Monday, September 19, 2016
Empire Files: Abby Martin Exposes What Hillary Clinton Really Represents
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV_PLCC6jeI
Sunday, September 18, 2016
Saturday, September 10, 2016
Before 9/11 Attack, Bush and Cheney Made Sure Plot and Saudi Gov. Role not Exposed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmF3sZ10VlU
Sunday, September 4, 2016
2:00PM Water Cooler 9/1/2016
By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Sorry to be five minutes late; I was
interrupted just as I was gearing up to press the Submit button!
TPP/TTIP/TISA
“The latest line from proponents of the
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) implies that President Obama threatened
long-standing national security relationships in his negotiating of the TPP…
The proponents of the TPP would have us believe that President Obama told our
trading partners that approval of the TPP was a slam dunk. That they could
count on congressional approval in the same way that they could count on
Congress to honor its military commitments in the region. That one doesn’t
sound very likely” [Truthout]. “There is an alternative hypothesis that makes
far more sense. The Obama administration, along with other supporters of the
TPP, doesn’t feel it can sell the deal based on its merits as an economic pact.
Therefore they are inventing a national security rationale for the TPP that
does not exist. It’s not a pretty story, but as they say in Washington: You
throw it against the wall and see what sticks.”
“TISA would lock in privatisation of public
services. TISA contains mechanisms, such as ‘ratchet’and ‘standstill’ clauses,
that make it much harder to reverse privatisations and will allow greater
market access for foreign companies” [Defend Democracy] (original report).
“The new TTIP? Meet TISA, the ‘secret
privatisation pact that poses a threat to democracy'” [Independent].
“TISA [is]a deal backed by some of the world’s biggest corporations, such as
Microsoft, Google, IBM, Walt Disney, Walmart, Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase. “A
so-called ‘ratchet’ clause in the deal means that after a service – like trains
or water or energy – is privatised, this is almost impossible to reverse even
if it fails.” In Britain, “never, ever” British Rail, Thatcher having
privatized the railways. In America, “never, ever” single payer. Precipiated by
the same Global Justice report linked to above. Good to see activists pivot so
effectively!
2016
Corruption
“Bill Clinton aides used tax dollars to
subsidize foundation, private email support” [Politico]. Grifters gotta grift:
Bill Clinton’s staff used a decades-old federal
government program, originally created to keep former presidents out of the
poorhouse, to subsidize his family’s foundation and an associated business, and
to support his wife’s private email server, a POLITICO investigation has found.
Taxpayer cash was used to buy IT equipment — including
servers — housed at the Clinton Foundation, and also to supplement the pay and
benefits of several aides now at the center of the email and cash-for-access
scandals dogging Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
“Watchdog groups are poking holes into former
President Bill Clinton’s promise that his family’s foundation will stop taking
foreign and corporate cash if his wife wins the presidency” [The Hill]. “They say it would be relatively easy for
foreign governments or individuals to funnel cash into the foundation during a
Hillary Clinton presidency without the American public ever learning of the
foreign contributions — despite the former president’s promises outlined in an Aug. 22 open letter published on the Clinton
Foundation’s website.” And let’s not forget this little episode:
But the foundation failed to make good on a number of its pledges, including
accepting, and not disclosing, $2.35 million from a family foundation linked to
[Frank Giustra’s] uranium company that had sensitive and lucrative business
before Clinton’s State Department.
Oddly, or not, The Hill failed to mention some
details, including that the United States considers uranium a stragetic
national asset, and that the “sensitive and lucrative business” was a sale by
Guistra that Clinton needed to approve and which “gave the Russians control of
one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States.” ZOMG!!!!
The Russkis!!!!!!
Hold me back!!!!!! Did you hear?! Bill Clinton has a life-size portrait of
Vladimir Putin tattooed on his back!!!!!! Riding a horsie!!!!!!!!! Et cetera et
cetera blah blah blah blah gag spew.
Policy
“Nothing revolutionary about Sanders’ ‘Our
Revolution'” [DefendDemocracy]. “But according to the perspective laid
out by Sanders in his live-streamed speech, this supposedly mighty river of
struggle will deposit its waters into the cesspool of the Democratic Party and
the Hillary Clinton campaign.” I think the “mighty river” — I’ve been using the
metaphor of the great deluge upstream from is gonna go where it’s gonna go.
That’s why it’s a flood, right? And if the mighty river is less powerful than
the rotting Democrat party establishment, then we might as well all hang it up,
right?
“Trump’s visit has gained him nothing, and it has
probably done considerable harm to his host. It stands out as one of the more
bizarre and pointless foreign visits of a nominee for president, and that is in
keeping with badly-run, poorly-organized campaign that doesn’t know what it’s
doing” [The American Conservative]. On the other hand:
UPDATE And the day after (!): “Donald Trump on
Wednesday squashed any speculation that he might soften his immigration
position to reach new voters in the final stretch of the 2016 campaign,
delivering a hawkish, hardline, and true-to-his-roots border platform and
vowing that on Day One of his administration, the United States would launch a
mammoth deportation program and begin construction of a wall” [Politico]. Meanwhile, liberal goodthinkers shove all the
costs of immigration onto the working class because, ya know, they’re all
racists so they deserve it.
“Several major Latino surrogates for Donald
Trump are reconsidering their support for him following the Republican
nominee’s hardline speech on immigration Wednesday night” [Politico].
UPDATE “Obamacare Premiums Set to Rise, Even
for Savvy Shoppers” [Margot Sanger-Katz, New York Times]. I’ve had occasion to
call attention to Sanger-Katz’s
neoliberal crapfest on health care before, and when I hear a chirpy little crotte like “savvy shoppers”
applied to health care, I reach for my Browning (the poet, of course: “That’s
my last columnist, hanging on the wall…”). Oh, and those price hikes look like
a November surprise, one week before election day.
Our Famously Free Press
“The Clinton Foundation and the Media: A
Deep-Seated Conflict of Interest” [Truthout]. “The media industry, which many claim is out to
get Clinton, is actually made up mostly of donors to the Clinton Foundation. These
donors are also actively supporting Clinton’s campaign with donations and even
fundraising. Indeed, while Clinton’s potential conflicts of
interest at the State Department are thought-provoking, her financial ties to
Big Media are a concern in their own right. These close ties are especially
unsettling on the heels of a primary season in which the corporate media attacked Bernie Sanders constantly, and the Democratic
National Committee (DNC) was caught manipulating the media on Clinton’s behalf.”
Swing States
“The candidates’ schedules this week reflect
just how integral Ohio is to their White House aspirations. Clinton addressed
the American Legion on Wednesday in Cincinnati. On Thursday, Trump will be
campaigning in Wilmington and Vice President Joe Biden will stump for Clinton
in the Youngstown area. Clinton and her running mate, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine,
will both campaign in Cleveland on Labor Day” [RealClearPolitics]. “His campaign has been focused on areas
of the state where there are possibilities to woo these white, working-class
voters who might otherwise lean Democratic. Since accepting the nomination in
Cleveland, Trump has visited the state four times, with events in Toledo,
Columbus, Youngstown, and Akron. ‘We are going into areas where we think Mr.
Trump’s message appeals to disaffected Democrats and independents,’ says Bob
Paduchik, Trump’s Ohio manager who also ran George W. Bush’s successful efforts
in the state in 2000 and 2004. ‘One of the reasons why Ohio has maintained such
a competitive position for both candidates is because he has an appeal to
disaffected Democrats and independents, unlike any candidate for statewide
office in my recollection.'” Hmm. Ohio
2004….
The Voters
“Live Polls And Online Polls Tell Different
Stories About The Election” [FiveThirtyEight]. “As of Tuesday morning, Clinton led Trump
by 6 percentage points and had a 79 percent chance of winning, according to our
polls-only forecast. But running our polls-only model using only live-interview
surveys, Clinton leads Trump by 7 points and has an 86 percent chance of
winning. Running it with only nonlive-interview polls, Clinton leads Trump by 5
points and has a 71 percent chance of winning.” And: “As the cases of Utah and
Kansas suggest, I’d put more faith in the live-interview polls than in other
types of surveys, all else being equal. Indeed, our forecast models do just
that. ” Hmm. This looks like the Bradley
Effect for Trump, to me.
“Donald Trump seems to be defying political
gravity. Unlike Goldwater and McGovern, who left their conventions 20 or more
points down in the polls and never recovered, Trump is within striking distance
of Clinton, down about 7 points in the latest polls—and all this despite the
tepid support and in some cases outright opposition of his party’s leading
figures. What is happening?” Spoiler: It’s the economy, stupid [Slate]. “Here’s what was special about [landslide years]
1964 and 1972: These were two of the three strongest years for the economy in
the postwar era, with per-capita income growth in the 4 percent range, and the
candidates running for re-election—Johnson and Nixon—won in landslides, as
would be predicted. … But 2016 is not like 1964 or 1972. The economy is slowly
recovering, no longer in recession, but it is certainly not booming as in those
earlier years…. [The] numbers are OK but not stunning and do not foretell an
electoral landslide, in either direction. Going by economic indicators, we’re
looking at a close election, perhaps slightly favoring the incumbent party’s
candidate, depending on how strongly one weights the most recent economic
performance.” The whole article is well worth a read.
“Voter information stolen in other states is
public in Pennsylvania” [The Sentinel]. Heaven forfend we should go to the
international standard for voting: Hand-marked paper ballots, hand-counted in
public. Paper is very hard to hack. The downside is that can’t gin up a war
scare with it.
UPDATE “[W]hen we control for partisanship,
what we see is that distrust for Clinton is hardly driven by whiteness. The two
most remarkable trends are, first, her outsized trust among black Democrats,
and second, her plurality distrust among Hispanic Democrats.
More white Democrats trust her than distrust
her; that latter number, meanwhile, is comparable or less than her distrust
among Hispanic and “other” Democrats, and only varies from her substantial
distrust among black Democrats by around 9%” [Carl
Beijer].
UPDATE “[Urban Outfitters] is plastering
messages like ‘IDK Not Trump Tho’ and ‘Vote Trump 20NEVER’ on t-shirts and
coffee mugs, which the company created after a licensing deal with comedian
Dave Ross, who came up with the slogan. “While being politically incorrect may
not be in the best interest of retailers, it is working quite well for Urban
Outfitters. The first run of 300 shirts were sold out in under 24 hours, prompting
the store to order thousands more” [The Fashion Law].
War Drums
“Commentary: Who is hacking U.S. election
databases and why are they so difficult to identify?” [Reuters]. “This summer has been rife with news of
election-related hacking. Last month it was the Democratic National Committee;
this week, voter election databases in Illinois and Arizona… The FBI has said
that government-affiliated Russian hackers are responsible for both intrusions.
Yet the hackers’ motivation is unclear. We don’t know whether the hackers were
engaging in espionage, attempting to manipulate the election, or just
harvesting low-hanging cyber-fruit for their own financial gain.” Well, the FBI
is totes apolitical, so that settles that. There are brave Russkis out there.
Let’s go kill them!
So much for keeping the military out of
politics:
[IMAGE]
Realignment
“The populist wave that swept Donald Trump to
the top of the Republican ticket hasn’t led to a revolution sweeping away party
insiders” [Bloomberg]. Party establishment gets better at beating the
base back into its cage.
“I’m a Republican [and a big Jebbie donor], and
I’m with Hillary Clinton” [Miami Herald]. “And so my fellow Republicans, swallow hard,
look into your heart — and your gut. Vote for Hillary Clinton and then every
single Republican on the ticket.
Clinton Email Hairball
“We are also reminded that Clinton repeatedly
vowed she’d surrendered every single government business-related email upon the
State Department’s request” [New York Post].
This was an extraordinary lie: She hoarded and
attempted to destroy thousands of emails which, like the one The Post
describes, involved government business — some of it highly sensitive and
significant (such as the 30 emails related to the Benghazi massacre that the
FBI recovered but the State Department has yet to disclose). Converting
government records to one’s own use and destroying them are serious crimes,
even if no classified information is involved.
I rarely find myself agreeing with a National Review columnist
writing in the New York Post, but “converting government records to one’s own
use and destroying them”: Yes,
exactly.
[…]
Political Risk: “[W]hat does Wall Street do
that benefits society? Doctors and nurses make patients healthier. Firefighters
and EMTs save lives. Telecommunications companies and smart phone manufacturers
permit people to communicate with each other at a distance. Automobile
executives and airline pilots help people close that distance. Teachers and
professors help students learn. Wall Street bankers help—mostly just
themselves” [Promarket]. Note the author: “A Distinguished Professor of
Corporate and Business Law at Cornell Law School.”
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 59 Greed
(previous close: 62, Extreme Greed) [CNN]. One
week ago: 65 (Extreme Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last
updated Sep 1 at 12:57pm.
Our Famously Free Press
UPDATE “The 18-24 crowd has used the internet
as its primary source for news for several years. Now it is specifying “social
media” as its main source of news, with that niche overtaking television for
the first time” [Ad Week].
UPDATE So much for YouTube:
[…]
Saturday, September 3, 2016
Shocker: Military Insiders and War Profiteers Will Be Reviewing the Horrendous Private Immigration Prisons for Homeland Security
By Sarah Lazare / AlterNet
Agency’s announcement sheds
light on questionable composition of DHS Advisory Council.
http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/shocker-military-insiders-and-war-profiters-will-be-reviewing-horrendous-private
The DHS declared on Monday
that it will review its widespread use of for-profit immigrant detention
centers, in what amounts to an implied acknowledgment that human rights abuses
plague its prisons, some of which house mothers with their children.
If the announcement translates
into meaningful action, it could help chip away at the political power of a
private prison industry that has aggressively lobbied for harsh immigration
policies, including the congressional immigrant detention quota, which today
directs Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold an average of 34,000 people
in detention on a daily basis. Meanwhile, the announcement left many wondering whether the federal agency will also revisit
mass detentions and deportations of refugees, immigrants and migrants, which
have soared torecord levels under the administration of President
Barack Obama.
However, a critical aspect of
the DHS announcement has gone overlooked. The federal agency’s plan is
contingent on a review process initiated by the so-called “Homeland Security
Advisory Council.” Here is what DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson said that process will look like:
On Friday, I directed our
Homeland Security Advisory Council, chaired by Judge William Webster, to
evaluate whether the immigration detention operations conducted by Immigration
and Customs Enforcement should move in the same direction.
Specifically, I have asked
that Judge Webster establish a Subcommittee of the Council to review our
current policy and practices concerning the use of private immigration
detention and evaluate whether this practice should be eliminated. I asked that
the Subcommittee consider all factors concerning ICE’s detention policy and
practice, including fiscal considerations.
The Advisory Council that will steer this process is a
roll call of war profiteers, torture defenders, human rights abusers and
private sector heavyweights. Meanwhile, as Bob Libal, the executive director of
the advocacy organization Grassroots Leadership, noted in an interview with
AlterNet, “There is a severe lack of any immigrant or immigrant advocacy
representation on the committee. I don’t think there is anyone who has been
impacted by detention, let alone private detention.”
Webster, the only person to
have served as the director of both the FBI and the CIA, played a critical role during the late 1980s in covering up the Iran
Contra scandal. He later founded the
mercenary company Diligence, which provided security for corporations that
profited off of the U.S. occupation of Iraq post-2003, before retiring as a
partner of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, LLP.
The vice chair of the council
is NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton, a nationally influentialarchitect of draconian “broken windows” policing who
recently warned of unspecified terror threats to wrangle large purchases of military-style gear for his
department. Bratton’s career includes extensive ties with corporate
surveillance firms that have sparked accusations of conflicts of interest.
Bratton recently announced that, in September, he will step down in
September from his position at the helm of the NYPD and will be taking a
lucrative private security with the Teneo Holdings firm.
Retired Marine General John
Kelly is also included on the council. As chief of U.S. Southern Command, he vigorously defended U.S. torture of detainees at
Guantanamo Bay, including advocating force feeding of prisoners on hunger
strike as recently as 2014. Before that position, he served in high-ranking
posts overseeing the occupation of Iraq. Kelly is not the only council member
to serve as a general who enforced U.S. occupation. Retired Marine general John
Allen, also included on the council, oversaw the occupation of Afghanistan and,
more recently, the nebulous U.S. war against ISIS.
The council also includes many
who have built their careers and fortunes off of profits from U.S. wars and
conflicts. Thad Allen is the current executive vice president of Booz Allen
Hamilton, a mercenary and private intelligence contracting company that,
notably, has wonlucrative contracts from DHS. Norman Augustine is the
retired chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corp, the largest weapons company in the world.
The council even includes
Chuck Canterbury, the national president of the Fraternal Order of Police who
has emerged as a prominent advocate of a change in federal
law to make attacks on police hate crimes. Michael Nutter, the former mayor of
Philadelphia who oversaw the
gutting and privatization of the city’s public school system, is also included
among the council’s members.
It is too soon to determine
what the subcommittee, to be appointed by the advisory council, will find
during its review process, and human rights campaigners like Libal are still
holding out hope that the body will strike a blow against the power of the
private prison industry. But at the very least, Johnson’s announcement sheds
light on the revolving door between the DHS and powerful players in the
mercenary sector, law enforcement and military.
According to Johnson, “a
subcommittee of the HSAC will undertake this review, and the full HSAC will
provide to me and the Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement its
written report of its evaluation no later than November 30, 2016.”
The statement indicates that,
once the review takes place, key decision-making power will rest with Johnson,
who has overseen an escalation in raids and deportations this summer
targeting refugees fleeing Central America, including teenagers on their way to school and children as young
as four.
The full membership of the
Advisory Council is as follows:
William Webster (Chair)-
Retired Partner, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, LLP
Commissioner William Bratton
(Vice Chair) – Police Commissioner, City of New York
Art Acevedo – Chief of Police,
Austin Police Department, Texas
Steve Adegbite – Chief
Information Security Officer, E*TRADE Financial Corp.
John R. Allen – General, U.S.
Marine Corps (Ret.)
Thad W. Allen- Executive Vice
President, Booz|Allen|Hamilton
Norman Augustine- Retired
Chairman and CEO, Lockheed Martin Corp.
Ron Barber- Consultant for
Government Relations, Policy Analysis, Legislative Advocacy and Customer
Relations, Public and Private entities
Chuck Canterbury- National
President, The Fraternal Order of Police
Richard Danzig- Senior
Advisor, John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory
Elaine C. Duke- Principal,
Elaine Duke & Associates, LLC
Marshall Fitz- Senior Fellow,
Center for American Progress
Paul Goldenberg- President and
CEO, Cardinal Point Strategies, LLC
Lee H. Hamilton- Director,
Center on Congress, Indiana University
Jane Harman, President and
CEO, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Elizabeth Holtzman- Co-chair,
Herrick’s Government Relations Group,
Jim Jones, Chairman-
ManattJones Global Strategies
Juliette Kayyem- Founder of
Juliette Kayyem Solutions, LLC
Gary Kelly- President and CEO,
Southwest Airlines
John Kelly- General, U.S.
Marine Corps (Ret.)
Carie A. Lemack- Cofounder and
CEO of DreamUp
Wilson Livingood- President
and Partner, Livingood Advisors, LLC
Jane Holl Lute- Special
Coordinator on Improving United Nations Response to sexual exploitation and
abuse
John Magaw- Consultant,
Domestic and International
Christian Marrone- CoS to the
CEO, VP of Government Relations, CSRA Inc.
David Martin- Professor of
International Law- University of Virginia School of Law
Jeffrey Miller- Senior Vice
President, MSA Security
Jeff Moss- Founder of Black
Hat and DEF CON Conferences
Dr. Ned Norris Jr.- Former
Chairman of the Tohono O’odham Nation
Michael Nutter- Former Mayor
of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Mathew Olsen- President of
Consulting and Co-Founder, IronNet Cybersecurity
Farah Pandith- Adjunct Senior
Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations
Annise Danette Parker- Former
Mayor, City of Houston, Texas
John S. Pistole- President,
Anderson University
Robert Rose- Senior Advisor to
the CEO, Securonix
Harold A. Schaitberger-
General President, International Association of Firefighters
Ali H. Soufan- Chairman and
CEO, The Soufan Group LLC
Paul Stockton- Managing
Director, Sonecon LLC
Karen Tandy- Administrator
(Ret.), Drug Enforcement Administration
Lydia W. Thomas- Retired
President and CEO, Noblis, Inc.
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