Thursday, October 22, 2009
Tomgram: Jo Comerford, Three Cheers for the War Dividend
If you want a picture of how Washington deals with American war-making today, check out a moment from NBC's October 11th "Meet the Press." David Gregory, the show's moderator, is conducting a round-table discussion with former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers, Senator Lindsey Graham, Senator Carl Levin, and retired General Barry McCaffrey (one of those generals who now spends his time on television explaining our wars to us). At one point, Gregory asks: "Can we beat the Taliban?" General McCaffrey's reply starts this way: "Well, I, I think in 10 years of $5 billion a month and with a significant front-end security component, we can leave an Afghan national army and police force and a viable government and roads and universities. But it's a time constraint that we can't change things in 18 to 24 months. So I think we got to lower expectations."
Now, if you were a normal citizen, you might begin frantically calculating: $5 billion a month... 12 months in a year... $60 billion a year... times 10 years... $600 billion dollars. If, in fact, the number of U.S. troops or trainers and advisors rises significantly and the U.S. commitment to the war rises as well, this will surely prove a gross underestimate. But leaving that aside, you, the normal, reasonable human being, might at this point say something like: "Hold on, general, $600 billion more dollars? Ten years? And where's that money coming from? And is that really how you want to invest taxpayer dollars -- in another supposedly too-big-to-fail bailout?" Or, of course, you might just jump up and yell, "Have you lost your senses?"
But of course this is Washington where such numbers for American war-fighting are so ho-hum, so run-of-the-mill, that none of the other participants even thinks to comment on or question them or stops for a second in wonder. In fact, when McCaffrey is done, here's how Gregory begins his response: "Just with, with very little time left, I want to get to two other issues. The president spoke last night at the Human Rights Campaign dinner and spoke about 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'..." And so it goes in "wartime" Washington.
Jo Comerford, a TomDispatch newcomer, runs the National Priorities Project, whose mission is to analyze "complex federal spending data and translate it into easy-to-understand information about how federal tax dollars are spent." Its site even has a "cost of war" counter, constantly twirling as the dollars rise in dizzying fashion. Here, as a numbers cruncher, she makes the most basic point of all: Whoever may be losing in our country, others are cashing in their chips and I'm not just talking about Goldman Sachs. After all, there's also the "war dividend." Tom
Cashing in the War Dividend
The Joys of Perpetual War
By Jo ComerfordSo you thought the Pentagon was already big enough? Well, what do you know, especially with the price of the American military slated to grow by at least 25% over the next decade?
Forget about the butter. It's bad for you anyway. And sheer military power, as well as the money behind it, assures the country of a thick waistline without the cholesterol. So, let's sing the praises of perpetual war. We better, since right now every forecast in sight tells us that it's our future.
The tired peace dividend tug boat left the harbor two decades ago, dragging with it laughable hopes for universal health care and decent public education. Now, the mighty USS War Dividend is preparing to set sail. The economic weather reports may be lousy and the seas choppy, but one thing is guaranteed: that won't stop it.
The United States, of course, long ago captured first prize in the global arms race. It now spends as much as the next 14 countries combined, even as the spending of our rogue enemies and former enemies -- Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria -- much in the headlines for their prospective armaments, makes up a mere 1% of the world military budget. Still, when you're a military superpower focused on big-picture thinking, there's no time to dawdle on the details.
Rush Limbaugh tells environmental reporter to kill himself
Andrew Revkin, The New York Times' lead environmental reporter, is taking heat. And this time, it's not global warming.
Controversial conservative talker Rush Limbaugh, a longtime critic of the global warming concept, told the reporter to kill himself during his show Tuesday.
Limbaugh dubbed the reporter an "environmentalist wacko."
"This guy from The New York Times, if he really thinks that humanity is destroying the planet, humanity is destroying the climate, that human beings in their natural existence are going to cause the extinction of life on Earth -- Andrew Revkin," Limbaugh quipped. "Mr. Revkin, why don't you just go kill yourself and help the planet by dying?"
Of environmentalists in general, the conservative heavyweight declared they're really just would-be suicide bombers.
"I think these militant environmentalists, these wackos, have so much in common with the jihad guys," Limbaugh said. "Let me explain this. What do the jihad guys do? The jihad guys go to families under their control and they convince these families to strap explosives on who? Not them. On their kids.
"Grab your 3-year-old, grab your 4-year-old, grab your 6-year-old, and we're gonna strap explosives on there, and then we're going to send you on a bus, or we're going to send you to a shopping center, and we're gonna tell you when to pull the trigger, and you're gonna blow up, and you're gonna blow up everybody around you, and you're gonna head up to wherever you're going, 73 virgins are gonna be there," Limbaugh added.
Politico noted that Paul Krugman, the Times' Pulitzer-prize winning economic columnist, blogged: "Always good to remember what we're dealing with."
http://rawstory.com/2009/10/rush-limbaugh-tells-environmental-reporter-kill/
Pelosi About To Include Medicare +5 Public Option In House Bill
By David Dayen
By now you've probably heard about Nancy Pelosi's decision to include the more liberal version of the public option in the final House bill, the one that includes Medicare + 5% rates, as the Progressive Caucus has sought, instead of negotiated rates. This may be slightly premature. Whatever bill she releases will be guaranteed to get 218 votes, and right now the process to round up those votes is ongoing – her Majority Whip Jim Clyburn will seek the necessary votes within the next 24 hours. But she's nearing that count for the "robust" version, leading her to side with House liberals on this question.
"We are very close and I count tough," Pelosi said, according to a senior Democratic staffer at the caucus. She added that passing a strong public option will give the House negotiating leverage in conference negotiations with the Senate.
She has asked House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) to have his operation survey all House Democrats starting Wednesday to see if they will support the Medicare-based option.
Democratic leaders are planning to roll out the bill next week, and are hoping to vote the first week in November.
Pelosi wants to back the so-called fiscally responsible Blue Dogs into a corner by giving them a bill that the CBO scores well and includes a robust public option as well as bills with a trigger or a weak public option that score worse, so that to reject it, they would have to actually accept a larger price tag. The reports have this new bill coming in at an $870 billion dollar cost to the government over 10 years (the total health care expense for individuals et al. is uncertain at this point). The bill won't add to the deficit in the first 10 years, though it may further out – although gimmicks keep the Senate Finance Committee version looking artificially like a deficit reducer outside the budget window (such as not including the Medicare doctor fix inside the bill, and assuming that policymakers would allow the excise tax on insurance plans to capture 40% of all plans by 2019). Pelosi reportedly wants to come in LOWER than the SFC bill, which seems like chasing a white whale to me, at the expense of affordability for people who need help purchasing insurance. Right now the House bill covers more people than Baucus-care, and by obsessively lowering the cost, Pelosi could threaten that.
http://news.firedoglake.com/2009/10/21/pelosi-to-include-medicare-5-public-option-in-house-bill/
The Problem with Young People – Trading Cards! II
by Donald Mills
More fun for the whole damned family…
"Young People: The Trading Cards." Over 30 different cards available! Buy them today, collect them tomorrow and trade them with your friends for years to come.
A small sample:
Card #2: "The Frat Boy" (A must have for any serious collector.)
Card #3: "The Punk" (Only 100 cards printed so act quickly.)
Card #9: The Tattooed Freak (More common than it used to be).
Coming next: The Hipster, the Teen Pregnancy and the Assclown.
Previous trading cards available here.
Brought to you by the old man at Donco.
Taliban trying to turn US troops into heroin addicts
Insurgents in Afghanistan are using heroin as a tactical weapon against US forces, hoping to emulate the drug problems that plagued US troops in Vietnam and Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s, says a new investigative report.In a report at the Daily Beast, author Gerald Posner cites "an internal US intelligence report" that "concluded [insurgents] are targeting American troops in an effort to undermine their effectiveness, while raising cash to pay for new recruits and weaponry."
The report brings up inevitable comparisons to the Vietnam War of the 1960s and 1970s and the Soviet war in Afghanistan that ended two decades ago. It also raises the possibility that the conflict in Afghanistan will spill over into the streets of America as returning troops bring their addictions home with them.
Posner told MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan on Tuesday that drug addiction played a major role in the military failure of those two wars.
"In Vietnam we ended up with a nearly 20 percent addiction rate to China White," Posner said. (A 1971 report on drug addiction among US soldiers in Vietnam pegged the number closer to 15 percent.)
Opposite Day: Underweight 2-Year-Old Girl Denied Insurance Coverage
By GottaLaff
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Welcome to Opposite Day, gang! First, a baby was denied coverage because he weighed too much. Now there's a healthy toddler who got rejected for not weighing enough.
But nah, we don't need to knock Big Insurance down a few pegs via a public option. That would be so socialist!
But nah, we don't need to knock Big Insurance down a few pegs via a public option. That would be so socialist!
When Aislin's father, Rob, worked for another company, Aislin was covered under the company's group health insurance plan.Now that Rob is working on his own, he's had to get new insurance. The company, UnitedHealthcare's Golden Rule, sent the family a letter, which says in part, "We are unable to provide coverage for Aislin because her height and weight do not meet our company standards."
Hey UHC's GR, you don't meet America's standards. How's that feel?
A spokeswoman for UnitedHealthcare's Golden Rule:
A spokeswoman for UnitedHealthcare's Golden Rule:
"Ours are based on several medical sources, including the Centers for Disease Control, and are well within industry standards," she said.Laden, who said she couldn't talk specifically about the Bates' case, added that, "When evaluating height and weight, we typically utilize other factors as well in making a decision, such as medical records that show evidence of treatment or any underlying medical conditions."
As in... pre-existing conditions? Uh-huh.
The Bates say Aislin is undergoing treatment for an active gag reflex.
So am I, after reading this article.
"It's very minor and she probably will only need therapy for a few more months," Rachel said.
Doesn't matter. Time is of the essence. Business as usual. Doesn't this family understand that Big Insurance needs to make money? How insensitive can they be? Come on, Bateses!
The Bates said Aislin is temporarily covered through COBRA, a federal program that allows people to continue an employer-based health insurance plan for up to 18 months. The parents said it costs as much to cover Aislin under COBRA as it costs to cover the remaining three family members.
I can vouch for that. We're using COBRA and paying $20,000 a year. And that will end soon, so we'll be paying someone new to screw us over very soon. Isn't this fun? See? America has the best health care ever! Just ask the Rushpublics.
Roll up, roll up - Colorado newspaper seeks marijuana critic
The Westword newspaper in Denver is looking for a correspondent to review Colorado's hundreds of legalised cannabis dispensaries and their products.
By Guy Adams 
The appointment of the nation's first professional "pot correspondent" comes amid progress towards ending prohibition of the drug.
This week, the White House told federal prosecutors to stop pursuing certain users and vendors in the 14 states where it is permitted for medical reasons.
More than 120 applications for the job have already been received by Westword, a weekly newspaper with a circulation of 100,000 owned by the prestigious Village Voice group.
Whoever eventually gets the job will be paid to write a weekly column entitled "Mile Highs and Lows".
"More and more people are having the opportunity to use marijuana for whatever illness they have," Joe Tone, an editor at the title, told the Associated Press.
"So we want to be a place they can come to find out which place is the best, the cleanest and the closest."
The reviewer will be expected to rate the service, and ambience in the outlets that he or she reviews, said Tone.
They are also required to help readers negotiate the often bewildering variety of marijuana products on sale.
There will certainly be demand for an impartial guide to medical marijuana stores.
Thousands have sprung up across America in recent years, but they vary wildly. Some are run-down operations; others are comfortable, cafe-style venues where customers can buy food and drink, and enjoy acupuncture and massage.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10604749
It’s the End of the Book World as We Know It
And publishers should feel fine.
By Marion Maneker
Not the publishing world. Book people are easily spooked. And their first line of defense is to hyperventilate. That's what literary agent David Gernert did in the New York Times when he claimed, "[P]ublishing as we know it is over" if readers come to expect hardcover best-sellers for $9 at Wal-Mart, Amazon, and Target (TGT) (which matched the offer.) He feared the low price would turn readers off to literary books at $25: "I think we underestimate the effect to which extremely discounted best-sellers take the consumer's attention away from emerging writers." But instead of fretting over first novels, publishers and agents should latch on to this development as a way to restructure the economics of the industry to everyone's benefit.
In truth, there are no barriers to success in the book business. Publishing is ruthlessly efficient. Books that excite readers take off; those that don't disappear fast. There's no evidence that John Grisham crowds out the great American novel. In fact, it's quite the reverse. What the industry lacks are products that excite readers. Where publishing is brutally inefficient is the process by which it selects products and allocates resources. And those toxic assets—all the unearned advances—are paid off by the best-selling authors. Stephen King, John Grisham, and the Freakonomics guys cover the cost of failed books.
So fighting the low-priced book—either electronic or hardcover—is a red herring. Consumers are already accustomed to paying varying prices for different editions of the same title. Many a book sells well in the higher-priced trade paperback form even when a cheaper mass market edition is available. The same is true for hardcovers, in many cases. More to the point, Costco trained customers to expect to pay half the cover price on hardcovers and paperbacks many years ago. The impact on independent bookstores—the entities that supposedly support and nurture emerging writers—and chains has been profound but is hardly new.
Wal-Mart's loss-leader campaign only emulates what Amazon and Costco have already done: Use cheap books as a signal of value. It has seen how successful books can be for customer loyalty, especially among women, who compose the majority of shoppers and readers. The discounts will be very hard for Wal-Mart, Target, and Amazon to sustain because they must purchase the book from publishers for more than they charge customers. But watch out. Like Amazon's 40 percent discount on best-sellers and the 50 percent discount by other physical retailers, the overall trend in the book business has been toward price deflation. Wal-Mart can keep the cuts up if it arranges a deal that allows the publisher to sell books to the giant on more favorable terms. So, once again, it is the very success of books—a medium no one supposedly cares about any longer—that continues to erode the economics of the publishing industry.
The Huckabee Panic
It really is pretty awesome watching the Republican panic about Mike Huckabee set in, especially as he moves ahead in the polls in several states. This quote from Sullivan really sums it up:
Every complacent secular Republican who has scorned those of us worried about the fundie right is beginning to squirm in the face of Huckabee's surge.
And squirm is putting it lightly. Also via Sully, Ace:
Not that what one blogger thinks matters that much, but if Huckabee gets the nomination, I'm voting Democratic. It's not just an idle threat; I just won't vote for him and in fact won't even vote third party or stay home.
That Presidential "R" in 2008 will stand for nothing I believe in. The guy is slick but doesn't even look competent. And if Republican primary voters are that stupid, they deserve to lose next Fall. To pass over McCain, Thompson, Romney and Giuliani ONLY because someone's slick and a Jesus Freak, which makes him your average televangelist – forget it.
We will pause for a moment to let it sink in that the Dan Riehl right now views actual social cons as "Jesus Freaks." Moving right along, Captain Ed (not freaking out like the others, but seeing the writing on the wall):
Huckabee has gained credibility at an amazing rate in this race. The biggest question is why. It appears that the evangelicals have begun to make their voice heard in this race. For months, they complained about the lack of choice for their constituency, even at one point threatening to splinter into a third party. Instead, they seem to have collected themselves and looked for the most representative candidate in the race—and Huckabee has the strongest record on pro-life and social-conservative causes.
james Joyner has a solid round-up of what the op-ed writers are saying, including Peggy Noonan:
I wonder if our old friend Ronald Reagan could rise in this party, this environment. Not a regular churchgoer, said he experienced God riding his horse at the ranch, divorced, relaxed about the faiths of his friends and aides, or about its absence. He was a believing Christian, but he spent his adulthood in relativist Hollywood, and had a father who belonged to what some saw, and even see, as the Catholic cult. I'm just not sure he'd be pure enough to make it in this party. I'm not sure he'd be considered good enough.
I simply can not tell you how much I am enjoying this. The GOP has been pandering to these stupid bastards for years, and every time I pointed it out I was called "anti-Christian" or something or other. Those of us who saw what the party was becoming were told to shut up, that it was good politics.
Enjoy your new GOP, folks.
Judge revokes Bernard Kerik bail, sends ex-NYPD top cop to jail for trying to taint jury pool
By Robert Gearty and Greg B. Smith
Bernard Kerik became the first NYPD commissioner to land in jail Tuesday after a judge revoked his bail for trying to taint the jury pool in his upcoming corruption trial.Late last night Kerik was taken from White Plains Federal Court to the Westchester County Jail in Valhalla. His lawyers vowed a prompt appeal to try and get him out.
A furious Judge Stephen Robinson threw Kerik in the clink after prosecutors said the former top cop and the head of his legal defense fund engaged in a subversive campaign to sway potential jurors.
The judge blasted Kerik for ignoring his prior warnings to bar Anthony Modafferi, the head of the fund, from posting anti-prosecution rants on on the Internet.
"Mr. Kerik has a toxic combination of self-minded focus and arrogance that leads him to believe that the ends justify the means, that rules that apply to all don't apply to him in the same way, that rulings of the court are an inconvenience," Robinson said.
The one-time "hero" of 9/11 was led away by U.S. marshals after handing his red tie, religious medals and a ring to his lawyers, standard procedure for all prisoners.
DidGlennBeckRapeAndMurderAYoungGirlIn1990.com
The Official Parody Website About The Controversy
Latest Legal News
This page contains the latest news on the LEGAL FRONT, newest on top:
BREAKING NEWS: ROUND TWO!
In which Beck makes a supplemental filing, the arbitrator orders, and we respond
We can only assume Beck has realized that his initial arguments to WIPO had no merit, and felt the need to try some different angles, which fail just as hard. I feel sorry for his lawyers, who have put in a lot of good effort into trying to fight an unwinnable case.
This is quite possibly the first time ever that pedobear has ever featured in legal documents. Read and enjoy!
Beck: Supplemental Filing (PDF)
Arbitrator: Procedural Order (DOC)
Our Reply (PDF) - Exhibits (PDF)
BREAKING: WE RESPOND (9/29/2009)
My lawyer, Marc Randazza, has written a brilliant response (PDF) ( Annexes ) to the Glenn Beck complaint (PDF about the original domain used for this website, GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com.
You can read more about it here:
http://www.citmedialaw.org/threats/beck-v-eiland-hall
Update:
We find it ironic that Glenn Beck, realizing that the U.S. Constitution would stand in the way of trying to shut us down via the U.S. courty system, decided to bring action against us before an international domain name arbitration panel. We're not saying he's not patriotic, but why would a patriotic American seek relief outside the U.S.? See the letter with our proposed stipulation that will ensure that no matter which panelist is assigned to this case, the First Amendment will illuminate these proceedings like rays of light from the Torch of Liberty.
Documents:
Please find my lawyer's brilliant and cogent responses below:
- Directory containing all below: Directory ( http://gb1990.net/legal/response )
- Response: Response (PDF) ( Share: http://tinyurl.com/gb1990responds )
- Annexes: Annexes (PDF) ( Share: http://tinyurl.com/gb1990annex )
- Stipulation Letter: Letter (PDF) ( Share: http://tinyurl.com/gb1990letter )
Court papers claim Bernie Madoff's Securities offices were fueled by cocaine, topless women
Bernie Madoff, cocaine kingpin?New additions to a lawsuit against the jailed Ponzi schemer charge that he presided over an office so fueled by the drug that it was known as the "North Pole."
The suit, filed Tuesday night in Manhattan Supreme Court, alleges that Madoff, as far back as 1975, used two street toughs on his payroll to set up a cocaine pipeline into the offices of Madoff Securities.
It portrays the firm's headquarters as an animal house with "a culture of sexual deviance" that often hosted drug-fueled parties featuring topless waitresses who wore little more than G-strings.
The suit also points out that Madoff now spends his days in the company of other noted jailbirds, including former Colombo crime family boss Carmine Persico and Naval intelligence anaylyst-turned-spy Jonathan Pollard.
He's also surrounded by plenty of lesser-known crooks, the suit notes.
"Most of his fellow inmates are in prison for drug crimes or sex crimes and Madoff will spend the rest of his life in prison with them," the suit says.
It also casts Madoff as a frequent patron of escort services and massage parlors who kept a list of his preferred female masseuses in his personal phone book.
