The Republican presidential candidates want to cut taxes, again

Because they simply have no more ideas. Read the rest of this post...

Wall Street powerhouses to be bailed out - by foreign governments

Is it really safe to allow some of the largest and most important banks on Wall Street to become closely tied with foreign governments? I couldn't even imagine such a possibility a few years ago but now that they have all lost billions, anything goes. It's interesting to see these previously high flying companies do a global tour with hat in hand. Only a few years ago they all had their own colonial ambitions and now, it's those same countries who are bailing them out.

In light of this desperate and pathetic groveling on the world scene, should the executives who led to the financial collapse of their respective companies give back their bonuses that were based on bogus business? It is undeniable that their business decisions were terrible and led to this situation, so why should they be left untouched by their own results? It is unimaginable to the rest of us how one could screw up so badly, yet walk away with so much. It's incredible. Read the rest of this post...

Amgen being sued for accessing private medical data

Unfortunately it hardly comes as a surprise when I hear the charges of Amgen seeking confidential patient records. What always disturbs me with these Big Pharma stories is that doctors - the people we are supposed to trust - are always actively involved. The medical doctors of America ought to spend a bit more time focusing on patient-doctor breach of faith stories instead of complaining about lawsuits and blocking health care reform. Stories like this latest Amgen lawsuit are only possible because doctors allow the pharmaceutical companies to access their client information.

Shouldn't patients have rights and shouldn't doctors be held accountable? Only a couple of years ago there were successful lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies who had sales reps participate in doctor-patient consultations and now this. As bad as the pharmaceutical companies are, doctors are no better. What ever happened to ethics? Read the rest of this post...

Still doing it wrong

Most people know, at this point, that we went to Iraq based on public information that was profoundly wrong -- some almost certainly intentionally so. What isn't as well known is that the problems of intelligence, analysis, governance, and management that got us in continue to plague current US efforts. In a post that absolutely reflects my experience as an intelligence officer with DoD, working on (and in) Iraq, former CIA officer and counter-terrorism expert Larry Johnson reports this anecdote:

A old friend of my just deployed to Iraq. His unit will be carrying out a mission that involves psychological operations. Guess how many Arabic speakers are in the unit? None. Guess how many weeks of training they received on Iraq, Islam, and Arabic cultural sensitivities? NONE!! But we want these soldiers to go into a foreign combat theater and help shape the hearts and minds of a foreign people. This, in a nutshell, highlights why we are making so little progress in Iraq.

For all the talk by some about how Iraq is so central to our national security, they sure seem weirdly uninterested in allocating the proper resources, training, and strategy to help make things better. This, incidentally, is one of the main points of my book, Still Broken, which comes out in just over a month; more on that in the coming weeks. Read the rest of this post...

Hillary Supporter Andrew Cuomo On Her NH Win: "You Can't Shuck And Jive" w/Press Corps

I've never even heard of the expression, but coming from a white guy, and being used to describe a black guy, well, let's just say Joe's prediction that things were going to get nasty (on all sides) is coming true. More from TPM Election Central. Read the rest of this post...

Iraqi Soldier Who Killed U.S. Troops is a Hero in Iraq

Smells like victory. Read the rest of this post...

Surprise! U.S. Concedes Voices on Recording May Not Have Been From Iranian Speedboats

The Bush Pentagon lied again about a threat from a Middle Eastern power and the entire media just believed and repeated it, hook, line and sinker. No one could have imagined they'd lie (again). Oh wait, we did. From ABC:

Just two days after the U.S. Navy released the eerie video of Iranian speedboats swarming around American warships, which featured a chilling threat in English, the Navy is saying that the voice on the tape could have come from the shore or from another ship.

The near-clash occurred over the weekend in the Strait of Hormuz. On the U.S.-released recording, a voice can be heard saying to the Americans, "I am coming to you. You will explode after a few minutes."

The Navy never said specifically where the voices came from, but many were left with the impression they had come from the speedboats because of the way the Navy footage was edited.

Read the rest of this post...

Dick Cheney wrong yet again - gas prices hurting economy

If it wasn't so serious, it might just be funny how many times Dick Cheney has been wrong. What will he use as an excuse for being so wrong, this time? The hard truth is that high oil prices have negatively impacted the US economy. December sales with US retailers took a beating because of the a combination of the housing bubble crash and high gas prices. I know neither issue impacts Bush or Cheney, but for everyone, it matters. Read the rest of this post...

Phone companies cut off FISA wiretap because feds didn't pay their bills

Did you get that? The same phone companies who simply HAD to give the feds all of our most private phone information, including calls you made and received, without the necessary court order, are now willing to stop that same surveillance because the feds didn't pay their bills on time. And it resulted in lost evidence:

''We also found that late payments have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence,'' according to the audit by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine.

Really, were we listening in to Osama when the greedy phone companies shut off the wiretap? I think someone should be asking just which company did this, and just what evidence we lost? Was this a terror case? Could innocent Americans have been killed?

So to the big phone companies, the rule of law doesn't matter. Promises to protect your privacy don't matter. But if you don't show them the money, suddenly all their "we had to illegally spy on you to defend national security" talk goes out the window. National security isn't so important to the big phone companies when money is involved. I'm so heartened that the Democrats are going to give these same greedy, un-American companies immunity in only a few weeks. Read the rest of this post...

How do you spell Peace

Or more accurately, draw peace? I just got a really neat email about a really neat project. Check it out and design your own peace symbol:

Hi John

I came across your blog and thought you and your readers might be interested in a new online project we have just launched to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary this year of one of the world’s most-recognised activist symbols: Gerald Holtom’s peace sign.

The sign was originally adopted in the UK by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament but was never copyrighted and so has become a global symbol.

We’re asking people to submit their own versions of the sign to our online gallery, and it would be great if your readers might like to contribute.

Hope it sounds interesting – please do check us out at www.happybirthdaypeace.com

Thanks and best wishes

Michael Gray
Essential

Read the rest of this post...

Did Race Cost Obama Win in New Hampshire?

That was my first thought. Editor & Publisher delves into the issue more deeply:

MSNBC’s “First Read” political blog framed it this way: “In fact, we can only think of three races in which the public polls and the final result were SO off, and they all involved African-American candidates: Bradley's '82 gubernatorial campaign in California, Doug Wilder's surprisingly narrow '89 victory for Virginia governor, and Harvey Gantt's surprise loss for North Carolina Senate.

I'm 100% certain that there are Americans who will not vote for Obama because he's black. But would they vote for him were he white, are they lying to the pollsters about their vote, and are there enough of them to make a difference? I fear the answer is yes. Read the rest of this post...

Republicans may end up with McCain by default

An article in the Politico sums up the state of affairs for Republicans. They may end up with McCain as their nominee not because they like him. In fact, many key factions of the Republican base can't stand McCain -- it's just that there's really no one else. Basically, there are no good alternatives:

Now that John McCain has come back from the dead, the question is whether those Republicans who buried him initially are willing to tolerate his maverick ways because they have no one they like better.

So Republicans may end up with a nominee who voted against the Bush tax cuts, pushed gun control, wanted immigration reform which his fellow Repubs. call amnesty and was the main sponsor of campaign finance reform. That's a grand slam for the GOP base.

Don't get me wrong here. McCain is an extreme right winger. He's just strayed from the hard core GOP orthodoxy slightly on a couple issues, which means the hard core GOPers don't like and don't trust him.

Peter Brown's article examined the GOP's other options. As we've all known for awhile, it's slim pickings. Read that analysis after the break.

There really is no candidate that works for the Republicans this year:

They can go with one of the other candidates or, upon reflection, decide that perhaps McCain isn't that unacceptable after all — especially given polling data suggesting he might be a stronger candidate in November than many of his competitors would be.

Given that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's inability to win either Iowa or New Hampshire has badly damaged his candidacy, to which many conservatives had flocked, those Republicans may not have many more palatable choices.

They can hope former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson — perhaps the most conservative of the remaining candidates — mounts a comeback that would make McCain's look like a piker. But that hardly seems in the cards.

Or they can go to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, whose record and rhetoric on taxes and terrorism makes many economic and foreign policy conservatives very nervous, perhaps even more so than does McCain.

Their other alternative is throwing in their lot with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who, on a host of issues, is far to the left of McCain and whose messy personal life makes many conservatives uncomfortable. Besides, after the candidate finished just ahead of quasi-fringe candidate Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) in New Hampshire and lost to Paul 3-to-1 in Iowa, Giuliani's chances for the nomination don't look very good.

Basically, some major faction of the Republican party has serious with every one of their potential nominees. That's usually a problem on the Democratic side, but not this year. Read the rest of this post...

Thursday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

I know this presidential race has been going on for a year. But, now it feels likes it is just starting for real. It'll be a wild ride til February 5th...maybe til February 12th even...at least for the Democrats. The Republicans are a mess. They've got no one who makes them happy. Not even close.

Okay, let's get threading. There's a lot going on. Read the rest of this post...

Blair accepts job at JP Morgan as adviser

Cha-ching! Obviously the UK has an open policy on migrating from political power to lobbyist as well. The best democracies money can buy. So are we taking this model to the Middle East or is the Middle East bringing it to us?

The US investment bank JP Morgan has signed up Tony Blair as a part-time senior adviser, on a salary said to exceed $1m (£500,000) a year.

The former prime minister would provide "strategic advice and insight on global political issues and emerging trends", the company said last night.

Read the rest of this post...

Heating oil hits another record high

I guess Bush is still considering his options here too. Heck, ol' Dick Cheney hasn't complained, so how bad can it really be? Read the rest of this post...