Month: May 2010

Afghan Prosecutor Issues Arrest Warrant for US Officer for Murder

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It is alleged that a special forces officer in Kandahar authorized a militia that he armed and trained to break some of their compatriots out of jail, and in the process, they murdered the police chief of Kandahar, Matiullah Qateh:

The militia, which Ranjbar claimed is armed and trained by US special forces, also allegedly killed Kandahar’s head of criminal investigations and two other officers, when they attempted to free one of their members from a courthouse.

“We lost one this country’s best law enforcement officers for the [attempted] release of a mercenary,” said Ranjbar, interviewed for a film to be shown on Channel 4 News tomorrow.

He accused American officials of refusing to hand over evidence or to permit his investigators to interview the special forces commander, known to Afghans only as “John or Johnny”, who he alleges sanctioned the raid.

If the facts are as alleged, the charge would be felony murder under most statutes, though, under the status of forces agreement, this officer would be subject to trial and sentencing by a US court martial, where, I am sure justice would sought with the same vigor that was applied to the Calavese cable car disaster of 1998.*

It gets even more complex, because this militia is also tied to the corrupt, drug running brother of the Afghan President, Ahmed Wali Karzai, is also tied to the militia, and is publicly calling for amnesty for the shooting.

This is a natural, and foreseeable, consequence of employing mercenaries as a matter of course in a war zone.

*A 6 month sentence for negligently killing 20 people.†
†Actually, the pilot was acquitted, despite flying lower and faster than regulations required. They eventually got him on obstruction of justice for wiping the video tapes at the end of the flight.

Oh My God………

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OK, I was a bit of a fan of Dodd, so I was upset, Geithner and Obama hung him out to dry over his doing their bidding on AIG bonuses.

At least the person selected by the powers that be to replace him, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, had a lock on the seat in the general, because the Nutmeg State is very blue.

Well, not any more. It appears that the Blumenthal, who has repeatedly used his service in Vietnam to justify his support for military tribunals and a continued military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been lying about serving in Vietnam:

At a ceremony honoring veterans and senior citizens who sent presents to soldiers overseas, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut rose and spoke of an earlier time in his life.

“We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam,” Mr. Blumenthal said to the group gathered in Norwalk in March 2008. “And you exemplify it. Whatever we think about the war, whatever we call it — Afghanistan or Iraq — we owe our military men and women unconditional support.”

There was one problem: Mr. Blumenthal, a Democrat now running for the United States Senate, never served in Vietnam. He obtained at least five military deferments from 1965 to 1970 and took repeated steps that enabled him to avoid going to war, according to records.

……

In 1970, with his last deferment in jeopardy, he landed a coveted spot in the Marine Reserve, which virtually guaranteed that he would not be sent to Vietnam. He joined a unit in Washington that conducted drills and other exercises and focused on local projects, like fixing a campground and organizing a Toys for Tots drive.

……

But what is striking about Mr. Blumenthal’s record is the contrast between the many steps he took that allowed him to avoid Vietnam, and the misleading way he often speaks about that period of his life now, especially when he is speaking at veterans’ ceremonies or other patriotic events.

I’m with the Swing State Project’s take on this, “The Dem statewide convention is this weekend. Conceivably delegates could nominate someone other than Blumenthal. If someone else wants to get on the primary ballot via petition, they need to file 7,500 signatures by June 8th (PDF).”

I think that it is probably too late to get the convention to nominate someone else, but there are 3 weeks to get the signatures, though I would make sure to get at least 12,000 because the PTB who selected Blumenthal in the first place will challenge them.

What I do know is that there are hundreds of hours of Blumenthal lying on video and audio tape, and whoever runs against him will play it over, and over, and over again.

He is dead meat.

I’m beginning to think that serving as attorney general or DA should be taken as a strike against those serving higher office.

The Lines Cross, and the White House Backs Away From Specter

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Absolutely brutal, and completely true.


And the lines cross

I understand why the White House supported Arlen Specter in the Democratic primaries, it was a reward for his switching parties, and provided an inducement to other potential Republicans who might consider switching, like uh……… uh……… uh………

OK, there is not another potential switcher, but it all seemed so wonderfully hopey–changey post partisan.

Well, largely on the basis of the fact that Arlen Specter is really all about Arlen Specter, and the fact that Joe Sestak is pointing it out to people (see vid), Arlen Specter is now lagging in the polls, and as the incumbent with good name recognition.

The rule of thumb that the undecideds nearly always break for the challenger by something like 2:1, so I reiterate my statement that Arlen Specter is toast.

So, the White House loses one here, and they are doing something really stupid, which is to walk back their support of Specter now that it is likely that he is going to lose the election:

If this is true, it’s significant: CBS chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer is now saying that he has it on good authority that the White House is privately bracing for Arlen Specter to lose tomorrow.

………

I’ve also learned that Veep Joe Biden will not be doing any campaign events for Specter in the final stretch, though it’s not immediately clear how significant this is. Last week, Biden said he’d be doing events for Specter “as needed.”

But a Biden aide confirms for me that no campaign events are scheduled, even though Biden will be in Pennsylvania tonight speaking at his daughter’s graduation. Biden has done radio interviews on Specter’s behalf.

This recognizes a problem with the Obama administration, and for the Clinton and Carter administrations before them: An unwillingness to continue fighting when victory seems unlikely.

I can understand some talking points flowing out about, “an anti-incumbency mood,” and suchlike, but the idea that when faced with less than a 50:50 change of success, the choice is to fold like overcooked Brussels sprouts has negative consequences.

It convinces allies that you don’t have their back, and it convinces opponents that they can take a temporary advantage, and use it to kill a proposal early in the process.

I never thought that they should support Specter, or for that matter Lincoln, but sawing off the branch won’t endear other Democrats with the concept of going out on a limb for Obama.

Read the Shrill One

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He comments on the IMF’s latest report on the fiscal situation worldwide, and notices something buried in the footnotes, that the large structural deficits currently forecast are due to depressed demand and economic activity causing deflation, not government spending.

The solution is therefore for governments to engage in stimulus activities of the sort that put an end to the great depression, while (hopefully) avoiding that whole “World War” thing:

It takes careful reading to discover what’s really going on:

The persistence of deficits reflects permanent revenue losses, primarily from a steep decline in potential GDP during the crisis, but also due to the impact of lower asset prices and financial sector profits.

(emphasis mine)

Aha. Most people who look at the IMF report will, I suspect, read it as telling a tale of government profligacy getting us into a hole. But what the report actually says is quite different: it says that the financial crisis has made us permanently poorer, which among other things reduces revenue, and governments have to tighten their belts to make up for that loss.

He is correct when he says that the IMF’s burying the lede means that , “[T]he report isn’t literally misinformation, but in practice it’s likely have that effect.”

This and $8.95 Will Get You a Starbucks

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BP is claiming success at its latest attempt to ameliorate the oil spill:

After two false starts, engineers successfully inserted a narrow tube into the damaged pipe from which most of the oil is leaking.

“It’s working as planned,” Kent Wells, a senior executive vice president of BP, said at a briefing in Houston on Sunday afternoon. “So we do have oil and gas coming to the ship now, we do have a flare burning off the gas, and we have the oil that’s coming to the ship going to our surge tank.”

I’ll wait for independent verification, thank you very much, and BP is not in the least interested in independent verification:

BP has resisted entreaties from scientists that they be allowed to use sophisticated instruments at the ocean floor that would give a far more accurate picture of how much oil is really gushing from the well.

So I doubt that a meaningful amount of oil is coming up to the boat.

“The answer is no to that,” a BP spokesman, Tom Mueller, said on Saturday. “We’re not going to take any extra efforts now to calculate flow there at this point. It’s not relevant to the response effort, and it might even detract from the response effort.”

Yes, I Posted Nothing Yesterday

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Click for full size


Brains!!!!!


Brains!


Brains…………


You know………


Hot Marshmallow, Hershey® Bar, and Graham Crackers would do nicely too…


Giant animated food, sounds like another horror movie…


But the kids are happy.

Natalie had a music competition in Hershey, PA which included entrance to the Hershey Park, so the rest of us got some (discounted) tickets to the amusement park, and we made a day of it.

It was a lot of fun, even if the Boardwalk, where most of the water rides are, was not yet open.

We had a lot of fun.

I made an interesting observation: The appearance of a child eating fresh, hot, S’mores is almost indistinguishable from that of a Zombie eating human brains.

It Looks Like the Hedge Fund Tax Loophole May Be Gone Soon

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As some of you are aware, the bulk of hedge fund managers’ income is taxed at the capital gains rate of 15%, rather than the 35% on amounts in the 6+ figure range that mere mortals pay.

Basically, they get a slice of the increase in price of their assets, even though they never put a dime of their own money in. It’s called “Carried Interest.”

Well, it appears that both Max Baucus (DINO-MT), who slowed down healthcare refiorm waiting for non-existent republicans to come on board, and Barack Obama’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Peter Orzag, have decided that it would be a good think to put a stake through the heart of this loophole in the interest of deficit reduction.

The money quote is this:

Hedge fund managers make hundreds of millions of dollars (and often billions) annually. Does anyone really think they will suddenly slam on the brakes if they have to pay the same tax rate as the janitors who clean their offices?

This makes this both good policy and good politics………For the win.

Shadenfreude

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It appears that Rush Limbaugh is having problems selling his New York City penthouse apartment, so he has cut his asking price by $1 million.

I guess his little tantrum about New York raising taxes by a few pennies on rich pigs is costing him some change.

I noted this real estate transaction about 2 months ago, (Yes, the pictures are at the link, and yes, they are hideous) when I commented on the fact that his taste in decorating was less than refined.

It’s Bank Failure Friday!!!!

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And here they are, ordered, and numbered for the year so far.

  1. Satilla Community Bank, St. Marys, GA
  2. New Liberty Bank, Plymouth, MI
  3. Southwest Community Bank, Springfield, MO
  4. Midwest Bank and Trust Company, Elmwood Park, MN

Full FDIC list

So, we have seen 4 bank failures in the past 2 weeks, which is pretty awful, but better than the 22 in the 3 weeks prior to that.

So, here is the graph pr0n with trendline (FDIC only):

Building an Infrastructure for Tyranny in the UK

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One of the peculiarities of Great Britain is that they have no constitution, so they can change what should be inalienable rights with a law.

A few years back, for example, they removed the right to remain silent in a criminal investigation, and so juries can now explicitly use non-testimony against the defendant.

Well, as part of the coalition deal the Tories and the Lib-Dems, they intend to
set a fixed 5 year term for the parliament.

The current state of parliamentary terms is a maximum of 5 years, but new elections can be called before then, and have to be called before then if there is a failure of a confidence vote.

Well, Conservative David Cameron, Liberal-Democrat Nick Clegg have decided to go with a fixed term of 5 years, requiring at least a 55% vote of Parliament to dissolve the institution.

It appears that this was done because Clegg is concerned about getting cut loose as soon as it is convenient for Cameron.

While this is understandable it is a major change in the way British governance works.

In the US, with the exception of the (thankfully rare) impeachment, terms are fixed, and state actors are controlled by checks and balances from competing branches of government.

This is not the case in a parliamentary system. The Prime minister has much greater powers, particularly in the UK, where there is no formal constitution.

What prevents excesses in government by the ruling party is the threat of government turnover at any time: the no-confidence vote can put the shoe on the other foot in very short order.

If you remove that, you remove many of the constraints on the behavior of the executive.

Clegg is being penny wise, and pound foolish.

We Have to Rely on Jon Stewart for Real Financial Journalism?

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Here he notes that the big banks made their obscene profits, which justified their obscene bonuses, made their profits by taking their TARP money by lending it back to the government.

They borrowed at an interest rate lower than that of US treasurys, and then bought treasuries, and pocketed the difference.

Why do I have to listen to a comedian to get real financial news.

I love me that Jon Stewart, particularly his comment that, “Our government is the worst loan shark in history,” but I am really pissed off that he is the only one out in cable teevee land who is explaining this in the mass media.

When Life Resembles an Al Franken Funny Book…

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Specifically, Tom Harkin is proposing a an amendment to the finance reform bill to limit ATM fees to 50¢.

I approve of the idea, particularly because it’s an in-your-face to the free market worshippers, but I’m not sure if it is a good idea for the finance reform bill.

As to the Al Franken book in question, it was the book Why Not Me?

Hw wrote his (fictitious) successful quest for the presidency using populist anger over ATM fees.

Wanker of the Day

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William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton:

Former President Bill Clinton says it is “time to lower the rhetoric and talk about the facts,” in reference to the government’s scrutiny of Wall Street.

In an exclusive interview with Maria Bartiromo, Clinton noted that while many financial firms are being questioned by the Securities and Exchange Commission, he does not believe that Goldman Sachs or CEO Lloyd Blankfein did anything illegal, based on what he’s seeing.

You know, when your spouse is in the cabinet, it’s a good idea not to shoot your mouth like this, even if she is Secretary of state.

I always that he was a slimy corporatist prick who looked good only in comparison to the ratf%$#s who tried to impeach him.

I believe that my view is validated.