Naomi Wolf
Posted March 3, 2009 05:23 PM (EST)
John Yoo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
...John Choon Yoo (born 1967 in Seoul[1][2]) is an American visiting professor of Law at the Chapman University School of Law in Orange County, CA...
Yeesh, that in iteself is scary to me. The OC has a lot of right-wing nutjobs.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Reading now
Click on book for wikipedia entry on the author.Robert Fisk on Ratzi.
...here we go again – was this not the same ex-Cardinal Ratzinger (anti-divorce, anti-gay and anti-aircraft, as I always remind myself) who delivered a lecture at Regensburg in 2006 in which he quoted from a Byzantine text which characterised the Prophet Mohamed as evil and inhuman?...
I'm not sure I want to read this book now, but I'm sorely lacking in historical information, so I may slog through it anyway.
Gah, why does my library branch stock so much right wing shit? Nobody checks out the Ann Coulter books, and her piles of books are higher than any of the liberal's piles of books in the local bookstores. What gives?
I guess those people are around, some bitch at Starbucks gave me shit about the "Not My President" t-shirt I was wearing around election time. Even though I was startled because the country was already looking for a change from Bush's destructive policies, I just smiled and told her to have a nice day.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Monday, March 02, 2009
Realistic people know what Obama is up against.
And how hard these fuckers are going to fight any of the changes our country needs to make.
1. Get the money out of politics.
(damn bankers)
2. Get the money out of the newz.
3. Get the military-industrial-congressional-complex monkey off of our backs. (see above also)
Then we might work towards a democracy (or back towards a democratic republic) instead of living in a Corporatocracy.
Brit Hume, pouty mouthpiece for the rich.
Why do poor people watch Fox News?
Oh, yeah only poor people with the IQ of acorn squash watch Fox News.
Santelli's rant backed by Koch (pronounced coke) money.
Update 11:32 AM 3/6/2009 Mmmmmm, jury's out on this one
1. Get the money out of politics.
(damn bankers)
2. Get the money out of the newz.
3. Get the military-industrial-congressional-complex monkey off of our backs. (see above also)
Then we might work towards a democracy (or back towards a democratic republic) instead of living in a Corporatocracy.
Brit Hume, pouty mouthpiece for the rich.
Why do poor people watch Fox News?
Oh, yeah only poor people with the IQ of acorn squash watch Fox News.
Santelli's rant backed by Koch (pronounced coke) money.
Update 11:32 AM 3/6/2009 Mmmmmm, jury's out on this one
Umm, just go read Danny's post today
click on title link
FBI saw mortgage fraud early
By PAUL SHUKOVSKY
P-I REPORTER
..."We knew that the mortgage-brokerage industry was corrupt," the first of the retired FBI officials told the Seattle P-I. "Where we would have gotten a sense of what was really going on was the point where the mortgage was sold knowing that it was a piece of dung and it would be turned into a security. But the agents with the expertise had been diverted to counterterrorism."...
SEC alerted about Allen Stanford in 2003: report
Fri Feb 27, 2009 6:35am EST
The more I hear about the SEC, the less surprised I am that Gary Aguirre was canned.
I still believe that he and his brother got scooted out of the way because they were trying to do the right thing for the people, and it pissed off the powerful and corrupt.
12,000 students, and it doesn't make any of the mainstream media?
Of course not, CNN is powered by big coal.
FBI saw mortgage fraud early
By PAUL SHUKOVSKY
P-I REPORTER
..."We knew that the mortgage-brokerage industry was corrupt," the first of the retired FBI officials told the Seattle P-I. "Where we would have gotten a sense of what was really going on was the point where the mortgage was sold knowing that it was a piece of dung and it would be turned into a security. But the agents with the expertise had been diverted to counterterrorism."...
SEC alerted about Allen Stanford in 2003: report
Fri Feb 27, 2009 6:35am EST
The more I hear about the SEC, the less surprised I am that Gary Aguirre was canned.
I still believe that he and his brother got scooted out of the way because they were trying to do the right thing for the people, and it pissed off the powerful and corrupt.
12,000 students, and it doesn't make any of the mainstream media?
Of course not, CNN is powered by big coal.
Sunday, March 01, 2009
Sunday morning musing
I woke up three times this morning with a headache. I didn't drink any alcohol and I'm drinking water like crazy. What is this? I rarely suffer headaches or aches and pains of any kind, really.
Anyway, the third time I woke up I was thinking of this article:
Friday, February 27, 2009
Denmark: Higher risk for infant mortality among Pakistanis, Somalis, Turks
...Pakistani, Somali and Turkish immigrant women in Denmark have a higher risk for stillborn children than Danish women, according to a new study by the University of Southern Denmark...
When I read this, I thought of the usual suspects, lousy prenatal care, lousy diet, poverty, ignorance, but this I did not expect:
...In Denmark, 40% of Pakistani couples are relatives....
So my head aches and my stomach is roiling. That is disgusting.
This is completely unrelated, and I don't know what search term brought it up, because I was looking for more than one source in English of the previously linked article. I didn't find it, but I'm completely fascinated by the following essay because I don't get the whole Jew hatred thing. People are people.
Editor’s note:
The following essay was originally published in the Hebrew journal Alpayim in 2005 and provoked an intense public debate. Its author, the renowned Israeli novelist A.B. Yehoshua, undertook a demanding task: to decipher the most disturbing riddle of Jewish history, to analyze and describe the quintessence of antisemitism in its various historical and cultural incarnations. Yehoshua’s thesis disputes the general intellectual consensus on antisemitism, which denies that there is any single or unique root to the phenomenon. He asserts that it is the unique structure of Jewish identity which has given birth to the venomous reaction of antisemitism—and he offers a way out of this impasse. Yehoshua’s position has outraged many but also given them much to think about. AZURE is proud to present an English translation of this essay, which embodies Zionist thought in its most daring form.
Azure no. 32, Spring 5768 / 2008
An Attempt to Identify the Root Cause of Antisemitism
By A. B. Yehoshua
A prominent Israeli author gets to the bottom of the world`s oldest hatred.
Anyway, the third time I woke up I was thinking of this article:
Friday, February 27, 2009
Denmark: Higher risk for infant mortality among Pakistanis, Somalis, Turks
...Pakistani, Somali and Turkish immigrant women in Denmark have a higher risk for stillborn children than Danish women, according to a new study by the University of Southern Denmark...
When I read this, I thought of the usual suspects, lousy prenatal care, lousy diet, poverty, ignorance, but this I did not expect:
...In Denmark, 40% of Pakistani couples are relatives....
So my head aches and my stomach is roiling. That is disgusting.
This is completely unrelated, and I don't know what search term brought it up, because I was looking for more than one source in English of the previously linked article. I didn't find it, but I'm completely fascinated by the following essay because I don't get the whole Jew hatred thing. People are people.
Editor’s note:
The following essay was originally published in the Hebrew journal Alpayim in 2005 and provoked an intense public debate. Its author, the renowned Israeli novelist A.B. Yehoshua, undertook a demanding task: to decipher the most disturbing riddle of Jewish history, to analyze and describe the quintessence of antisemitism in its various historical and cultural incarnations. Yehoshua’s thesis disputes the general intellectual consensus on antisemitism, which denies that there is any single or unique root to the phenomenon. He asserts that it is the unique structure of Jewish identity which has given birth to the venomous reaction of antisemitism—and he offers a way out of this impasse. Yehoshua’s position has outraged many but also given them much to think about. AZURE is proud to present an English translation of this essay, which embodies Zionist thought in its most daring form.
Azure no. 32, Spring 5768 / 2008
An Attempt to Identify the Root Cause of Antisemitism
By A. B. Yehoshua
A prominent Israeli author gets to the bottom of the world`s oldest hatred.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Hillary jumps right into the hornet's nest on first overseas trip
Clinton Embarks on First Middle East Diplomatic Trip
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 28, 2009; 12:40 PM
Jewish Leaders Blast Clinton Over Israel Criticism
Feb 27, 2009 9:34 am US/Eastern
Zuckerman, Lawmakers, Local Jews Say Secretary Of State Not The Hillary Clinton They Used To Know
Hillary Pressuring Israel To Speed Up Aid To Gaza
Hamas rejects U.S. demand to recognize Israel
chinaview2009-02-28 20:19:34
Palestinian groups set out plan for reconciliation
The Jordan Times
Sunday, March 1st, 2009, 11:33 pm ET
...Clinton is to visit Israel and the West Bank following the Gaza aid meeting in the Egyptian Red Sea resort town of Sharm El Sheikh.
Talks on captive soldier
A senior Israeli negotiator held talks in Cairo on Thursday on efforts to free a soldier captured by Palestinian fighters in Gaza more than two years ago, an Israeli official said...
...The Islamist movement Hamas has demanded the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, many of them implicated in attacks against Israelis, in exchange for Shalit....
...Air strikes
Israeli air strikes hit smuggling tunnels between Hamas-run Gaza and Egypt on Thursday after fighters in the enclave fired two rockets into the Jewish state, the army and witnesses said.
The afternoon strikes did not result in any casualties, witnesses said.
They came after two rockets fired from Gaza struck inside Israel without causing casualties, the army said.
The incidents marked the latest violence to rock tenuous ceasefires that Israel and Hamas announced on January 18, ending a 22-day war in the coastal strip that killed more than 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.
Anti-Semitism In Araby
To achieve Arab-Israeli peace will mean dealing with a civil society on one side that is by no means civil.
Josef Joffe
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Mar 9 2009
Bernard Lewis' What Went Wrong?
Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response is what I' m reading right now.
Juan Cole wrote an essay on it, criticising it and then went on to write Engaging the Muslim World , which I have not read. Click on the book for another review.
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 28, 2009; 12:40 PM
Jewish Leaders Blast Clinton Over Israel Criticism
Feb 27, 2009 9:34 am US/Eastern
Zuckerman, Lawmakers, Local Jews Say Secretary Of State Not The Hillary Clinton They Used To Know
Hillary Pressuring Israel To Speed Up Aid To Gaza
Hamas rejects U.S. demand to recognize Israel
chinaview2009-02-28 20:19:34
Palestinian groups set out plan for reconciliation
The Jordan Times
Sunday, March 1st, 2009, 11:33 pm ET
...Clinton is to visit Israel and the West Bank following the Gaza aid meeting in the Egyptian Red Sea resort town of Sharm El Sheikh.
Talks on captive soldier
A senior Israeli negotiator held talks in Cairo on Thursday on efforts to free a soldier captured by Palestinian fighters in Gaza more than two years ago, an Israeli official said...
...The Islamist movement Hamas has demanded the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, many of them implicated in attacks against Israelis, in exchange for Shalit....
...Air strikes
Israeli air strikes hit smuggling tunnels between Hamas-run Gaza and Egypt on Thursday after fighters in the enclave fired two rockets into the Jewish state, the army and witnesses said.
The afternoon strikes did not result in any casualties, witnesses said.
They came after two rockets fired from Gaza struck inside Israel without causing casualties, the army said.
The incidents marked the latest violence to rock tenuous ceasefires that Israel and Hamas announced on January 18, ending a 22-day war in the coastal strip that killed more than 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.
Anti-Semitism In Araby
To achieve Arab-Israeli peace will mean dealing with a civil society on one side that is by no means civil.
Josef Joffe
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Mar 9 2009
Bernard Lewis' What Went Wrong?
Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response is what I' m reading right now.
Juan Cole wrote an essay on it, criticising it and then went on to write Engaging the Muslim World , which I have not read. Click on the book for another review.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
San Diego politics
By the time I was 25 years old I was truly frightened of politics in San Diego.
With good reason.
Do you think Dukie was an anomaly here?
If you do then you don't know the county I was born and raised in.
First there's the CIA.
CIA Official Challenging Competence of Foggo's Mistress Got Fired -- and Other Misadventures
By Don Bauder Posted February 24, 2009, 8:51 p.m.
RSS Send to a Friend E-mail the Editor
...He was the executive director of the C.I.A. from 2004 to 2006 -- one of the top positions at the agency. He steered contracts to his government contractor chum Brent Wilkes, with whom he had gone to high school (Hilltop), and college (SDSU). Wilkes treated Foggo to lavish meals and vacations. Foggo's favoritism cost the C.I.A. $2 million, according to the memorandum...
Feds: Misconduct by CIA's Foggo spanned decades
1 day ago
Report: Goss Knew Of Foggo's Shady Past
By Zachary Roth - February 25, 2009, 5:23PM
The Drugs
Dark Alliance San Diego
Welcome to the Drug War ... pick a card, any card
Posted by Bill Conroy - June 24, 2007 at 7:00 pm
The Republicans who consistently want something for nothing.
A Proposal: A New Tax for a Concession
The Scams
Scam Diego
The things they don't want the tourists to know
San Onofre's Problems Continue
With good reason.
Do you think Dukie was an anomaly here?
If you do then you don't know the county I was born and raised in.
First there's the CIA.
CIA Official Challenging Competence of Foggo's Mistress Got Fired -- and Other Misadventures
By Don Bauder Posted February 24, 2009, 8:51 p.m.
RSS Send to a Friend E-mail the Editor
...He was the executive director of the C.I.A. from 2004 to 2006 -- one of the top positions at the agency. He steered contracts to his government contractor chum Brent Wilkes, with whom he had gone to high school (Hilltop), and college (SDSU). Wilkes treated Foggo to lavish meals and vacations. Foggo's favoritism cost the C.I.A. $2 million, according to the memorandum...
Feds: Misconduct by CIA's Foggo spanned decades
1 day ago
Report: Goss Knew Of Foggo's Shady Past
By Zachary Roth - February 25, 2009, 5:23PM
The Drugs
Dark Alliance San Diego
Welcome to the Drug War ... pick a card, any card
Posted by Bill Conroy - June 24, 2007 at 7:00 pm
The Republicans who consistently want something for nothing.
A Proposal: A New Tax for a Concession
The Scams
Scam Diego
The things they don't want the tourists to know
San Onofre's Problems Continue
Tomgram makes sense again
Tomgram: Chip Ward, The Department of Homegrown Security
After the Green Economy, Green Security
How to Build Resilient Communities in a Chaotic World
By Chip Ward
posted February 26, 2009 10:56 am
...Today, "homeland security" and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), that unwieldy amalgam of 13 agencies created by the Bush administration in 2002, continue to express the potent, all-encompassing fears and assumptions of our last president's Global War on Terror. Foreign enemies may indeed be plotting to attack us, but, believe it or not (and increasing numbers of people, watching their homes, money, and jobs melt away are coming to believe it), that's probably neither the worst, nor the most dangerous thing in store for us....
...If you're thinking about what the greening of homeland security might actually mean, look no further than our food supply...
...There are enough vacant lots, backyards, and rooftops to host many thousands of gardens, either created by voluntary groups or by small-scale entrepreneurs. Urban farming could even go big. Columbia University professor Dickson Despommier recently unveiled his vision of a "vertical farm," a 30-story tower right in the middle of an urban landscape, that could grow enough food to feed 50,000 people in the surrounding neighborhood...
...Ideally, the greening of homeland security would mean more than pamphlets on planting, but would provide actual seed money -- and not just for seeds either, but for building greenhouses, distributing tools, and starting farmers' markets where growers and consumers can connect. How about raiding the Department of Homeland Security's gluttonous budget for "homegrown" grants to communities that want to get started? ...
...In the U.S., "post-carbon" working groups are beginning to sprout across the country...
Right, they are sprouting amongst the people because they are going around the Now 4 Climate Change Lobbyists for Every Member of Congress (from Energy company interests)
by Brian Merchant, Brooklyn, New York on 02.26.09
Another topic, a hot one-- Bobby Jindal. Bringin' home the Bacon.
Jindal scored big in the pork contest. He, sometimes in concert with other lawmakers, ended up bringing home $97,913,200 in bacon. That put him at the number 14 spot in Taxpayers for Common Sense's annual tally of the most successful appropriators in the House.
After the Green Economy, Green Security
How to Build Resilient Communities in a Chaotic World
By Chip Ward
posted February 26, 2009 10:56 am
...Today, "homeland security" and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), that unwieldy amalgam of 13 agencies created by the Bush administration in 2002, continue to express the potent, all-encompassing fears and assumptions of our last president's Global War on Terror. Foreign enemies may indeed be plotting to attack us, but, believe it or not (and increasing numbers of people, watching their homes, money, and jobs melt away are coming to believe it), that's probably neither the worst, nor the most dangerous thing in store for us....
...If you're thinking about what the greening of homeland security might actually mean, look no further than our food supply...
...There are enough vacant lots, backyards, and rooftops to host many thousands of gardens, either created by voluntary groups or by small-scale entrepreneurs. Urban farming could even go big. Columbia University professor Dickson Despommier recently unveiled his vision of a "vertical farm," a 30-story tower right in the middle of an urban landscape, that could grow enough food to feed 50,000 people in the surrounding neighborhood...
...Ideally, the greening of homeland security would mean more than pamphlets on planting, but would provide actual seed money -- and not just for seeds either, but for building greenhouses, distributing tools, and starting farmers' markets where growers and consumers can connect. How about raiding the Department of Homeland Security's gluttonous budget for "homegrown" grants to communities that want to get started? ...
...In the U.S., "post-carbon" working groups are beginning to sprout across the country...
Right, they are sprouting amongst the people because they are going around the Now 4 Climate Change Lobbyists for Every Member of Congress (from Energy company interests)
by Brian Merchant, Brooklyn, New York on 02.26.09
Another topic, a hot one-- Bobby Jindal. Bringin' home the Bacon.
Jindal scored big in the pork contest. He, sometimes in concert with other lawmakers, ended up bringing home $97,913,200 in bacon. That put him at the number 14 spot in Taxpayers for Common Sense's annual tally of the most successful appropriators in the House.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
This is why I don't use illegal drugs.
Too many people are dying . Yeah, I know it's a long article. Tough shit. Read it anyway and don't excuse yourself if you just smoke a little dope. Unless you grow it yourself, chances are it came through Mexico, or was grown in one of our National Forests that are under the control of Mexican gangs.
Do yourself a favor and don't leave a comment about a California State Assemblyman who introduced a bill to legalize pot. It took how long to get to the point where they could vote on a Budget? Oh, yeah, it took 106 days.
The GOP is not the only problem here.
Medical marijuana is already legal in California.
Fuck
The
DEA
And their big fatty Federal Budget
Actually the DEA budget is nothing compared to the $$$ these monsters make selling drugs. Come on, 1.4 billion to fight a 14 billion dollar trade?
Do yourself a favor and don't leave a comment about a California State Assemblyman who introduced a bill to legalize pot. It took how long to get to the point where they could vote on a Budget? Oh, yeah, it took 106 days.
The GOP is not the only problem here.
Medical marijuana is already legal in California.
Fuck
The
DEA
And their big fatty Federal Budget
Actually the DEA budget is nothing compared to the $$$ these monsters make selling drugs. Come on, 1.4 billion to fight a 14 billion dollar trade?
Update 8:36 PM 2/28/2009 Norm Stamper says that the War on Drugs is costing aroung 70 billion dollars a year. Jeeeemeny Christmas, what a waste. I'll bet my 14 billion dollar number is only the Mexican trade, or something.
Update 7:31 PM 3/1/2009 40 billion dollar, 230 US city trade And I don't care if gun manufacturers are making money. Fuck the NRA.
Survey says, ding! ding! ding!
The drug lords that decapitate and murder thousands will win because Americans are stupid shmucks who won't stop using their product. Hope your little bag of pot is worth six thousand lives to ya.
The question is which gang will sell them? 
Three of my favorites write about Obama's congressional address
Obama’s Big Speech: Was It Optimistic/Realistic Enough?
first,from the News Dissector, who tells us to go read what Greg Palast wrote before Obama spoke. Ok, no problem.
Greg Palast Exclusively for BuzzFlash: Damn that Lincoln. Abe's to blame for Jindal
02/24/2009 - 4:28pm. Guest Contribution
Getting Warmer
Posted on Feb 25, 2009
By Robert Scheer
I doofed up last night and didn't watch the address till this morning. Frankly, I find myself hitting the rewind button sometimes because I get distracted by thoughts like "Wow, it is nice to be proud of my president, he's intelligent, thoughtful, and oh wow, wouldja look at that, his beautiful wife just got a standing ovation...shit! what was he saying?"
Update3:44 PM 2/25/2009 Whooooo, boy, Maddow's response to the Republican response to Obama's speech cracks me up--
Update 11:20 AM 3/17/2009 Bush faces footwear protest in Canada
1 hour ago
OTTAWA (AFP) — Canadians amassed shoes to throw in protest against George W. Bush on Tuesday when he gives his first post-presidential speech in western Canada's oil patch.
first,from the News Dissector, who tells us to go read what Greg Palast wrote before Obama spoke. Ok, no problem.
Greg Palast Exclusively for BuzzFlash: Damn that Lincoln. Abe's to blame for Jindal
02/24/2009 - 4:28pm. Guest Contribution
Getting Warmer
Posted on Feb 25, 2009
By Robert Scheer
I doofed up last night and didn't watch the address till this morning. Frankly, I find myself hitting the rewind button sometimes because I get distracted by thoughts like "Wow, it is nice to be proud of my president, he's intelligent, thoughtful, and oh wow, wouldja look at that, his beautiful wife just got a standing ovation...shit! what was he saying?"
Update3:44 PM 2/25/2009 Whooooo, boy, Maddow's response to the Republican response to Obama's speech cracks me up--
Ok now that you've smiled slyly, go get yourself a belly laugh at Tome of the Unknown Writer's response to Jindal.
Oh my God, you lucky Canucks, you get to kick off W's speaking tour career.
Bwaaa haaa haaa haaa haa
The first speech will be March 17 in Calgary, Alberta. The Canadian event, to be held in a convention center before a largely business audience, is being promoted as “A conversation with George W. Bush,” and is scheduled to last from noon to 2 p.m. It is closed to the press.
Bwaaa haaa haaa haaa haa
The first speech will be March 17 in Calgary, Alberta. The Canadian event, to be held in a convention center before a largely business audience, is being promoted as “A conversation with George W. Bush,” and is scheduled to last from noon to 2 p.m. It is closed to the press.
Update 11:20 AM 3/17/2009 Bush faces footwear protest in Canada
1 hour ago
OTTAWA (AFP) — Canadians amassed shoes to throw in protest against George W. Bush on Tuesday when he gives his first post-presidential speech in western Canada's oil patch.
Are US bases in Iraq keeping Israel from attacking Iran?
A Choice Between Peace and Peril
By Chris Hedges
Feb 23, 2009
I've never thought that there might be a good reason for those bases in Iraq, but this article made me wonder. Click on the title link and read it or the rest of this post won't make any sense.
Okay, we good? Well alright, let's continue.
I know that the Iranian people and the American people do not want to go to war with each other, and certainly not by being led into it by paranoid Israeli warhawks.
Note that I did not say that Israel doesn't have a right to be paranoid. Most of their neighbors hate them. That's a whole nother blog post and I'm not going there now.
I don't claim to understand the history and the byzantine politics of the Middle East , however, this book by Trita Parsi was somewhat helpful.
Over all the history, the religions, the politics, the peoples , whew, I could read non-stop for years and still not have a clue.
Just the history and peoples of Iran and how she interacts with her neighbors is complicated.
Like the writer of the "Choice Between Peace and Peril" article, I'm cautiously optimistic that Obama will make the right choice. Hopefully he hasn't been in Washington long enough to have his common sense clouded by the ridiculous arrogance in a bubble that resides there.
By Chris Hedges
Feb 23, 2009
I've never thought that there might be a good reason for those bases in Iraq, but this article made me wonder. Click on the title link and read it or the rest of this post won't make any sense.
Okay, we good? Well alright, let's continue.
I know that the Iranian people and the American people do not want to go to war with each other, and certainly not by being led into it by paranoid Israeli warhawks.
Note that I did not say that Israel doesn't have a right to be paranoid. Most of their neighbors hate them. That's a whole nother blog post and I'm not going there now.
I don't claim to understand the history and the byzantine politics of the Middle East , however, this book by Trita Parsi was somewhat helpful.
Over all the history, the religions, the politics, the peoples , whew, I could read non-stop for years and still not have a clue.
Just the history and peoples of Iran and how she interacts with her neighbors is complicated.
Like the writer of the "Choice Between Peace and Peril" article, I'm cautiously optimistic that Obama will make the right choice. Hopefully he hasn't been in Washington long enough to have his common sense clouded by the ridiculous arrogance in a bubble that resides there.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Money
American Right Ditches States, Embraces Corporations
hat tip GNN
Polls: Americans Want Republicans To Drop Ideology And Work On Obama’s Priorities
The News Dissector takes on CNBC
And uh, how's that war we're paying big bucks for going?
MOSUL, Iraq (AFP) — Four US soldiers were wounded and a local interpreter killed in a shooting at an Iraqi police station in the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday, the US military said...
...The latest incident was the third of its kind in Mosul, one of the country's most restive cities, involving American soldiers and Iraqi security forces in just over a year....
Monday, February 23, 2009
McDonald's Restaurants
As if working there as a teenager (10% discount for employees, whoo hooo) wasn't bad enough, Super Size Me (2004) almost made me quit eating there forever.
This is the final nail in the coffin. This happened to a McDonald's employee and good Samaritan.
News Report - regarding Workers Comp lawsuit (denied)
Hat tip to AmericaBlog
More from Daily Kos
This is the final nail in the coffin. This happened to a McDonald's employee and good Samaritan.
News Report - regarding Workers Comp lawsuit (denied)
Hat tip to AmericaBlog
More from Daily Kos
Waiter Rant
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was funny, sweet, enlightening, and interesting. I've been reading the author's blog for about three years. I'm sure I'm not the only female reader who developed a little crush on "The Waiter." I understand his curiosity about what makes people tick. My friends laugh when I imagine aloud what conversations may have been going on around us, or perhaps in a another car. It's a customer service thing, you learn to appreciate the 80% of people who are really nice people, and you mercilessly make fun of the rest or you're dead in the water. Without a sense of humor, dealing with the public is impossible.
I've never waited tables, but I grew up in a suburb full of pretentious assholes so I know what he's talking about. You're surprised that I never waited tables? Uh, no, I didn't think so.
I did work foodservice for years. I used to get in trouble for working too slow. I wasn't working slow, I was making sure that the area that I worked in was CLEAN, which takes time. When the person that had my job before me didn't give a shit that made the first few days on a new job really hard for me and I'm sure it seemed like I was really slow. It takes time to get years of greasy stuff off of cutting boards, and out of refrigerators, sinks, and out of porcelain drainage areas. Many times my hands peeled from using bleach and grease cutting agents.
I never put out food that I wouldn't eat, I quit places that expected me to do that.
There were times when I wondered if the managers needed a new eyeglass prescription, or if they had no sense of smell? There was one place that was so bad that I didn't even start working, I just bailed, gagging on my way out the door. In this county you have to have a foodhandlers card and the health department is supposed to check the place.
Pfffft.
I'm sure it's gotten worse since Bush and his deregulation happy shitheads took over.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Oscars
The Oscars are on tonight. This year I haven't seen anything that is nominated.
The only movies that looked remotely interesting to me were Revolutionary Road, and Milk.
Slumdog Millionaire I will check out once it comes out on DVD, to see what all the buzz is about, but I fully intend on watching it with the remote handy, because Asian music grates on my last nerve, this still cracks me up three years later.
Seth Grogan
Who's fucking dope dealer is he? To say that his work is underappreciated by me is too kind. He gives me the heebee jeebees, and so does Ben Stiller.
Update 9:41 PM 2/22/2009 Ok. They're over. Slumdog Millionaire swept them. It looks a little more interesting to me than it did before, knowing the whole thing isn't some Bollywood romance dance film.
The only movies that looked remotely interesting to me were Revolutionary Road, and Milk.
Slumdog Millionaire I will check out once it comes out on DVD, to see what all the buzz is about, but I fully intend on watching it with the remote handy, because Asian music grates on my last nerve, this still cracks me up three years later.
Seth Grogan
Who's fucking dope dealer is he? To say that his work is underappreciated by me is too kind. He gives me the heebee jeebees, and so does Ben Stiller.
Update 9:41 PM 2/22/2009 Ok. They're over. Slumdog Millionaire swept them. It looks a little more interesting to me than it did before, knowing the whole thing isn't some Bollywood romance dance film.
American East
Hmm. How do I describe this film?
It's about Arab Americans trying not to end up in Gitmo after 9/11, and live out the American Dream. It's more brave than most of the absolute crap that comes out of Hollywood. Still, I'm so jaded that the lovey-dovey stuff is a hard sell for me, but then again my friend is still schooling me on life in Los Angeles. I lived there as a kid, but I was a kid. San Diego has it's quirks but believe me, they are different than LA. I recognized Sarah Shahi from other stuff I've seen her in, but never read the bio on IMDB about her before. I remember cringing at her Mexican accent, but the fact that one of her parents is Spanish just blew me away. Really? I can tell the difference between a Spanish and Mexican accent and frankly hers is neither, and it's Gawd-awful. Not surprisingly she's related to some Shah in Iran. Ahhhhhh, Grasshopper, the accent suffer from snobbery. I'm betting Egyptians aren't buying the accent in this movie either, but she is a decent actress and quite beautiful.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
PBS NOW covers sexual harrassment of teens on part-time jobs
Week of 2.20.09
Is Your Daughter Safe at Work?
A shocking statistic—teenagers are in more danger from sexual predators at their part time jobs than through the Internet. According to one estimate, 200,000 teenagers are assaulted at the workplace each year. It's a vastly underreported phenomenon, but some brave young women are stepping up publicly to tell their stories.
Am I surprised that part of this story was filmed in San Diego?
Dude, this is a military town. I was born and raised here, nothing surprises me. Probably 90% of the cops here have military experience It's why some kids join the military, so they can get MP (military police) experience and then go back to their hometown and got to the police academy there. Does this particular case involve any ex-military personnell? I don't know. I'm just saying I know what I know and I've seen what I've seen and it ain't "all good."
Is Your Daughter Safe at Work?
A shocking statistic—teenagers are in more danger from sexual predators at their part time jobs than through the Internet. According to one estimate, 200,000 teenagers are assaulted at the workplace each year. It's a vastly underreported phenomenon, but some brave young women are stepping up publicly to tell their stories.
Am I surprised that part of this story was filmed in San Diego?
Dude, this is a military town. I was born and raised here, nothing surprises me. Probably 90% of the cops here have military experience It's why some kids join the military, so they can get MP (military police) experience and then go back to their hometown and got to the police academy there. Does this particular case involve any ex-military personnell? I don't know. I'm just saying I know what I know and I've seen what I've seen and it ain't "all good."
Friday, February 20, 2009
Rachel Maddow explains my nickname for Alberto Gonzales
My nickname for Alberto Gonzales is "No Se Nada Torquemada."
"No Se Nada" ( pronounced 'no say nahdah') means "I don't know nothing." And Torquemada rhymes so well, I couldn't resist.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
"No Se Nada" ( pronounced 'no say nahdah') means "I don't know nothing." And Torquemada rhymes so well, I couldn't resist.
Friday squirrel blogging
This bank is usually just dry and dusty. That's how I spot the critters. They kick up dust. It's been raining in San Diego, so it's temporarily green.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Sacred Rage by Robin Wright
I'm almost done with the original 1986 version. Click on the book for an article the author co-wrote in 1997. I hope Hillary Clinton has read it.
What I find so distressing is that the reasons for the pull to embrace Islamic fundamentalist militancy have not been ameliorated. The grinding poverty and low literacy rates, the high unemployment,the westernized leadership's disparity of wealth in majority Islamic countries are still there. The push for independence from the globalized world-wide economy is something that leaders in majority Muslim countries must deal with.
So the cheapest short-term strategies for the US and Saudi Arabia have not worked is what I'm trying to say. It didn't work in Iran in 1953, either, and guess what? It still ain't working.
And if you read any of the links so far, this is not some right-wing hate spew blaming the religion of Islam. Yeah, I personally believe that some of the problems lie in the way that fundamentalist whack-jobs interpret the Q'uran and the same goes for the Torah and the Bible. (See my religion sucks posts, they're some of my most popular.) Western countries histories of colonization are coming home to roost.
A great lady used to tell me "Nothing changes if nothing changes." Well duh.
Hassan al-Turabi in Sudan, is covered in the book.
Sheikh Abd al-Aziz ibn Abd Allah ibn Baaz is in the book.
And 30 years later here: "Though Bin Baz is now dead, his fanatical fatwas continue to be treated as authoritative by the Saudi government." (literally, here in San Diego mosques)
The Saudi hate spew disseminated in the US and UK has only been adressed in Saudi Arabia in the last month.
A woman appointed to the head of girls education, and some variety in your Sunni Islam indoctrination. Guess they exported enough hatred of non-Wahhabis that the birds came home to roost. They have, however had years to spread the Wahhabi love all over the world.
The Egyptian blind sheikh has been fomenting Islamic fundamentalist hatred since the 70's. He's in jail in S. Carolina after being convicted in the 1993 WTC bombing. He's in the book. So is Hosni Mubarak.
Jew hatred looks like it's still alive and well in Iran today as Kerry visits Gaza. That's a pretty good indication to me that support for (terrorists or) the oppressed Shia's is still strong in Iran. I don't see it written that leaders in the Muslim world use the suffering of the Palestinians to divert attention from their own failures, but I've wondered about it. It's a theory of mine.
We in America voted for hope and change. People are people. My guess is that people in the majority Muslim nations would too, if given the opportunity. How about we quit bombing the shit out of them, And listen to their greivances .
I didn't say self- flagellate, I said listen.
California legislature approves budget bill
By JUDY LIN – 42 minutes ago
Gee, it only took 106 days.
Update 3:42 PM 2/19/2009
JOEL MATHIS: California's story is an old one: People want all the services that government provides. They just don't want to pay for it.
The Golden State hobbled itself in 1978 when voters passed Proposition 13, putting a hard cap on property taxes, a significant source of government revenue in most states. Which would've been fine, except that demand for government services kept growing by leaps and bounds.
Gee, it only took 106 days.
Update 3:42 PM 2/19/2009
JOEL MATHIS: California's story is an old one: People want all the services that government provides. They just don't want to pay for it.
The Golden State hobbled itself in 1978 when voters passed Proposition 13, putting a hard cap on property taxes, a significant source of government revenue in most states. Which would've been fine, except that demand for government services kept growing by leaps and bounds.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
CA GOP
stands for California's
Goddamned
Obstructionist
Pricks
and oh look, they replaced one whiny titty babies leaderwith another.
Fuck these RepugnanThuglican assholes, as a California voter I don't WANT open primaries.
Ornery Bastard has an inspiring post over at his place on the National Goddamned Obstructionist Pricks...
Goddamned
Obstructionist
Pricks
and oh look, they replaced one whiny titty babies leaderwith another.
Fuck these RepugnanThuglican assholes, as a California voter I don't WANT open primaries.
Ornery Bastard has an inspiring post over at his place on the National Goddamned Obstructionist Pricks...
Avoiding Another Cold War
Posted on Feb 17, 2009
By Scott Ritter
...Eliminating missile defense would make the talk of strategic nuclear reductions more realistic...
...The real danger from Russia lies not in any genuine expansionistic tendency, but rather its reactions to perceived provocation on the part of the U.S. and NATO...(title link)
Russia and Ukraine pipeline politics.
By Scott Ritter
...Eliminating missile defense would make the talk of strategic nuclear reductions more realistic...
...The real danger from Russia lies not in any genuine expansionistic tendency, but rather its reactions to perceived provocation on the part of the U.S. and NATO...(title link)
Russia and Ukraine pipeline politics.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Davos Debt & Denial
In an age of illusion, the guise of truth is often heresy
By Darryl Schoon
February 15, 2009
Antal E. Fekete
No Credit for Bankers
Inside the Meltdown
Tonight at ten on PBS. Update 3:35 PM 2/18/2009 I learned nothing from this show.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned
Heh, got his, the arrogant dickhead. Rich guys. Huh.
U.S. Intel Chief's Shocking Warning: Wall Street's Disaster Has Spawned Our Greatest Terrorist Threat
By Chris Hedges, Truthdig. Posted February 17, 2009.
The Director of National Intelligence argued that Wall Street, rather than Islamic jihad, has produced our most dangerous terrorists.
Well, as long as they can scrounge up the $ to keep birth control clinics open it might not get really bad here. World wide:
...some 50 million workers will lose their jobs worldwide this year.
Is another story altogether. The author of this story wrote another one over at Truthdig. I think he likes scaring the shit out of people.
Update 3:46 PM 2/18/2009 Embedded Business Press Misses Story of the Century
Rory O'Connor, Danny Schechter's colleague and business partner at the Globalvision has a great post on the financial press.
By Darryl Schoon
February 15, 2009
Antal E. Fekete
No Credit for Bankers
Inside the Meltdown
Tonight at ten on PBS. Update 3:35 PM 2/18/2009 I learned nothing from this show.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned
Heh, got his, the arrogant dickhead. Rich guys. Huh.
U.S. Intel Chief's Shocking Warning: Wall Street's Disaster Has Spawned Our Greatest Terrorist Threat
By Chris Hedges, Truthdig. Posted February 17, 2009.
The Director of National Intelligence argued that Wall Street, rather than Islamic jihad, has produced our most dangerous terrorists.
Well, as long as they can scrounge up the $ to keep birth control clinics open it might not get really bad here. World wide:
...some 50 million workers will lose their jobs worldwide this year.
Is another story altogether. The author of this story wrote another one over at Truthdig. I think he likes scaring the shit out of people.
Update 3:46 PM 2/18/2009 Embedded Business Press Misses Story of the Century
Rory O'Connor, Danny Schechter's colleague and business partner at the Globalvision has a great post on the financial press.
Monday, February 16, 2009
WTF Chuck
WTF? Everybody's posting this silly thing, gotta go, I'm off to watch Chuck.
My Liberal Identity:
You are a Peace Patroller, also known as an anti-war liberal or neo-hippie. You believe in putting an end to American imperial conquest, stopping wars that have already been lost, and supporting our troops by bringing them home.
California's GOP lawmakers should do the budget math
George Skelton:
Capitol Journal
To avoid raising taxes and still balance the books in Sacramento, you'd have to virtually shut down state government.
George Skelton, Capitol Journal
February 16, 2009
From Sacramento -- The math seems pretty simple. But apparently it's too rigorous for many Republican politicians.
To avoid raising taxes and still balance the books in Sacramento, you'd have to virtually shut down state government.
In order to pass a state budget we need 2/3 of the legislators to vote for it. According to a head count, one more Republican is needed to vote for it in order to get it passed, so that's holding up the vote
I wonder if any of these idiot Republicans wants a foster child, but no money to take care of the child? The obstructionist assholes make enough to do it without compensation, fuck 'em.
Capitol Journal
To avoid raising taxes and still balance the books in Sacramento, you'd have to virtually shut down state government.
George Skelton, Capitol Journal
February 16, 2009
From Sacramento -- The math seems pretty simple. But apparently it's too rigorous for many Republican politicians.
To avoid raising taxes and still balance the books in Sacramento, you'd have to virtually shut down state government.
In order to pass a state budget we need 2/3 of the legislators to vote for it. According to a head count, one more Republican is needed to vote for it in order to get it passed, so that's holding up the vote
I wonder if any of these idiot Republicans wants a foster child, but no money to take care of the child? The obstructionist assholes make enough to do it without compensation, fuck 'em.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Cut the military budget I & II
Cut the Military Budget--I
By Christopher Hayes
This article appeared in the March 2, 2009 edition of The Nation.
February 11, 2009
The cardinal rule of bargaining is that the first number you propose should never be the number you actually think you can get, and nobody knows this better than the Defense Department. In September the Army Times reported that the Pentagon was preparing to box the new president in to a major increase in military spending by drawing up a budget before the election had been decided. The number it eventually leaked was $584 billion, a whopping increase of $68.6 billion over last year. It was kind of like telling the new boss that your old boss had already agreed to give you a $100,000 raise. In any other context, the sheer hubris would get you fired or laughed out of the room.
But the Pentagon budget is ruled by the appropriations equivalent of quantum physics, in which the normal rules of constraint do not apply. We still don't know how much the Obama administration is planning to give the Pentagon--the announcement of the number has been postponed--but reports indicate the number will likely be $527 billion, around an 8 percent increase instead of the 12 percent the Pentagon requested.
Despite that fact, propagandists like neoconservative Robert Kagan are already crying foul, arguing that the increase is insufficient and--more insidious--will cost jobs at a time when we're losing half a million a month. Military spending "is exactly the kind of expenditure that can have an immediate impact on the economy," Kagan recently wrote in the Washington Post, and any cuts would be a sign to the world that "the American retreat has begun."
"It seems like kind of the game they play every year," Miriam Pemberton, a research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, told me when I asked her about the rumored budget numbers. "The Pentagon puts out this hugely inflated number, and then it turns out that the 'cut' is from that hugely inflated number, so the Pentagon still wins. The number is $40 billion more than we spent last year."
You may think Barack Obama has the toughest job in Washington, but for my money it's Pemberton. Since 1989, when she left academia with a PhD in English, she's worked as an advocate for reining in the military-industrial complex in favor of a broader, less militarized approach to international security. Each year she and former Reagan Pentagon official and Center for American Progress senior fellow Lawrence Korb write an alternate Unified Security Budget. Their 2009 version identified $61 billion in cuts to military programs that could be made "with no sacrifice to our security."
Cutting the military budget has been a staple of the progressive agenda for decades, of course, but it's worth putting the budget numbers in context to highlight how out of control things have gotten across the Potomac in Arlington. Everybody knows that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been mind-bogglingly expensive--about a trillion-dollar bonfire. Less noticed has been the skyrocketing of non-war-specific Pentagon funding. Since 2001 the regular Pentagon budget has increased by 77 percent, while cost overruns in weapons systems have ballooned to $300 billion. "We've never been perfect there," says Korb. "But it has really gotten out of hand in the last eight years."
And those numbers don't fully capture the explosion in security spending because they don't capture security spending outside the Defense Department budget, in the departments of Justice, Energy, Homeland Security or the NSA and the CIA.
"Congress is not set up to consider the overall balance of what we're spending our money on," says Pemberton, who notes that the ratio of military to nonmilitary foreign engagement spending is eighteen to one. "Even the secretary of defense says this imbalance is not good for our security."
Indeed, over the past year Defense Secretary Robert Gates has made a series of speeches about shifting resources toward nonmilitary international engagement, as well as reducing spending on outdated weapons systems. "The spigot of defense spending that opened on 9/11 is closing," he told senators on the Armed Services Committee in January. "The economic crisis and resulting budget pressures," he said, would provide "one of those rare chances...to critically and ruthlessly separate appetites from real requirements, those things that are desirable in a perfect world from those things that are truly needed in light of the threats America faces and the missions we are likely to undertake in the years ahead."
Obama expressed similar sentiments on the campaign trail: "I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending," he said in a campaign video. "I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems."
Most recently, Rahm Emanuel hinted on Meet the Press that the administration might have the Pentagon in its sights as part of its promise to trim fat from the budget. "We have about $300 billion in cost overruns," he said. "That must be addressed, and we will be addressing it."
Sensing that the Obama administration has laid the rhetorical groundwork for a significant reduction of the inflated military budget, the military lobby has already launched a pre-emptive strike, pooling resources to fund a $2 million PR campaign arguing against cuts.
When in October Congressman Barney Frank called for a 25 percent reduction in the Pentagon's budget [see Frank's Comment on this page], GOP lawmakers went apoplectic, issuing a string of hysterical press releases attacking Frank as "reckless" and the proposed cuts as a "grossly irresponsible," "draconian" attempt to "gut national security."
The first concrete test of the strength of the military lobby and its allies in Congress is the battle over the fate of the F-22 Raptor fighter jet. Military experts agree that the F-22 is outdated and unnecessary. As Gates has noted, not a single F-22 mission had been flown in either of the current wars.
Production of the last Raptor is scheduled for 2011, but Congress has pressured the Pentagon (amazingly, against its will) to order more in this year's budget. Lockheed Martin, which stands to lose billions should the F-22 be discontinued, has launched an all-out PR war, leveraging the recession to argue that cutting the jet would mean the loss of 95,000 jobs. (It has even set up an online petition at preserveraptorjobs.com.) Most economists agree, however, that military spending is one of the least efficient ways of creating jobs per dollar of government spending.
That doesn't seem to bother members of Congress who represent districts where the F-22 is produced (a surprisingly high number, since the makers intentionally spread out production to maximize Congressional influence). When Obama took questions from Democratic House members at their annual retreat, the second question came from Georgia Representative David Scott, who pleaded to keep the F-22 going. Obama was evasive: "We also have to deal with the debt, and it is unsustainable. We have to make tough decisions."
Despite the encouraging rhetoric from the administration, Lockheed Martin won the first round in December, when Gates included funding for four additional F-22s in a draft of the upcoming war supplemental. Defense lobbyists scored another victory in the appointment of Bill Lynn as deputy defense secretary. A longtime lobbyist for Raytheon, Lynn was the first recipient of a waiver from the stringent new White House rules against hiring lobbyists. Says Pemberton of Lynn, "He never met a weapons system he didn't like."
The path of least resistance for the Obama administration, legendarily parsimonious with its political capital, will be to continue on the path and avoid what will unquestionably be a vicious and hard-fought battle to impose some kind of rational boundary on the security budget. The fight for a sane rebalancing of our security budget will be led by members of the House.
Earlier in the year, Pemberton met with one of the Obama transition teams to discuss the Pentagon budget. She wouldn't tell me what they discussed, but when I asked her whether she thought they were committed to reining in the Pentagon, the weary look her in eyes made me think it's going to be, in the words of a former defense secretary, a long, hard slog.
(Strange, a word search of this article didn't bring up oil , gas , or fuel .)
And fuck Lockheed Martin.
Cut the Military Budget--II
By Barney Frank
This article appeared in the March 2, 2009 edition of The Nation.
I am a great believer in freedom of expression and am proud of those times when I have been one of a few members of Congress to oppose censorship. I still hold close to an absolutist position, but I have been tempted recently to make an exception, not by banning speech but by requiring it. I would be very happy if there was some way to make it a misdemeanor for people to talk about reducing the budget deficit without including a recommendation that we substantially cut military spending.
Sadly, self-described centrist and even liberal organizations often talk about the need to curtail deficits by cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other programs that have a benign social purpose, but they fail to talk about one area where substantial budget reductions would have the doubly beneficial effect of cutting the deficit and diminishing expenditures that often do more harm than good. Obviously people should be concerned about the $700 billion Congress voted for this past fall to deal with the credit crisis. But even if none of that money were to be paid back--and most of it will be--it would involve a smaller drain on taxpayer dollars than the Iraq War will have cost us by the time it is concluded, and it is roughly equivalent to the $651 billion we will spend on all defense in this fiscal year.
When I am challenged by people--not all of them conservative--who tell me that they agree, for example, that we should enact comprehensive universal healthcare but wonder how to pay for it, my answer is that I do not know immediately where to get the funding but I know whom I should ask. I was in Congress on September 10, 2001, and I know there was no money in the budget at that time for a war in Iraq. So my answer is that I will go to the people who found the money for that war and ask them if they could find some for healthcare.
It is particularly inexplicable that so many self-styled moderates ignore the extraordinary increase in military spending. After all, George W. Bush himself has acknowledged its importance. As the December 20 Wall Street Journal notes, "The president remains adamant his budget troubles were the result of a ramp-up in defense spending." Bush then ends this rare burst of intellectual honesty by blaming all this "ramp-up" on the need to fight the war in Iraq.
Current plans call for us not only to spend hundreds of billions more in Iraq but to continue to spend even more over the next few years producing new weapons that might have been useful against the Soviet Union. Many of these weapons are technological marvels, but they have a central flaw: no conceivable enemy. It ought to be a requirement in spending all this money for a weapon that there be some need for it. In some cases we are developing weapons--in part because of nothing more than momentum--that lack not only a current military need but even a plausible use in any foreseeable future.
It is possible to debate how strong America should be militarily in relation to the rest of the world. But that is not a debate that needs to be entered into to reduce the military budget by a large amount. If, beginning one year from now, we were to cut military spending by 25 percent from its projected levels, we would still be immeasurably stronger than any combination of nations with whom we might be engaged.
Implicitly, some advocates of continued largesse for the Pentagon concede that the case cannot be made fully in terms of our need to be safe from physical attack. Ironically--even hypocritically, since many of those who make the case are in other contexts anti-government spending conservatives--they argue for a kind of weaponized Keynesianism that says military spending is important because it provides jobs and boosts the economy. Spending on military hardware does produce some jobs, but it is one of the most inefficient ways to deploy public funds to stimulate the economy. When I asked him years ago what he thought about military spending as stimulus, Alan Greenspan, to his credit, noted that from an economic standpoint military spending was like insurance: if necessary to meet its primary need, it had to be done, but it was not good for the economy; and to the extent that it could be reduced, the economy would benefit.
The math is compelling: if we do not make reductions approximating 25 percent of the military budget starting fairly soon, it will be impossible to continue to fund an adequate level of domestic activity even with a repeal of Bush's tax cuts for the very wealthy.
I am working with a variety of thoughtful analysts to show how we can make very substantial cuts in the military budget without in any way diminishing the security we need. I do not think it will be hard to make it clear to Americans that their well-being is far more endangered by a proposal for substantial reductions in Medicare, Social Security or other important domestic areas than it would be by canceling weapons systems that have no justification from any threat we are likely to face.
So those organizations, editorial boards and individuals who talk about the need for fiscal responsibility should be challenged to begin with the area where our spending has been the most irresponsible and has produced the least good for the dollars expended--our military budget. Both parties have for too long indulged the implicit notion that military spending is somehow irrelevant to reducing the deficit and have resisted applying to military spending the standards of efficiency that are applied to other programs. If we do not reduce the military budget, either we accustom ourselves to unending and increasing budget deficits, or we do severe harm to our ability to improve the quality of our lives through sensible public policy.
The only reason I put these articles up in full is because I'm pissed off at this publication. Every time I turn around I'm having to shred a bunch of junk mail begging me for $ to pay for the mail delivery of it. I specifically subscribed to this publication so I could read it online and avoid the build up of paper in the house because at that time there was no recycling pick up here. Not that any of my fucktard neighbors can separate the recyclables from the trash anyway.
By Christopher Hayes
This article appeared in the March 2, 2009 edition of The Nation.
February 11, 2009
The cardinal rule of bargaining is that the first number you propose should never be the number you actually think you can get, and nobody knows this better than the Defense Department. In September the Army Times reported that the Pentagon was preparing to box the new president in to a major increase in military spending by drawing up a budget before the election had been decided. The number it eventually leaked was $584 billion, a whopping increase of $68.6 billion over last year. It was kind of like telling the new boss that your old boss had already agreed to give you a $100,000 raise. In any other context, the sheer hubris would get you fired or laughed out of the room.
But the Pentagon budget is ruled by the appropriations equivalent of quantum physics, in which the normal rules of constraint do not apply. We still don't know how much the Obama administration is planning to give the Pentagon--the announcement of the number has been postponed--but reports indicate the number will likely be $527 billion, around an 8 percent increase instead of the 12 percent the Pentagon requested.
Despite that fact, propagandists like neoconservative Robert Kagan are already crying foul, arguing that the increase is insufficient and--more insidious--will cost jobs at a time when we're losing half a million a month. Military spending "is exactly the kind of expenditure that can have an immediate impact on the economy," Kagan recently wrote in the Washington Post, and any cuts would be a sign to the world that "the American retreat has begun."
"It seems like kind of the game they play every year," Miriam Pemberton, a research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, told me when I asked her about the rumored budget numbers. "The Pentagon puts out this hugely inflated number, and then it turns out that the 'cut' is from that hugely inflated number, so the Pentagon still wins. The number is $40 billion more than we spent last year."
You may think Barack Obama has the toughest job in Washington, but for my money it's Pemberton. Since 1989, when she left academia with a PhD in English, she's worked as an advocate for reining in the military-industrial complex in favor of a broader, less militarized approach to international security. Each year she and former Reagan Pentagon official and Center for American Progress senior fellow Lawrence Korb write an alternate Unified Security Budget. Their 2009 version identified $61 billion in cuts to military programs that could be made "with no sacrifice to our security."
Cutting the military budget has been a staple of the progressive agenda for decades, of course, but it's worth putting the budget numbers in context to highlight how out of control things have gotten across the Potomac in Arlington. Everybody knows that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been mind-bogglingly expensive--about a trillion-dollar bonfire. Less noticed has been the skyrocketing of non-war-specific Pentagon funding. Since 2001 the regular Pentagon budget has increased by 77 percent, while cost overruns in weapons systems have ballooned to $300 billion. "We've never been perfect there," says Korb. "But it has really gotten out of hand in the last eight years."
And those numbers don't fully capture the explosion in security spending because they don't capture security spending outside the Defense Department budget, in the departments of Justice, Energy, Homeland Security or the NSA and the CIA.
"Congress is not set up to consider the overall balance of what we're spending our money on," says Pemberton, who notes that the ratio of military to nonmilitary foreign engagement spending is eighteen to one. "Even the secretary of defense says this imbalance is not good for our security."
Indeed, over the past year Defense Secretary Robert Gates has made a series of speeches about shifting resources toward nonmilitary international engagement, as well as reducing spending on outdated weapons systems. "The spigot of defense spending that opened on 9/11 is closing," he told senators on the Armed Services Committee in January. "The economic crisis and resulting budget pressures," he said, would provide "one of those rare chances...to critically and ruthlessly separate appetites from real requirements, those things that are desirable in a perfect world from those things that are truly needed in light of the threats America faces and the missions we are likely to undertake in the years ahead."
Obama expressed similar sentiments on the campaign trail: "I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending," he said in a campaign video. "I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems."
Most recently, Rahm Emanuel hinted on Meet the Press that the administration might have the Pentagon in its sights as part of its promise to trim fat from the budget. "We have about $300 billion in cost overruns," he said. "That must be addressed, and we will be addressing it."
Sensing that the Obama administration has laid the rhetorical groundwork for a significant reduction of the inflated military budget, the military lobby has already launched a pre-emptive strike, pooling resources to fund a $2 million PR campaign arguing against cuts.
When in October Congressman Barney Frank called for a 25 percent reduction in the Pentagon's budget [see Frank's Comment on this page], GOP lawmakers went apoplectic, issuing a string of hysterical press releases attacking Frank as "reckless" and the proposed cuts as a "grossly irresponsible," "draconian" attempt to "gut national security."
The first concrete test of the strength of the military lobby and its allies in Congress is the battle over the fate of the F-22 Raptor fighter jet. Military experts agree that the F-22 is outdated and unnecessary. As Gates has noted, not a single F-22 mission had been flown in either of the current wars.
Production of the last Raptor is scheduled for 2011, but Congress has pressured the Pentagon (amazingly, against its will) to order more in this year's budget. Lockheed Martin, which stands to lose billions should the F-22 be discontinued, has launched an all-out PR war, leveraging the recession to argue that cutting the jet would mean the loss of 95,000 jobs. (It has even set up an online petition at preserveraptorjobs.com.) Most economists agree, however, that military spending is one of the least efficient ways of creating jobs per dollar of government spending.
That doesn't seem to bother members of Congress who represent districts where the F-22 is produced (a surprisingly high number, since the makers intentionally spread out production to maximize Congressional influence). When Obama took questions from Democratic House members at their annual retreat, the second question came from Georgia Representative David Scott, who pleaded to keep the F-22 going. Obama was evasive: "We also have to deal with the debt, and it is unsustainable. We have to make tough decisions."
Despite the encouraging rhetoric from the administration, Lockheed Martin won the first round in December, when Gates included funding for four additional F-22s in a draft of the upcoming war supplemental. Defense lobbyists scored another victory in the appointment of Bill Lynn as deputy defense secretary. A longtime lobbyist for Raytheon, Lynn was the first recipient of a waiver from the stringent new White House rules against hiring lobbyists. Says Pemberton of Lynn, "He never met a weapons system he didn't like."
The path of least resistance for the Obama administration, legendarily parsimonious with its political capital, will be to continue on the path and avoid what will unquestionably be a vicious and hard-fought battle to impose some kind of rational boundary on the security budget. The fight for a sane rebalancing of our security budget will be led by members of the House.
Earlier in the year, Pemberton met with one of the Obama transition teams to discuss the Pentagon budget. She wouldn't tell me what they discussed, but when I asked her whether she thought they were committed to reining in the Pentagon, the weary look her in eyes made me think it's going to be, in the words of a former defense secretary, a long, hard slog.
(Strange, a word search of this article didn't bring up oil , gas , or fuel .)
And fuck Lockheed Martin.
Cut the Military Budget--II
By Barney Frank
This article appeared in the March 2, 2009 edition of The Nation.
I am a great believer in freedom of expression and am proud of those times when I have been one of a few members of Congress to oppose censorship. I still hold close to an absolutist position, but I have been tempted recently to make an exception, not by banning speech but by requiring it. I would be very happy if there was some way to make it a misdemeanor for people to talk about reducing the budget deficit without including a recommendation that we substantially cut military spending.
Sadly, self-described centrist and even liberal organizations often talk about the need to curtail deficits by cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other programs that have a benign social purpose, but they fail to talk about one area where substantial budget reductions would have the doubly beneficial effect of cutting the deficit and diminishing expenditures that often do more harm than good. Obviously people should be concerned about the $700 billion Congress voted for this past fall to deal with the credit crisis. But even if none of that money were to be paid back--and most of it will be--it would involve a smaller drain on taxpayer dollars than the Iraq War will have cost us by the time it is concluded, and it is roughly equivalent to the $651 billion we will spend on all defense in this fiscal year.
When I am challenged by people--not all of them conservative--who tell me that they agree, for example, that we should enact comprehensive universal healthcare but wonder how to pay for it, my answer is that I do not know immediately where to get the funding but I know whom I should ask. I was in Congress on September 10, 2001, and I know there was no money in the budget at that time for a war in Iraq. So my answer is that I will go to the people who found the money for that war and ask them if they could find some for healthcare.
It is particularly inexplicable that so many self-styled moderates ignore the extraordinary increase in military spending. After all, George W. Bush himself has acknowledged its importance. As the December 20 Wall Street Journal notes, "The president remains adamant his budget troubles were the result of a ramp-up in defense spending." Bush then ends this rare burst of intellectual honesty by blaming all this "ramp-up" on the need to fight the war in Iraq.
Current plans call for us not only to spend hundreds of billions more in Iraq but to continue to spend even more over the next few years producing new weapons that might have been useful against the Soviet Union. Many of these weapons are technological marvels, but they have a central flaw: no conceivable enemy. It ought to be a requirement in spending all this money for a weapon that there be some need for it. In some cases we are developing weapons--in part because of nothing more than momentum--that lack not only a current military need but even a plausible use in any foreseeable future.
It is possible to debate how strong America should be militarily in relation to the rest of the world. But that is not a debate that needs to be entered into to reduce the military budget by a large amount. If, beginning one year from now, we were to cut military spending by 25 percent from its projected levels, we would still be immeasurably stronger than any combination of nations with whom we might be engaged.
Implicitly, some advocates of continued largesse for the Pentagon concede that the case cannot be made fully in terms of our need to be safe from physical attack. Ironically--even hypocritically, since many of those who make the case are in other contexts anti-government spending conservatives--they argue for a kind of weaponized Keynesianism that says military spending is important because it provides jobs and boosts the economy. Spending on military hardware does produce some jobs, but it is one of the most inefficient ways to deploy public funds to stimulate the economy. When I asked him years ago what he thought about military spending as stimulus, Alan Greenspan, to his credit, noted that from an economic standpoint military spending was like insurance: if necessary to meet its primary need, it had to be done, but it was not good for the economy; and to the extent that it could be reduced, the economy would benefit.
The math is compelling: if we do not make reductions approximating 25 percent of the military budget starting fairly soon, it will be impossible to continue to fund an adequate level of domestic activity even with a repeal of Bush's tax cuts for the very wealthy.
I am working with a variety of thoughtful analysts to show how we can make very substantial cuts in the military budget without in any way diminishing the security we need. I do not think it will be hard to make it clear to Americans that their well-being is far more endangered by a proposal for substantial reductions in Medicare, Social Security or other important domestic areas than it would be by canceling weapons systems that have no justification from any threat we are likely to face.
So those organizations, editorial boards and individuals who talk about the need for fiscal responsibility should be challenged to begin with the area where our spending has been the most irresponsible and has produced the least good for the dollars expended--our military budget. Both parties have for too long indulged the implicit notion that military spending is somehow irrelevant to reducing the deficit and have resisted applying to military spending the standards of efficiency that are applied to other programs. If we do not reduce the military budget, either we accustom ourselves to unending and increasing budget deficits, or we do severe harm to our ability to improve the quality of our lives through sensible public policy.
The only reason I put these articles up in full is because I'm pissed off at this publication. Every time I turn around I'm having to shred a bunch of junk mail begging me for $ to pay for the mail delivery of it. I specifically subscribed to this publication so I could read it online and avoid the build up of paper in the house because at that time there was no recycling pick up here. Not that any of my fucktard neighbors can separate the recyclables from the trash anyway.
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