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October 10, 2005
Yet Another …
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Sorry about the $343 million, Mr. Taxpayer
Snip:
Homeland security officials say they have no memos, e-mails or other paperwork to document the reason for the change, as required by federal contracting regulations. They have also offered accounts of the decision that conflict with internal government documents obtained by The Washington Post.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 10 2005 16:47 utc | 1
i ran into this piece. if you read down on the comment section it all seems really really grim. i know that a lot of folks who often visit this site are well versed in economics and i was wondering if you may be willing to expand, validate, or, if necessary, debunk any of the theories written there.
http://www.alternet.org/story/26406/
Posted by: charmicarmicat | Oct 10 2005 17:18 utc | 2
more on the fear factor. i posted this link last month but thought it might be an appropriate time to revisit
Psy-ops propaganda goes mainstream
A shadowy media firm steps in to help orchestrate a sophisticated campaign of mass deception. Rather than alert the public to the smallpox threat, the company sets up a high-tech “ops center” to convince the public that an accident at a chemical plant threatens London. As the fictitious toxic cloud approaches the city, TV news outlets are provided graphic visuals charting the path of the invisible toxins. Londoners stay indoors, glued to the telly, convinced that even a short walk into the streets could be fatal
Strategic Communication Laboratories
“The military conflicts of the 21st Century will not be fought on the ground, in the sea or in the air. They will be fought in the minds of your enemies and allies.You may have the weapons to win the territory, but do you have the weapons to win the ‘hearts and minds?’ “
Posted by: annie | Oct 10 2005 17:50 utc | 3
@charmi – I can agree with the analyse in that article though I am not sure if the bacnruptcy numbers are up because a new law is coming. Maybe some folks thought better now than later.
And it is not only the internal US structure that has faults and is in trouble, it is the US financial position in the world that is broken.
See Roach’s commentaries like todays.
The bears like Roach have been screaming about this for a long time and nobody would listen. Finally things come through.
Sorry to ask this again, but I perhaps shouldn’t have posted a question in an old open thread before not having internet access for a weekend. Has anyone read Assassin’s Gate? the review I saw at Salon makes it look like a fairly comprehensive history of The War So Far.
Posted by: Rowan | Oct 10 2005 19:16 utc | 5
Bartender, how ’bout playing a few Tom Waits numbers…. ‘Ol 55, Closing Time, Grapefruit Moon, maybe Bad Liver and a Broken Heart- And a round for bar!
Posted by: Soandso | Oct 10 2005 20:00 utc | 6
That ‘urban legend’ about Meese is true. My grandparents were a politically mixed couple. Grandpa was a staunch Dem, and Gma hardcore R.
One day (early to mid 80’s), I saw that Mr. Meese had sent grandma a letter. It said that Dems were soft on crime because that they believed in giving the accused some rights. The letter continued in the vein that the accused shouldn’t have any rights because only the guilty get themselves accused in the first place. Please send me money to fight this awful people.
I’ll bet Mr. Meese was singing a different tune when he was before the bar a few years later.
I say, if you want to make these conservatives care about civil rights, arrest all the old ladies (but not MY gma) and frogmarch them to the courthouse to cool their heels for an hour or two.
Posted by: LB | Oct 10 2005 20:00 utc | 7
@b- so basically we’re up a creek without a paddle. as far as time frame, what are we looking at? when will it all implode or explode? and since most everything is tied to each other in this global economy, will we be witnessing the first major world finacial collapse? a proof for later generations that global capitalism/corporatism may not be a good idea? will it be a grin and bear period or can something still be done to rectify this situation? if so, do you think gov’ts, financial institutions etc. are willing to make good and work at it or will they just make fortunes such as some folks did during the wall street crash and the ensuing depression during the 20’s-30’s in the us.
sorry for all those questions. i understand a bit about economics but not enough to fully understand roach’s piece. that link i read at alternet really got to me as some folks wrote about their personal experiences and man o man does it paint a grim tomorrow. my roommates mom went through the whole dust bowl and great depression era as a young child and her stories are hard to hear without getting choked up. is this what we should be bracing ourselves for?
Posted by: Anonymous | Oct 10 2005 20:42 utc | 8
@charmicarmicat
Stephen Pizzo’s article appears to me to use current economic orthodoxy albeit in a rather pessimistic way.
His argument that credit has finally been tapped out and people will no longer be able to service their loans may well be correct.
The thing is though the ‘global’ economy may stand on their head those simplistic theories that reduce the complex inter relationships between nations, large corporations and investors.
Simple rules of money supply and demand don’t always work because many of the ‘new growth’ economies have a surfeit of cash which they are reluctant to completely tip back into their own economy.
Monetarists have held that controlling the cost of money supply is a single powerful lever which enables central bankers to ensure that their nation’s economy doesn’t get distorted by too much inflation, or destroyed by large public or private sector deficits.
They have generally considered inflation to be the number 1 enemy of a strong economy.
This was a pendulum swing from the Keynsians who preceded the monetarists and who held that a little bit of inflation could be a good thing. When an economy appeared to be going into recession the Keynsians would ‘print’ more money. This was relatively straightforward in a time where central banks controlled exchange rates so that it was possible to increase the available money supply without necessarily devaluing the worth of the currency.
That came to an end in the 1970’s with ‘stagflation’; an anomaly where economies had become distorted by what the monetarists believed to be over regulation. The result was that when more money was poured into an economy the wages and prices spiral would get a boost but because an increase in one leads to an inevitable increase in the other there would be no real growth in the economy. So unemployment continued to rise. This was considered paradoxical. In the past it had been considered that when unemployment was high governments should spend more money which would ‘prime the pump’.
The injection of money would create demand for labour as competition increased between organisations contracting to supply the goods and services that the government was printing the money to pay for.
When inflation didn’t fix economies it was declared an enemy by monetarists who held that price/wage increases must come from increased productivity rather than labour market demand/supply.
This theory has worked for 25 odd years but as we all know the social costs of letting people hang in the system until the market ‘rights’ itself is incredibly high and in some cases irreparable.
Central banks like the Fed have been controlling interest rates to control economies.
If too many people are borrowing money the idea is to push up interest rates which will reduce demand for credit because it costs more to borrow.
But when there is an economy like China’s that is flush with cash, if a central bank elsewhere puts up interest rates, that encourages those with excess cash to pour it into that country’s system so they maximise their return on investment.
The banks don’t mind because they still seem to work on a ‘cost plus’ system so that when interest rates go up they pass that on still keeping and sometimes increasing their margins. On paper they appear to be as solvent as they ever were.
People can’t just stop borrowing. If they did their personal house of cards would fall, so they pay the new rate. This has been working for them as we have seen around the world where property prices have continued to increase past the point of common sense. The more you borrow the more you make. Or so it seems. The attempt to reduce inflation becomes inflationary itself as the increase in the cost of money gets passed around the community.
Will this ‘dance of death’ end this year?
Who knows? Certainly it isn’t in China’s immediate interests to ‘pull the plug’ because if they stop lending to the west then they won’t get paid for the last lot of cash they threw in.
It’s like a huge Ponzi scheme where the new investors’ funds pay off the old investors. However the new investors are often one and the same as the old investors so it isn’t in anyone’s benefit to shout that the emperor has no clothes.
Obviously this charade must end eventually. Since no one appears to have any ideas about how to end it without destroying everything around them it will likely be some unanticipated external force that ultimately brings this fragile structure down.
That may well be the increased cost of energy. Equally though the higher energy costs may keep the whole thing going a bit longer because in consumers’ minds it creates a rationale for paying more for everything without seeming to be wasteful.
My view is that economics is an attempt by anal control freaks to take power over an incredibly complex system of human inter-relationships with powerful yet blunt tools.
Preaching doom and gloom appears to be the way to go since most economists seem to have a presbyterian mindset that informs them “All good things must come to an end”.
If they preach the end of the world is nigh for long enough, eventually they’ll be correct.
Middle class people who have the skills to negotiate their way through a complex labor market won’t really be effected until the crash happens. In the meantime those who don’t have the skills get battered by the increase in the cost of money with each rise in interest rates.
Their lifestyles have been in reverse since the introduction of monetarist theory and its difficult to see any relief for them until ‘the next big thing’.
But you never know W may have roomed with an economic genius at school. When W gives him the Fed job he will take the largest economy in the world and with one inspired manipulation fix centuries of tacked on alterations, leaving the world in the happiest, most content and peaceful state since our mob decided we liked the other mob’s territory better than our own.
We grabbed the territory while promising to tell the original inhabitants the secret of life.
This ‘secret’ was to grab any stuff from any other mob that seemed to have it better and promise to reward them with the ‘secret of life’.
So it goes.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 10 2005 21:38 utc | 9
Could there be something wrong when a guy pay 430 million in cash?
Refco, a Futures Trader, Puts Chief Executive on Leave
Refco Inc., a futures trading company that recently went public amid a government investigation, put its top executive on a leave of absence after discovering a firm he controlled owed the company $430 million, the company said today.
Phillip R. Bennett, chief executive and chairman, repaid the obligation today in cash, but Refco has hired forensics accountants to audit the matter and said it would delay its quarterly filling to the Securities and Exchange Commission due this week.
…
“As you know, we are coming off a record year for revenues, earnings and volume, and our public offering this summer was very warmly received by the market,” they said in the memo that was provided to news agencies. “Our firm is financially sound with ample liquidity to run our business in the normal course.”
As of Aug. 31, the company had $648.6 million in cash. Since then, it has used about $230 million to pay down a portion of its $1.4 billion in debt. The figures do not include the $430 million in cash that Refco received from Mr. Bennett.
Oh, I did forget that 430 million I did lend from the company I work for. Well here it is, got some change?
@DoD – good historical abstract.
Preaching doom and gloom appears to be the way to go since most economists seem to have a presbyterian mindset that informs them “All good things must come to an end”.
I see only a few economists doing this. Roach is the most prominent. But there are scores who are very optimistic and demand even more supply side economics.
Eventually this has to crash in my view. We have a completly unregulated global financial “market” (note: no real market is unregulated). That is a recipe for a huge financial crash. It´s a bit like an earthquake prediction. You know it will come, you don´t know when, but as longer it takes as worse it will be.
Thought some here might appreciate this comment and link as much as I did:
O’Reilly vs Ellsberg
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 10 2005 22:55 utc | 12
Sing it w/ me yall!
Mine eyes have seen the orgy of the launching of the Sword; He is searching out the hoardings where the stranger’s wealth is stored; He hath loosed his fateful lightnings, and with woe and death has scored; His lust is marching on.
I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps; They have builded him an altar in the Eastern dews and damps; I have read his doomful mission by the dim and flaring lamps–His night is marching on.
I have read his bandit gospel writ in burnished rows of steel: “As ye deal with my pretensions, so with you my wrath shall deal; Let the faithless son of Freedom crush the patriot with his heel; Lo, Greed is marching on!”
We have legalized the strumpet and are guarding her retreat; Greed is seeking out commercial souls before his judgement seat; O, be swift, ye clods, to answer him! be jubilant my feet! Our god is marching on!
In a sordid slime harmonious Greed was born in yonder ditch, With a longing in his bosom–and for others’ goods an itch.
As Christ died to make men holy, let men die to make us rich– Our god is marching on.
Thou Shalt Not Kill , Mark Twain
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 11 2005 2:14 utc | 13
Have some Paul Krugman. Will Bush Deliver?
Paul questions whether Bu$hCo intends to rebuild much of anything from Toto. Remember the crap about Rove being in charge?? He’s a pretty busy boy these days, and that turns out to be bullshit. NO ONE IS IN CHARGE. No commission has been named. No hearings held. Loans have been given to local governments, many of whom no longer have a tax base. Idiot-in-Chief insisted these loans be granted only w/the cruel & unusual provision that they CANNOT BE FORGIVEN….
Perhaps they’ll just give a pile to their pals & say the hell w/it…ain’t our problem…Krugman doesn’t even know how much NYC ever received of the money Idiot promised to them after their 911 caper…
Posted by: jj | Oct 11 2005 3:45 utc | 14
Laboratory : THE RACE FACE OF POVERTY
Snip:
“In the beginning, it seemed that wherever the Louisianans went, people stopped them on the street, figuring that because they were black, they must be from the hurricane. A man went up to one of them, Gerald Cooper, a former merchant mariner, and said, “Here, put this in your pocket,” as he stuffed a $20 bill into Mr. Cooper’s hand.
“It was like we were a fad,” Mr. Cooper said.” …
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 11 2005 7:58 utc | 15
Good conversation going on at the Brad Setser web log, http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/setser, in the topic “Kate-Moss-thin credit spreads”. Not a place for snark. It’s a blog that is hitting the worrisome econ questions rather than the Brad Delong site.
Technical question: How to get the web site pointers into html format so you can click through? Lot’s of the posters here are doing it but I don’t know how to.
Posted by: christofay | Oct 11 2005 9:56 utc | 16
christofay:
Kate Moss thin credit spreads
there’s HTML Tags listed in Post a comment section. you want the one that starts A HREF
Posted by: dk | Oct 11 2005 14:05 utc | 17
Christofay, the one confusing thing about using the A HREF format is that you do not add / before ” after url. / is only last char. before ” if it’s part of URL.
Posted by: jj | Oct 11 2005 16:40 utc | 18
They will rob you blind
Bush Panel in Broad Agreement to Cut Investment Tax
The financial-services industry is poised to emerge a big winner from the recommendations of President George W. Bush’s tax advisory panel, where a consensus is building to eliminate or reduce taxes on investment income.
…
Tax policy experts say there have been indications since the panel formed in January that at least one of its recommendations would favor reducing taxes on investment income rather than wages.
“This board is very heavily weighted to make sure people of wealth don’t pay any taxes,” said Calvin Johnson, a former Treasury Department official who is now a law professor at the University of Texas in Austin. “They’re all committed to shifting the tax burden downward rather than upward.”
Ties to Industry
Three of the panel’s nine members are connected to the financial-services industry. Chairman Connie Mack, a former Florida senator, is on the board of Mutual of America Life Insurance Co., a New York firm that sells annuities and individual retirement accounts in 37 states. Charles Rossotti, a former Internal Revenue Service commissioner, receives $185,000 a year in stock-based compensation as a director of New York-based Merrill Lynch & Co., the biggest U.S. brokerage. Liz Ann Sonders is chief investment strategist at San Francisco-based Charles Schwab & Co., the biggest discount brokerage by assets.
…
Democracy Now had Geo. Monbiot on today. No transcript up, yet at least, so I won’t link. Eye-opening stuff, for those who don’t follow details of UN. He was addressing question of whether El Baradei & IAEA deserve Nobel Peace Prize. Turns out the job of IAEA is to SELL Nuclear Power to countries around the world. As, Monbiot notes, all the countries who’ve recently developed nukes have simply converted their power programs to military uses. Just agree to inspections to get yr. system up & running, then tell inspectors to stuff it. More Info So, Monbiot argues, Baradei is a major proliferator of nukes. But since wall street’s taken over running things, nuclear war might be a less dreadful outcome.
Posted by: jj | Oct 11 2005 17:29 utc | 20
‘doom and gloom’
The Fed’s thinking, maybe wishfully, that you can’t predict derivatives’ effects without considering two features, netting and closeout, which circumvent forensic insolvency proceedings; and that the net result of the two features will be to precipitate individual institutional failures while reducing the likelihood of cascading defaults. Of course, the models get stale when everbody gets into the act, so maybe they’ll turn out wrong. At any rate, consumer debt levels alone are sufficient to produce the worst outcomes you could imagine.
What’s so bad about financial doomsday, anyway? It’s the onlycheck on the setup that keeps that cowardly stewbum in power. A slump is like an enema for our institutionalized corporate-government corruption. Yay for liquidation.
Posted by: psh | Oct 11 2005 18:32 utc | 21
kos explains why voting for dems. is National Suicide, unless you want to turn america into a bankrupt version of China. Major disaster facing us is reign of unfettered capital & there is nary a word. Destroy America Now Platform of xDems Oh, & he’s too much of a sexist pig to mention it, but they’re running woman hating candidates all over hell. Against santorum for Pa. Sen., tinklenberg for House seat in Minn. & god knows where else. Not likely they’ll run any new candidates who even merit having their names begin w/capital letter. At least repugs have to be paid off to destroy our country. These Bastards do it for free.
Posted by: jj | Oct 11 2005 19:34 utc | 22
Oops…an impt. correction to the above. They’re not entirely turning america into a bankrupt China, as at least there you can get abortions should you get pregnant. The Can’t Make This Shit Up Party, the Sequel, is running on a bankrupt Americans platform, while working to deny women abortions for the children they won’t be able to afford.
Posted by: jj | Oct 11 2005 19:38 utc | 23
Davecat keeps a picture of his girlfriend in his wallet. She’s pretty, with long black hair, an alluring mole under her left eye, and glossy red lipstick. Her sheer tank top shows off her full breasts and the hoop through her left nipple.
Ask Davecat about Sidore — pronounced She-doh-ray — and he’ll tell you she’s everything that turns him on: beautiful, loyal, a great listener. Si-chan, as he affectionately calls her, is half British, half Japanese, which is nice because he’s always had a thing for both British and Japanese culture. Even their clothing style and taste in music is simpatico — they’re both Goths.
Like many born in the sun sign Cancer, Sidore is a homebody, but then, she couldn’t leave the comfort of the bed she shares with Davecat even if she wanted to because Sidore is a 100-pound solid silicone Real Doll.
Thousands of men are shelling out $6,500 for hyper-realistic dolls that answer all their needs — and don’t talk back.
Posted by: beq | Oct 11 2005 19:39 utc | 24
@jj – I don´t think Monbiot is right to put that on Baradei. There are international contracts that Baradei is supposed to supervise – not to change – and that is what he does with courage in my view.
In 1956 or so it was expected that some 50 nations would have nukes within like 30 years. 50 years later 3 to 5 did decide to get them and some 3 to keep them (Israel, India, Pakistan).
I think that is a success and the IAEA has a big role in that. It could have been better, but then it was not the IAEA that could pull the Sowjets and the US to court.
Jay Rosen, one of the journalist authorities in the US wonders why the New York Times has shut down ALL reporting about the Plame case.
He doesn´t say so but my best guess is that the NYT is under serious danger to be indicted in this case too and I can think of several reasons why.
I’ve never been much of a NYT reader for reasons that aren’t relevant here but I seem to remember when the NYT was caught in a plagiarism scandal a while ago, that instead of admitting to lousy supervisory and staff development practices the NYT portrayed itself as the victim of affirmative action gone mad.
So should we imagine that if Miller is proven to have behaved corruptly the NYT will cease it’s protection of repug shills who wander about the place proud of the flecks of neo-con shit on their nose?
Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 11 2005 21:25 utc | 28
It was interesting scanning thru your Jay Rosen link; many of the commenting journalists and wannabes seem out of touch with the broader reality.
Not that I hadn’t guessed that from reading columns in our daily paper.
Posted by: rapt | Oct 11 2005 21:26 utc | 29
Jay Rosen, one of the journalist authorities in the US
Journalist authority? Now THERE’S an oxymoron.
Posted by: Billmon | Oct 11 2005 23:28 utc | 31
I’m surprised NYT hasn’t suggested she take a leave of absence to write her pay-off, errr… I mean book, & then she can be scooped up by some NeoNut institution. That obviously is a separate issue from their coverage.
b, the term you were looking for in reference to Rosen is “journalism professor”. In English authority is a term generally reserved for a leader in the field; and Billmon chided you as journalism is by definition a field devoid of them. The most one might say is “a leading journalist” or refer to Sy Hersh as a legendary journalist.
b, I thght. Monbiot was over the line in comparing Baradei’s Nobel to Kissinger’s, which is why I didn’t cite that. But I knew nothing of IAEA’s role as global salesboy for western peddlers of nuclear power, and doubt most Americans do. I’m not terribly enthusiastic about them hiding behind UN to escape domestic scrutiny. (There were huge protests when GE was trotting around the globe trying to sell them.) While I have no problem w/nuclear power – as long as Operators are liable for 100% of the damages in the event of any accidents & are prohibited from using any fresh water to run them – but most countries, beginning w/Pakistan, are too unstable to be allowed anywhere near them. That said, it looks like Baradei was put on the planet to run the agency, and if the Nobel strengthens his hand dealing w/the NeoNuts, I’m fine w/it.
Posted by: jj | Oct 12 2005 1:10 utc | 32
I’m not, I’m not. Bill Kovach, Gene Roberts, Tom Brokaw, Jim Lehrer, people like that are authorities in journalism.
Uncle, my Turkish isn’t too great. Would you mind repeating that link in English??
Came up w/a name for Merckel today – Hillary Thatcher Merckel? Good? Talk about exploiting women…Savages hiding behind women to unleash brutality upon their own people that they fear males could never get away w/. If you read up on platform for JackAss Party I posted earlier, you can see it’s tailored for Hillary to run on. They forgot to add the stuff about gutting American jobs, radically ratcheting up taxes, destroying pensions & social security – hey, let some bitch do the dirty work…No one would suspect when they vote for her…Same principle in Germany I expect.
Posted by: jj | Oct 12 2005 1:16 utc | 34
News Orgs Working On Story Tying Cheney Into Plamegate… Developing…
The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg are working on stories that point to Vice President Dick Cheney as the target of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation into the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s name.
Posted by: annie | Oct 12 2005 1:25 utc | 35
annie
yr very quick – i’ve been following in this last week with fitzgerald – it seems yr on 24/24 alert –
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 12 2005 2:11 utc | 36
tanks annie 😉 These guys are very dangerous be careful out there…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 12 2005 2:47 utc | 37
i’ve been googling (sort by date)every 20 minutes. i found it sitting all by itself clustered in news of some fitzgerald/cardinal player, i went nuts. just rereading hersh’s
,stovepiping piece. the last paragraph, i love it. says it all
The Vice-President also defended the way in which he had involved himself in intelligence matters: “This is a very important area. It’s one that the President has asked me to work on. . . . In terms of asking questions, I plead guilty. I ask a hell of a lot of questions. That’s my job.”
now, if only i had gotten the date right on billmon’s contest….
Posted by: annie | Oct 12 2005 3:02 utc | 38
Rawstory has excerpts of tomorrow’s WSJ story up. Just a few more tidbits we all have speculated on like days, even weeks ago. I am glad to see it, but still frustrated that it has taken this long for the MSM to catch on and that it is this that will give the proceedings legitimacy in the eyes of the sheeples.
Posted by: conchita | Oct 12 2005 3:34 utc | 39
Report: Lawyers say investigation into CIA leak widens to probe ‘broader conspiracy’ around Iraq
this just in, sent to me by conchita , he’s going after whig
Lawyers familiar with the investigation believe that at least part of the outcome likely hangs on the inner workings of what has been dubbed the White House Iraq Group. Formed in August 2002, the group, which included Messrs. Rove and Libby, worked on setting strategy for selling the war in Iraq to the public in the months leading up to the March 2003 invasion. The group likely would have played a significant role in responding to Mr. Wilson’s claims.
Posted by: annie | Oct 12 2005 3:38 utc | 40
Also don’t miss this liddle diddy:
Cheney spokesman departs country as CIA leak investigation wraps up
The chief spokesman for Vice President Dick Cheney, Steve Schmidt, left the United States Oct. 3 and won’t return until Oct. 26, just as the investigation into who outed a covert CIA agent wraps up.
Is someone dodging a subpoena?
Posted by: Anonymous | Oct 12 2005 3:51 utc | 42
Interesting article in Tuesday’s Financial Times: Conservatives and exiles desert war campaign
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 12 2005 4:34 utc | 44
getting cheneyed
let me indulge myself a little here. i am almost salivating.
the scenario, he goes down, this is inevitable, but it is slow and torturous for him, his wife and his supporters. dragged thru the mud for all to see. he doesn’t live long enough for a presidential pardon or even a last ditch effort by the supremes(scalia barf). but he lives long enough to know he will go down in history as the man who brought his party down, brought the nation to its knees, ruined our reputation around the globe and gave us new slang. getting cheneyed. reserved for the ultimate bully, meeting his fate. then he can choke.
excuse me, i am actually a very nice person and i probably should not reveal this side of my personality.just amoungst friends, forgive me, even tho forgiveness is not my forte
Posted by: annie | Oct 12 2005 5:44 utc | 45
i forgot to mention the worst, all that death on his hands.
what a dark soul.
Posted by: annie | Oct 12 2005 5:47 utc | 46
Plame rumors go mainstream with Fineman and Matthews.
HOWARD FINEMAN (NEWSWEEK): Right now, my sense, in reporting this, Chris, is that the Bush family, political family, is at war with itself inside the White House. My sense is, it‘s, it‘s, it‘s, it‘s Andy Card, the chief of staff, and his people against Karl Rove, the brain.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Right.
FINEMAN: And that runs through a whole lot of things, whether it‘s Harriet Miers or Katrina. But it all starts with Iraq.
And some submerged, but now emerging divisions within the administration over why we went into that war, how we went into that war and what was done to sell it. There are people are out for Karl Rove inside that White House, which makes his situation even more perilous.
This backs up Billmon’s guess in Bullies that these thieves won’t stick together when things go bad. If the corporate shills are saying it, we’re in store for some great theatre in coming weeks.
Posted by: lonesomeG | Oct 12 2005 5:51 utc | 47
With this Frist is toast – a second “blind”trust that earned him a lot:
Documents Detail Frist Stock Shares
Outside the blind trusts he created to avoid a conflict of interest, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist earned tens of thousands of dollars from stock in a family-founded hospital chain largely controlled by his brother, documents show.
The Tennessee Republican, whose sale this summer of Hospital Corporation of America Inc. stock is under federal investigation, has long said he could own HCA shares and vote on health care legislation without a conflict because he had placed the stock in blind trusts approved by the Senate.
However, ethics experts say a partnership arrangement shown in documents obtained by the Associated Press raises serious doubts about whether the senator truly avoided a conflict.
HCA stock in the documents was accumulated by a family investment partnership started by the senator’s late parents and later overseen by his brother, Thomas Frist Jr. The brother served as president of the partnership’s management company and as a top officer of HCA. The senator holds no position with the company.
The senator’s share of the partnership was placed in a Tennessee blind trust between 1998 and 2002, separate from those governed by Senate ethics rules. Frist reported that Bowling Avenue Partners, made up mostly of non-public HCA stock, earned him $265,495 in dividends and other income over the four years.
Annie, you’re an optimist. Look at it this way. He’s made himself a bloody fortune – poor boy, Yale flunkout, makes good – and accomplishes the wet dream of fascist wall streeters for a century – All the money goes to the rich, and all the taxes to the poor… the treasury so thoroughly bankrupted , not one penny will be spent for any thing that benefits the american people. Police state will have to contain the chaos unleashed. Remember he is a through & through fascist, even moreso than Neut Gingrich – he even opposed funding for Head Start. Why shouldn’t he die happy having created a country in his image? Too bad about his daughter being a damned homosexual, but hell it wasn’t his fault…and can’t have everything…
As far as destroying repug party, not necessarily. People are waking up to the fact that both parties are just wall st. east & wall streeet west & both have declared war on us. I just read an astonishing discussion of this on the website for a paper in Joplin, Missouri for Christ sake. No reason to vote JackAss Party, unless Ralph Nader is their candidate.
Beyond that, anyone who wants to eat any food that isn’t poisoned, has to get back on the phone to congress. 147,000 calls/emails have forestalled pirates. Now they’re trying to do it in Conference this wk. Pls. Act Now
Posted by: jj | Oct 12 2005 7:50 utc | 49
@jj
Pls. Act Now
Done. And sent to others. Not that I believe it makes a damn, but I know you do.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 12 2005 8:42 utc | 50
b
the fitzgerald moment is getting so labrynthine & there are so many contending theories & interpretations of what us happening – that if it is possible to have a thread that just deals with the day to day developments of the case – it would be of great assistance
annie really seems on top of it – but i find i am searching far & wide & at places i would prefer not to be – that if we could concentrate on one thread
perhaps the events themselves make this impossible or even too banal a means of dealing with it
what has happened with the wall street journal story?
it seems so feverish at some of the other blogs & i imagine i am used to the level of distance that applied here
& i agree with the deletion or at east understand it in relation to the post of highlander – i do not feel – within the storms we are living that there is much place for satire or irony – well intentioned or not
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 12 2005 18:09 utc | 51
Thank you very much Uncle. It worked last time. This won’t be the end. If the Pirates steal the word, one could just rename Organic Foods Whatever Foods, and lv. Pirates holding an empty bag. This won’t be the end of it. I virtually never get involved, but it just strikes me obscene to not take 3 mins. to save our food supply.
In any event, the organic consumers.org site is posting some impt. stuff now. I just found THE SINGLE MUST READ ARTICLE OF THE YEAR THERE.
For non-Americans, one of the few, if not the only, Must read magazines is Harper’s. It’s put together by a wonderful balanced thoughtful, insightful American, Lewis Lapham, who sees himself as “chronicling the Twilight of the Republic”. Thus it’s of no small moment, that in the October issue, currently on the stands, he wrote a short piece “We Now Live in a Fascist State”.
I don’t see anything in this short art. that lends itself to excerpt, so I’ll just post the link (Incidentally, his take on the Clintons is the Best Ever.)
He takes off from Eco essay in ’95 NY Rev. of Bks. “Ur-Fascism”, that requires a credit card ransaction to access. Anyone have any ideas on non-credit card online means of access? (I’d even pay, just not that way.)
Posted by: jj | Oct 12 2005 20:43 utc | 52
Geez, if Meirs made them mad, now Ron Paul is saying the administration is after their guns.
Congressman Ron Paul has accused the Bush administration of attempting to set in motion a militarized police state in America by enacting gun confiscation martial law provisions in the event of an avian flu pandemic…
—
Paul responded to President Bush’s announcement last week that he would order the use of military assets to police America in the event of an avian flu outbreak.
“To me it’s so strange that the President can make these proposals and it’s even plausible. When he talks about martial law dealing with some epidemic that might come later on and having forced quarantines, doing away with Posse Comitatus in order to deal with natural disasters, and hardly anybody says anything. People must be scared to death.”
Paul, himself a medical doctor, agreed that the bird flu threat was empty fearmongering.
“I believe it is the President hyping this and Rumsfeld, but it has to be in combination with the people being fearful enough that they will accept the man on the white horse. My first reaction going from my political and medical background is that it’s way overly hyped and to think that they have gone this far with it, without a single case in the whole country and they’re willing to change the law and turn it into a military state? That is unbelievable! They’re determined to have martial law.”
Paul opined that the martial law provisions now being promoted by the Bush administration were a direct response to people’s unwillingness to relinquish their firearms, as was seen in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
“I think they’re concerned about the remnant, the remnant of those individuals who don’t buy into stuff and think that they should take care of themselves on their own, that they should have their own guns and their own provisions and they don’t want to depend on the government at all and I think that is a threat to those who want to hold power. They don’t want any resistance to their authoritarian rule.”
Paul opined that the government was on a delusional power trip that threatened the country.
—
Paul expressed his hope that finally some conservatives are waking up to the fact that the Bush administration is a trojan horse…
I’m not an Alex Jones fan, but Ron Paul is a conservative like Robert Craig Parry who never drank the kool-aid. This ought to scare the right wing whackos.
Posted by: lonesomeG | Oct 12 2005 23:35 utc | 53
In line with my observation of a month ago,
that even the right wingers are starting to
see the crack in the dam, and even the left
wingers are starting to see red in the blue
heraldry, now their response, in all cases,
either right or left, is to go radio-silent.
Run silent, run deep.
Ping … ping … ping …
Splash ….
The only comment I can add here, a month later,
is that the media is wound as tight as a tick
preparing a flurry of Watergate II prime time,
that will end, as all morality plays, with some
underlings hanged, some Highers embarrassed, and
then as someone observed, a blanket clemency.
This is almost *too* clever, their buildup, the
suspense, the teasers, any day now indictments,
media going large, huge revenue view-share wars,
the public hanging, while out behind the square,
the carriages are being stuffed with gold bars,
and the American estate left doubly-bankrupt.
Then comes 2008, the clemencies, the economic
melt-down, world civil wars, no wonder we’re
all going radio-silent, preparing our larders.
If you need the visual, we are all Argentina.
Not to bury a hackneyed phrase, but would you
like turnips with your cabbage soup, comrade?
Posted by: tante aime | Oct 13 2005 3:51 utc | 54
Can’t say I disagree tante, Nor would I put it past Cheneyco to try to save their asses if the fritz-bang comes down via lonesomeG’s scenario above. The ideological equivalent of the ol’ Reagan idiom of ‘Political M.A.D.’ i.e. ( Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) . This may be the last ten days in the bunker and the ‘real’ october surprize.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 13 2005 4:37 utc | 56
Uncle are you taking tante at face value, even though he’s a troll? I can’t bring myself to read him anymore after his doFW ravings. Any thoughts?
Posted by: jj | Oct 13 2005 5:17 utc | 57
There’s a Huge movement growing against this assault on Organic Foods. link
The Astonishing News in it is that Whole Foods & Horizon “organic” milk has joined the movement to destroy organic foods. Time to boycott both. Any students are here w/time, might head down to their nearest Whole Foods Market w/some leaflets exposing them.
Posted by: jj | Oct 13 2005 5:33 utc | 58
Fristed: SEC Issues Subpoena To Frist, Sources Say
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has been subpoenaed to turn over personal records and documents as federal authorities step up a probe of his July sales of HCA Inc. stock, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
The Securities and Exchange Commission issued the subpoena within the past two weeks, after initial reports that Frist, the Senate’s top Republican official, was under scrutiny by the agency and the Justice Department for possible violations of insider trading laws.
…
The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that Frist earned tens of thousands of dollars from HCA stock in a partnership controlled by his brother, outside of the blind trusts he created to avoid a conflict of interest.
…
Republican ethics lawyer Jan W. Baran also scored Frist for his handling of his trusts. “This shows Senator Frist’s capacity for clumsiness and bad timing,” Baran said. “He was trying to insulate himself from political charges and now finds himself trying to defend himself because of the transparency of his holdings.”
lonesome G,
Do’nt know much about Ron Paul, but for some time now I’ve been thinking that this apparent evolution into the look of fascism — the glorious red-neck, south will rise again, Ulster-Scott rebirth — fails over and over again to recognise the flip side of the culture of contradiction. And the flip side is, while they may love the military — they just want it for honor and parades — they may hate taxes, but really they hate government, ANY government, in their business, and they love their jesus, but they also love their vice. The Bush administration has all but tapped out the side beneficial to them, and now, they are walkin all over the other side of the personality — and they’re being burned by it as we speak. Katrina big gov spending (much to the blacks), loose immigration policy, crony SCOTUS nomination, and now back door gun control? W is burnining the base in search of a moderation that has long since evaporated. Ron Paul seems to sense this and is simply using it to his advantage.
Posted by: anna missed | Oct 13 2005 9:15 utc | 60
anna missed,
I think Ron Paul’s stand is principled. He was the Libertarian Presidential candidate in 1988. He opposed the Iraq War and Patriot Acts while supporting the tax cuts. He also warns against the power of corporations and their usurpation of govt. To him, Bush is not really a conservative. Most of his campaign contributions are from small donors around the country. I don’t share his views on many things, but there is a consistency in them that he acts upon. More on him here.
Regarding your larger point, I agree. Individually and collectively, we often become what we fear the most. Can’t do shadow work if you don’t believe you have one.
Posted by: lonesomeG | Oct 13 2005 12:39 utc | 61
Ron Paul seems to be a conservative. Even the blog people, never mind CorpsMedia, refuse to distinguish between conservatives and pseudoconservative right-wing revolutionaries.
Posted by: eftsoons | Oct 13 2005 12:41 utc | 62
Court Bars Extradition of Terror Suspect to U.S.
A court blocked the extradition of a Dutch terrorism suspect to the United States, saying his legal rights in U.S. custody could not be guaranteed.
The man, who is of Egyptian descent, identified only as M.A., is wanted on charges of fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud, apparently to help Al Qaeda.
The Hague District Court had sought guarantees that he would have access to a lawyer. It said it rejected a U.S. response that the request was “unwarranted and unnecessary.”
Abuse, Forced Labor Rampant in New Orleans Justice System
Brandon Toussaint, a black 18-year-old who spoke to TNS as he was waiting to be picked up and taken to perform a day of punishment, said he was arrested going from the downstairs of his apartment complex to another apartment upstairs. Police charged him with violating curfew and public intoxication, and Toussaint accepted forced labor rather than a transfer to Hunts, even though he said he had been wrongly arrested. He said he was worried that he would now have a criminal record, this being his first “offense.”
gotta keep those voter rolls clean.
Posted by: beq | Oct 13 2005 17:47 utc | 64
*****PAGING R’GIAP….****
Are you going to weigh in on Pinter’s Nobel? (He has a good website.)
Personally, I wish he’d rec’d it yrs. ago & Margaret Atwood got it this yr. for Handmaid’s Tale. I suspect that it’s not unrelated to his open opposition to Bu$hCo.
Posted by: jj | Oct 13 2005 21:10 utc | 65