War upon war

War upon war 22 January 2011

Posted by marisacat in 2012 Re Election, Culture of Death, DC Politics, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, WAR!.
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War of the future: Brian Moore’s WWIII propaganda posters
Google Earth – Eyes of the Home Skies Photograph: Brian Moore

A little gallery at the Guardian, of propaganda posters for WW III… imagined, supposedly, for the “future”.

More like the present, I’d say…

******

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1. BooHooHooMan - 22 January 2011: The Shadow War
Former Spy With Agenda Operates a Private C.I.A.
By MARK MAZZETTI 11 minutes ago

A network of spies run by Duane R. Clarridge shows how private citizens can exploit the chaos of rivalries inside the government to carry out their agenda.

And we should just sit back and watch?
😆

I’m just waiting for a franchise opportunity to appear in Popular Mechanics. 😉

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diane - 23 January 2011: …. And we should just sit back and watch? ….

apparently so hon, according to too many in the PAPALAND. …Most countries, but Google’s source country (shall we call it the Homeland? …or by its more quaint moniker ….the ….United States), ….called Google (for one) out: .. on Google’s creepy, ironic, slogan; …. and, on their violation of a human’s right to unrecorded/photographed/announced residence of solace, and intimate moments, if they have not committed a crime……

;0(

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diane - 23 January 2011: we should at least say how we feel when we’re able to, is my teeny opinion, …granted, that’s becoming increasingly difficult ….. ;0(

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2. Madman in the Marketplace - 22 January 2011: Artist Could Face 15 Years In Prison For Recording His Own Arrest

Chris Drew was finally ready to get arrested. An artist and activist, Drew had spent years protesting a Chicago ordinance that puts tight restrictions on where and how people can sell their art on the street. He was downtown, on State Street, selling silk-screened patches for $1 and defying the city to stop him.

He’d tried his act of civil disobedience three times before — a First Amendment lawyer on hand to argue his case, a team of videographers ready to film the arrest — but the police simply let it slide. When, on December 2, 2009, he finally succeeded in getting booked, Drew was ready for a few hours in lock-up on a misdemeanor, and a lengthy court battle. He was in no way prepared for what he would actually face.

The state charged Drew with a Class 1 felony, not for selling art on the street, but for violating the Illinois Eavesdropping Act by recording his own arrest. He faces up to 15 years in prison.

“Illinois has the worst eavesdropping law in the country,” Drew said in a phone interview. If not the single most punitive, it’s certainly in the top three.

The state is one of twelve that has so-called “two-party consent” eavesdropping laws. This means that audio recording any conversation is illegal unless all parties to the conversation consent.

All but three of those states make an important exception to that law: the recording of police conversations in the public way. Only Maryland, Massachusetts and Illinois deem such recordings illegal, and the Maryland attorney general recently issued an opinion suggesting that taping the cops shouldn’t be prosecuted.

But Illinois is staying the course, currently prosecuting nine individuals — including Drew — for making just such recordings.

The law first came to the ACLU’s attention through a separate but similar case, in which two young protesters in Champaign, Illinois were charged with eavesdropping for recording a police interaction on a street corner. The organization filed an amicus brief in that case, and the state’s attorney dropped its charges, but continued prosecuting other cases of the same kind. Yohnka said the ACLU decided to challenge the law itself when it realized the consequences it might have on its own attempts to defend citizens’ constitutional rights.

Speaking of one particularly sticky situation with the police, he said, “We realized in sending out some legal interns, you couldn’t tell them to do what you’d actually tell them to do in this day and age, which is take out your iPhone and give us a sense of what’s going on there.”

The ACLU is currently taking the Cook County State’s Attorney to court, challenging the constitutionality of the law on the First Amendment grounds he mentioned. So far, the challenge has failed in two separate rulings, the most recent of which came down on January 10 of this year. Yohnka says the group’s legal team is now in the process of preparing an appeal to the Seventh District Appellate Court.

He acknowledged that it might seem ironic for the ACLU to be attempting to weaken an eavesdropping law, which offers the kinds of protections the Union might otherwise fight for. But Yohnka saw the irony the other way around. The Chicago Police, he said, have been expanding their recordings of ordinary civilians, with blue-light cameras, cameras in patrol cars, and the like. The justification for these recordings is that what happens in public is public, and there should be no expectation of privacy.

“We think that’s the standard that ought to be applied to police officers who are engaged in their public duty, in a public place, in an audible voice.”

Thus far, the courts don’t agree. That means that Chris Drew will go to trial on April 4 for the felony charge against him. “We filed two motions to dismiss, but they were both denied,” said his lawyer, Mark Weinberg. Drew faces four to 15 years in prison for the charge, though he could also be released on parole.

“My lawyers say it’s unlikely I’ll do prison time,” Drew said — “but I do live in Chicago.”

Given the ordeal he’s been through, his lack of faith in the city is understandable.

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3. diane - 23 January 2011: hey sweetheart, are you okay? …huge hugs if you had to do one of those hospital test timeouts …..thinkin ’bout you honey, … wif much love! ;0)

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marisacat - 23 January 2011: oh I am fine …. I slept longer than usual ..

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diane - 23 January 2011: good! ;0)

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4. BooHooHooMan - 23 January 2011: O Ya – big surprise here.
Really throws ya –

Israeli Panel Rules Flotilla Raid Legal

🙄

Sounds like they’re in a great place.
Surely their embrace of Hitlerian law
( D’oh! Downhill from here!)
the whole Gestapo tactics and low wage mercenary thing will hold them in good stead.

Look man, unless these motherfuckers get really really good in football, food, or tailgating –
it just ain’t gonna work out.

Pittsburgh by 7 today. Anyways.

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ts - 23 January 2011: Was there ever any doubt? That’s what that rubber stamp is for!

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ts - 23 January 2011: And it’s not that “other” UN Commission, that met after the incident:

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2010/0923/UN-s-Gaza-flotilla-probe-finds-Israeli-soldiers-committed-willful-killing

This one was held in an Israeli court and not surprisingly only heard testimony from the Israelis.

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BooHooHooMan - 23 January 2011: I’m tellin ya,
they could try an NFL expansion team,
all Othodox Rebbes and cheerleaders. Might help. LOL
Never know. 😉

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5. BooHooHooMan - 23 January 2011: Thank God for for the Fed!
Hear! Hear! – for American Accountancy!
And ultimately of course, – The Treasury!
Surely Growth and Innovation are on the Way!
Shout outs all around!

Accounting Tweak Could Save Fed From Losses

Accounting Tweak Could Save Fed From Losses
Friday, 21 Jan 2011
: Reuters

Concerns that the Federal Reserve could suffer losses on its massive bond holdings may have driven the central bank to adopt a little-noticed accounting change with huge implications: it makes insolvency much less likely.

The significant shift was tucked quietly into the Fed’s weekly report on its balance sheet and phrased in such technical terms that it was not even reported by financial media when originally announced on Jan. 6.

But the new rules have slowly begun to catch the attention of market analysts. Many are at once surprised that the Fed can set its own guidelines, and also relieved that the remote but dangerous possibility that the world’s most powerful central bank might need to ask the U.S. Treasury or its member banks for money is now more likely to be averted.

“Could the Fed go broke? The answer to this question was ‘Yes,’ but is now ‘No,'” said Raymond Stone, managing director at Stone & McCarthy in Princeton, 😆 New Jersey. 😆 😆 “An accounting methodology change at the central bank will allow the Fed to incur losses, even substantial losses, without eroding its capital.”

The change essentially allows the Fed to denote losses by the various regional reserve banks that make up the Fed system as a liability to the Treasury rather than a hit to its capital. It would then simply direct future profits from Fed operations toward that liability.

Date seating, Everybody!
Just be sure to buckle up as we burn in!
But No Worries! No Drama!
Obama’s Got This!
❗ 😯 😆 😉

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BooHooHooMan - 23 January 2011: I almost forgot!
A shout out for that helpful link!
From CNBC! 😆 ‘s All Good!

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6. BooHooHooMan - 23 January 2011: Reporting in This Week
a sort of Sunday Brunch with Christiane Amanpour:

Krugman coated in a nice carmelized onion sauce,
being lifted gently into the roaster now –
– by Matthew Dowd and George Will –
Donna Brazille stepping in with the
Shoo shoo out of my kitchen…ETC.

Click

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7. Madman in the Marketplace - 23 January 2011: Reply
8. marisacat - 23 January 2011: hmm from a poster over at corrente:

[W]hereas in 2010 a Married Person paid Biweekly (that would be me) didn’t start paying any income tax on her taxable income until the amount hit $529, in 2011, that amount dropped so that income greater than $304 is now subject to tax ($225 more than in 2010.

For a single person, those amounts went from $233 in 2010 to $81 in 2011, an additional $152 subject to taxes for the lowest bracket). The upper end of the bracket varied by only a few dollars.

In 2010, the max tax payable for a Married Person paid biweekly in the 10% bracket was $41.30. In 2011, that amount jumps to $65.40; a jump of $24.10!

For a single person paid biweekly, the tax paid goes from $16.80 to $32.70 in 2011, a difference of $15.90.

Funny thing too, except I’m not laughing: $24.10 multiplied by 26 pay periods – and you’re just going to be amazed at the coincidence of it all – equals $526. For a single person, $15.90 multiplied by 26 $413.40.

The Making Work Pay credit in 2010 and 2009 was $400 for a single person. For married couples the credit was $800. Do you see what they’ve done here? They didn’t just eliminate the MWP credit. They’re clawing back the credit they gave for 2009 and 2010, with the burden for paying that clawback falling most heavily on income in the lowest tax bracket.

Without the breakdown I had read that the new rules would fall heaviest on the lower earners.

Somewhere yesterday I read that in 2008, the R and D split the senior vote… HOWEVER, in 2010 there was a 22 pt movement in senior voters to the R side.

Cancelling the COLA raise for two years running most likely had soemthing to do with that.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 23 January 2011: they’re gonna bleed the lower classes dry as long as they can …

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marisacat - 23 January 2011: Plus there is a really good local consumer guy on the Sunday am local news… saying, IF you buy a house NOW, buy with the knowlege that if you do buy, if you can buy, plan to keep a house, but buy with the knowledge that should you HAVE to sell within 5 – 7 years, it will sell for no more than you paid.

Earlier they reported that housing sales still going down, over all in the Bay Area, price and number sold year over year. County after county… I noticed Santa Clara (Silicon Valley, San Jose) hit hard and still getting hit…

LOL…. I don’t mean to laugh, but no idea what else to do…

And that is not even talking about areas like ”Mountain House”, which is inland from San Jose (which is inland itself)… I heard it mentioned a year ago, as esp depressed and knew I had never heard of it.

No shit, it did not EXIST 5 years ago. Areas like that are down 70%.

What can you do but laugh…

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BooHooHooMan - 23 January 2011: Inland inland inland

LOL Finally! I knew sooner or later my hut here in Jersey would fall into the San Fran Real estate market! Or vice versa!

And to think! We coulda moved to Ireland! LOL.

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marisacat - 23 January 2011: I just read there is renewed Irish immigration to the US, in the wake of … well, I guess, that cartoon Celtic Tiger collapsed on the hooked rug in front of the non-existant fire in the cheaply built fireplace in the empty sub-development too far outside of Dublin to matter..

I think America produced a lot of THAT bubble…

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ms_xeno - 23 January 2011: There’s a local government-sponsored “rescue” for homeowners called Hacienda. They were whinging on NPR a few weeks ago about how few ingrates were turning out for their program out of fear it was just another scam.

Well, that was the first I’d ever heard of it and the first many other had heard of it. Apparently there wasn’t much PR for this “rescue,” which is actually a lottery as it turns out.

Also, you’re ineligible for the program if your home is already in bankruptcy.

What a bunch of stupid fucks. Yeah, like everyone should have been clairvoyant enough to avoid bankruptcy knowing that the “lottery” was gonna’ eventually come to their aid.

Fucking assholes. They should all dry up and blow away ASAP.

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9. Madman in the Marketplace - 23 January 2011: LOL

Obama to Press Centrist Agenda in His Address

Of course, “centrist” means “corporatist”, but why quibble?

WASHINGTON — President Obama will outline an agenda for “winning the future” in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, striking a theme of national unity and renewal as he stresses the need for government spending in key areas and an attack on the budget deficit.

Mr. Obama previewed the themes in a video e-mailed Saturday evening to supporters who had helped in his election campaign. But the video made plain that his speech would be geared more broadly toward the political center, to independent voters and business owners and executives alienated by the expansion of government and the partisan legislative fights of the past two years.

“My No. 1 focus,” he said, “is going to be making sure that we are competitive, and we are creating jobs not just now but well into the future.”

“These are big challenges that are in front of us,” Mr. Obama also said in the video, sent to members of Organizing for America, his network of supporters from the 2008 campaign. “But we’re up to it, as long as we come together as a people — Republicans, Democrats, independents — as long as we focus on what binds us together as a people, as long as we’re willing to find common ground even as we’re having some very vigorous debates.”

The annual address on Tuesday, with much of the nation watching, will pull together themes suggested by Mr. Obama over the past two months as he has moved rapidly since the midterm elections to retool his presidency.

In his speeches, policy choices and personnel appointments, Mr. Obama has signaled that after two years in which his response to the economic crisis and his push for passage of the health care bill defined him to many voters as a big-government liberal, he is seeking to recast himself as a more business-friendly, pragmatic progressive.

That means emphasizing job creation, deficit reduction and a willingness to compromise in a new period of divided government. But it also means a willingness to make the case for spending — or investment, as many in his party would prefer to call it — in areas like education, transportation and technological innovation when it can be justified as essential to the nation’s long-term prosperity.

LOL

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BooHooHooMan - 23 January 2011: President Obama will outline an agenda for
“winning the future”…

election. {Drink! And a Hero Sandwich!}

{$2.99! With a side of slobbery dipping sauce!}

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marisacat - 23 January 2011: And a complimentary tour of the ICUs that St Gabby lay in. And miracles of miracles, she is STILL in one. Due to fluid on the brain.

Seems “brain boot camp” (no, really, her AZ devotees, in fact an aide, called the TIRR program that) is delayed. A week.

Calling JPII, another miracle needed for a devout person of the Jewish faith!! Opportunity knocks.

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BooHooHooMan - 23 January 2011: The marketing possibilities are endless.
TBI Gabby Obby and Stub dolls.
A whole set of plastic aircraft models to boot:
I got the Air Ambulance!
Oops so not good for intracranial BP!
No Worries! Here comes Obbie in AF!
And Here’s Stubby in the Shuttle!

(Massage table sold separately).

They better move quick tho-
with Ratzy talkin a JP2 relic and action figure deal with Hasbro and Mattell.

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marisacat - 23 January 2011: I got the Air Ambulance!
Oops so not good for intracranial BP!

Doctors not part of the ‘miracle in AZ’ … although the comments were well hidden, here and there, it was clear there was a strong argument NOT to move her right at this time…. to wait.

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BooHooHooMan - 23 January 2011: Oh lemme guess –
they are going to do a tie in by moving here to Heroes House …that rehab center for Iraq/AfPak vets put up by some tax dodger in Texas..

And lemme get this straight – she is sub-acute enough to go to rehab and there is none in the entire state of Arizona to be found?

Script Doctor! Anybody??
A Script Doctor in the House??!?

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marisacat - 23 January 2011: When I first heard they were moving her to Houston I assumed it would be in one fo the super ambulances, ground all the way, with a doctor withher.

But no, Up Up Up in the air…. ground ambulance TO the helicopter… so there could be a VFW motorcycle, cops on motorcycle and whatever else PARADE along with the ambulance.

The whole thing is beyond end of empire, before our very eyes.

Got Evita beat all to hell.

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BooHooHooMan - 23 January 2011: When I first heard they were moving her to Houston I assumed it would be in one fo the super ambulances, ground all the way, with a doctor withher.

But no, Up Up Up in the air…and whatever else PARADE along with the ambulance.

Oh BINGO. I’ve never heard of such a clusterfuck in my life outside of the necessity of evacuating people to Landstuhl in one of our disastrous, patented, unnecessary wars.

I’m surprised they didn’t land in Dallas and dug up the old 63 Lincoln and Jackie’s dress for some bizarre escorted motorcade do-over all the way to Houston.
Jeeezis Christ.
This production is way over schedule and past budget. Or un-passed budget. Welp, it saves us from THAT post-date-seating-production production at least. For a bit.

But let us carry on with the suspension of disbelief!
marisacat - 23 January 2011: ”Brain Boot Camp” on hold!
marisacat - 23 January 2011: I’ve never heard of such a clusterfuck in my life outside of the necessity of evacuating people to Landstuhl in one of our disastrous, patented, unnecessary wars.

ugh we will NEVER leave SW Germany, with our wars. Nor parts of Italy, etc.

Whta a fucking shame it all is…
Madman in the Marketplace - 23 January 2011: The marketing possibilities are endless. — BHHM

GAbby shooting range targets maybe?

… too soon?

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Madman in the Marketplace - 23 January 2011: that was in response to “marketing opportunities”, sorry!

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BooHooHooMan - 23 January 2011: too soon?

Naw, not in this country if the price is right.

Though I pity the lookin-to-hit-it-big neighbor family here, coincidentally enough 🙄 the Loechner’s, who a month ago were chatting up the prospects for their sons in an all shaved-head boy band.

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diane - 23 January 2011: …an all shaved-head boy band. …

Jubilee Church ™ members are they?

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diane - 23 January 2011: copies of Rick Warren’s, The Purpose Driven Life,…. no doubt, with Papaland flag stickers all over it …at their bedsides, …….upcoming spot at Poprah’s nest …..talkin ‘bout the secret (the power of consciousness to millions of people. …..(to delude themselves) ….)

never in my wildest nightmares did I ever believe life would become this increasingly hideous ………sigh ……:0(
10. marisacat - 23 January 2011: hmmm Seems, tho I may have missed soemthing, there has been a big document release at the Guardian, on Israel and ME “peace” process….

Almost every link goes to the Guardian

Top three….

Secret papers reveal slow death of Middle East peace process

The Guardian – ‎29 minutes ago
‎
The biggest leak of confidential documents in the history of the Middle East conflict has revealed that Palestinian negotiators secretly agreed to accept Israel’s annexation of all but one of the settlements built illegally in occupied East Jerusalem. … Israel spurned Palestinian offer of ‘biggest Yerushalayim in history’

The Guardian – ‎29 minutes ago‎

Palestinian negotiators secretly agreed to allow Israel to annex all but one of the settlements built in occupied East Jerusalem in the most far-reaching concessions ever made over the bitterly contested city. The offer was turned down by Israel’s then … Palestinians weak – and increasingly desperate

The Guardian – ‎29 minutes ago
‎
The overwhelming impression that emerges from the confidential records of a decade of Middle East peace talks is of the weakness and desperation of Palestinian leaders, the unyielding correctness of Israeli negotiators and the often contemptuous …

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Madman in the Marketplace - 23 January 2011: “Palestinian negotiators” meaning the guys who lost the actual Palestinian elections who were propped up by the US and Israel.

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marisacat - 23 January 2011: yup

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11. Madman in the Marketplace - 23 January 2011: America’s treatment of detainees

Relatedly, the ACLU has obtained new documents which shed more harsh light on the 190 War on Terror detainees who died in American custody. Specifically, many of these documents — autopsy reports and military investigations – – show that at least 25 to 30 of those cases were “unjustified homicides,” i.e., murder. It’s long been known that many detainees were killed by their treatment during interrogation. I wrote about many of these cases here over a year ago, and Gen. Barry McCaffrey has said: “We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the C.I.A.” But these new documents show that these deaths at the hands of U.S. captors were even more deliberate, brutal and widespread than previously known:

In one such case, a detainee was killed by an unnamed sergeant who walked into a room where the detainee was lying wounded “and assaulted him … then shot him twice thus killing him,” one of the investigating documents says. The sergeant than instructed the other soldiers present to lie about the incident. Later, the document says an unnamed corporal then shot the deceased detainee in the head after finding his corpse.

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marisacat - 23 January 2011: And those gunmen for peace and democracy are all coming “home”…. have been coming home.

We will be lucky if some of them just suicide.

Military Tracy came after me at Boobers swamp, but I posted that, in their book on ending the war in Iraq, McGovern and Polk (a descendant, fwiw, of Pretzel Polk) detailed that when France quit Algeria, they (de Gaulle) released the names of 16,000 of their ground troops, counter-insurgents, men who had killed, like so many of ours, in hand-to-hand combat, to the incoming Algerian political leaders.

France made a decision they did not want them coming home, not the most hardened killers.

Countries know precisely what ”foreign” war is all about and where it ends up.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 23 January 2011: and coming home to NO jobs and an “educational” system that serves manly to suck money up while teaching nothing.

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marisacat - 23 January 2011: Private security… take some horrible “course” for the certificate, from some retired IDF guys and hire on whether public or private, where ever the jobs open up.

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12. marisacat - 23 January 2011: neue

LINK

…………. 8)

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