SUPREME DECISION
http://hammernews.blogspot.com
Re: Looks like Obama appointed a solid tough untouchable liberal to the Supreme Court; and the Senate may finally have the cajones to crush the expected Repub filibuster. For months now, the Dems have acted like every decision needed 60 votes, when, even with 2-5 conservative Dems, a filibuster is a really tough thing to carry out- they must have real dedication, if the Dems actually force them to speak. I thought Obama should pick a black or Hispanic, but didn't care, as long as they can take up the fight against the increasingly extremist Catholic majority.
NYC Hispanic Fed. Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor seems like a good inspirational candidate that will be difficult for wing nuts to oppose without further alienating another huge voting block. Hopefully she is Bronx tough enough to battle the reactionaries who have been "legislating from the bench", overturning established laws again and again.
CHENEYS GREATEST TREASON HITS TOUR
Here’s the best reason to prosecute the scumbag Veep- to stop him running around the country (would be world but maybe Spanish Prosecutors will abridge that) undermining Obama in neo-treasonous ways, not really of course, but what would Rush say if a Dem did that to Bush- they would have been lynched forthwith. Considering he is the architect of America’s embrace of torture, the invasion of Iraq, and the granting of 10’s billions of dollars to his own company (the most clear-cut crime), you’d think he might slide quietly into retirement and hope his monstrous unconstitutional crimes would go unpunished. But the most unpopular person in US political history- at 11% probably lower than Hitler- continues to defend his record for posterity, as if his treachery will sway historians. Moreover if he did torture people to provide the pretext for invading Iraq, as seems to be, he wasn’t just like Saddam, he was Saddam!
Former Army psychiatrist Maj. Charles Burney testified that "a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq. The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish this link ... there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results"; that is, torture.... [Cheney and Rumsfeld] demanded that the interrogators find evidence of al Qaida-Iraq collaboration...”
They kept America safe alright, from 200 fatalities in some as yet unknown plot, by killing 4300 American soldiers, maiming 35,000 more, destroying the sanity of maybe 200,000 more, and killing 400,000 Iraqis for the mistake of having Saddam Hussein for a leader and a load of oil.
Shut this walking piece of excrement up: prosecute him and send him to some disclosed location deep in the US penal system, maybe some South Carolinan brig where a little enhanced interrogation would do his heart well. Has any journalist ripped into this American disgrace for his lies and treason????? I think he and Bush co-conspirators are forever at risk from the cruelly used soldiers in Iraq, like the snipers that they had killing farmers from a mile away… because they violated curfew tilling their fields when the power came on. Think they might have nightmares? Maybe he should take that South Korean leader’s way out and commit hari-kari, but these vermin have never acknowledged a single error, let alone the bankruptedness of their whole philosophy. Another Bush initiative- to force Israel to attack Syria, which responded by pulverizing Lebanon as a consolation prizein 2006- may bear the bitter fruit of Hezbollah winning their current election June 7th. Everything these people touched turned to dust.
Obama rebutted Cheney in an almost simultaneous national security
speech in the presence of the Constitution at Philly’s Independence Hall, but that dignifies the dirtbag Veep, who has set up a situation where Obama is responsible for any terrorist attack. The only way to settle this is prosecute him for what were war crimes, and Obama’s desire to avoid the “distraction”, however understandable, is more and more seen as cowardice. This must be settled as a crime or any other President can do it again. Coupled with Obama's continuation of renditions (when you rip up meat), and legal defense of Bush secrecy, priviledge, and spying claims, many are deeply disappointed at his reluctance to boldly chart a new course. Simple, when defending some egregious Bush policy in court, conceed their claims and standings were false and specious; and throw in the towel. 46 min mpg audio download
DWINDLING DOLLAR
As I thought, with the issuance of maybe $3 trillion of cash and $6-7 trillion of credits to save the major banks and investment houses and guarantee their creditor/hustler CDS/CDO gamblers, most from unheard of new Federal orgs and unbeknownst by the public… the dollar has to collapse, because no country can or will buy our bonds to cover this gigundous debt. Only a little of this shocking story of the financial coup that swallowed Washington by former Moscow Exile editor Taibi is online now- whole version is on the oran ge side of my website.
“By early 2009, a whole series of new government operations had been invented to inject cash into the economy, most all of them completely secretive and with names you've never heard of. There is the Term Auction Facility, the Term Securities Lending Facility, the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, the Commercial Paper Funding Facility and a monster called the Asset-Backed Commercial Paper Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility (boasting the chat-room horror-show acronym ABCPMMMFLF). For good measure, there's also something called a Money Market Investor Funding Facility, plus three facilities called Maiden Lane I, II and III to aid bailout recipients like Bear Stearns and AIG.
While the rest of America, and most of Congress, have been bugging out about the $700 billion bailout program called TARP, all of these newly created organisms in the Federal Reserve zoo have quietly been pumping not billions but trillions of dollars into the hands of private companies (at least $3 trillion so far in “loans”, with as much as $5.7 trillion more in guarantees of private investments).”
The dollar has fallen 8% here in Ukraine in the last month (from 8hrv/$ to 7.5 or $1.40/euro now, it was as high as 1.18 after the crisis hit). Though devastated by a massive drop in steel orders- 50% of their exports, Ukraine DIDN’T buy any of the junk bonds America destabilized the 1st world finances with. China won’t risk selling much of their $1.5 trillion of US cash because that will precipitate the devaluation they fear, but Russia, with it’s anti-Western orientation, resentment at their suffering at a crisis not of their making, and with only $250 billion reserves, could try to switch it to Euros or Swiss Francs. That could provoke real shocking devaluation as other panicked countries follow suit. The destruction of our money was always the great risk of Bush’s criminal deficits- with this crisis and the spectacular outpourings of rescue money- that risk is tripled now. Look for oil to be denoted in Euros and us paying 20-50% more for our foreign energy. I hate to say it, but the long era of American dominance in the world may be over, as the Bush hacks, Republican (+ Dem) enablers, pig bankers and Wall St hustlers have achieved Bin Laden’s last instruction: to destroy the US financial system.
OBAMA NAT SECURITY speech audio download
http://talkradionews.com/2009/05/obama-addresses-national-security/ 46 min mpg Rebuts Cheney
AFGHANISTAN QUANDRY
While the Iraq Invasion was treason pure and simple, I don’t share the notion that the war in Afghanistan is evil or unjustified. That said, Bush fouled it up so completely by the strategically insane war in Iraq and it has gone on so long that it has probably provoked an immune reaction from the fearsome Afghan tribal body politic, which has driven out every foreign invader and destroyed 3 empires. The one smart thing Bush ever did was let the War be run by Special Forces with a low profile and use and pay the locals, who fight as a sport and profession. Now we are killing from little robot drones- to simple tribal people, cowardly technological techniques that must enrage them to great acts of revenge. The idea that America must control any area of instability in the world is a crazy infinite challenge… but Afghanistan/Pakistan is the nexus of Al Qaida and must be engaged by us. Reducing the war to targeted anti-terrorist actions is a good direction, though somewhat countermanded by bulking up the undermanned regular military. And Pakistan, with it’s nuclear arsenal, is every apocalyptic nightmare nuclear scenario rolled into one- I think it will have the first nuclear war with India or terrorist detonation.
So we must be there in some capacity- we should hope Obama is as smart there as in other places.
HELL ON EARTH
Well, North Korea just exploded a second nuclear bomb underground that actually worked: 10-20 kt, a Hiroshima sized device that could kill 250-500,000 in Manhattan, and launched 5 short-range missiles just to carelessly intimidate neighbors. Wrap that with a little lithium deuteride and you have a 400kt hydrogen bomb, that could take out a city and kill 3-4 million. There were serious risks in trying to destroy North Korea’s nuclear facilities, but very few in bombing Iran’s, which will have the Bomb within a year, I believe. With the mindlessly brutal destruction of Gaza, and the proliferation caused by NK and Iran (Japan, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Brazil), I think it sadly is just a matter of time before Israel is nuked, even if that fries the Palestinians themselves (which the crazies don’t really care about). Not by any missile of course, Bush’s obsession, but from smuggling, probably by boat. Though the threat of an Iranian nuclear missile would cause immense psychological distress in Israel.
KIEV KAPADES
President Yushchenko is inline to be removed in new elections in October, his popularity is 3-5%, but his likely successor is thug mugger Yanukovich, the guy who stole the 2004 election that provoked the Orange Revolution. Yulia Timoshenko, she of the infinite braid, has lost so much credibility in her bitter internecine war with Yushchenko, that she probably can’t win, but she has at least done some necessary things to settle the gas war with Russia, and get the next tranche of a $14 billion IMF loan.
ANGELS + THE OPPOSITE
Saw Angels + Demons with great delight, having watched them film it all over magnificent Rome in the 3 months I spent there last year + 2007. Could even identify the scenes I watched in Piazza Popolo, where I came off the train from the hostel-campground north, and shot some nice pics of Tom Hanks. Almost everyplace they run in the movie (and they are always running because the evil Illuminati are killing a Cardinal an hour)… I been there. Tried to get in it (been in 6 movies w 1 cu scene with the stars), but Italians don't speak any other language and nobody could point me to casting director. It is a mindless fun romp, far more sympathetic to the Catholic Church than the DaVinci Code.
