Political Wrinkles

Blockbuster Movies, starring political figures, that we'll probably never see :(

Oftencold — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:17:12 GMT

Move type: science fiction/ action adventure

Cinematic style: heavy use of special effects and over-the top stunts

Scenario: The World has been devastated by an alien attack, and now stands defenseless before the advancing space armada.

Only a secret warrior, the last adherent of an ancient cult, long sheltered by the British Government offers the world any hope of victory.

Spoiler

Note: I may not be getting enough oxygen to my brain.

If Obama looses in november will the democrats have a hissy??

Oftencold — Thu, 17 May 2012 06:18:23 GMT

What terrible things might they do? Would anyone notice?

I'm thinking their outrage won't be terribly discernible from their usual behavior.

Oh, the irony of it!

pjohns — Thu, 17 May 2012 03:24:51 GMT

A poll by FNC just came out, showing Barack Obama up by seven points over Mitt Romney, 46 percent to 39 percent.

Although this appears to be an outlier (only an Associated Press poll, recently, showed a similar margin; eight points, to be exact), with the RealClearPolitics average being just 2.5 points in favor of Barack Obama, it does seem instructive in this one regard: Very many people on the left are utterly phobic about all things Fox--it just cannot be trusted, they loudly declare--so one has to wonder how they might explain this.

Oh, here is a link to the RCP average of polls: RealClearPolitics - Election 2012 - General Election: Romney vs. Obama

Exclusive: Iran flouts U.N. sanctions, sends arms to Syria: panel

saltwn — Thu, 17 May 2012 03:06:30 GMT

Quote:

Iran, like Russia, is one of Syria's few allies as it presses ahead with a 14-month old assault on opposition forces determined to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

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...new report, submitted by a panel of sanctions-monitoring experts to the Security Council's Iran sanctions committee, said the panel investigated three large illegal shipments of Iranian weapons over the past year.

"Iran has continued to defy the international community through illegal arms shipments," it stated. "Two of these cases involved (Syria), as were the majority of cases inspected by the Panel during its previous mandate, underscoring that Syria continues to be the central party to illicit Iranian arms transfers."

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The third shipment involved rockets that Britain said last year were headed for Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

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The kinds of arms that Iran was attempting to send to Syria before the shipments were seized by Turkish authorities included assault rifles, machine guns, explosives, detonators, 60mm and 120mm mortal shells and other items, the panel said.

The most recent incident described in the report was an arms shipment discovered in a truck that Turkey seized on its border with Syria in February. Turkey announced last year that it was imposing an arms embargo on Syria.

:crazy

Quote:

It was unclear how long it would take the committee to pass the report to the Security Council. Last year's expert panel report on Iran was never made public because Russia blocked its publication.

:confused

Quote:

The report also discusses Iran's attempts to circumvent sanctions on its nuclear program but notes that the four rounds of punitive measures the 15-nation Security Council imposed on Iran between 2006 and 2010 are having an impact.

"Sanctions are slowing Iran's procurement of some critical items required for its prohibited nuclear program," it said. "At the same time prohibited activities continue, including uranium enrichment."

...
You can read the rest HERE

So we are still fighting a proxy war with Russia and Turkey is our friend.
See? I did pass reading comprehension. :D

BoA Dumps $75 Trillion In Derivatives On Taxpayers, Super Committee Looks Away.

saltwn — Thu, 17 May 2012 02:46:12 GMT

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It's real money, especially since "Bank of America Deathwatch" financial pundits have multiplied on the web and it has become a bit of a geek guessing game. When will BoA finally tank? And when it tanks, the question becomes, who will walk away with all their money, and who will be left holding the bag? The deal just snuck through with the Federal Reserve's, and implicitly, Congress's approval insures Wall Street casino gambler's debts by moving them into accounts meant for penny-pinching grandmas. Citing Bloomberg, financial commentator Avery Goodman tells us:

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Even if we net out the notional value of the derivatives involved, down to the net potential obligation, the amount is so large that the United States could not hope to pay it off without a major dollar devaluation, if a major contingency actually occurred and a large part of the derivatives were triggered.

A bailout for one company's most irresponsible investors triggering a major dollar devaluation? This is the kind of thing that starts revolutions.

Goodman reports:

Quote:

Bank of America (BAC) has shifted about $22 trillion worth of derivative obligations from Merrill Lynch and the BAC holding company to the FDIC insured retail deposit division. Along with this information came the revelation that the FDIC insured unit was already stuffed with $53 trillion worth of these potentially toxic obligations, making a total of $75 trillion.

Without going too far into bewildering financial jargon, it's like this: Your wildest son is asking you to co-sign for a debt. If he can't make his payments, you are on the hook. How much is the debt? He doesn't know. Just sign on the dotted line.

Meanwhile the "super committee" is looking for a trillion or so dollars in hits to everything, including Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, to keep the budget from going any more out of whack. It's urgent, they say, for us to stop spending like drunken sailors. But at the same time they just whipped out a pen and signed for junior, crossing their fingers that something won't happen which is almost inevitable.
Where did I stumble across this news item? Sure as heck not on MSM, which is focused on the smoke grenade of BoAs recent $400 million fee case settlement. $400 million fits into $72 trillion almost 2 million times. Now which is the bigger story?

I stumbled across it posted by an outraged Occupy Wall Street-type on one of their Facebooks. You don't need to read Karl Marx to become an Occupy Wall Streeter. The American financial pages will do it.

It is unlikely the taxpayer's hit will be as much as $72 trillion. Again, no one knows. But it will be a chunk of money.

BusinessWeek writers Phil Mattingly and Bob Ivry point out that Dodd-Frank is not strong enough to prevent the BoA move:

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Separating complex transactions from FDIC-insured savings has been a cornerstone of U.S. regulation for decades, including Dodd-Frank, the regulatory overhaul enacted last year. Bank of America�s transfer prompted some lawmakers to push for stronger rules than were included in that sweeping law. Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont Independent who supported legislation to separate trading operations from commercial banking, said the transaction is a �perfect example why we should break up too-big-to-fail financial behemoths.�

Representative Maurice Hinchey, a New York Democrat who pushed to require splitting commercial and investment banking, said �What Bank of America is doing is perfectly legal -- and that�s the problem.�

Hinchey is among more than 40 House lawmakers who have signed on to a bill that would reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, the Depression-era law that enforced separation of depository institutions from investment operations. Most are Democrats, but that leaves roughly 180 House Democrats and almost all the Republicans who have not signed onto the bill, and at the moment have no intention to. Not to mention the "super committee" eyeing your Social Security. Nor Obama.
BoA Dumps $75 Trillion In Derivatives On Taxpayers, Super Committee Looks Away. Seize BoA Now. | Peace . Gold . Liberty | Ron Paul 2012
A commenter in a Columbia Journalism Review piece on the Bloomberg reportage says:

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The government should not be on the hook for the bets of an investment bank which is impossible when you allow a deposit and investment bank to merge.

Glass-Steagall began to be dismantled under Ronald Reagan, with Bill Clinton finishing the job for Wall Street in 1999.

Some interesting comments at the site.
While this is a piece calling for Occupiers to unite, it is still a very serious piece of news and confirms some of my friends' fears. Friends who , when we talked about the current recession, have told me essentially we ain't seen nothin yet.

Make everything O.K.

saltwn — Wed, 16 May 2012 23:58:45 GMT

The Magic Button

Jazz - post your youtube clips

SHOSHANA — Wed, 16 May 2012 16:08:56 GMT

Stan Getz & Bill Evans - Night And Day - YouTube

Sunday solar eclipse visible from national parks

mlurp — Wed, 16 May 2012 16:05:55 GMT

Plenty of info at the site including a map of the path and more.

Quote:

.Sunday solar eclipse visible from national parks

By Nola Taylor Redd, OurAmazingPlanet Contributor | LiveScience.com – 19 hrs ago. 16 May 2012

When the sun vanishes behind the moon for the first time over the United States in this century, what better place to enjoy the view than from one of the 154 national parks that stand in its path?

Astronomy lovers in the United States will be treated to a partial disappearance of the sun behind the moon this Sunday (May 20). Only the Eastern Seaboard will be totally exempt. The eclipse will occur in the late afternoon or early evening of May 20 throughout North America, and May 21 for observers in Asia.

Over the course of the solar eclipse, the sun won't vanish completely, but will remain as a ring around the moon for what is known as an annular eclipse. When the eclipse occurs, the moon will be near its most distant point from Earth, making it appear smaller in the sky and thus unable to block the entire sun. But it will still be a stunning sight.

Thirty-three national parks will see the full effect of the moon's interference. Many western parks will be offering an array of events for their guests, ranging from placing telescopes out for viewing up to a full-scale astronomy festival.

........................................... CONTINUED ..................................................

Sunday solar eclipse visible from national parks - Yahoo! News

506 comments

Strike a blow for the average person: incorporate

foundit66 — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:48:54 GMT

Quote:

So corporations want to be people. They want unfettered access to our constitutional rights and the U.S. Supreme Court has given it to them.

Well, I want to be a corporation, too. That's why I founded the People are Corporations, Too PAC (PACPAC, for short).

Our aim is simple: If corporations get our constitutional rights, then we should get their tax breaks.

Raising my family is my business, and it has been ever since I went off to college. Until then, I was not much more than a product of my parents' corporation. My personal corporate status was certainly cemented when my son was born in 1989.

What do I produce? His name is Max. He works in the summer. He's getting an education. He's going to pay taxes for the rest of his life.

As a corporation, I can write off almost every single dollar I spend producing Max.

I can deduct the cost of food, housing, clothes and electricity keeping him healthy and warm.

I can deduct every single penny I spend on his education.

I can deduct gas to take him to and from the thousands of practices, lessons and events that have helped shape him into a worthwhile product for the future.

I can write off the cost of all those books he read, all those instruments he played. If I had a good enough accountant, I might even be able to deduct the cost of the toys and video games that help increase his dexterity and have kept him happy.

Corporations get to write off almost every single cost of the widgets they produce, from the factories and the materials they use to the money they spend to promote their products. Some corporations can deduct so much that they pay little or nothing in taxes, and when they do pay taxes, their rate is far less than what I pay, especially on the state level.

Now they want freedom of speech to spend millions, maybe even billions, of dollars influencing our elections.

I see through their ploy. They already control the economy. Now they want to control the political process, too. And I want to be part of their scheme.

So last month, I went down to the secretary of state's office, filed myself as a corporation and paid my $100 filing fee. Then I created my own PAC.

It's time to take our power back.

When it comes time to pay my 2012 Oregon state taxes, I'm going to pay $150. That's all S-corporations at my income level have to pay, so that's what I'm going to pay, too.

When the state comes after me for not paying enough taxes, I'm going to get a good lawyer and sue. Maybe I'll make it all the way to the Supreme Court. And maybe those wise justices will decide that if corporations are people, then people are corporations, too.

Strike a blow for the average person: incorporate | OregonLive.com

This "corporations are people" b.s. is something the Repubs refuse to recognize is rejected in our society.
Corporations are NOT in any danger of losing "free speech". :no
The problem is that corporations are essentially buying the legislative power they want, and some people refuse to allow THAT to be restricted. :mad

Quite frankly, I am disturbed by people who insist that voters have to show ID (which I actually support within established guidelines),
but then they think that money that flows into our political system from corporations should be anonymous and unfettered. :mad

Jazz Music

cgrear7375 — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:48:16 GMT

Does anyone on here like jazz. I have an extensive jazz music collection . What I am looking for is suggestion as far as albums or musicians that may be worth checking out.

Yes, America, We Have Executed an Innocent Man

Spencer Collins — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:15:43 GMT

Yes, America, We Have Executed an Innocent Man

Carlos DeLuna was put to death in December 1989 for a murder in Corpus Christi. But he didn't commit the crime. Today, his case reminds us of the glaring flaws of capital punishment.

Quote:

THE STORY

Like Possley and Mills in 2006, I don't have the space here to do justice to the facts of the DeLuna case. But I will try. Carlos DeLuna was executed in December 1989 for murdering Wanda Lopez in a February 1983 robbery in Corpus Christi. A jury convicted him in an afternoon of deliberation and sentenced him to death shortly thereafter. No appellate courts came to his rescue. And the six years it took from crime to execution was surprisingly -- suspiciously -- fast; nationwide, it's usually twice that long.

Texas convicted and executed DeLuna, all right, despite the fact that there was no blood or DNA evidence linking him to the scene of the crime. The state executed him despite the fact that the only eyewitness to the crime identified DeLuna while the suspect was sitting in the back of a police car parked in a dimly lit lot in front of the crime scene. Texas executed him despite the lack of DeLuna's fingerprints at the crime scene and the lack of the victim's hair and fibers on DeLuna. From a bloody scene, there was nothing.

Texas convicted and executed DeLuna despite the fact that the police and prosecutors knew or should have known that Lopez's real murderer was a man named Carlos Hernandez, a violent criminal who looked almost exactly like DeLuna. Why? Because Hernandez was known to use the sort of knife used as the murder weapon. Because he matched initial descriptions of the suspect. Because he was known to be violent toward women. Oh, and because he evidently couldn't stop bragging about how he had murdered Lopez and gotten someone else to take the fall for him.

"... [It] is no overstatement to call it 'common knowledge' in 1980s Corpus Christi that Carlos Gonzalez Hernandez killed Wanda Lopez," Liebman and Co. conclude. Yet Texas executed DeLuna despite the fact that key evidence in the case went missing both before and after trial; that DeLuna initially was appointed a lawyer without criminal law experience; and that law enforcement failed to provide the defense with exculpatory evidence. Any one of these factors might warrant a new trial. Taken together they portray appalling injustice.

THE BACKSTORY

Reading through the manuscript last weekend, jarred by what I was seeing, I began to jot down a list of things that went terribly wrong in the DeLuna case -- issues of fact, of evidence, of testimony, of motives, of incompetence, of indifference, of fraud, of morality, of integrity, of constitutionality -- that should have been raised and answered long before DeLuna was convicted, much less executed, back in the 1980s. I stopped when I got to 10. Here's the list.

1. There was no DNA or blood evidence on DeLuna despite bloody murder scene. There were no fingerprints. There was only one eyewitness and he was sketchy about what he had seen.

2. Police/prosecutors knew the whereabouts of another, more likely, suspect. But they didn't tell the defense this before or after the trial.

3. When the defendant identified the likely killer shortly before trial, the police and prosecutors did not reasonably follow up even though they knew that the man identified was capable of committing the crime.

4. Based upon early witness reports, the police at first sought another suspect. They did not share this information with the defense even though the two men (the two Carloses) looked eerily like one another.

5. The police officer collecting witness accounts relayed inaccurate and incomplete descriptions of suspects to the police dispatcher, who radioed them to officers in manhunt.

6. Police investigators botched the crime scene by turning it back to the store manager just two hours after the murder to be washed down and reopened immediately.

7. Evidence from the initial investigation was checked out by a prosecutor the day after the trial and was never returned. Any usuable DNA thus was lost.

8. The trial judge appointed a solo civil practitioner without any criminal trial experience much less any capital trial experience. The defense did not call a single "mitigating" witness in the sentencing phase of trial.

9. Police investigators did not measure a bloody footprint they photographed at the scene of the crime or test a cigarette butt they found on the floor of the store where the victim died.

10. A 9-11 dispatcher failed to quickly dispatch police to the scene of the crime, despite the fact that the victim had called for help. Later, the "manhunt tape" made by dispatchers was taped over and not turned over to the defense by the police.

Surely this epic malfeasance and misfeasance cannot be what Justice Scalia had in mind when he wrote in Marsh about capital cases getting "especially close scrutiny at every level." Indeed, as here, the opposite was true. The DeLuna case was flawed at virtually every level. And all it would have taken to do justice would have been for one prosecutor or cop, one judge or witness, to step up and tell the truth. That didn't happen. And when it did, thanks to Liebman, Mills and Possley, it was too late for Carlos DeLuna.

What do I think happened? All of the things that go wrong every day in capital cases in this country, all of the human failings and official, institutional biases and prejudices and self-justifications and self-delusions that turn Justice Scalia's Marsh concurrence into a farce. The bottom line? The criminal justice system decided, combustibly, that Carlos DeLuna was bad enough to be executed without a remotely fair process. The community was fine with the result. The media didn't care. And the rule of law "covered" it all.

THE EXPERTS

The answer to Los Tocayos Carlos, if there can be one, is that the case is so old its failings are now outdated and irrelevant. The district attorney lobbyists will argue that capital cases, in Texas and elsewhere, are handled much more professionally today than they were 30 years ago. And because both of the Carloses are now long dead, there isn't much of a media hook here, either. Posthumous exonerations don't give the cameras the just-out-of-prison "walk shot" television producers love.

But it would be a shame if we were to view the DeLuna case through the prism of legal history. There is nothing ancient about the lessons it teaches. DeLuna may be gone. But the problems his case represents still are here, in virtually every jurisdiction that still imposes capital punishment. So last week I asked some of the most prominent death penalty experts in the country to look at my DeLuna "list" and then identify pending cases that were similarly marked with such obvious reasonable doubts.

I asked Richard Dieter, at the Death Penalty Information Center, and Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project. I reached out to professors like Eric Freedman, Sean O'Brien and Bennett Gershman, to practitioners like George Kendall, and to earnest other lawyers who handle capital cases from more of a ground-level view. They all agreed that today in America there are plenty of more recent cases where these sorts of issues have arisen or could arise.

Yes, America, We Have Executed an Innocent Man - Andrew Cohen - National - The Atlantic

To view the article in it's entirety click the link above. I still remain "conflicted" when it comes to the DP and at times,I've supported both sides of the argument for and against. Every time that I've convinced myself that the DP is completely justifiable, a story like this pops up and my doubts return.

President Obama inserts himself in White House bios

rivrrat — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:08:09 GMT

Obama Inserts Himself in White House Bios of Past Presidents

Jesus ****ing christ

Quote:

The White House website has always featured biographies of past presidents. The biographies are largely designed for students, so they can research the history of the White House occupants; the text is taken from The Presidents of the United States of America, by Michael Beschloss and Hugh Sidey.
Now, however, President Obama has decided that those other presidential biographies weren�t complete without a sentence about him. Seriously. As it turns out, all past presidents are just a window into President Obama�s grand accomplishments. Here are some examples:

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On Feb. 22, 1924 Calvin Coolidge became the first president to make a public radio address to the American people. President Coolidge later helped create the Federal Radio Commission, which has now evolved to become the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). President Obama became the first president to hold virtual gatherings and town halls using Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, etc.
In a 1946 letter to the National Urban League, President Truman wrote that the government has �an obligation to see that the civil rights of every citizen are fully and equally protected.� He ended racial segregation in civil service and the armed forces in 1948. Today the Obama administration continues to strive toward upholding the civil rights of its citizens, repealing Don�t Ask Don�t Tell, allowing people of all sexual orientations to serve openly in our armed forces.
President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare signed (sic) into law in 1965�providing millions of elderly healthcare stability. President Obama�s historic health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, strengthens Medicare, offers eligible seniors a range of preventive services with no cost-sharing, and provides discounts on drugs when in the coverage gap known as the �donut hole.�
On August 14, 1935, President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act. Today the Obama administration continues to protect seniors and ensure Social Security will be there for future generations.
In a June 28, 1985 speech Reagan called for a fairer tax code, one where a multi-millionaire did not have a lower tax rate than his secretary. Today, President Obama is calling for the same with the Buffett Rule.

Ex-Israeli spy chief: Bombing Iran a stupid idea

saltwn — Wed, 16 May 2012 08:27:30 GMT

Video at site

Ex-Israeli spy chief: Bombing Iran a stupid idea - CBS News

Quote:

One man know more about Iran's nuclear program than just about anyone, because it was his job to stop it as the former head of Israel's spy agency, Mossad.

In an upcoming segment for "60 Minutes", Lesley Stahl interviews Meir Dagan, confronting him for saying that bombing Iran now is "the stupidest idea" he'd ever heard.

Obama to be Vetted Finally by New Documentary

Infidel Dog — Wed, 16 May 2012 08:24:04 GMT

Quote:

This is merely a teaser trailer for the upcoming feature-length documentary "2016," and tease it does. Unless you're familiar with the source material, Dinesh D'Souza's "The Roots of Obama's Rage," you wouldn't know that you're in for the kind of vetting into Obama's past the media has spent four years covering up...

Teaser for Oscar-Winner's Investigative Obama Doc, '2016'

2016 Teaser Trailer - YouTube

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The producer of the film is a bona fide Best Picture Oscar-Winner, Gerald R. Molen, who's worked on blockbusters such as "Schindler's List" and "Jurassic Park" with Steven Spielberg.

On the hypocracy of Republicans and why they had to neutralize Weiner

saltwn — Wed, 16 May 2012 06:07:53 GMT

"Rep. Anthony Weiner spoke on the House floor tonight in support of H.R. 847, the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, which was blocked from passage by House Republicans. Rep. Weiner addresses some of the false arguments Republicans were using in their opposition to the bill. The vote was 255 to 159 in support of the bill, short of the 2/3 needed for passage; 155 Republicans voted against the legislation, which provides medical monitoring and treatment to World Trade Center responders and survivors who were exposed to the toxins at Ground Zero."

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) On the 9/11 Health and Compensation Act - YouTube

Republicans voted against the legislation,

which provides medical monitoring and treatment

to World Trade Center responders and survivors

who were exposed to the toxins

at Ground Zero.