Instead of doing normal things like direct investment, we've decided to buy a stack of crap. Crap so worthless that no one will buy it. And we are going to be able to sell it for a profit or make the BANKS PAY THE DIFFERENCE. When? What date will it become OK to CHOOSE to make banks insolvent in the future? There is too much magic involved to make this bet.

Where is the leadership?  I was glad to hear George Soros come out for direct investment in banks (Swedish-style) and participation in the paper credit market (confidence building and job preserving, and therefore securities market preserving). Maybe sensibility can reign once this initial dog-and-pony show is concluded. I just fear that we'll have bought at least $350 billion in crap by then..

"Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish...

...there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing.  Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live."

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933

Sorry, McSame, but it's time to both talk the talk AND walk the walk. Your service has been appreciated, but you are not the man for the times.

Tinfoil hats on, please.

I just read a review of a bit of journalism on Armand Hammer. The reviewed book is "DOSSIER: THE SECRET HISTORY OF ARMAND HAMMER" by Edward Jay Epstein What I didn't expect to see where connections between him, the Ruskies, Hoover and Occidental Petroleum. Turns out Al Gore Senior was, at first the political face for Armand Hammer's empire: one built on secret multi-generational family relationships with the Communists (WHHHhhhaaaa?). Apparently Hammer was a secret Commie and son of a not so secret commie. He made his fortune, according to the reviewed book, through backroom dealings with the Communists, essentially helping to secretly set up their access to the capitalist marketplace, especially acting as launderer for Communist funds inside the US.

The under-funded Gore the Senior's career was started with Hammer's money - and therefore tainted by Communist influence on some level. Hoover opened a file on the organization, scrawling 'a rotten bunch' across the top way back in 1919. When Senator Gore retired, he went to work for Hammer's Occidental Petroleum. Before retiring, Gore served (no irony here!!) as chairman of the 'Special Committee on Attempts to Influence Senators' during the 84th Congress (chuckle).

full review

Senator Gore Sr. on Wiki

Soo.. The Bush's were created by dirty dealings with the fascists, the Gores with the Commies..

Kinda makes Joe Kennedy's rum-running look all the more mainstream American by comparison!

Which mass murdering autocrats did YOUR grandfather make shady deals with to attain the pinnacle of power? None? Too bad. Probably explains a lot.

I'm a fan of finding weaknesses early in the vetting process. I'm gonna update this diary regularly as more candidates are in serious contention and I have more snark to retch.

Gov. Richardson - comes off like a hired goon.

Gov Sibelius - Is not Hillary (what matters to former Hillary supporters). Is a double-legacy (Governor Dad and Magistrate Hubby) establishment character when it boils down to it. Don't dilute the brand, Mr. O.

Hillary - Over-exposed!

Ambassador Holbrooke - Promoted East Timorese genocide, providing President Carter with his most hypocritical moment. My money is on him if O goes with a Dem. He's already out shilling expanding the WOT into Pakistan, etc.

Senator Mitchell - A personal favorite. Red Socks fan (and can be accused of a Yankee hunting bias in his recent 'MLB steroid' report). Apparently can be called an Arab American - dangerous in constellation with rumors spawned by Obama's name.

Michael Bloomberg - It just makes sense if you get past the surface demographics of it. The Repug leader of our worst hit city teaming with the Dem who will right the ship of state is a temping story line that would kill McCains remaining strength: the abstract idea that he is 'better on defense issues'. But he's a 'single' Jewish Male. BUT: choosing Mr. Bloom would be doubling down on the bet that the 'guns and angel figurines' vote isn't needed.

Al Frankin - Why deal with serving in the Senate? This rising star would ice the Jewish vote and put the SNL-Archivist bloc back in play (VHS, DVD, and MPEG-ophiles are all said to be 'purple' for the first time in years).

More on the way after work..

Before we went into Iraq, I was running around saying that the War would ignite a fire that no one could extinguish. I had no idea how fucking evil the whole operation would turn out to be, but I did know there was a fucking HUGE scab we were picking at. The fire still burns: Iran and the US are staring across a border at eachother. We are going to build up our forces in Afghanistan and have our eye on Pakistan, which is one 'galvanizing event' away from the sort of chaos that would 'force' us to occupy the nuclear nation. Our takeover of central Asia will happen eventually, be it smash-and-grab or covertly. I oppose this on moral grounds: we have no right to kill people, steal property, eradicate culture and rewrite history for short-term goals and lazy policies, both foreign and domestic.

I've been thinking solutions to slow this down or stop it.

First I though about creating a ghost nation of pro-Western, anti-neocon 'virtual cells' to confuse and frighten them into a domestic overreaction. But apparently nothing is too ridiculously heavy handed for the American people. I think the time for that may have passed, as it would end up legitimizing their domestic rights violations.

Second, and I still think this is the right thing to do for now, I encourage tax revolt. Just turn off the spigot. Anyone that lends the US money under those conditions will be doing so knowing expressly that it will fund War. Ideally the tax revolt would spread to any nation that does so. Anyhow, you get the idea. A democratized solution. Problem is, when the rubber hits the road, folks capitulate and pony up their part because they don't want to risk their family or personal wealth and security. All very understandable.

Now my kick is a little less radical and (IMHO) more elegant. How do you both cut off the GWOT money hose and actually convince people to participate in the mass movement necessary to do so (people are too scared to not pay taxes)? I think the answer might be simple: Federal Line Item Tax Allocation (Can someone come up with a catchier name? I'll use FLITA from here on out). [Details after the fold.]

Time and again, it's the 'strict constructionists' that want to plat games with the constitution; actively working to create exceptions for this situation or that. From successful efforts to do amazingly activist things like the Bush v. Gore decision (only case that can't be used as precedent!!) to their attempts to create a space for the President to ignore the Constitution under certain circumstances. Attempts like this failed one:

From Salon:

Thursday, June 12, 2008 10:48 EDT
Supreme Court rules in favor of Guantánamo detainees

by Alex Koppelman

Thursday, June 12, 2008 10:48 EDT
Supreme Court rules in favor of Guantánamo detainees

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that detainees held at Guantánamo Bay have the right to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.

This is the third time that the court has ruled this way in a case about the legal rights of Guantánamo detainees; each ruling was a setback for the Bush administration. After the two previous rulings, Congress and the administration instituted new procedures for the trial of detainees, but this latest ruling says the current iteration of those procedures is inadequate.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, and was joined in the decision by Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and John Paul Stevens. "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times," Kennedy wrote.

The court's conservative wing -- Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas -- dissented from Kennedy's opinion.

"The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times."

Strict Constructionists indeed.

original

Found this on the state department's web site.

I think this is an amazing piece of rhetoric. Just wanted to share it.

Did the U.S. "Create" Osama bin Laden?
Allegations that the U.S. provided funding for bin Laden proved inaccurate

The United States did not "create" Osama bin Laden or al Qaeda. The United States supported the Afghans fighting for their country's freedom -- as did other countries, including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China, Egypt, and the UK -- but the United States did not support the "Afghan Arabs," the Arabs and other Muslims who came to fight in Afghanistan for broader goals. CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen notes that the "Afghan Arabs functioned independently and had their own sources of funding." He notes:

      "While the charges that the CIA was responsible for the rise of the Afghan Arabs might make good copy, they don't make good history. The truth is more complicated, tinged with varying shades of gray. The United States wanted to be able to deny that the CIA was funding the Afghan war, so its support was funneled through Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI). ISI in turn made the decisions about which Afghan factions to arm and train, tending to favor the most Islamist and pro-Pakistan. The Afghan Arabs generally fought alongside those factions, which is how the charge arose that they were creatures of the CIA.

      Former CIA official Milt Bearden, who ran the Agency's Afghan operation in the late 1980s, says, "The CIA did not recruit Arabs," as there was no need to do so. There were hundreds of thousands of Afghans all too willing to fight, and the Arabs who did come for jihad were "very disruptive . . . the Afghans thought they were a pain in the ass." Similar sentiments from Afghans who appreciated the money that flowed from the Gulf but did not appreciate the Arabs' holier-than-thou attempts to convert them to their ultra-purist version of Islam. Freelance cameraman Peter Jouvenal recalls: "There was no love lost between the Afghans and the Arabs. One Afghan told me, `Whenever we had a problem with one of them we just shot them. They thought they were kings.'"

      ... There was simply no point in the CIA and the Afghan Arabs being in contact with each other. ... the Afghan Arabs functioned independently and had their own sources of funding. The CIA did not need the Afghan Arabs, and the Afghan Arabs did not need the CIA. So the notion that the Agency funded and trained the Afghan Arabs is, at best, misleading. The 'let's blame everything bad that happens on the CIA' school of thought vastly overestimates the Agency's powers, both for good and ill." [Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden (New York: The Free Press, 2001), pp. 64-66.]

Al Qaeda's number two leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, confirmed that the "Afghan Arabs" did not receive any U.S. funding during the war in Afghanistan. In the book that was described as his last will, Knights Under the Prophet's Banner, which was serialized in December 2001 in Al-Sharq al-Awsat, al-Zawahiri says the Afghan Arabs were funded with money from Arab sources, which amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars:

      "While the United States backed Pakistan and the mujahidin factions with money and equipment, the young Arab mujahidin's relationship with the United States was totally different."

      "... The financing of the activities of the Arab mujahidin in Afghanistan came from aid sent to Afghanistan by popular organizations. It was substantial aid."

      "The Arab mujahidin did not confine themselves to financing their own jihad but also carried Muslim donations to the Afghan mujahidin themselves. Usama Bin Ladin has apprised me of the size of the popular Arab support for the Afghan mujahidin that amounted, according to his sources, to $200 million in the form of military aid alone in 10 years. Imagine how much aid was sent by popular Arab organizations in the non-military fields such as medicine and health, education and vocational training, food, and social assistance ...."

      "Through the unofficial popular support, the Arab mujahidin established training centers and centers for the call to the faith. They formed fronts that trained and equipped thousands of Arab mujahidin and provided them with living expenses, housing, travel and organization." (Al-Sharq al-Awsat, December 3, 2001, Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), GMP20011202000401)

Abdullah Anas, an Algerian who was one of the foremost Afghan Arab organizers and the son-in-law of Abdullah Azzam, has also confirmed that the CIA had no relationship with the Afghan Arabs. Speaking on the French television program Zone Interdit on September 12, 2004, Anas stated:

      "If you say there was a relationship in the sense that the CIA used to meet with Arabs, discuss with them, prepare plans with them, and to fight with them -- it never happened."

Milt Bearden served as the CIA station chief in Pakistan from 1986 to 1989, where he was in charge of running the covert action program for Afghanistan. In his memoirs titled "The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB," Bearden says the United States, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China, Egypt, and the UK were "major players" in the effort to aid the Afghans. Bearden writes:

      "[President Jimmy] Carter's national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, had in 1980 secured an agreement from the Saudi king to match American contributions to the Afghan effort dollar for dollar, and [Reagan administration CIA director] Bill Casey kept that agreement going over the years." (The Main Enemy, p. 219)

From 1983 to 1987, Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf was in charge of the Afghan Bureau of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which ran Pakistan's covert program to aid the Afghan mujahidin. In his book The Bear Trap: Afghanistan's Untold Story, Brigadier Yousaf confirms the matching U.S.-Saudi arrangement, stating:

      "For every dollar supplied by the US, another was added by the Saudi Arabian government. The combined funds, running into several hundred million dollars a year, were transferred by the CIA to special accounts in Pakistan under the control of the ISI." (The Bear Trap, p. 81)

Bearden makes it clear that the CIA covert action program did not fund any Arabs or other Muslims to come to the jihad:

      "Contrary to what people have come to imagine, the CIA never recruited, trained, or otherwise used Arab volunteers. The Afghans were more than happy to do their own fighting -- we saw no reason not to satisfy them on this point." (The Main Enemy, p. 243)

Marc Sageman worked closely with the Afghan mujahideen as one of Milt Bearden's case officers, from 1987 to 1989. In his book, Understanding Terror Networks, he writes:

      "No U.S. official ever came in contact with the foreign volunteers. They simply traveled in different circles and never crossed U.S. radar screens. They had their own sources of money and their own contacts with the Pakistanis, official Saudis, and other Muslim supporters, and they made their own deals with the various Afghan resistance leaders. Their presence in Afghanistan was very small and they did not participate in any significant fighting." (Understanding Terror Networks, pp. 57-58.)

The Central Intelligence Agency has issued a statement categorically denying that it ever had any relationship with Osama bin Laden. It stated, in response to the hypothetical question "Has the CIA ever provided funding, training, or other support to Usama Bin Laden?":

      "No. Numerous comments in the media recently have reiterated a widely circulated but incorrect notion that the CIA once had a relationship with Usama Bin Laden. For the record, you should know that the CIA never employed, paid, or maintained any relationship whatsoever with Bin Laden (emphasis in original)."

In summary:

•  U.S. covert aid went to the Afghans, not to the "Afghan Arabs."
  
•  The "Afghan Arabs" were funded by Arab sources, not by the United States.
  
•  United States never had "any relationship whatsoever" with Osama bin Laden.
  
•  The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Arab backing for the "Afghan Arabs," and bin Laden's own decisions "created" Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, not the United States.

Created: 14 Jan 2005 Updated: 14 Jan 2005

In summary:
*The CIA and DOD are, in fact, not OBL's biological parents, and therefore did not 'create' him. A high standard for a relationship indeed.
*Funding 'Afghan Arabs' is the same thing as funding OBL. We didn't fund the 'Afghan Arabs' therfore we didn't fund OBL. QED.
*The US gave tons of money to the Pakistani ISI (whose links to OBL and 9/11 are indisputable) to pass on to Afghanis, so ISI support and funding of OBL isn't our fault. "They had their own sources of money and their own contacts with the Pakistanis." The Pakistani CPAs were studious in keeping the accounts totally separate.
*The CIA said it didn't fund OBL, so it didn't.
*We did not 'create' OBL. We just used a shell game to empower him and fund him.
*Even if you take the gov't line above on it's face, by ignoring the occupation of Arab lands, permanent bases in Saudi Arabia and dissing his weird aspiration to liberate Kuwait when Iraq occupied it (among OBL's own stated reasons for fighting the US) makes this piece pure propaganda.

Our tax dollars at work again folks. Let's hope your refund check is coming to us at the cost of the next OBL.

OK, so in a previous Diary, Your Droid Army is Complete, Lord Sidius.., I shared a video of the future of our military - highly mobile pack-robots suitable for combat missions which would easily be adaptable for actually fighting as well, be it domestically or on foreign soil.

Now, to extend the Star Wars metaphor, we are developing 'Clone Storm Troopers', complete with the cool exoskeletons which provide performance benefits that increase strength, endurance, etc. A technology that also makes the potential performance of each soldier identical and predictable without concern for the makeup of a particular unit ("CLONES").

full article

I am afraid that all the 2nd Ammendment rights in the world won't be able to defend us from our own government after these technologies are implemented. Since we know it is coming, don't you think it is time to do something about the coming asymmetry between the power of the people and the power of the military?

Turns out Mr. Changealot may be a happy sheep of Douglas Coe, the leader of the secretive 'Fellowship' ministry. Reading that made me vomit in my mouth a tiny bit. I don't want it to become a campaign issue, but I'd really like to hear him explain this one a bit.

full story

This one goes a long way in destroying Obama's image as an agent of change in my mind (being given to conspiratorial thinking).

Coe's group, "The Fellowship," reportedly shuns publicity while focusing on ministering to those in power in the United States and around the world.  In Washington, D.C., Coe sponsors a weekly Senate prayer breakfast and an annual National Prayer Breakfast regularly attended by U.S. presidents.

more on The Fellowship, aka The Family

So far as I've heard, his campaign has only confirmed his attendance at Coe prayer meetings. I suppose that is a bit different than being totally Koolaid drenched.  

Reverend Wright I had no problem with. This makes me want to vote for Gravel. It's not a deal breaker, but I'm entering a lesser of evils scenario unless he can turn this into another 'teaching moment'. Not sure how you can be apart from an establishment that you are secret cult prayer meeting pew-mates with, but I'm sure willing to listen despite the fact that prostrating yourself at the alter built for the prayers of the American War Machine, anointed in generations of blood and pseudo-Christian inspired misjudgment, is a pretty funny thing for The Changinator to be up to.

There is a worm turning in the sands of Mesopotamia..

Instability spreads and spreads..

• Muqtada al Sadr's brother is assassinated, bringing the Madhi Army and other militias back into active fighting.
• Bomb kills and wounds scores of worshipers in TEHRAN. Anyone else concerned about our relationships with active terrorists within Iran? Isn't it made worse that they are themselves sectarian in nature? The Iraqification of Iran has commenced.

Update [2008-4-14 14:19:38 by anarchronarchist]: The Iranian government now claims the most recent blast was NOT intentional or a result of terrorism. Perhaps this is true, but it makes sense that they just don't want to appear vulnerable in general and to limit any sectarian response.

Major bomb attacks in Iran

April 12, 2008
At least eight people were killed and dozens injured when a bomb exploded in a mosque in southern Iran on Saturday, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

Feb. 14, 2007
A booby-trapped car blows up a bus owned by the Revolutionary Guards in Zahedan city in southeast Iran, on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Eleven staff Guards members die and 31 injured.

Jan. 24, 2006
Eight people are killed when bombs rip through a bank and government building in Ahvaz.

Oct. 15, 2005
Twin bomb blasts outside a shopping mall in Ahvaz kill six.

June 12, 2005
A string of bomb attacks in Ahvaz, close to the border with Iraq, and in Tehran kill nine people.

Sept. 16, 1999
A bomb hidden in a garbage can near a Shiite Muslim shrine in Mashhad kills two.

June 2, 1998
An explosion kills three people at an Islamic revolutionary court in Tehran.

June 20, 1994
A bomb rips through the main hall at the Imam Reza shrine in the northeastern city of Mashhad, killing 26.

Aug. 30, 1981
President Mohammed Ali Rajai and Prime Minister Mohammed Javad Bahonar are killed in a bomb blast at the prime minister's office in Tehran.

The U.S. Geological Survey called it the largest continuous oil accumulation it has ever assessed.

full story..

The gov't claims are met with doubt from local Oil men ("That's a lot of zeros"), raising the specter of market manipulation.

Time to sell your Oil stocks short for a bit (and buy oil services) as the Gov't will now release periodic news trumpeting Oil finds inside the US, the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Brazil. All to bleed off some of the cost of Oil speculation in time for the election or, even worse, to cheapen prices a bit to buy up futures, allowing a future bombing of Iran to be timed to maximize profit.

Wonder what price the government will 'SELL' OUR RESOURCES TO THEIR FRIENDS for this time?

$100 a barrel? Don't count on getting your cut.

full article

Why is everyone talking about withdrawal? Sounds to me the decision is made, Iraq-style. We are one false flag away from expanding the War on Terror to yet another front.

"If Iran makes the wrong choice, America will act to protect our interests and our troops and our Iraqi partners." - President Bush this morning.

This language is eerily familiar. UN resolutions have piled up at US request. Claims of imminent threat to our interests. Time for Poland to attack Germany.

This ends with mushroom clouds, but not over NYC.

I'm so sad right now. Pundits are already lining up.

Plans for tactical nuclear strike are on McCain's table.

NO:

YES:

Ever wonder where the mind of Anne Coulter came from? Apparently it was Phil's side at an RFK stadium dead show. No kidding. She is/was a head. So is Tucker Carlson (well, he's more of a Jam Band fiend). What's the deal with arch-conservative/libertarian pundits and the Dead? Here's an article I thought we'd all enjoy on the very subject.

Looks like the 'it all makes sense' feeling that acid gives you is the source of the unholy confidence these fools have in their own opinions. Worked for me.

Jerry Garcia's Conservative Children

But seriously, it all makes sense it a way.. A veteran of 71 shows myself, I often find my politics dancing on the edge of where the far Left wraps around again and hits the Libertarian edge of the Far right. I would definitely give credit to my experiences with unregulated economies and the extreme personal freedom of 'Tour' for any such flirtations with Libertarianism (and also with backing off Libertarianism to a safe distance).

Doesn't this make you hate change and want to dissolve the IRS?

more below..