Chris Matthews Eviscerates Neocon Frank Gaffney: "4,000 People Are Dead Because Of The Way You Feel" (VIDEO)

"January 26, 1998



The Honorable William J. Clinton

President of the United States

Washington, DC



Dear Mr. President:



We are writing you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War. In your upcoming State of the Union Address, you have an opportunity to chart a clear and determined course for meeting this threat. We urge you to seize that opportunity, and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein"s regime from power. We stand ready to offer our full support in this difficult but necessary endeavor."



-SNIP-



"Sincerely,



Elliott Abrams Richard L. Armitage William J. Bennett



Jeffrey Bergner John Bolton Paula Dobriansky



Francis Fukuyama Robert Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad



William Kristol Richard Perle Peter W. Rodman



Donald Rumsfeld William Schneider, Jr. Vin Weber



Paul Wolfowitz R. James Woolsey Robert B. Zoellick"



http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm



Please ... Enough!
About Video On HuffPost
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Iraqi Throws Shoes At Bush During Press Conference (VIDEO)(SLIDESHOW)

A lot of Chicago in the air these days ... Blago ... Obama ... and now, ala the Blues Brothers, Bush gets a chance at being "Sole Man"!
About Slideshows
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Modern-Day Pyramids

But we are thinking small here ... what about Mortgages for everyone with an ID card and the ability to make an "X" on a document? There is a lot of money for the Pyramid there! And if we encourage flipping of real estate and irrational appraisals to insanely inflate the property values, the sky's them limit for CMOs we can generate from that! Brilliant! Factor in home owners tapping into the equity of their over valued homes with loans and there is another CDO opportunity!



It is an AMAZING plan, Mr Franken ,,, and as long as the credit markets don't freeze causing the inflated securities' values to collapse (silly thought) we will be living high on the hog!



Are we good or what? Let's give it a shot!
About Economy
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Modern-Day Pyramids

Agreed, Mr. Franken.



How about this idea? A Pyramid scheme based on taking debt and turning it into securities that are then sliced into derivatives, inflated in value, and pumped into the perpetual motion machines of the World Float Market?



But how to sustain such a money making mechanism? Well first of all ... duh ... you have to get rid of all the regulations you can and compromise the regulatory agencies that remain, not a problem.



Then there is the issue of fresh money coming into the Pyramid at the bottom ... how to do that? Ah hah! Easy credit! Credit Cards for EVERYONE! That'll do it! Who cares if the card holders amass access to credit they could never pay in six lifetimes were they to use it all? it's the CDOs from their debt we want as octane for the Pyramid ... besides, draconian bankruptcy laws will keep them in line, as long as they don't all default at once, but that would require a Crash. No way!



cont ...
About Economy
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Lessons from Bernie

Mr. Solin, I am very weary of the narrative that is developing about Madoff being the "Lone Nut" of Money Managers. Of course someone with such a huge cloud of suspicion becomes a titan of his industry. Everyday, shiesters are accepted into the bosom of their community and are celebrated.



When the ENRON collapse took place everyone was dumbfounded by the irresponsible accounting practices that Arthur Anderson was engaged in ... Shocking! At the time of the scandal I was talking with a colleague whose brother was employed with one of the other "Big Five" Accounting firms at the time. His brother told him that everything that Arthur Anderson was being attacked over was standard operating procedure in the Accounting Industry ... they just suffered from have one of their clients collapse because of it. So Arthur Anderson took a bullet for the Accounting Industry and whether or not the remaining "Big Five" learned the errors of their ways will become more apparent as the economy continues to disintegrate.



I have no doubt that Madoff is a criminal and a scoundrel, but I am not ready to buy there is anything unique about him in terms of his industry.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Unexpurgated Blago: Barack Obama is a "Motherf**ker" and More

Fast forward to January 19, 2017 ...



Phone rings in the White House ...



ring ... ring ... ring ... ring ...



"Hello, this is President Obama ... Sorry I missed your call, but I am in New Orleans accepting the key to the reconstructed City from Mayor Shearer ... please leave a message of any length and I will get back to you as soon as I can."



BEEEEEEP!!!!!



"Yo President Obama ... this is Blago. I left youse quite a number of messages about the ... you know ... pardon deal. I tink I got about as much rehabilitation as I can from this Prison Establishment ting and I'm ready to do ... ah ... some a dem selfless good works ... I ah ... hears people talking about. I mean, eh, I am very sorry for trying to hock your Senate seat. I mean. dat Fitz is quite a sonofa ... I mean. He's good, very good ... how's da basta .. ah .. gentlemen enjoying being your AG? I new da guy woulda find a way into da slot ... da worm. And, about the past ... it's the past. You know? I mean, so I called you a mutha fuc ... I mean, come on it's Chicago for crissake ... people have been called worser! Listen, the guards giving me the eye ... just get back to me about the pardon ... the hair gel is crap here! ... You der? I tink YOU THERE!!
About Rod Blagojevich
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Saving the Big 3 for You and Me

Mr Moore, I bought my first car used for $1000 with over 100k miles on it, a 1970 Oldsmobile Delta 88. I drove it like Steve McQueen through the Streets of San Francisco. I'd get airborne cresting some of our hills and, with dead shocks and springs, bottom out righteously with a monstrous scrape and a plume of sparks ... it was heaven. I beat it up, rarely changed the oil and lasted far longer than I would have expected. It was a Great American Car.



Years later I got what I thought was a deal when my great aunt sold me her 1992 Mercury Sable LS, with only 16k of miles on it for $7000. The car was only driven from my relatives' home to a supermarket a couple of blocks away. The car was luxurious, with every bell and whistle you could wish for, and was an unadulterated piece of cr#p. I put almost as much money into fixing it as I did buying it. When crossing the Bay Bridge the car's engine would lose compression and cause the thing to shake like a beast was trapped within it. My terrified wife would actually pray the rosary. The Sable cured me of American cars. I haven't owned one since.



My guess is the high quality of UAW labor hasn't changed from 1970 to 1992, but the management philosophy sure did, A government buyout of the Big Three would be the answer, for Corporate Management has failed this industry.
About The Bailouts
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Homeland Security Department In Total Disarray

First thing that is necessary is a renaming of the department. "Homeland Security"? Since when did the United States of America become the "Homeland"?



"My country, 'tis of thee,

Sweet land of liberty,

Of thee I sing;

Land where my fathers died,

Land of the pilgrims' pride,

From every mountainside

Let freedom ring!"



Where does it say "Homeland" in that stanza? How about we dispense with the Richard Wagnerization fo the US Government and rename DHS the Department of Domestic Security? We have a precedent ... The War Department became the Department of Defense.



I hear Homeland Security and the Darth Vader theme comes to mind.
About President Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The <em>New Yorker</em> "Vets" Obama

I mean, it's bad enough to have the President-Elect sitting on the commode talking to a dog, but why in the world is Axelrod in the CR with him? Is this some sort of subliminal LBJ reference?



(Actually I'm kidding, but it does strike me as though the drawing represents the Presidential Throne on Air Force One for some reason.)
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman: Why We Didn't See The Economic Crisis Coming

In a previous employment incarnation I worked in a high security cash handling unit for a major financial institution. The environment had guards, team custody, double custody, pocket-less uniforms and full coverage surveillance via banks of videotaping cameras. In short, security was intense ... and yet, employees continued to attempt defalcation. Stealing. I saw cash handlers, managers, and even guards caught for ripping off the bank. And each one of them knew that every move they made was being watched.



Now look at the current mayhem in our economy ... what caused it? Why didn't the experts see the crisis coming? Well, let's see. The banks were allowed to merge their commercial and investment sides for the first time since the Great Depression in 1999 with the vacating of Glass-Steagall. Then the Banks were deregulated, and the Hedge Funds were deregulated, and Commodities Trading was deregulated ...



Hmm, if human beings are willing to engage in theft of money when they KNOW they are under surveillance, how would they behave with none?



All of these great economic minds are pulling their hair out trying to determine how this mess snuck up on them, but the one overriding factor at the heart of the matter is not to be found in any of their graphs, charts, or spreadsheets. ...



Human Nature.
About Economy
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Fox News Shut Out At Obama's Pressers

Fox News has had its back rubbed and feet massaged by the Bush/Cheney Administration for the last 8 years. Talk about access, when one of your anchors becomes White House Press Secretary ... well, you don't get much more insider than that.



Had Fox News actually lived up to their slogan "Fair and Balanced" instead of making it an obvious punchline ... maybe the incoming Administration would treat the organization as credible.



Here's an idea, why doesn't Fox News send one of its less compromised talents to cover the White House? ... or better yet, hire someone new without all the propaganda baggage .. then when a Fox News representative raises a hand someone may take actually notice.
About President Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama's Treasury Secretary A Cursing, Skateboarding "Hipster-Wonk"

"In temperament he seems similar to Mr Obama: he is suspicious of ideology, questions received wisdom, likes a competition of ideas and is keenly aware of how uncertain the world is."



In short, he, like Obama, is a member of Generation Jones ... the generation at the end of the Baby Boom who have quietly played cleanup for their highly publicized predecessors.



Where as the theme song for the Baby Boomers may have been "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow", Generation Jones tacks more for "Don't Fear the Reaper"... or "Bat Out of Hell"



" ... I'm gonna hit the highway like a battering ram



On a silver black phantom bike



When the metal is hot and the engine is hungry



And we're all about to see the light



Nothing ever grows in this rotten old hole



Everything is stunted and lost



And nothing really rocks



And nothing really rolls



And nothing's ever worth the cost



And I know that I'm damned if I never get out



And maybe I'm damned if I do



But with every other beat I got left in my heart



You know I'd rather be damned with you"



(Gotta love Jim Steinman)
About Obama Transition
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Kinsley Warns Of Coming Blogopocalypse

Well that puts a cloud over my plans for a ZiraGlam Blog. I was thinking a site that was devoted to my Zira Planet of the Apes action figure posing in knockoffs from Project Runway would be a certain hit generator.



Zira does have an remarkable figure for a 6 inch plastic toy.



Oh well, another dream shattered,



(Oh, that would be the Original Zira poseable action figure, not the more recent "re-imagined" Zira from Tim Burton's massacre. Even Versace himself couldn't dress that Zira successfully.)
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Study: "Center-Right Nation" Narrative Spiked Immediately After Election Day

Many Americans are very much like the old man in whorehouse from Catch 22:



"Capt. Nately: Don't you have any principles?

Old man in whorehouse: Of course not!

Capt. Nately: No morality?

Old man in whorehouse: I'm a very moral man, and Italy is a very moral country. That's why we will certainly come out on top again if we succeed in being defeated.

Capt. Nately: You talk like a madman.

Old man in whorehouse: But I live like a sane one. I was a fascist when Mussolini was on top. Now that he has been deposed, I am anti-fascist. When the Germans were here, I was fanatically pro-German. Now I'm fanatically pro-American. You'll find no more loyal partisan in all of Italy than myself.

Capt. Nately: You're a shameful opportunist! What you don't understand is that it's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.

Old man in whorehouse: You have it backwards. It's better to live on your feet than to die on your knees. I know.

Capt. Nately: How do you know?

Old man in whorehouse: Because I am 107-years-old. How old are you?

Capt. Nately: I'll be 20 in January.

Old man in whorehouse: If you live."



Many Americans will be fanatically center-right until they're not.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

O'Reilly, Ingraham Stoke Fairness Doctrine Paranoia

Reinstating the Fairness Doctrine would be a good thing. Anything that dilutes the right wing rhetoric that has been allowed to brainwash vast regions of the United States for the last 20 years is of benefit to a nation that aspires to move forward and not backward. I do not see the reason to retreat from reinstatement of balanced exchange of ideas on the Nation's Airwaves.



And a bit of trivia on the murder of the Fairness Doctrine in the first place. Our friends on the Right were so thrilled with the success of the killing of the FD that they rewarded the Judges that rendered the judgment that hastened its demise with a shot at the Supreme Court.



"In 1986, Judges Robert Bork and Antonin Scalia of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded that the Fairness Doctrine did apply to teletext but that the FCC was not required to apply it."



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine
About Video On HuffPost
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Stocks tumble for second day; Treasurys surge

The possible collapse of the auto industry is a tangential reason for what is occurring on Wall Street. None of the fat cats are going to mouth these words:



"We spent the last 9, unregulated, avarice driven, years creating a monstrous financial pyramid scheme, designed to produce massive short term quarterly profits at the expense of long term economic stability and solvency, and that pyramid has sucked in capital from throughout the world economy, and that pyramid is in the process of rapid collapse, and we have no strategy, tools, or ability to stop it."



You won't hear those words from anyone of authority in Business or Government ... but that doesn't mean they aren't thinking it every day.
About Financial Crisis
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

World Leaders Don't Shake Bush's Hand At G20 Summit (VIDEO)

I think we are misinterpreting what we are seeing here. I would love to kick Bush while he's down as much as anyone else here, but I think I would be missing the true, important message of this snub.



These are highly choreographed events. These are World Leaders representing 20 key Nations on earth. These aren't low level Foreign Ministers.



What we have here is a repudiation of the United States of America's economic leadership. Bush just happens to be the current President. The US strong armed the World into severe market liberalization at the cost of domestic economies and hardship for the citizens of these nations. The United States promised a pot of gold at the end of Milton Friedman's Rainbow, and the pot of gold turned out to be a chamberpot of dross.



There isn't a World Leader on that stage who isn't suffering tremendous political damage at home for the state of the World Economy ... and the US, in cahoots with the World Bank and the IMF, led the world to this misery.



So we shouldn't get too giddy about Bush being dissed ... the message sent, loud and clear, to the entire World was ... "the United States did this to us."



And that doesn't make Obama's job any easier.
About George Bush
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Dow 8000: Markets Plummet Again

Oh, this is nothing ... the Markets are going to head south Big Time. We haven't experienced the crash yet. We have been bumping along the rapids on the way to the falls, but we aren't to the falls yet.



This is what people have to remember ... this is key. We are where we are because the Banks were allowed to consolidate their commercial and investment wings thanks to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999. Then on top of that all banking was deregulated, the SEC was de-fanged, Hedge Funds were deregulated and Wall Street was allowed to do pretty much anything they wanted, as irresponsibly as was possible in a highly competitive way,



So what was done was massive fraud and manipulation of float and leveraging to the tune of trillions upon trillions upon trillions upon trillions upon trillions. Now the cute thing about this fraudulently generated wealth is it is intermingled with REAL wealth. So, as this massive fraudulent wealth bubble collapses it evaporates the real capital with the fake. Oh, and just for giggles, lets remember since every bank in America became an investment Bank, every depositor became an investor ... so when you look at the corporation's predicament today ... it is due to the bulk of their wealth being tied up in the collapsing bubble too ... The Corporations have invested all of their savings and are watching it go up in smoke.



Some say Dow 5000? I say DOW 1900 ... it's over.
About Financial Crisis
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

WTF? Lieberman? Clinton? That's EXACTLY The Obama I Voted For

Mr Stranahan, I will limit my criticism until I see what concrete results the Obama Administration delivers. Currently there is a grace period, but I'm not one to make excuses for Obama if he starts screwing up. Whether or not Obama is a transformational candidate in anyway other than diversity awaits to be seen.



I will say this, however, if the Democratic Party wants to use The Left to win power and then marginalize The Left once it attains it, then l think The Left needs to develop an alternative to to the current two party dynamic in order to get its needs met. If the Democrats take The Left for granted they should be made to pay for it. It wasn't the centrists that drove this last election cycle dynamic. I'm all for Netroots using the tools of the Internet to develop a vibrant Left coalition that can then leverage the power of its voting block to get its way. I would use the Iglesia Ni Cristo voting block model in the Philippines (sans the religion), for in a predominantly Catholic Country like the Philippines the Politicians know if they don't get the support of the independent Christian InC, they will likely lose the election. That's the true political power The Left needs to develop, Obama or not.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Advisers: Torture Prosecutions Not Likely

It would go a long way to rehabilitate the image of the United States if the Obama Administration were to prosecute domestically or aid in the prosecution, in an International Forum, the Americans guilty of crimes against humanity. Most Americans are so poorly educated they can't comprehend how far America's star has fallen in the eyes of the world. and contrary to domestically cultivated hubris, there are many areas of the world that would be more than happy to go about their business without being in the hammerlock of American influence.



Prosecuting villains from the Bush Administration would be a patriotic act that would aid the United States in recovering some of its lost credibility.
About President Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost