it's not a bug it's a feature

...and civilian drone casualties in the single digits? Oh, really?

But one must conclude blowback is part of the plan to keep the endless war.

enablement

The kind of mindset Brennan typifies has been going on in the covert branches of government since before Poppy Bush. I think the truth is that Obama has enabled it only because this covert branch would remove him if he stood in its way.

the prisoner

Obama is President, but evidence suggests a big part of the American government is totally unaccountable to any other branch or agency. Another question, asked before, might be directed at Obama: "Are you a prisoner?" Does this political force require obedience of anyone in the White House?

the there out there

" A brand new conservative group calling itself Americans for a Strong Defense and financed by anonymous donors is running advertisements urging Democratic senators in five states to vote against Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s nominee to be secretary of defense, saying he would make the United States “a weaker country.”

Another freshly minted and anonymously backed organization, Use Your Mandate, which presents itself as a liberal gay rights group but purchases its television time through a prominent Republican firm, is attacking Mr. Hagel as “anti-Gay,” “anti-woman” and “anti-Israel” in ads and mailers.

Those groups are joining at least five others that are organizing to stop Mr. Hagel’s confirmation.."

But saying there's a military-industrial cabal that wants to keep us in endless war for its own profit is sheerest conspiracy theory.

Of course, gravity is a theory, too.

attack of the killer turkeys

We must take a lead in the war against the North African jihadist threat that we created when we gave money to Al Qaeda to overturn the Libyan government.

Among many funny things about Ms. Clinton's little talk yesterday was how they danced around the fact that Petraeus Caesar headed the CIA when they were funneling all that money there- as well as they money they continue to give them in Afghanistan. Not to mention the drug trade they let go untouched.

One supposes someone in the Cheney faction of the CIA thought they were letting a zinger loose when they told Rand Paul's handlers about the weapons connection to Turkey. Old news, but something Hillary knew Paul knew less about than even she did. One also supposes a major stratagem of the Democratic wing of the CIA is to give Brennan enough rope to hang himself- and the Tea Party.

Tell it to Jebbie Bush, who knows all about the known unknowns from his Poppy's knee. 

totally unrelated

Over the last few weeks, unbelievable heat in Australia, and unbelievable cold in Russia.

 Of course, this has nothing to do with the weakening global conveyor current.

conflicted interests

They write letters

The huge reserves of coal, oil and gas held by companies listed in the City of London are "sub-prime" assets posing a systemic risk to economic stability, a high-profile coalition of investors, politicians and scientists has warned Bank of England's governor, Sir Mervyn King.

In an open letter on Thursday, they tell King that the global drive to reduce carbon emissions could mean billions of pounds of fossil fuel reserves will rapidly lose value and cause a "major problem" for institutional investors and pension funds.

At the most recent UN climate change summit in December, 194 of the world's nations agreed to enact legally binding curbs on greenhouse gas emissions within three years to limit global warming to 2C. But meeting this limit would mean just 20% of existing fossil fuel reserves could be burned, according to recent research.

"These high-carbon assets pose significant strategic challenges for the future prosperity of Britain that just can't be ignored," said investment manager James Cameron, who is a member of the prime minister's business advisory group. "Investors continue to pour cash into unsustainable assets without understanding the risks associated with these investments, such as climate change, local pollution, fossil fuel price volatility, political risk and catastrophes such as Deepwater Horizon."

Which more likely means that the agreements are probably not worth the trees that died to publish them.

Although the posturing's in the right place, for some of our fearless Leaders anyway, who wax climatological greenness in Inaugural speeches, to the growling of their partisan opponents.


Of course,  it appears that some of those minty greens are also heavily invested in that tar sand black gold. But who are you going to believe? Our forward leaning champions, or the Party of Business? Like there's a difference.

Hot Item

But torture in pursuit of virtue sells well to a big audience, like the Taliban or the Tea Party,

gifts on a winter day

From Glenn Greenwald

chaos is the plan

"Negotiators have yet to work out a deal to stop the arbitrary spending cuts known as the sequester..." This is a serious mistake if these are allowed to go forward. The Clinton era tax rates did no real damage to the economy. But, the sequester will plunge us back into Recession or worse all by itself. Of course, that was what it was intended to do in the first place.

bad moon rising. again.

There are tough times ahead, the Austerians tell us, as they continue to pull ahead of everyone else.

Of course, just as only Nixon could go to China, only Obama could destroy Social Security.

It seems the mark of an honest politician is that they stay bought.

no one's talking

Just a thought or two (again) on the great radio silence of space in the face of a probable multitude of life-bearing planets in the universe.

Even if a species gets smart enough to avoid thermonuclear suicide or environmental degradation, there's another hubris trap for any sapient species.

It's likely that the quest for space warp technology will also produce a series of mistakes about quantum black holes, which could destroy an interplanetary species that hadn't spread beyond its home system.

The voice of conventional theoretical physics assures us these would be harmless. But governments continue to pour massive amounts of money into research on elementary particle physics that's pretty transparently intended for the discovery of a new super weapon.  The creation of a quantum block hole that didn't "dissolve because of quantum effects" would be a extinction-level disaster for any species not spread out over light-years already.

united they stand

Wall Street bank$ters, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security, of course.

when the world is going down, make the best of what's still around

The recently departed Robert Bork (and good riddance) said that the only way to return his version of morality to America was to create Great Depression conditions, where only right thinking people had the money and everyone else was too busy trying to survive to think of anything else. Growth is over if the austerity-thumpers have anything to do with it as is education, democracy, and everything else that promotes progress.

hostage syndrome nation

Friedman would blame the victims of the Tea Party for their ignorance.

By victims I don't just mean anyone on the left of Santorum.

By victims I mean the popular base of the Tea Party, the people that elected the Republican House.

The fact is that these people have been subjected to the best advertised effort at opinion manipulation the world has ever seen, using the most comprehensive campaign that money can buy. I mean a lot of money, too. It's gone on for a long, long, time as well.

It's resulted in half of America that no longer thinks evidence-based, rational decision-making works, because the logical conclusions based on the evidence they're sold on. Krugman compares them to a cult.

That's a fair description.

keeping your eye on the oddball

So if there is a national database of the mentally ill, can we put Wayne LaPierre on it?

Second Amendment Bankrolling

I get letters sometimes.

Here's a sentence from one:

"...The M4A1 and similar variants are the about the last, best thing keeping the corporate government and the financial / capitalist elite from pulling the kill switch on its last victim, turning it full banana republic..."

Except they've done a good job of doing that pretty much since this country was founded.

Some of the financial/ capitalist elite in the Land of the Brave learned a long time ago that keeping the proles armed to the teeth and at each others throats was a great way to keep in business.

I would say it disturbs me that otherwise progressives might think owning assault weapons keeps them safe from the Man, much less these kinds of Guys.

Except that I think it more likely my post and blog showed up in a 'bot search after the NewTown  massacre, was processed to determine where on the political spectrum I was, and a form letter was generated to sell the idea to me that everybody just needs all the firepower they can get.

Because, you know, civil war is great for the booming business.
 

Wayne LaPierre is a 500 lb cornered rat

Wayne LaPierre is a cornered rat, but he's about the size of a Siberian tiger in DC. He, along with the NRA board member Grover Norquist, front for the military industrial corporate enterprise. The National Rifle Association is a threat to national security, and if you don't think this, you haven't been paying attention.

Second Amendment Rights

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

That's fine. Everyone who owns a gun should be required to serve in the National Guard at least a couple weeks a year, and part of a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state.

And if you can't or won't serve, and insist on having military grade weapons? You are a terrorist, and  an enemy of the liberty and freedom of everyone else.

teflon scams

If we hold the bank$ters accountable for the trillion dollar frauds they perpetuated during the Bush era, the banks might tank the economy.

Now, where have we heard that threat before?