Posts Tagged Washington D. C.
Cindy Sheehan is “Dishonorably Discharged”
Posted by Lance Haley in 9/11, Government, National Security, War in Afghanistan, War on Terror, White House, al Qaida, foreign policy on March 22nd, 2010
Sheehan is the poster-girl for the U.S. anti-war movement that sprouted after the Bush Administration’s invasion of Iraq in March of 2003. Her son Casey was killed-in-action in Iraq in 2004, and within a year she became the leading figure in the Iraq War protests when she appeared on national television in the summer of 2005 near Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas when he was there on summer vacation.
While leading a protest in Washington, D.C. last weekend, Sheehan pointed a bullhorn at the Whitehouse and yelled, “Arrest that war criminal“, obviously calling for President Obama’s prosecution for war crimes because he has not yet ordered the removal of U.S. troops from Iraq. At that moment, Sheehan lost any credibility she may have garnered these past six years.
I opposed the war in Iraq from the day the Bush Administration launched it’s public relations offensive in support of that strategic disaster. Afghanistan was and always will be the right war. That is where the principle threat from terrorism exists, and no amount of debate will ever change that one simple fact.
Nor will the argument that Saddam Hussein was ever any strategic or regional threat to our national security. There were never any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There was never any significant military capability in Iraq. Even our intelligence agencies knew that. After Desert Storm I in 1990, Saddam was reduced to the status of just another tin-horn dictator. Kim Jung Il of North Korea has always been a far greater threat to our nation with his long-range missiles and nuclear weapons. So why didn’t we attack him first?
Because Saddam did possess the one ”threat” to our national security that was of any real value - a big damn oil spigot. Dick Cheney wanted his hand on that faucet, so he set out to convince everyone around him that Hussein was the most dangerous man in the world – when the real danger to global security was right there in Cheney’s mirror. I believe Cheney and his minions are war criminals. There is no hiding my disdain for this man, and I believe he is one of the most evil persons of the 21st Century – Osama bin Laden, notwithstanding.
However, no amount of projection of Sheehan’s anger towards President Obama, simply because she disagrees with his decision to alter the time-table for withdrawal of troops from Iraq, will somehow magically transform him into a war criminal anymore than painting a thin mustache on his likeness will make him Hitler – as his Teabagger foes are prone to doing.
President Obama – like myself – believes we need to leave Iraq. President Obama – like myself – never supported the War in Iraq. President Obama – like myself – understands that undoing the failed war strategies of the previous Administration cannot be accomplished overnight.
Cindy Sheehan – when you metaphorically painted that little black mustache on President Obama’s upper lip last Saturday, you shot yourself in the foot. You are a disgrace to America.
Surrender your bullhorn, and go home.
President Obama: Yes! It’s The Economy, Stupid.
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Banking, Business and Money, Campaigns, Capitalism, Congress, Conservatives, Credit Card Industry, Dick Cheney, Economics, Financial Crisis, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Media & Communication, Politics, Sarah Palin, Senate, Show Them the $$$, Tea Party, Wall Street, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich, financial industry on January 22nd, 2010
President Obama has been beyond a huge disappointment.
The reasons for his significant failure in the first year of his Presidency are varied, and yesterday I read a very insightful essay on MSN Money by Paul B. Farrell of the Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch that hones in on a number of opportunities Obama could have seized upon as a result of the financial collapse that would have allowed him to increase the already significant political capital that he possessed on the day of his inauguration.
In the simplest parlance - he blew it!
This writer will have more to say on the specifics of those issues, but that is for another entry posted here on this blog. More importantly for purposes of today’s entry, I offer a humble mea culpa for my idealistic beliefs that this man was really different from all the others. I pride myself on being intellectually honest enough to admit that I was wrong about Obama’s willingness to effectuate any substantial change in this country with acumen and finesse. How stupid of me to believe that he would really first focus on the one issue that was at the forefront of every voter’s mind since November, 2007 - one year before the 2008 election – and has continuously been the leading issue for the past two years.
In the words of James Carville’s famous political mantra for the 1992 Clinton campaign, “It’s The Economy Stupid!”
Suddenly this week, the President finally has this incredible revelation that he needs to place the issue of the economy, as well as attend to financial system reform, at the top if his agenda? President Obama – how could you and all of these ostensibly intelligent people you surrounded yourself with have possibly missed that most salient and readily available information? Why did you not immediately address the failure of our economic system in it’s present form to serve the interests of its citizens, and redress the ongoing transgressions by the men who were responsible for single-handedly wrecking the underpinnings of American Capitalism? Why did you not implement substantial changes in how our economy is managed by imposing strict accountability, transparency and limitations on how the banking industry operated? Why did you trust that these financial terrorists would not not rob the national treasury for their own personal gain, instead turning a blind eye to their obvious avarice and indifference to the economic welfare of the country? Why did you not instruct Tim Geithner and the Treasury Department to direct the lending institutions to focus all of that available financial capital at shoring-up businesses and home values in order to preserve the essential assets so critical to the future of the American people, instead of bailing out these corrupt and incompetent financial giants? Why did you not utilize the available “bully pulpit” to chastise both your party and the Republicans for their unwillingness to use their legislative powers to immediately reign in these predatory financial giants, because of the “river of dirty money” (campaign contributions) running through Washington, D.C.?
Instead, you choose to ignore the over-arching importance of these matters, and wasted all of your hard-earned political capital by rubber-stamping the bailouts, and then embarking on an agenda of reforming an equally complex and failed health care system – a pathway that was historically fraught with political pitfalls and epic battles against powerful wealthy corporate interests. Anyone studying the history of American health care reform would know that simple fact.
Now, before any of you Conservatives start hooting and hollering in celebration of my criticism of the President, or my ”concession” regarding his obvious failures, let me inform you that your intellectual dishonesty for the past decade has been nothing short of shameful. Lest you think you are blameless, your willful ignorance of, as well as refusal to admit, the abysmal failure of your leaders, party, spokespersons, and Conservative media to improve the status of this country and its people - particularly Bush, Cheney, Palin, McCain, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Fox News, etc. - is completely reprehensible, and gives you no standing to believe that you have something to crow about.
You don’t.
In fact, part and parcel of Obama’s inability to effectuate change has been due to the ”political noise” you either countenenced or participated in during the election campaign in the Fall of 2008 as a substitute for reasoned and measured dialogue about what was wrong with this country. Labeling him a Muslim – when nothing is further from the truth, and cheering on those who claimed that he was “palling around with terrorists“, willfully distracted the American public from what was really at stake for the future of our country. Many of you continued to increase the sound of that chorus to a deafening roar after he was elected with the most utter nonsense – first claiming he was not a citizen in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, as well as charging that he is a Socialist, hellbent on destroying the foundations of this nation, when in fact his predecessors that you supported, as well as their corrupt political business cronies, had already virtually accomplished that objective.
In so much as you have fostered and perpetuated these opinions by either expressed belief or passive silence as to the truth, you are partially responsible for the demise of this republic. Your behavior is utterly Un-American. It is an absolute certainty that history will be far less kind to you than it will be to President Obama.
Shame on you.
And if you happen to choke to death on your teabags, oh well . . .
Bank Of America’s Criminal Deception of U.S. Treasury on Bailout
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Business and Money, Capitalism, Congress, Economics, Financial Crisis, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Politics, Show Them the $$$, Uncategorized, United States, Wall Street, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich on November 16th, 2009
Illustration from Deesillustration.com
The Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Congressman Edopholus Towns (D -Brooklyn, N.Y.) is leading the investigation into whether executives for Bank of America made misrepresentations based on false claims to the government in December 2008 regarding it’s agreed takeover of Merrill Lynch in order to receive significant taxpayer bailouts.
The committee has acquired thousands of documents that included handwritten notes from lawyers representing BoA in it’s takeover of Merrill Lynch that indicated the bank’s claim of a “Material Adverse Change” in circumstances regarding the takeover was unfounded. Nonetheless, it appears executives for the bank used this legal clause as a veiled threat to withdraw from the takeover in order to to persuade the U.S. Treasury and then Secretary Hank Paulson to give them more bailout money. If true, this would be tantamount to extortion – which is a criminal offense – let alone fraudulent misrepresentation.
BofA spokesman Larry Di Rita said that BoA’s actions “were based on our desire to make the best decision for our shareholders . . .”
This self-serving statement is utterly laughable in light of U.S. District Court Judge Jed A. Rakoff’s take on BoA’s behavior in the suit brought by the SEC against the bank. BoA screwed it’s shareholders by intentionally withholding information regarding the Merrill Lynch bonuses and then blaming their lawyers. Now we learn the high likelihood that these same executives ignored the advice of their lawyers and wilfully mislead the U.S. Treasury when they looked to the government for financial bailouts. Why BoA is allowed to perpetuate this ongoing charade defies logic and reason.
These men are financial terrorists!
When will they be made to answer for their crimes against the American people?
Sean Hannity and Fox News’ “Inadvertant Mistake”
Posted by Lance Haley in Anti-government sentiment, Congress, Conservatives, Cultural Issues, Fox News, Government, Healthcare Reform, How and Why We Get Screwed, Humor, Media & Communication, Politics, Populists, Tea Party on November 12th, 2009
This week Sean Hannity and Fox News were caught red-handed showing video footage of Glenn Beck’s 9/12 rally in Washington, D.C. in order to bolster the perceived attendance numbers of the marginal crowd at Michelle Bachman’s Republican anti-Health Care Reform “press conference” held last week on the Capital steps.
John Stewart, host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, showed the video montage that Hannity played on Fox News. Stewart’s commentary accentuates the amateur manner in which Hannity and Fox interspersed the 9/12 rally video clips with the clips from the Bachman – Republican “press conference” held in early November. Stewart points out the obvious discrepancies with witty questions as to why the trees are all green in some of the footage, and obviously changing colors as occurs in late fall in the other video clips.
Both Bachman and her Fixed Shill (Hannity) claimed that the “press conference” crowd numbered somewhere between 20,000 to 45,000 people – which ironically is the estimated number of people attending the 9/12 rally. Video footage, and estimates by the three Capitol Hill police officers, placed the number at somewhere around 4000 people. One would suspect that if there were only three Capital security officers assigned for “crowd control”, the attendance was minimal – otherwise, more officers would have been called in for duty. The officer’s estimates are likely the most accurate given their significant experience in dealing with crowds on the Capital mall.
However, the real hypocrisy committed by Hannity and the ”fair and balanced” network was his on-air apology given this week, giving John Stewart his deserved credit, with the aside that this was an “inadvertent mistake”. So Hannity is conceding that Fixed News is incompetent as a journalism network? That pathetic excuse only confirms the extent to which Hannity, Fixed News, and it’s shills will set out to deceive the public, and then lie about the deception in order to cover-up their obvious slanted political agenda.
Unfortunately, the FCC (Federal Communications Corporation) will not likely take any action for this blatant attempt at skewing the news, since Rupert Murdoch’s manipulative minions will say that it is another conspiracy by President Obama to silence them. That the network’s viewers seemingly turn their head the other way only undermines their claims that the Liberal Media is one of the principle problems in this country.
Hey Fox viewers, the lies and distortions that you constantly rant about being disseminated in this country are right their on your TV screen. Turn the damn thing off and read something with substance if you want the truth.
$100 Million bonus to a Citicorp employee?
Posted by Lance Haley in Business and Money, Capitalism, Government on July 27th, 2009
And the insults just keep on coming . . .
A “crucial” employee at Citicorp is asking the company to confirm his $100 Million bonus http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/topstocks/?fpn=a%20100%20million%20bonus.
His bonus amounts to approximately 15% of the total revenues that the companies energy-trading unit generated for the parent corporation, and given the financial giant’s substantial reported losses in most divisions, this subsidiary is responsible for a good chunk of income that the company is reporting.
This guy is supposed to be some financial genius – and an arrogant one, at that. In essence, he is hinting that if the company, or the government – which gave the financial giant HUGE cash infusion from the TARP fund (bailout $$$) – does not agree to pay him, he will leave for greener pastures.
Get the picture?
The taxpayer not only has to bailout these incompetent financial firms, but you also have to swallow the “bitter pill” (or if you like, something akin to a more graphic metaphor) of paying executive superstars obscene bonuses in order to rebuild the company. Whether you think he is worth it or not seems to be irrelevant. Someone will rationalize/justify this bonus, and you will pay for it.
That is what Big Business has become – a means to an end for the people at the top. And in case you forgot, your representatives in Washington, D. C. (both Democrats AND Republicans), in turn, get enormous “bonuses” (in the form of large campaign contributions) from these people for doing their bidding in the House and Senate. And at election time, the politicians will lament to their constituents that they had to vote for it in order to keep the company afloat, otherwise we would pay even more . . .
Where does this insanity end?