Tag: Neocon

Why Obama Must Be Primaried

When Obama had big majorities in his favor, and a 70% approval rating with the public, he refused to embrace the Left — the very people who made all that possible.

In fact, he showed quick contempt for the Left. The first thing he did was dismantle Howard Dean’s greatly effective DNC organization, and then he made a point of stocking-up his policy team, and Cabinet with status-quo Neocons, WallStreeters, and Corporatists — all direct advocates of the failed  and corrupt 2001-2007 policies that the public had just rebelled against.

What became clear was that Obama had no actual purpose to his presidency. He stood for nothing and fought for nothing. One by one good ideas that actually had significant popular support within the Congress (at that time) were quietly shot down (and hard) behind-the-scenes by Obama and Rahm Emanuel — before they could ever be voted on.

  • Re-importation of cheaper generic drugs
  • Lowering the age of Medicare to 55.
  • The Public Option
  • Loosening regulations for States to experiment with Single-Payer

All of these ideas were popular with the American public. All had 50 Senate votes that could be targeted. But Obama did not want progressive policies. He sought only, and got only the status-quo, FATCAT, establishment answers.

The Democrats were then left to campaign on a decidely weak, uninspiring, counterproductive “Health” bill. One that provided no FDR narrative, or “Great Society” narrative, along with Bank Bailouts, and a stay-the-course Foreign Occupation Policy — all pointing our Country towards bankruptcy.

How could “a smart man” ever think this would be a winning formula?

Meanwhile the Bush-Cheney Foreign Policy continues on unabated, and with no new narrative to the insane tactics of Endless Foreign Occupations, Bombs, War, Taxpayer Funded Corruption, permanent Detention and Torture without due process, and Trillions of dollars wasted away overseas while our own Country rots away within.

So what does Obama want to do now?

Move to the right and follow the GOP agenda even further. Then he wonders why his base isn’t happy. Obama just is not as smart as everyone thought he was.

This is a dumb politican, capable of only blindly following the marching orders of the Corporate Establishment (even when he had the 50+ votes to bring meaningful change).

Obama likes to drop his g’s (“fightin”, “workin”, etc.) when speaking on the campaign trail, and speak hip talk for the common folks. But it’s just an act. He has no true concern for them. He has no true passion. He has no true core as a person. There is no loyalty, or burning desire to any clear policy objectives.

He is an empty suit, and it has become so obvious now to all — that unlike Bill Clinton, he won’t ever call the Republican’s bluff on anything whatsoever (recall that Bill Clinton, to his credit, refused to sign the Newt Gingrich budget, and let them Shutdown the government — until they caved! — yes the GOP caved to a Democrat!). But Obama won’t ever fight for people. He has no concept of “fighting” for anything. He will barter away Social Security. He will happily extend the Tax Cuts for the rich – unnecessarily adding $700 billion dollars of new Debt. He will keep wasting Trillions of dollars Overseas. He has no new direction, or narrative to offer. Worse than that, he will never even see his own Presidency as a loser, because he was never married to any such progressive agenda at any time in the first place.

How to Kill More Troops and Civies for Fun & Profit, End the 2nd Depression, & Spoof the Nobel

Remember this guy ?    


Only very rarely has a person to the same extent, …..  captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.

Fresh off of letting the former Minerals Management Services oil bomb a third of our nation’s seafood supply from the Gulf of Mexico into oblivion through regulatory neglect, and letting the EPA perform the world’s largest biology experiment with Corexit spraying,

He’s come up with a great new manufacturing stimulus program to end our nation’s economic malaise of millions of unemployed.

And Dept of Defense Secretary Gates is enthusiastic, saying it will “build high walls around a smaller yard” by narrowing in on the nation’s “crown jewels.”

What could this be ?   Is it a bird, is it a plane, no, it’s more than that,  it’s

  Enlarging the United State’s market share of the international weapons exporting business !  He’s going to double it by 2015.  That would take us from 30% of the market to 60% of the world market.    

What could possibly go wrong ?


India, which currently is seeking 126 fighter-jets worth over $10 billion, 10 large transport aircraft worth $6 billion, and other multi-billion dollar defense sales, could be among the possible beneficiaries. Allies seeking advanced U.S. weaponry and equipment, who now often buy elsewhere due to the cumbersome U.S. approval process, would draw immediate benefit from the reforms, U.S. officials said.

Isn’t this the world’s largest multicultural Asian democracy which currently is embroiled with a little misunderstanding with its Muslim neighbor, Pakistan, which we just happen to be giving money to with one hand, and droning with the other ?  

Although a “Democrat” in the House,  Berman,  is writing a version of the bill, others are also expressing enthusiasm for their kind of stimulating one stop shopping Mall of the Americas experience.   And there will be seasonal sales, and back to school specials, as the boring old technology is rotated to the clearance racks and the new, stylish and advanced technology is put on the front of the aisles.


Rep. Donald Manzullo, R-Ill., represents a district with aerospace and other manufacturers, and said reform is needed for the survival of U.S. manufacturing.

“We can begin to manufacture our way out of this recession by reforming our export controls,” Manzullo said in a speech at the American Enterprises Institute, a conservative think tank.

Okay, they’re a little bit worried about who might get the clearance rack weapontry items, but not too much.

Ah, streamlining ! Transparency !  Hope and Change !

Your kid didn’t need that publik skoolun fer kollage anyway. Call your local recruitment office now and reserve him or her a space for 2015.  They’ll leave the lights on for ya.  

From Guardian UK, “How To Read Afghanistan War Logs” from wikileaks

The Guardian UK, a British publication, says that they asked to see the 90,000+  wikileaks documents of whistleblower Julian Assange on the Afghanistan War, and has created its own stories on them, and has not paid for this. They say they’ve “crawled through it so you can make sense of it,”  which means that they must have had it for a while.  

As the U.S. Senate strips out $20 billion of domestic funding resources that would have paid for schools, teachers, and college students,  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…


A spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., wouldn’t comment on whether the House will simply approve the Senate measure and send it on to Obama for his signature.

But the pressure to do so is intense, especially after Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned lawmakers this week that unless the measure is enacted into law before Congress leaves for its August recess, the Pentagon could have to furlough thousands of employees.

….     out of yet another war “supplemental” bill above the regular military funding, and is poised to influx another massive amount of deficit cash into yet another surge into a country we’ve now occupied for 9 years, the timing could not be better.


Rachel Reid, who investigates civilian casualty incidents in Afghanistan for Human Rights Watch, said: “These files bring to light what’s been a consistent trend by US and Nato forces: the concealment of civilian casualties. Despite numerous tactical directives ordering transparent investigations when civilians are killed, there have been incidents I’ve investigated in recent months where this is still not happening.  

Accountability is not just something you do when you are caught. It should be part of the way the US and Nato do business in Afghanistan every time they kill or harm civilians.” The reports, many of which the Guardian is publishing in full online, present an unvarnished and often compelling account of the reality of modern war.

Most of the material, though classified “secret” at the time, is no longer militarily sensitive. A small amount of information has been withheld from publication because it might endanger local informants or give away genuine military secrets.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl…

The Guardian’s war logs homepage of links is here:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl…

Morning Migraine: It’s Elena Kagan for the Supremes

President Barack Obama, on a roll after his Attorney General floated the idea to the Sunday morning talkie tubes that the Miranda rule should be optional in the War on Terra, had his anonymous spokesperson let loose with the news late this evening that Elena Kagan would be his Supreme Court pick to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens.

Elena Kagan, a Clinton era leftover,former Dean of Harvard Law School, and current Solicitor General, would be the 3rd female on the Supreme Court at the same time, which presumably would signal the Beginning of the End Times for certain fundamentalists.  Kagan has never been a judge.

Like most things in the Obama administration which start out sounding wonderful, there has to be a catch:


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36…

Her nomination is unlikely to cause a damaging fight in the Senate ahead of congressional mid-term elections in November or distract the Obama administration from other issues like jobs, financial regulation and climate change legislation.


http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com…

Has plenty of ties to Obama and his administration. In addition to being solicitor general, was hired by chief White House economics adviser Larry Summers to be dean of Harvard Law School. And while at the University of Chicago, Kagan tried to recruit Obama — then a part-time lecturer in constitutional law — to a full-time job in academia.

***  Seven Republicans voted for her confirmation: Coburn (OK), Collins (ME), Gregg (NH), Hatch (UT), Kyl (AZ), Lugar (IN), Snowe (ME). Newly minted Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter voted against her.

Won praise — from both liberals and conservatives — during her tenure as dean of Harvard Law. Hired some of the best law professors in the country, including Obama friend (and administration official) Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago.

Larry Summers, Orin Hatch, and Cass Sunstein.  It’s like the Bermuda Triangle.

And Arlen Specter doesn’t like her, but remember, the Tea Party hates Arlen Specter.

One reason why she’s the nominee:


http://www.thedailybeast.com/b…

Yesterday, I read everything Elena Kagan has ever published. It didn’t take long: in the nearly 20 years since Kagan became a law professor, she’s published very little academic scholarship-  three law review articles, along with a couple of shorter essays and two brief book reviews. Somehow, Kagan got tenure at Chicago in 1995 on the basis of a single article in The Supreme Court Review-a scholarly journal edited by Chicago’s own faculty-and a short essay in the school’s law review.

…. joining Harvard as a visiting professor of law in 1999. While there she published two articles, but since receiving tenure from Harvard in 2001 (and becoming dean of the law school in 2003) she has published nothing. (While it’s true law school deans often do little scholarly writing during their terms, Kagan is remarkable both for how little she did in the dozen years prior to becoming Harvard’s dean, and for never having written anything intended for a more general audience, either before or after taking that position.)

Kagan’s handful of publications touch on topics like regulating offensive speech, analyzing legislative motivations for speech regulations, and evaluating the process of administrative law-making. But on the vast majority of issues before the Court, Kagan has no stated opinion. Her scholarship provides no clues regarding how she would rule on such crucial contemporary issues as the scope of the president’s power in wartime, the legality of torture, or the ability of Congress to rein in campaign spending by corporations.

More “Change” From President Obama

President Obama’s track record has been stunning in its all out embrace and expansion of the corrupt Foreign Policy of the past 8 dark years (and with it, the total rejection of what people voted for) —  a darkness Obama won’t let any sunlight near.

Here’s the latest from Obama:

The Obama administration quietly announced Friday the appointment of John McLaughlin, former deputy CIA director, to head the internal investigation of the intelligence failures that led to the Christmas Day attempted bombing of a Delta airliner headed for Detroit as well as the events leading to the shootings at Fort Hood in November.

With this appointment, President Barack Obama has assured that the culture of intelligence cover-up will continue. McLaughlin has participated in and sought to cover-up many of the CIA’s most egregious failures and misdeeds of the past decade. When he left the CIA, he then served as the agency’s chief apologist.

So, who is John McLaughlin? Most of official Washington and the mainstream media view McLaughlin as the mild-mannered, professorial CIA bureaucrat, who former CIA director George Tenet called the “smartest man he had ever met.”

Few people understand, however, that McLaughlin played the most important role in making sure that the Bush administration received the intelligence that would be used and misused to justify the use of force against Iraq in 2003.

Washington insiders remember that it was CIA director Tenet who told President George W. Bush, “Don’t worry, it’s a slam dunk,” in response to the president’s demand for stronger intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to provide to the American people. Few people remember that it was McLaughlin who actually delivered the “slam-dunk” briefing to the president in January 2003.

McLaughlin was the “villain” behind the politicized intelligence on Iraq in the run-up to the illegal war. He perverted the intelligence process, ignored high-level briefings on the weakness of the intelligence on WMD and then tried to silence David Kay, the chief of the Iraq Survey Group, when the weapons inspectors found no evidence of strategic weapons in Iraq.

When Kay returned to CIA headquarters from Baghdad, Tenet and McLaughlin made sure that Kay was given a tiny, windowless office at the end of a distant, deserted corridor undergoing construction. It had no secure phone or classified computer. Kay called it Siberia.

Continued…

Obama Exposed!!

Depression Theater

As the total vacuum of any principled leadership from President Obama has now produced the inevitable directionless, anti-consumer, Insurance Monopoly boondoggle fraud, now masquerading in Congress as “reform“, it is time to reflect upon just who Obama’s friends really are and have been all along, and what his uninspiring charade of a Presidency is really all about.


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Updated: Obama Starts U.S. Military Hostilities Against Venezuela

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President Obama is now deploying American Troops to Colombia to start new unprovoked Military hostilities against (neighboring) Venezuela, using the same advanced Predator Drone Airstrike technology that has been murdering thousands of innocent civilians throughout Afghanistan and Pakistan.

From The RawStory.com Obama Sends Soldiers And Drones To Venezeula’s Neighbor


American troops will soon find themselves stationed at military bases scattered across the South American nation of Colombia with a mission to use advanced Predator drone technology to “aid in fighting the drug trade” and to “combat terrorism”.

President Hugo Chavez warned, “the winds of war are beginning to blow.” Chavez has already accused Colombian troops of making an incursion over the border and regional tensions are running high.

Honduran de-facto President Rafael Correa also took exception, saying the United States would target Colombia’s neighbors. “It has also sparked concern from moderate Colombian allies, such as Chile and Brazil, who want assurances that U.S. forces won’t be operating outside Colombia’s territory,” The Wall Street Journal adds.

A Preemptive Strike-Reply for a Post-NeoCon World

(I’m traveling tomorrow, overseas.  I’ll be out of touch all day, and that’ll be a damn shame, as I love this place.  So I decided to post this now, and see if anyone liked it.  I wrote this exactly 2 years ago tomorrow, just after the midterms, because I felt we were going to win big in 08.  We had to win.  And I needed to be prepared, or something like that.  I’d forgotten about it until today when I heard Rove the pundit blathering nonsense to the ‘faithful’.  Neocons for some odd reason still believe they have relevance, still believe they hold power.  This is how I envision dealing with them.  Their mouthpieces, their valued pundits…well, they’re another story.)

Hi.

My name is ___.

I know you.  

You know me.

The passage of time and our mutual close proximity to each other on the job is what makes that possible.

That and nothing more than that.

(This is an intervention)

I think we can agree that we have known each other for quite some time now.

For your part I know what you think of me, and have actually, many times, brought yourself to speak out loud the “L” word and send it my way.  It has been your highest insult, and I’ve always thanked you for the sentiment.

Because it’s true.