.



Sasha is responding to her first week or so of snow with indifference. It's definitely not her thing. She's almost dainty trying to walk around it, as best she can. And with her fur, her feet become big balls of snowy ice every time I walk her. Mom's dog can't get enough. Sasha, not so much.



Sasha's has, however, found the perfect place to burrow under the bed in my old bedroom. Read the rest of this post...

Nouvelle Vague - The Guns Of Brixton

It's a sunny, but slow morning after Christmas over here. The goose worked out well including the delicious potatoes, garlic cloves and chestnuts that cooked under the bird in the goose fat. It's incredible how much fat those birds have. Also on the menu was foie gras, smoked salmon, cheese and sorbet. We had an elderly neighbor who is just back from the hospital after falling and breaking her kneecap along with a few old friends. The big moment was when our friends little boy was able to approach one of the cats (Nasdaq, who is the more nervous cat) and pet her. He's been trying for years so he was thrilled. Sushi, the hunting macho cat, was hiding under the bed. Read the rest of this post...

Pat Robertson: legalize maijuana

Wow. Now that's a surprise from an otherwise irrational loon.

"We're locking up people that have taken a couple puffs of marijuana and next thing you know they've got 10 years with mandatory sentences," Mr Robertson said on The 700 Club.

"I'm not exactly for the use of drugs, don't get me wrong, but I just believe that criminalising marijuana, criminalising the possession of a few ounces of pot, that kinda thing ... it's costing us a fortune and it's ruining young people," Robertson went on. "Young people go into prisons, they go in as youths and come out as hardened criminals. That's not a good thing."

The campaign for legalisation, which boasts such figures as Willie Nelson among its most avid supporters, suffered a setback in November when a proposition on the ballot in California to legalise personal possession was turned down by voters.

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