Archive for March, 2009

Fannie plans bonuses of up to $611K for 4 execs

Fannie plans bonuses of up to $611K for 4 execs

Fannie Mae plans bonuses of up to $611,000 for 4 executives; Freddie Mac has similar plans

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fannie Mae is planning to pay retention bonuses of as much as $611,000 each to several top executives of the government-controlled mortgage finance titan. Sibling company Freddie Mac is planning similar awards.

Fannie Mae disclosed in a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it’s planning bonuses of $470,000 to $611,000 for four top executives, on top of their base salaries this year.

Freddie Mac has a similar retention plan in place, but has yet to disclose how much money top executives are in line to receive.

Both companies were seized by federal regulators last fall. Fannie has requested $15.2 billion in government aid, while Freddie has asked for nearly $31 billion in additional aid on top of the $13.8 billion it received last year.

via Fannie plans bonuses of up to $611K for 4 execs – Yahoo! Finance.

(AIG) Edward M. Liddy relationship map

Edward M. Liddy

This INTERACTIVE map of Edward M. Liddy relationships is interactive.

Click to activate, then click on names to explore and expand. (Requires Java.)

Age in 2009: 63

“We’d like to avoid it if possible,” Orszag told reporters at a luncheon in Washington. “But we’re not taking it off the table.”

via White House may seek to bypass filibuster rule in Senate | McClatchy.

National grassroots campaign organized urging military and law enforcement to refuse Obama orders

OPS:  “Oath Keepers?    So where were these Fascist  heroes when illegal and immoral orders to invade Iraq, and to torture people, were being given by Busheviks?

National grassroots campaign organized urging military and law enforcement to refuse Obama orders

The recent development of Republican and right wing political figures fomenting rebellion in the U.S. Armed Services has a new ally. Oath Keepers is a week-old organization on a mission to remind military members and law enforcement officers that they owe allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, not President Barack Obama.

via Grassroots Politics Examiner: National grassroots campaign organized urging military and law enforcement to refuse Obama orders.

Just how bad off is the Republican Party (Part 2)?

Just how bad off is the Republican Party (Part 2)?

A state-by-state look at the state of the Grand Old Party in the Age of Steele.

Editor’s note: You can read Tom Schaller’s earlier analysis of the state of the GOP, “Just How Bad Off Is the Republican Party?”

March 18, 2009 | As of press time, Tuesday evening, March 17, Michael Steele is still running the Republican National Committee. But tomorrow is another day, as Katon Dawson, I mean Scarlett O’Hara, once said. Perhaps Steele will be ushered offstage soon — if, say, the GOP fails to win back Kirsten Gillibrand’s old seat in New York’s traditionally Republican 20th Congressional District on March 31. Perhaps Michael Steele will survive till 2010, and lead his party in a miraculous comeback in the midterms.

But as the nation waits to learn Steele’s fate, we thought we’d take a ground-level look at the state of his party after two consecutive electoral drubbings. The following list examines the trends in each of the 50 states over the past three election cycles, assessing demographic shifts, voting patterns, rising and falling political stars and organizational strengths and weaknesses. The picture it paints is not pretty, but it is not hopeless either. We have (roughly) ordered the list by the relative love that each state has for its Grand Old Party. While there are some places where love is not for sale, there are others where love is all around, and even some spots where hearts are growing fonder. Each entry also includes the cold, hard numeric facts about the electoral strength of the party in 2005 versus its strength today. (Most data on state legislatures is from the National Conference of State Legislatures. State legislature numbers list majority party first, minority party second and independents third; figures below may not account for all special election results, party switches and vacancies.)

via Just how bad off is the Republican Party (Part 2)? | Salon News.

The dishonest “Blame Dodd” scheme from Treasury officials

The dishonest “Blame Dodd” scheme from Treasury officials

Glenn Greenwald

(updated below – Update II)

There is a major push underway — engineered by Obama’s Treasury officials, enabled by a mindless media, and amplified by the right-wing press — to blame Chris Dodd for the AIG bonus payments. That would be perfectly fine if it were true. But it’s completely false, and the scheme to heap the blame on him for the AIG bonus payments is based on demonstrable falsehoods.

Jane Hamsher has written the definitive post narrating and indisputably documenting what actually took place. The attempt to blame Dodd is based on a patently false claim that was first fed to The New York Times on Saturday by an “administration official” granted anonymity by Times reporters Edmund Andrew and Peter Baker (in violation, as usual, of the NYT anonymity policy, since all the official was doing was disseminating pro-administration spin). The accusation against Dodd is that there is nothing the Obama administration can do about the AIG bonus payments because Dodd inserted a clause into the stimulus bill which exempted executive compensation agreements entered into before February, 2009 from the compensation limits imposed on firms receiving bailout funds. Thus, this accusation asserts, it was Dodd’s amendment which explicitly allowed firms like AIG to make bonus payments that were promised before the stimulus bill was enacted.

via The dishonest “Blame Dodd” scheme from Treasury officials – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.

Bill would ban nonmedical drug use in U.S. livestock

Bill would ban nonmedical drug use in U.S. livestock

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Despite growing public support to ban the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in food animals, a U.S. representative said on Tuesday efforts to move legislation through Congress this year could be met with resistance.

The bill, introduced in the House of Representatives by Louise Slaughter and in the Senate by Edward Kennedy, would ban the use of antibiotics important to human health from being used on cattle, hogs, sheep and poultry unless animals are ill.

Drug manufacturers would be allowed to sell antibiotics for uses other than humans if they can show there is no danger to public health from microbes developing resistance to them.

“We’re up against a pretty strong lobby. It will really come down to whether members of Congress want to protect their constituents or agribusiness,” said Slaughter. “I do believe the chance are good, at least getting it through the House.”

The bill has been introduced several times since the 1980s but has been blocked by agribusiness interests.

via Bill would ban nonmedical drug use in U.S. livestock | Health | Reuters.

Boom-years borrowing hits churches

Boom-years borrowing hits churches

Good faith loans: Churches and their lenders suffering after boom-years borrowing

Metropolitan Baptist Church was bursting out of its home.

From a group of freed slaves in Civil War-era Washington, Metropolitan Baptist had grown into a modern-day megachurch and community service powerhouse. In 2006, construction began on the congregation’s dream complex in Largo, Md. — a $30 million campus with a 3,000-seat church, an education center and an 1,100-car parking lot.

Last year, the congregation sold its church in Washington. Preparations began for the move to what leaders had taken to calling “God’s land in Largo.”

But on Oct. 20, their plans were abruptly put on hold.

The Rev. H. Beecher Hicks learned that financing for the project had dried up. Construction stopped. And the congregation found that it was homeless — reduced to renting space and struggling to find new financing.

Add houses of worship to the list of casualties of the mortgage crisis.

Foreclosures and delinquencies for congregations are rising, according to companies that specialize in church mortgages. With credit scarce, church construction sites have gone quiet, holding shells of sanctuaries that were meant to be completed months ago.

via Boom-years borrowing hits churches – Yahoo! Finance.

Noam Chomsky Radio Interview February 20, 2009.

Chatting with Chomsky

A friend, jeeidunno, has been doing a little bit of part time volunteer radio reporting and has been running a series of interesting interviews. Here is a Noam Chomsky Radio Interview from February 20, 2009, that is about 15 minutes long and in two parts. I think you will enjoy it because he asks great questions and gives the people he talks to plenty of time to answer. Something that you may no longer be used to from our sound bite media. Grab yourself a cup of java and enjoy:

“Noam Chomsky discusses the Israeli Elections, the War on Gaza, Hamas, US Policy, Obama and Activism.”

YouTube – Noam Chomsky Radio Interview February 20, 2009. Part 1 of 2.

Part 2

Boss Limbaugh: ‘I Am All for the AIG Bonuses’ – Also Lies about Dems’ Efforts to Restrict AIG’s Corporate Pork

Boss Limbaugh: ‘I Am All for the AIG Bonuses’ – Also Lies about Dems’ Efforts to Restrict AIG’s Corporate Pork

“Let me tell you something, folks. I am all for the AIG bailouts, and I am all for the AIG bonuses. Well, I’m not for the bailouts, well, in a way I’m for the bailout because I’m for the bonuses.”

Just days after alleged death-squad leader Dick Cheney gave his hearty endorsement to Rush Limbaugh as the Republican Party’s new boss, Limbaugh weighed in on the controversy over $400 million in taxpayer-funded bonuses slated to be paid to derivatives traders at insurance giant AIG.

On his radio rantfest yesterday, Limbaugh endorsed corporate pork in the form of taxpayer bail outs of failed mega-businesses and then came out full force in favor of the AIG bonuses, which would use taxpayer money to reward the same traders who created the risky schemes that crashed the world economy. In other words, according to the de facto head of the GOP, corporatist failure must be rewarded:

Rush Limbaugh: “Let me tell you something, folks. I am all for the AIG bailouts, and I am all for the AIG bonuses. Well, I’m not for the bailouts, well, in a way I’m for the bailout because I’m for the bonuses.”

via Pensito Review » Boss Limbaugh: ‘I Am All for the AIG Bonuses’ – Also Lies about Dems’ Efforts to Restrict AIG’s Corporate Pork.

First National Protest of Wars Under Obama

First National Protest of Wars Under Obama

Wednesday, 18 March 2009, 1:49 pm

Press Release: World Can’t Wait

First National Protest of Wars Under Obama Will Take Place in 17 U.S. Cities

When: Thursday March 19, 2009

Where: Protest In Berkeley, Ca

3:00 PM Rally at Martin Luther King Jr. Park (next to Berkeley High School)

4:00 PM March thru Berkeley, including: to the Marines Recruiting Station, 64 Shattuck Square and to the UC campus

In 17 U.S. cities, protesters will leave work and school to demonstrate in the first nation-wide protest against the (now expanding) wars under President Obama, demanding:

Stop U.S. Occupations And Torture For Empire! U.S. Out Of Iraq & Afghanistan!

No Wars On Iran, Pakistan, Gaza! The World Can’t Wait!

via Scoop: First National Protest of Wars Under Obama.

The U.S. is Leaving Iraq but Where Are We Leaving Iraqi Women?

The U.S. is Leaving Iraq but Where Are We Leaving Iraqi Women?

By Yifat Susskind

If you haven’t thought about the Iraq War as a story of U.S. allies systematically torturing and executing women, you’re not alone. Likewise, if you were under the impression that Iraqi women were somehow better off under their new, U.S.-sponsored government.

In the spring of 2003, Fatin was a student of architecture at Baghdad University. Her days were filled with classes and hanging out in her favorite of Baghdad’s many cafes, where she and her friends studied, shared music, and spun big plans for successful careers, happy marriages, and eventually, kids.

Today, Fatin says that those feel like someone else’s dreams.

Soon after the U.S. invasion, Fatin began seeing groups of bearded young Iraqi men patrolling the streets of Baghdad. They were looking for women like her, who wore modern clothes or were heading to professional jobs. The men screamed terrible insults at the women and sometimes beat them.

By the fall, ordinary aspects of Fatin’s life had become punishable by death. The “misery gangs,” as Fatin calls them, were routinely killing women for wearing pants, appearing in public without a headscarf, or shaking hands and socializing with men.

As the occupying power, the U.S. was legally obligated to stop these attacks. But the Pentagon, preoccupied with battling the Iraqi insurgency, simply ignored the militias’ reign of terror.

via American Forum :: Articles.

AIG bonus millionaires have left the company

AIG bonus millionaires have left the company

Eleven AIG workers who received retention bonuses of $1 million or more have already left the company

Eleven AIG workers that received retention bonuses of $1 million or more have already left the company, it was revealed today as Congress threatened to produce new taxes to claw back the $165 million payment.

Lawmakers competed yesterday to rain down the harshest criticism on AIG, which received more than $170 billion in assistance from taxpayers, after it handed out the bonuses to 400 staff at the financial products division (AIG FP) that caused its near-collapse.

A Republican Senator suggested that AIG’s executives should resign or commit ritual suicide in shame over the bonus payments, the details of which emerged at the weekend.

via AIG bonus millionaires have left the company – Times Online.

Obama Rebuffs Israeli Hawk

Obama Rebuffs Israeli Hawk

There are very worrying signs about Israel and Iran, amid new threats from Israeli officials that they won’t long tolerate Iran’s nuclear program before they strike militarily. But, at the same time, there are reports that President Obama’s national security team isn’t buying the Israeli line that time is running out.

For instance, a top Israeli military official, in Washington, was not exactly given the red carpet treatment by Obama’s top officials — yet even so, he met Jim Jones, Obama’s national security adviser, Hillary Clinton, and Dennis Ross.

The Israeli armed forces chief of staff, Gabi Ashkenazi, met yesterday with top US officials in Washington, including General James Jones, the national security adviser, and Dennis Ross, the State Department’s special adviser on “the Gulf and Southwest Asia,” and he warned that Israel is preparing for a military strike on Iran. According to Haaretz, the Israeli daily:

via Obama Rebuffs Israeli Hawk.

The real scandal at AIG is the not the bonuses. It’s the payments to counterparties.

OPS:  AIG is already  insolvent / bankrupt. THIS is why it is being kept afloat !!!!    You’re tax dollars at work……in other countries

The Real AIG ScandalIt’s not the bonuses. It’s that AIG’s counterparties are getting paid back in full.

By Eliot Spitzer

Everybody is rushing to condemn AIG’s bonuses, but this simple scandal is obscuring the real disgrace at the insurance giant: Why are AIG’s counterparties getting paid back in full, to the tune of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars?

For the answer to this question, we need to go back to the very first decision to bail out AIG, made, we are told, by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, then-New York Fed official Timothy Geithner, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke last fall. Post-Lehman’s collapse, they feared a systemic failure could be triggered by AIG’s inability to pay the counterparties to all the sophisticated instruments AIG had sold. And who were AIG’s trading partners? No shock here: Goldman, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, and on it goes. So now we know for sure what we already surmised: The AIG bailout has been a way to hide an enormous second round of cash to the same group that had received TARP money already.

via The real scandal at AIG is the not the bonuses. It’s the payments to counterparties. – By Eliot Spitzer – Slate Magazine.

BuzzFlash is in Serious Need of Your Ongoing Financial Support. We Hate to Think of the Economy Putting Us Under.

OPS:  Buzzflash is a great website – we need it.  Help if you can

BuzzFlash is in Serious Need of Your Ongoing Financial Support. We Hate to Think of the Economy Putting Us Under.

THE BUZZFLASH EDITOR’S BLOG

By Mark Karlin

I’ve assembled a number of articles detailing the dire straights of the progressive mass media, but I’ll just write from the heart and the reality.

The first dreadful thought is that the depression is slowly draining BuzzFlash. We’ve always lived with just enough money to pay a few bills off at a time, but with the Wall Street welfare economic implosion it has gotten worse.

via BuzzFlash is in Serious Need of Your Ongoing Financial Support. We Hate to Think of the Economy Putting Us Under. | BuzzFlash.org.

Wall Street’s Dangerous Refusal to Learn

Wall Street’s Dangerous Refusal to Learn

WP: “Moreover, the Justice Department would surely have been within its rights to launch an extensive civil and criminal investigation into whether those bonuses were granted as part of an ongoing [A.I.G]conspiracy to defraud shareholders — a conspiracy in which the traders were knowing participants. As part of that investigation, prosecutors could have also prepared a public report to the Treasury, the Federal Reserve and Congress listing the names and home addresses of all the traders who were slated to receive the bonuses, along with a detailed description of their role in creating the mess that brought down the company. There could even be a chart listing their salaries, bonuses and other perks over the past decade.”

You have to wonder what else has to go wrong, how much more wealth will need to be destroyed, before the people on Wall Street get the message that it’s no longer business as usual.

The latest outrage, of course, is over the $400 million in retention bonuses promised to those financial geniuses at AIG’s Financial Products unit last year, months before the insurance giant was essentially taken over by the government in a bailout that already has required an injection of $170 billion in taxpayer money.

The legal argument for honoring these ill-considered contracts is that a deal is a deal and that trying to abrogate them will only wind up costing the government even more in legal fees and punitive damages. But that doesn’t mean the government and its handpicked new management team at AIG were powerless to renegotiate those contracts long before last weekend’s deadline.

via Steven Pearlstein – Wall Street’s Dangerous Refusal to Learn – washingtonpost.com.

Book Review – Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why Paperback

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why Paperback

The Progressive Marketplace just offered the most recent book of religious scholar Bart D. Ehrman, a professor at Duke University, who makes the case that the Bible is a document more like a quilt (with more than its share of inconsistent and even clashing narratives) than a consistent literal divine narrative.

…snip…

As a result of the reader interest in this subject, we are also offering Erman’s “Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why,” which was written a couple of years back but is still riding high on Amazon’s bestsellers (#286 as of the date of this review).

This book is a great companion piece to “Jesus, Interrupted.”

“Booklist” notes “To assess how ignorant or theologically manipulative scribes may have changed the biblical text, modern scholars have developed procedures for comparing diverging texts. And in language accessible to nonspecialists, Ehrman explains these procedures and their results. He further explains why textual criticism has frequently sparked intense controversy, especially among scripture-alone Protestants. In discounting not only the authenticity of existing manuscripts but also the inspiration of the original writers, Ehrman will deeply divide his readers.” Although we suspect BuzzFlash readers will almost all be on one side of that divide.

via BuzzFlash Review: Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why Paperback.

‘It’s Taxpayer Money’: Cuomo Will Subpoena AIG Over Bonuses

‘It’s Taxpayer Money’: Cuomo Will Subpoena AIG Over Bonuses

NY Attorney General Wants Names and Job Descriptions of Bonus Receivers

The hot seat is getting even hotter for AIG Chairman and CEO Edward Liddy. Not only has President Barack Obama called on his Treasury Secretary to do everything possible to block the bailed-out insurance company from doling out $165 million in bonuses, but now the New York Attorney General has announced that he will issue subpoenas immediately for the release of the names and job descriptions of those receiving bonuses.

via ABC News: ‘It’s Taxpayer Money’: Cuomo Will Subpoena AIG Over Bonuses.

Citi, Morgan Stanley look to sidestep bonus caps: report

Citi, Morgan Stanley look to sidestep bonus caps: report

(Reuters) – Anticipating restrictions on bonuses, officials at Citigroup Inc and Morgan Stanley are exploring ways to sidestep tough new federal caps on compensation, the Wall Street Journal said.

Executives at these banks and other financial institutions that received government aid are discussing increasing base salaries for some executives and other top-producing employees, the paper said, citing people familiar with the situation.

The discussions are at an early stage, partly because the government has not yet issued specific rules on the bonus payments that will be allowed at companies that received aid under the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, the paper said.

via Citi, Morgan Stanley look to sidestep bonus caps: report | Reuters.

U.S. housing starts surge, inflation slower

U.S. housing starts surge, inflation slower

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – New U.S. housing starts and permits unexpectedly rebounded in February, according to data on Tuesday that provided a rare dose of good news for the recession-hit economy and fractured housing market.

The Commerce Department said housing starts jumped 22.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 583,000 units from 477,000 units in January. That was the biggest percentage rise since January 1990 and also marked the first increase since last April.

“That is an encouraging sign for the U.S. economy. It is good signal of what is to come. With the rally in equities we hopefully have seen a bottom for the economy here,” said Matt Esteve, foreign exchange trader at Tempus Consulting in Washington.

via U.S. housing starts surge, inflation slower | U.S. | Reuters.

Cuts for Autoworkers, Bonuses for Derivatives Traders

Treasury Gives AIG Big Break, But Not GM

Cuts for Autoworkers, Bonuses for Derivatives Traders

By PETER MORICI

Washington and the nation are enraged that AIG is paying millions in bonuses to retain financial wizards who sold insurance on mortgage-backed securities with few assets to back up their promises.

backed securities with few assets to back up their promises.

AIG is telling us that it must pay those bonuses, because they are required by employment contracts necessary to retain its financial engineers.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has expressed outrage. Instead, he should be embarrassed.

When the Bush administration agreed to bail out General Motors and Chrysler, it required those companies to renegotiate their labor contracts —- that’s right, contracts —- and they are doing just that to keep their federal largess.

The Obama Treasury, headed by Geithner, is forcing the terms of that deal on the United Autoworkers.

Why did Henry Paulson and Geithner not require the same at AIG? Remember, Geithner was president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank and a key player when financial giants like Citigroup and AIG were being bailed with the taxpayers’ cash.

via Peter Morici: Cuts for Autoworkers, Bonuses for Derivatives Traders.

Getting Lehman Bros. Wrong … Again

The Wreckage of an Uncontrolled Bankruptcy

Getting Lehman Bros. Wrong … Again

By DEAN BAKER

There are few economists who would defend the decision to allow Lehman Brothers to go bankrupt last September. Its collapse induced a worldwide panic that sent stock markets plummeting and caused credit to freeze-up. In the subsequent months, the downturn went into over-drive, with the United States losing almost 3 million jobs from October through February.

This set of events has led almost everyone to conclude that the trio who let Lehman go under, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Federal Reserve Board Chairmen Ben Bernanke, and then head of the New York Fed, Timothy Geithner, erred badly in this decision. That seems a reasonable judgment.

However, the conventional wisdom includes a corollary that is much less obvious: because the Lehman bankruptcy was a disaster, U.S. taxpayers must honor in full all the debts of all the banks. This corollary could put U.S. taxpayers on the line for trillions of dollars in commitments that the Wall Street boys apparently made on our behalf. Before we cough up the dough, we might want to consider whether Paulson, Bernanke, and Geithner were not quite as stupid as the current conventional wisdom would imply.

via Dean Baker: Getting Lehman Bros. Wrong … Again.

EXCLUSIVE: Israel’s national security aide barred from U.S.

EXCLUSIVE: Israel’s national security aide barred from U.S.

Former Israeli spy linked to Pentagon leak

EXCLUSIVE:

Uzi Arad, who is expected to serve as national security adviser in the next Israeli government, has been barred from entering the United States for nearly two years on the grounds that he is an intelligence risk.

Mr. Arad, a former member and director of intelligence for the Mossad, Israel’s spy service, is mentioned in the indictment of Lawrence Franklin, a former Pentagon analyst who pleaded guilty in 2005 to providing classified information about Iran in a conversation with two employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Beyond Mr. Arad’s status, Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to face difficulties abroad because of his choice, announced Monday, of Avigdor Lieberman to serve as foreign minister in a narrow new rightist government. Mr. Lieberman, head of the Israel Is Our Home party, has advocated requiring Israel’s 1.46 million Arabs to take a loyalty test or risk expulsion.

via Washington Times – EXCLUSIVE: Israel’s national security aide barred from U.S..

Colbert Will Hunt Down AIG Bonus Babies With Pitchforks (VIDEO)

Colbert Will Hunt Down AIG Bonus Babies With Pitchforks (VIDEO)

ON last night’s Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert took on the KING DICKS OF THE UNIVERSE, also known as the executives at AIG, who intend to dole out $165 million in bonuses to the people who destroyed all the money. Or, at least, you know…some of them: the ones who use our bailout monies, as Colbert describes, “in ways we never see, to prop up businesses we don’t understand.” But the folks at AIG will not have to do as Chuck Grassley instructs – resign or commit suicide – that’s because Colbert is sending his mob, with Pitchforks, after AIG’s toxic asses! But who’s to say the nominal head of a pitchfork wielding mob can’t learn a thing or two from his opponents? Pulling out the Angry Mob Leading contract governing the mob’s activities, Colbert assures, “Should the mob succeed, I get $165 million. But if we fail, I get nothing. Except my bonus, $165 million dollars.”

“Nation,” Colbert urged, “follow me, and I will make us a mob so big, it cannot fail.” We’ll all remember having this good laugh as the world collapses around us!

via Colbert Will Hunt Down AIG Bonus Babies With Pitchforks (VIDEO).

Flaws Abound in FOIA, If Obama Wants to Fix Them

Flaws Abound in FOIA, If Obama Wants to Fix Them

WASHINGTON President Barack Obama is promising to reinvigorate the Freedom of Information Act by opening more of the government’s filing cabinets without a fight. It can’t happen soon enough for the people awaiting replies to more than 150,000 requests for information.

Behind the headlines, The Associated Press wrestles with bizarre administrative hurdles and jaw-dropping contradictions trying to use the law; some recent ones are described below.

Obama has begun to deliver, but there are conflicting signs about how far he will go.

On his first day as president, Obama told all federal agencies to adopt a presumption of disclosure — reversing the Bush administration policy of defending any legitimate excuse to withhold information.

via Flaws Abound in FOIA, If Obama Wants to Fix Them.

Comics and Editorial Cartoons: Tom Toles on Yahoo! News

Comics and Editorial Cartoons: Tom Toles on Yahoo! News.

McClatchy

McClatchy.

McClatchy

McClatchy.

McClatchy

McClatchy.

The My Lai Massacre Revisited

The My Lai Massacre Revisited

41 years ago

Forty-one years ago, on March 16,1968, a company of US Army combat soldiers from the Americal Division swept into the South Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai, rounded up the 500+ unarmed residents, all women, children and old men, and executed them in cold blood, Nazi-style. No weapons were found in the village, and the whole operation took only 4 hours.

Although there was a serious attempt to cover-up this operation (which involved a young up-and-coming US Army Major named Colin Powell), those who orchestrated this “business-as-usual” war zone event did not deny the details of the slaughter when the case came to trial several years later. But the story did eventually filter back to the Western news media, thanks to a couple of courageous soldier eye-witnesses whose consciences were still intact. An Army court-marital trial eventually convened against a handful of the soldiers, including Lt. William Calley and Company C commanding officer, Ernest Medina.

According to many of the soldiers in Company C, Medina ordered the killing of “every living thing in My Lai,” all of them innocent noncombatants – men, women, children, babies and even farm animals. Lt. Calley was charged with the murder of 109 civilians. In his defense statement he stated that he had been taught to hate all Vietnamese, even children, who, he had been told, “were very good at planting mines.”

via The My Lai Massacre Revisited.

Grassley clarifies his call for AIG execs to commit suicide: I want ‘contrition,’ ‘remorse,’ ‘full responsibility.’

OPS:  Grassley is a coward – He had it right the first time.

Grassley clarifies his call for AIG execs to commit suicide: I want ‘contrition,’ ‘remorse,’ ‘full responsibility.’

Angered over the AIG’s decision to dole out bonuses to its top employees, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) yesterday caused a stir when he suggested the company’s executives should follow “the Japanese example” and resign or kill themselves. Grassley appeared this morning on Bloomberg TV, where he was given a chance to clarify his views. “Of course I don’t want anyone to go commit suicide,” he said. “But I do want some contrition. I want showing of remorse. I have not heard a single apology from a single Wall Street CEO.” He continued:

via Think Progress » Grassley clarifies his call for AIG execs to commit suicide: I want ‘contrition,’ ‘remorse,’ ‘full responsibility.’.

Conservatives Suggest Torture Tactics For AIG Execs: ‘Exemplary Hanging,’ Guillotine Party, ‘Boiling In Oil’

Conservatives Suggest Torture Tactics For AIG Execs: ‘Exemplary Hanging,’ Guillotine Party, ‘Boiling In Oil’

Politicians and pundits from both sides of the aisle have expressed outrage at the recent news that bailed-out insurance giant AIG will be paying $165 million in bonuses to the same executives who “brought the company to the brink of collapse.” President Obama and members of Congress are trying to figure out a way to revoke the bonuses while others have called for top executives to be fired.

via Think Progress » Conservatives Suggest Torture Tactics For AIG Execs: ‘Exemplary Hanging,’ Guillotine Party, ‘Boiling In Oil’.

GOP eyes Bush v. Gore to save Coleman seat

GOP eyes Bush v. Gore to save Coleman seat

A state court could rule any day now on Norm Coleman’s challenge to Al Franken’s 225-vote lead in Minnesota, but the race may be far from over no matter what the judges say.

Top Republicans are encouraging Coleman to be as litigious as possible and take his fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if he loses this round, believing that an elongated court fight is worth it if they can continue to deny Democrats the 59th Senate seat that Franken would represent.

And in pushing a possible Supreme Court conclusion, Republicans are raising case history that makes Democrats shudder: Bush v. Gore.

via GOP eyes Bush v. Gore to save Coleman seat – Manu Raju – POLITICO.com.

What We Should Learn from Jim Cramer vs. the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart

What We Should Learn from Jim Cramer vs. the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart

What should we learn from the fact that “The Daily Show’s” Jon Stewart has in four evenings (1 2 3 and 4) exposed Jim Cramer in a way that, in any sane world, he would have been exposed a decade ago? To answer that, consider these associated facts: while the Jim Cramer constellation of journalists (Mitchell’s Media Mob) backed each other up while covering-up the subject of criminally abusive short selling by hedge funds to whom they were close, four channels of the media broke rank:

via What We Should Learn from Jim Cramer vs. the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart | Deep Capture.