May 13, 2010 archive

Sy Hersh: “Battlefield Executions” taking place under Obama, the Military is “Dominating” Obama

    I am greatly saddened to report the following . . .

    Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh says that US forces in Afghanistan are carrying out what he referred to as “battlefield executions” of prisoners.

   “One of the great tragedies of my country is that Mr. Obama is looking the other way, because equally horrible things are happening to prisoners, to those we capture in Afghanistan,” Hersh said during a discussion at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference last month in Geneva, where he was also the keynote speaker. “They’re being executed on the battlefield.”

HuffingtonPost.com

Bold text added by the diarist

    Video and more below the fold

Down the Foggy Ruins of Time

Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me.

In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come following you.

Republicans have a Tambourine Man.  His name is Limbaugh.  He’s a psychopath, but that doesn’t bother Republicans, they admire psychopaths.   Democrats have a Tambourine Man.  His name is Obama.   He panders to psychopaths every chance he gets, but that doesn’t bother Democrats, pandering to psychopaths is what they do.  They call it Centrism.

I remember Election Night 2008, I remember the hope so many progressives had that evening, but that evening’s empire of hope has turned into sand, vanished from our hands, left us blindly here to stand but still not sleeping.  Who can sleep?  Who can sleep when war crimes won’t be prosecuted, when Gitmo won’t be closed, when there’ll be no withdrawal from Iraq, when the war in Afghanistan will go on and on and on, when we’re all on a one way trip on Wall Street’s magic swirling ship, when our senses have all been stripped, when our hands can’t feel to grip, when our feet are too numb to step, when there’s nothing left to do but watch the boot heels of Karma grind what’s left of this country into dust.    

My weariness amazes me, I’m branded on my feet.  I have no one to meet, and this ancient empty street’s too dead for dreaming . . .

Independence Hall Pictures, Images and Photos

Independence Hall is just a relic from America’s forgotten past.  Democracy is gone, it’s vanished into the foggy ruins of time.

Utopia 21: The Red God Speaks

   “In one way or another, this is the oldest story in America:  the struggle to determine whether “we, the people” is a spiritual idea  embedded in a political reality — one nation, indivisible — or merely a  charade masquerading as piety and manipulated by the powerful and  privileged to sustain their own way of life at the expense of others.”–Bill Moyers

Afternoon Edition

Afternoon Edition is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 BP readies new bid to contain Gulf of Mexico spill

by Alex Ogle, AFP

52 mins ago

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) – BP was poised Thursday for a fresh bid to contain the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, hoping its “top hat” box can funnel leaking crude up a mile-long pipe into a waiting tanker.

Operations could begin as early as Thursday, as congressional hearings revealed multiple warning signs were overlooked before the April 20 blast on the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon rig.

The indicators of things being wrong included a key pressure test that failed during final operations to seal the well being drilled about 50 miles (80 kilometers) offshore.

Wants Liability Limit at $27 Million

Well here we go, and guess what, once again No Accountability, Especially for the deaths of the 11 rig workers, that’s Us, America, of the 21st century!!

This is just coming across from McClatchy and not very long but somewhat informative.

Gulf rig’s owner uses 1851 law to limit its liability

For Your Consideration: TARP not Helping Small Businesses

Elizabeth Warren, Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel:

called it “infuriating” that the Troubled Asset Relief Program has not achieved its objective in funneling some of the $700 billion in appropriations to small businesses. Troubled Asset Relief Program has not achieved its objective] in funneling some of the $700 billion in appropriations to small businesses”.

A report the commission released Thursday found that big-bank lending portfolios to small businesses dropped 9 percent from 2008 to 2009, more than double the 4.1 decrease of its overall lending portfolio.

“Two out of every three new jobs created in America come out of a small business. Fifty percent of the private work force is in small business,” Warren said in an interview. “If they don’t have access to credit it’s not only a problem to them now, but they can’t help fund the recovery.”

We are nearly two years into this financial boondoggle and the only light at the end of the tunnel seems to be a freight train.

Why is this woman not the Treasury Secretary? Oh right, she’d hold Goldman Sachs accountable.

Open Phones

Photobucket

OTW: “This Could Ruin Our Summer”

NOTE to admins/editors: I could probably use a little help with the pics formatting! 6PM: thanks ek! 😉

OTW = Off The Wall, is my Thursday ongoing series

PhotobucketDavidseth’s essay last night made me cry: “But BP’s not pouring oil directly on me, or my family, or my house, or my land.” (excellent essay, & he says it much better than me… my sentiments)

Yes, yes they are. They are pouring oil on us… My house, my beach, my land, my Gulf, my ocean, my planet. And yours too.

“We came to the beach just in case we can’t come next week or in the next 20 years…”

{Dad, family of 4}

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The winds Sunday gusted to 25 mph, blowing from the Gulf toward the coast, but coming a bit from the east. That helped keep the huge oil slick from coming closer to Florida.

“Currently, there are no impacts to the state projected through Wednesday,” said Florida Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman Amy Graham. “Florida continues to make preparations to safeguard the state’s shoreline.”  

“We wait for summer so we can go to the beach,” {16 year old boy, Pensacola Florida}.

“This could ruin our summer.”

source

Ya think…?

Four Images of Deepwater Horizon

Oil

Volunteers cleaning a beach in Louisiana

Oil (1)

Oil slick approaching Channeleur Islands (Mark Ralston, AFP/Getty Images)

Oil (2)

White speck upper-right is an oil rig

Oil (3)

Shrimp boats pulling booms

It’s Only Castles Burning



On This Day in History: May 13

On this day in 1964, Stephen Colbert, American comedian and actor, was born in Washington,D.C., the youngest of 11 children. He was raised in Charleston, South Carolina on James Island until the death of his father and two brothers in a plane crash in 1974, when his mother moved the family to Charleston city proper. During high school he participated in plays and a Rolling Stones cover band.

After graduating from Northwestern University’s School of Communications, he was hired by “Second City” answering phones and selling souvenirs later performing with the touring company as an under study for Steve Carell. He has since written, created and performed a number of comedy shows from “Exit 57” to “Strangers with Candy” and even a gig on “Good Morning America”. He was hired in 1997 by the producer of “The Daily Show”.

His correspondent character, which he described as “a fool who has spent a lot of his life playing not the fool”, would eventually evolve into the parody “Stephen Colbert” character of the much acclaimed “The Colbert Report”. He carries off his parody character so well that many believe that it is really Colbert himself. His performance at the “White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner” in 2006, while not well received that night, became wildly popular on the internet and with the media.

Colbert has also acted in films and TV dramas (Law & Order: Criminal Intent)and provided the voice for animated characters (Phil, “Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law”, “The Venture Bros.” and “The Simpsons”). His book, “I Am America (And So Can You!)”, was #1 on the NYT Best Seller. He was assistant team psychologist for the 2010 US Olympic Speed Skating team and was part of the NBC coverage.

Colbert is married to Evelyn McGee-Colbert, has three children, 2 boys and a girl, and lives in Montclair, New Jersey. He is a self proclaimed Democrat and stated in a speech at Kennedy School of Government at Harvard Institute of Politics, that “he has “no problems with Republicans, just Republican policies.”

Happy 46th Birthday, Stephen

Muse in the Morning

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Cerulean Delight

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