Iranian Team Openly Working On Bomb In Negotiating Room Onion (David L)
And they’re off! The 2014 red crab migration starts Christmas Island Blog
Budweiser Gives Clydesdales the Heave-Ho for the Holidays NBC
Airlift to fly nearly 200 rare turtles stranded on Cape Cod to Florida
Carlsen’s chess victory a triumph for man over supercomputer Financial Times
Tech Worker Shortage Doesn’t Exist BusinessWeek (John C)
HK officials move in on protest site BBC
China just blocked thousands of websites GreatFire (furzy mouse)
The Dangerous U.S.-China Perception Gap WSJ China Real Time Report
European commission unveils €300bn infrastructure fund to kickstart growth Guardian
Why Russia Is Over a Barrel on Oil Prices Fiscal Times
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
The Global Reach of the U.S. Position on Torture Just Security
Highly advanced backdoor trojan cased high-profile targets for years ars technica (furzy mouse)
Hagel Ouster
As Obama Embraces Multi-Fronted War, He Fires Chuck Hagel Marcy Wheeler
Sen. McCain: Hagel ‘Very Frustrated’ With Obama Policies NewsMax (furzy mouse)
Possible Motives for Ousting Hagel Robert Parry, Consortium News
Answering the Hard Questions on the A.C.A.: Which Employees Must Be Covered? New York Times.
Ferguson
Ferguson decision reflects juries’ tendency to give police benefit of doubt, experts say Washington Post
How Darren Wilson avoided criminal charges for killing Michael Brown Guardian
Ferguson Prosecutor’s Idiot Speech Blames Everyone But Darren Wilson Gawker
Holder: Federal Investigation Into Ferguson Shooting Still Ongoing Talking Points Memo. Holder chides local police for “excessive display of force”.
@evanchill: Any civilian who’s been near gunfire can tell you that Wilson’s description of Brown’s reaction is essentially unbelievable.
Grand Jury Does Not Indict Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson for Killing Unarmed Mike Brown Kevin Gosztola, Firedoglake
Fed “Mystified” Why Millennials Still Live at Home; My Answer May Surprise You (It Isn’t Jobs, Student Debt, or Housing) Michael Shedlock
Goldman to disclose profit on disputed LIA trades Financial Times
Dudley’s Awful Metaphor and What It Means for the Fed American Banker
Federal Reserve Facing Scrutiny After Corruption Scandals DSWright
Top NY financial regulator – and Bitcoin cop – Lawsky expected to step down next year Pando. I hope it’s not true.
Gundlach: ‘Vicious cycle’ possible in oil, $70 is line in sand CNBC
Class Warfare
Choose One, Millennials: Upward Mobility or Affordable Housing CityLab (martha r)
Farmworkers Call On Wendy’s To Pay More For Tomatoes And Boost Their Wages Huffington Post
Stop Trying to Save the World: Big ideas are destroying international development New Republic. Today’s must read.
Antidote du jour (Kevin H):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
136 comments
Comments are closed.
“Seven or eight African American eyewitnesses have provided testimony consistent with Wilson’s account, but none have spoken publicly out of fear for their safety, The Post’s sources said.”
Damm! They didn’t post here for us…. :)
And the Post’s anonymous sources would be — the police? Just a guess.
and how many, i wonder, provided testimony inconsistent with wilson’s account.
“I’m not going to cast ill on it,” said Michael R. Band, a former top prosecutor here and now a criminal defense lawyer. “But it’s a fact of life. There is a relationship there.”
And state attorneys are elected, making them vulnerable to political pressure, lawyers said. Police unions wield considerable power in elections.
“They are in bed together, which is why police shootings should be investigated independently,” said Mr. Weiner, the criminal defense lawyer in Miami.
http://fcir.org/2014/09/08/new-york-times-florida-police-arent-being-prosecuted-for-deadly-force/
yesterday: http://www.toledoblade.com/…/Cleveland-boy-with-fake-pistol-killed-by-police.html
the barn doors have been removed and burnt
If someone would be legally and legitimately removed from the potential juror pool had the Brown case come to trial because his background would clearly have biased him and called any resulting verdict into question, why is he allowed to be the prosecutor who got to decide who/what was presented to the grand jury and in a format that would overwhelm them?
I’ve been reading through the transcripts. There was no case presented.
The da’s office did everything it could to get a good long “trail” with a no bill at the end. If they did have a case, it was for justification, which wasn’t even that strong, and should have been left to the defense attorney at a trail, not the DA’s office in a grand jury.
The DA argued justification, essentially arguing against the case they brought. They also went to a lot of trouble to get any witness that came in front of the jury to talk about “riots” etc…
Shameful.
“The da’s office did everything it could to get a good long “trail” with a no bill at the end.”
A good long SECRET trial without media scrutiny, ongoing legal analysis or an opposing attorney to keep the participants “honest.”
“They also went to a lot of trouble to get any witness that came in front of the jury to talk about “riots” etc…”
They also went to a lot of trouble to START a riot what with their keeping the crowds waiting for hours for the decision and then delivering it at 9 o’clock at night, in the dark, when tensions were already high.
Gee, it’s as if they wanted to make sure Ferguson GOT violent. Shift attention from the shameful miscarriage of “justice” to Michael Brown’s “people” who are so out of control that Brown surely deserved what he got, and Baby Face Wilson was justified in giving it to him.
id like to know the breakdown of the vote of the grand jury.
Glad I’m not the only one. It took 9 to acquit and conveniently 9 out of 12 of the folks making the decision were white. That just strikes me as oddly convenient.
i may be wrong, but i’ve read it only took 4 to block the indicment. i will keep trying to verify this tho, in the mass of info coming out.
You’re right, pa: 9 to indict, therefore any 4 block an indictment.
convene another grand jury…
obviously the photos we are being handed off of the honest and well trained clown with a gun who shot someone who was only two inches taller then him out of “fear” for his life are a fabrication…”fear” because a big fat black dude sitting on you is one of the top 100 ways to die in america…
the photos showing how his fellow officers after the fact…i mean, the dead black dude, somehow hit both sides of his face and the backside of his head…didn’t know michael brown was a secret member of the fantastic four and could stretch his hands and rubberize them and then reconstitute them, all in the space of a window…and sad…how the electric button on the window did not work in the patrol suv which would have prevented michael brown from doing all that fantastic four stuff…cause when someone reaches into your car and you have the engine running, there is no way for you to just put the car in gear and disrupt the event, nor is there any way to just close the window…closing the window on a summerish day was a really hard thing for me to do during the “squeegee” era…guessing i must have had special training to have come up with that solution….
most folks don’t realize that CURRENT grand jury system is new to our legal process…well new in respects to the constitution….Rule 6 (taking the power of grand juries as described in the Constitution actually away from the actual citizens and depositing it with prosecutors only) was put in place because…well I actually have never found any logic other than maybe the 50000 nazis who entered america after ww2 must have thought this out on their road to leading us to being afraid of “those commie russians” so that by the time the Nuremberg trials were over, many were “bernazed” into forgetting how many had just died a few years earlier dealing with the nazi coup of 1933 and were now focused on rabbit season…
rule 6 was changed in 1946 for no apparent reason and most americans do not even know it was historically different…a constitutional right was removed from the citizenry with that change…
A confirming/clarifying link on rule 6 would be helpful.
safety valve~Carla: States and police departments have developed their own policies that generally permit officers to use force when they reasonably fear imminent physical harm. The Supreme Court shaped the U.S. standard in a 1989 decision that said the use of force must be evaluated through the “perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene” rather than being judged after the fact. That means officers are often given the benefit of the doubt by prosecutors and grand jurors reluctant to second-guess their decisions. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/11/25/world/crime-legal-world/most-u-s-police-shootings-are-not-prosecuted/#.VHSBTGe8I3w
We need to change the system; that permits murder of any unarmed citizen. Also that an officer of the law may use deadly force regardless of the circumstances, or that an officers life is more important than a citizens. This is how our country got into its present mess; politicians not being held accountable regardless of voting record verses promises, perhaps this behavior should be reclassified as a crime with a prison sentence.
Think about what will happen with the officer. Under the present system no one with any knowledge expected a different out come. Now the government will let the ignorant citizens be sued for the police officer behavior.
Agreed.
Change the justice system.
And change the monetary system.
Don’t just describe it in some legal mumble jumble. “No theory, just description, ma’am.”
Even a 3 year old can see injustice.
I’m willing to bet there would be a lot less murder and mayhem in this country if the public was afforded the same “fear imminent physical harm” consideration.
Wasn’t there a story recently about a black guy refusing to get out of his car when ordered to by two cops because he was afraid they would assault him? In that “protect and serve” kind of way cops have. They finally broke his window and dragged him out.
His “reasonable perspective” was judged “after the fact” to be resisting arrest. Oh, and he was just a PASSENGER in the car, pulled over for a tail light or some equally dangerous suspicious activity.
something i read the other day made me think of you…ponder why heheheee
n the words of the late le Carre:
“i’m going to hold the Nuremberg Trials Part Two. i’m going to get all the arms dealers and the sh!t scientists, and all the smooth salesmen who push the crazies one step further than they thought of going, because it’s good for business, and the the lying politicians and the lawyers and the accountants and bankers, and i’m going to put them in the dock to answer for their lives. and you know what they’ll say? ‘if we hadn’t done it someone else would have.’ and you know what i’ll say? i’ll say, ‘Oh, I see. And if you hadn’t raped the girl some other fellow would have raped her. And that’s your justification for rape. Noted’ THEN I’D NAPALM THE LOT OF THEM. FIZZ”
John le Carre/The Night Manger
When did John le Carré die? I missed that news.
LeCarre is still going strong. I believe that George Smiley is the defunct person.
thank the spy god! Vatch got me straitened out here
(checkout the link…i attached a skeerie article he wrote last year)
btb gary oldman playing smiley was master on master. deep bow to both.
i’ve really grown to like le carre over the past few years.
I’ve just reread two of his novels and having found them even better the second time around I’ve resolved to go on a le carre binge. He is perhaps the most literary of living writers in his genre, one test being that upon a second reading, when one is relieved of the mental effort of following a complex plot, the enjoyment derived from his mastery of the language is enhanced
Napalm made you think of moi???
more like ‘Nuremberg Trials Part Two’…napalming was probably from my own darkside of the moon
As police shootings of citizens draws scrutiny and outrage, partially due to the presence of video documentation, it is distressing and typical that the connection between these shootings and the flood of fire arms that has been loosed on the nation (and the world, Aby’s La Carre citation is pertinent, arms dealers have invested a sustained, explosive and bloody agency to international diplomacy) is not being made loudly and repeatedly.
The causal relation is evident but goes unremarked; we are not safer, as loudly and repeatedly proposed by gun advocates, when it must be assumed, certainly by police on a stop, that most people are carrying. There was a recent fatal police shooting in Cleveland of a 12 year old child playing on a swing with a bb gun and another a month ago of an innocent young man, distractedly pointing a toy assault rifle as he talked on a phone in a Walmart.
Connect the rather obvious dots, that the bizarre misinterpretation of the Second Amendment by the Supremes has left he nation waist deep in guns, more guns than citizens and along with liberalized carry laws, policing is often a shoot first ask questions later, all too likely outcome.
Added into the mix of a fragmented society plagued by extreme economic inequality, historic racial problems and a militarized and poorly trained police force,(trained not in community relations but SWAT assault operations), the fire power on the streets makes every police encounter troubling and fraught with violent potential.
Maybe, but there seems to be a whole lotta superfluous “encountering” goin’ on.
Your last sentence is more prescient than you think.
I’ve had an encounter with DHS person (Harbor Patrol) over sitting in my car (listening to a baseball game) in a public parking lot. Officer said I was loitering, I said I was not (I own a boat in the small-craft harbor). The officer pulled out the mace for enforcement (lucky this particular person wasn’t armed with a gun).
To appease this indurated incompetent I simply drove to the other end of the parking lot. Random encounters with “law enforcement” can turn injurious/lethal for ANYONE.
For many reasons, cops in America are, like the military, considered “special.” They allegedly protect us against a wild world–or so most of the TV shows claim–the propaganda is so thick that few question it. In fact, cops are slightly more corrupt than the average person and often violent in their attitudes and passions. They are often attracted to the work because it gives them a chance to assert their domination over others. I think much of that is unconscious but it’s there.
Since the idea of “honor” is utterly absent from our culture cops have no problem unloading their weapons into young African American men. They are never shamed by their weakness and cowardice–i.e., when you fire your weapon you are not obliged to kill the person you fear–you can shoot to maim. The fact so many cops are unable to stop themselves from unloading their weapons to shoot-to-kill shows me one of two things: 1) they are disgusting cowards; or 2) they are militant racists–or some combination of the two–what they are not is public safety officers.
I am outside looking in – but it seems to me that this ruling has sadly reinforced their license to kill, which will inevitably result in more killings, causing more social disorder & possible eventual change for the good – or probably more likely – a fully fledged police state.
& Obama says ” There is never an excuse for violence “.
I wonder if those Afghans on the receiving end of Obama’s newly rebranded “night operations” would consider them “violence.”
(As Obama Embraces Multi-Fronted War, He Fires Chuck Hagel Marcy Wheeler)
If so, maybe Obama should never say “Never.”
”There is never an excuse for violence [that I don’t political mileage out of]“.
Much more accurate.
Strangely enough your correct.
here’s some stink of BO:
I understand why war is not popular, but I also know this: The belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it. Peace requires responsibility. Peace entails sacrifice.
We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.
The world must remember that it was not simply international institutions — not just treaties and declarations — that brought stability to a post-World War II world. Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.
I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne. What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income, to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.
War might be hell and still the right thing to do. Economies could collapse despite the best-laid plans. People could work hard all their lives and still lose everything.
I’m not sure it will cause more social disorder. The mood, as one sensitive commentator is one of despair and people in despair shut down and don’t wake up. Poor African-Americans, once again, are told their lives mean little or nothing to the majority of citizens. And the know that their “black” President can do nothing to help them and know, instinctively, that he is pretty much helpless in the face of a vigorous and powerful oligarchy that shows no mercy for those who don’t “contribute” to their wealth and power. That African-American underclass is and will remain on the bottom as long as the current cultural values endure and perpetuate themselves and, at this time, there appears to be little hope of escape from that fate.
Not buying Obama’s impotence/cowardice/incompetence/ignorance excuses. Stopped buying just after the 2009 coronation.
Never attribute to impotence, cowardice, or incompetence what can only logically be attributed to avarice or malicious indifference. Obama is an active co-conspirator in rampant crime, not a helpless hostage.
Obama may not have the “best” of intentions but it doesn’t matter what intentions he has–the Office of the Presidency simply does not have the power the media says it does–the media cannot and will not cover the real power dynamics in Washington and in the country. There is a permanent and fairly stable (though becoming a little less stable) permanent government government in place that can veto anything the President chooses to do by any number of methods.
Wrong Banger.
You should not making excuses for Obama.
The Presidency has lots of power. The Presidency is bought and paid for AND Obama is a neolibcon at heart so he doesn’t use the bully pulpit for any populist purpose.
You are seriously misreading or intentionally spinning the great efforts made to secure the President from embarrassment or the appearance of weakness with Obama being “dragging his feet” or being uninvolved.
=
=
=
H O P
I agree. Whether or not Obama actually has the power to act or not, he should either use it or resign. I’m pretty sure he has that much leeway at least.
FYI
See more info in my reply to Banger below.
Banger – which is why Ferguson is burning, and we’re wondering how far it will spread this time.
Desperate people do desperate things. Those who make them desperate are also responsible for the results.
”There is never an excuse for violence” says the mass-murdering Droner-in-Chief. It’s an incredibly perverse declaration from a warmonger touted as vaunted orator. I hope this finally ends the Black community’s general infatuation with this charlatan.
I’m pretty sure this has ended the average American’s infatuation with authority in general, or at least I hope it has.
Dang Kevin! You are blessed with the midas touch!
[N]ot quite birds, as they were not quite flowers, mysterious and fascinating as are all indeterminate creatures. ~Elizabeth Goudge
It’s a beautiful shot of a hawk moth.
~
I’ve often had to do a double take on one of those moths after mistaking it for a hummingbird.
We call them Hummingbird Moths around these parts, for obvious reasons, as the photo makes clear. Their loud as the dickens too, but always a treat to see one.
I see: the missing link between bird and insect. Nature is a continuum.
Regarding development:
The central problem with the development debate is that actual meaning of “development” has been slowly stripped of its original meaning. Development is now all about poverty reduction, health interventions, building schools etc etc. All good things and worthy goals and the fruits of a successful development experience. Development is the structural shift of a society’s economy away from low-productivity agriculture into higher-productivity manufacturing and services. And theres no country, exactly zero that ever carried this out successfully due to NGOs. NGOs at best can carry out limited scope poverty alleviation measures and at worst have all the problems described and more.
Lets face it. Most Western NGOs are happy to continue on the current path instead of focusing lets say on fighting structural barriers to poor countries developing e.g. WTO policies, IMF structural adjustment programmes that devastated most Sub saharan African countries, continued neo-liberal dogmas etc
Yes, exactly. Economic development stopped along time ago. NGOs do charity work, and are not engines for the wealth of nations. The amount of internal talent needed to be developed for planning on bringing a rural society without a market based economy into the same standards of living of the USA or EU requires a staggering effort. Post WWII Japan and Europe had America as a market, as an investor and military protector. They also had specific policies to build them up as industrial nations. Within Japan, MITI was the national organization that planned the rise of Japan’s economy and took full advantage of its linkage to the global system of trade under the aegis of American foreign policy priorities to raise a shining example of capitalism as a model in the face of Communist China. Africa without such a priority and unable to internally push forward as China gets very little in the way of development funding. While whatever it does get from NGOs should not be dismissed as worthless or less than what is necessary for actual development, NGOs should never have be confused with The Marshall Plan or Japanese economic development joined at the hip with a superpower.
“Post WWII Japan and Europe had America as a market, as an investor and military protector. ”
To emphasize this point, US post-war policy at the highest levels was focused on making Japan an industrial economic bulwark of the Pacific, especially after China became communist. Being resource-poor, but strategically located and having created an industrial society that we destroyed in the war, Japan was very unique. Most parts of the world are not so “lucky”.
It’s also worth noting that Japan already was an industrial economy, it was only the means that had been destroyed. Once the factories were rebuilt, they already had the workforce and educational infrastructure to support an advanced economy. It’s much harder to do this in an agrarian society that lacks the cultural institutions that produce the kind of people and know how necessary to keep industry going and thriving.
That article was devastating for me, for describing how thoroughly development aid follows the MBA style – only ideas that can scale infinitely are worth pursuing. It presumes that humanity, society and culture is nothing but fungible economic units. No wonder it fails so.
First I read the article about development aid in the New Republic, then I read the article about the EU’s infrastructure fund in the The Guardian. I wonder if Brussels has thought about Play Pumps and de-worming. Mostly, I wonder how often and how much the “infrastructure” intervention is evaluated.
“the structural shift of a society’s economy away from low-productivity agriculture into higher-productivity manufacturing and services” –
Is a trap that guarantees both starvation and an underclass. It would be much better to improve the terms for agriculture and let industrialization “develop” naturally, if it does.
Denmark.
Actually, the problem with “development” is that it ALWAYS means “western development,” aka “capitalist development.” Period, full stop. And wherever capitalist development goes, all of it’s well documented ills soon follow: economic exploitation, environmental ruin, human misery, and finally when all else is lost , war over whatever remains. Good stuff! For rich capitalists at least.
I’m sure everyone here knows this, but if not: the grand jury is under the direction of the prosecutor. S/he has no obligation to present both sides, or any particular evidence. Therefore, if a prosecutor wants the case indicted, it will be; if not, it won’t be. To the degree that the media doesn’t understand this, the people won’t either, and so it becomes a safety valve for the prosecutor to escape responsibility for a difficult case. Like yesterday, for instance…
Thanks for bringing that up–people don’t understand what Grand Juries are about only what they should be about. One of the key things we need to do is to deconstruct how our institutions actually function not how they either claim to function or theoretically function.
The case was slanted to let the cop off as all such cases are. Cops never to wrong except on extremely rare occasions off duty. No force is to harsh to be applied to minorities according to the majority of white people in the U.S. I don’t think people fully appreciate how intense and bred-in-the-bone racism is in this country and not just in the South or the virtual South of parts of the mid-west. Interestingly, most racist white people did not really know how racist they were until Fox News and other outlets were able to channel the inner rage of whites against African Americans in sneaky and symbolic ways. I think the main opposition to Obama who has been very deferential to the right, is due to his race not his policies. I have a friend I like very much and I’m sure her opposition to Obama is fed by here inherent Southern-style racism that she grew up with. I don’t think she realizes it either–she’s a delightful friend but not a deep thinker. We underestimate the effect of upbringing. My wife, in contrast, brought up in the South has no sign of racism at all that I can see though I’m sure, like most of us, it’s there subconsciously
Just to support your point
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/ferguson-michael-brown-indictment-darren-wilson/
“A St. Louis County grand jury on Monday decided not to indict Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson in the August killing of teenager Michael Brown. The decision wasn’t a surprise — leaks from the grand jury had led most observers to conclude an indictment was unlikely — but it was unusual. Grand juries nearly always decide to indict.
Or at least, they nearly always do so in cases that don’t involve police officers.”
funny how that works….
Banger, bless your heart, you are one of the most remarkable enablers I’ve ever known.
i’ve seen countless post claiming that the “process worked” and that “justice has been done”. oh and that brown has been proved to be a thug and a criminal–as evidenced by the behavior of his fellow “gang members” and “animals” in ferguson. i’m more disgusted right now that i’ve been since the runup to the iraq war.
You and me both, brother. I have been forced to avoid James Howard Kunstler’s site (permanently, I hope) because of the bile and malice he shows towards black people. For him and his survivalist nudnik readers all blacks are presumed psychotic killers (the fact that white males make up the staggering percentage of mass murderers never seems to dawn on them, any more than the ambush killers of cops and first responders that have recently happened in Pennsylvania and Florida are never seen to say anything about white guys in general, but all black crimes are taken as prima facia evidence of black criminality).
The grand jury finding is simply now a Rorschack Test, and the results are we live in a a sick, crippled society.
Funny thing is, I agree with JHK on about 99% of everything else. His blind spot toward race and class is a gaping chasm beyond the pale however. It’s amazing how blind and stupid we “intelligent” humans can be.
Wankers. What McCullough did was substitute a grand jury, where the members were not sequestered, with a prosecutor who didn’t prosecute, for a trial. All this crapola about it’s so h-a-a-a-r-d to sort out the evidence — that’s why we have trials, and oddly, or not, McCullough didn’t do that. There was nobody to speak for Mike Brown at the Grand Jury, nobody at all, and that’s what a trial would have provided.
The truism: “a grand jury could indict a ham sandwich” leads to its converse: “a grand jury can exonerate a stone cold killer.”
“…….a grand jury could indict a ham sandwich…….”
Except, apparently, when that ham sandwich wears a badge, carries a gun and fears for its life in the face of an unarmed civilian.
Under those circumstances, the lowly ham sandwich becomes a formidable power to be reckoned with.
Very true. I don’t expect the evidence will ever be released because it would be combed through by activists and the prosecutor’s shameful conduct in covering up Darren Wilson’s murder of Michael Brown.
Incredibly disappointing to see many media reports and comments that excuse Wilson and denigrate black people. Even the Guardian has had a very weak response. There was a good article in the Boston Globe that this decision will lead to more Fergusons.
I cannot believe that Michael Brown would ever reach into a police car and fight a police officer. Any black young man would surely know that would be his death warrant, especially given the Ferguson’s police record.
Darren Wilson lost face when he wasn’t able to control Michael Brown by grabbing him from inside his police car. Michael Brown then ran for his life and got shot down like a dog even as he was surrendering.
That happens a lot in my corner of the world too. The police shoot dead an unarmed person or someone holding a token “weapon” such as a kitchen knife, often a family member with mental health issues. Then there is the immediate apology by the police chief followed by a long “independent” investigation. A year later the police are completely exonerated, no consequences whatsoever. Wash, rinse, repeat.
As a middle-aged middle-class white adult I am now very wary of the police and would hesitate to call 911. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a young man of color in the US.
“I cannot believe that Michael Brown would ever reach into a police car and fight a police officer. Any black young man would surely know that would be his death warrant”
Is that a warrant issued by a court? That if someone reaches into a cop car, that cop can then proceed to put at least 7 bullets into the reacher?
Reaching in the 1st degree. Punishable by death to be applied on the spot.
Even if he did reach, even if he did shoplift, even if he was a big black guy…none of that gives anyone a RIGHT to kill him.
Regardless, 12 shots, 6 that found their mark against an unarmed victim. Nuff said. Was a time that that was enough alone to get a man convicted. Provided the shooter wasn’t white and the victim wasn’t black of course.
Yeah, well, it helps if the grand jury’s members are a rather gullible bunch, doesn’t it? Your point suggests that in practice and for practical purposes, then, the GJ is merely there to rubber-stamp whatever the prosecutor may happen to prefer to think and to do about any given case.
Here, there is simply no excuse for a prosecutor’s attempts to guide–or worse, unfairly corrupt by a prejudiced selection of the evidence–a GJ’s determination of whether sufficient evidence exists for a charge to go to trial. There’s a plain and important reason why we call them “trials” and speak of “trying a case,” and of “facts found at trial.” As you may be a legal pro, I suppose you know that, too.
You also know, as the prosecutors must have known in this case, that such a highly charged set of circumstances demands above all that the GJ’s ruling be free of even the appearance of any taint by the prosecutors to predetermine a desired result. Here, the state’s attorney’s should have based their handling of the GJ on the understanding that, if there was any reasonable ground to suppose that a crime might have been committed by the police, it should be their duty to ensure that the GJ’s members know that they, on that view, should vote to refer the case to trial. Defense attorneys exist to ensure that the defendant isn’t the object of a railroaded prosecution. Who’s there to ensure that the public isn’t denied its rights to see official police conduct subject to the legal oversight–and, in the final analysis, public sanction–of a jury at trial which, upon the evidence produced in court, decides that, whatever the police officer claims to have believed about the immediate danger posed by the deceased Brown, in this case, his judgement was not sound and ought to be sanctioned, that, in this case, he should have to bear some criminal responsibility, even if it’s for nothing other a manslaughter verdict rather than murder.
If, as you say, the state attorney here managed this GJ so that he got the result he desired, then that means he took upon himself the right to decide that the public would not have its day in court on this matter. And that is exactly what is rightly outrageous to the protesting public, isn’t it?—besides, that is, the fact that, in Missouri, apparently the police are authorized to use deadly force wherever they in their infinitely variable judgements, may see fit to find some thug worthy of gunning down, whether there’s clear evidence of his possessing a weapon or not. Missouri, like so much of the U.S. is a legal backwater where racial-based justice is a spin of the roulette wheel, with the state attorney’s thumb on the wheel, is would seem from your comment.
And we’re to suppose that no one on the jury had this much appreciation for their circumstances either? That’s sad.
On balance, most prosecutors are virtual members of the police department and to expect them to have any interest in prosecuting policemen/women only occurs when the PD itself advocates that remedy. The idea of “justice” and public accountability is simply not in the cards in American jurisprudence. There were periods in our history when justice did have some bearing on some matters that day is long-gone.
What we have today are authoritarian police-state structures who demand and get the right to have a licence to kill whether it is PD in American cities and towns or by the military and covert op forces abroad (and at home). There is no rule of law and there is no Constitution and there is no Republic. Vestiges remain here and there but the game has move on and we need to move on with it.
Ya know Banger, I’m pretty sure I speak for most when I say that as much as your various and sundry explanations of our current predicament might be appreciated, it might be nice if you shed your bright light of analysis from time to time on what you think some of your suggested solutions to and/or likely outcomes of our current course might be.
You’re obviously a very smart and experienced guy with an apparent insider knowledge that most of us lack, and yet I sense a lack of willingness to be even remotely fully forthcoming. BRING IT dude!
And no, I’m not NSA (duh!) but they’ve more than likely got everything on your computer anyway if they want it.
Hemaris Diffinis? Cool.
A hummingbird moth and garden phlox?
…not phlox. Appears to be in the Cruciferae Family (four petals).
A White-lined Sphinx (Hyles lineata – a hawkmoth) visiting Fireweed (Chamerion angustifolium) in Rocky Mountain National Park.
The Intercept had the best article I’ve seen on the Regin malware. It goes into considerable detail about how it works.
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/11/24/secret-regin-malware-belgacom-nsa-gchq/
Feliz Noel, mis amigos:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-24/venezuelans-dollarize-christmas-bonuses-as-bolivar-dives.html
Try to imagine what happens when your country’s official external exchange rate is twenty times the street value. So many arbitrages, so little time (before it all collapses)!
Think I have missed any recent Widow Kirchner updates. Or is all good in the land of the llama?
As for Venezuela, I’m sure the US has nothing to do with their problems. Of course we knee jerk liberals tend to see a USG agent behind every 3rd world bush. A good way to put an end to that would be for our State dept to stop meddling in everyone’s affairs.
More sleight of hand from Just Security, this time from Julia Spiegel, Samantha Power’s new Mini-me. The US government’s concession on the geographic scope of obligations is an easy one – now they do their toothless finger-wagging “prohibition” overseas too. Note what Speigel cannot bring herself to say: “prevent, investigate, and, [pr… choke, gag, pr-p-p…] remedy” acts of torture. The word is prosecute. The P-word came up many times in Geneva. Until the US government prosecutes its torturers, it is in breach of the Convention Against Torture.
One of the best commentaries about Obama lies in the Robert Parry link regarding Hagel. Parry has been around the block in Washington and understands that town better than most reporters. We begin:
The key word here is “corruption.” The Washington Establishment and, indeed, the “Imperial” establishment encompassing all sectors of our lives and all major public and private institutions are corrupt–what I mean Parry means is that the people and institutions we speak of do not have, as their primary goal, the mission they allegedly serve or claim to serve. Military operations do not bring peace, educational institutions do not educate and so on. The American Establishment resurrected after the famous “Powell Memo” with an almost furious vengeance–not that it ever was seriously threatened but the wheel were beginning to fall of the wagon by the late sixties.
Also, let’s be clear here–I think Obama is mainly “unable” rather than “unwilling” to go against the grain in Washington. The American Presidency simply lacks the real power it pretends to. Every ruler is dependent on, at least, a reliable and honest security detail and that has been missing since 1963. If, and I assert that it can be and is, the Praetorian Guard around the President can be controlled by forces outside the Presidency then the President’s power is severely limited.
It is clear that Obama has been dragging his feet on National Security policy since the last “surge” in Afghanistan which was clearly forced on him. He has been dragging his feet on Syria, on war with Iran and seems uninterested in the Nuland/Kagan neocon Cold War or worse with Russia. The political reality being what it is and, if Washington is dominate by the neocons, then the best he can do is operate his own foreign policy in secret–and this is a good sign. I think Obama may be playing a rope-a-dope role in that area for the next couple of years.
To show the power of the neocons, Robert Kagan, perhaps the Satrap of Washington for the neocons, wrote a very critical story of Obama in the neo-neocon POS rag TNR and Obama invited him to lunch ” that one observer described as a ‘meeting of equals.'” These sorts of observations are critically important in Washington where rank and hierarchy are sacred not unlike Japan or any Imperial Court and certain “signals” an protocol indicate rank–I’m sure his source accurately described the scene–personally, I get a lot of info from body-language and protocol at photo-ops.
Parry offers us nothing to indicate what were the factors behind Hagel’s resignation other than some interesting speculation which is worth reading. In the end, reading the body language of Hagel, he was out of place and an “outsider.” Obama has two possible directions to go in–he can appoint someone who will defer to the WH and battle Congress and whatever Generals are in power at the Pentagon to be able to continue to drag his feet and have the political skills to obfuscate and play factions in the Pentagon against each other. The good news for us is that Washington is deeply divided by not just realists vs. neocons but by factionalism and personal ambitions.
The News Hour is always a good place to go to gauge the balance of power in Washington–and the guests there basically said nothing–by their body language I knew that they were careful to say nothing at all. That means that Washington is confused and the hundreds of “shoes” that are up in the air have not yet dropped.
Since I’m an early millennial/late x-er, I feel obliged to respond to these two stories:
Fed “Mystified” Why Millennials Still Live at Home; My Answer May Surprise You (It Isn’t Jobs, Student Debt, or Housing)
So a lot of this story looks like it can be summarized by calling the Fed’s report ‘self-pleasuring of the mathematicians.’
I’m not sure how it seems crazy to think that the Fed pursuing policies that preserve asset values (such as homes) wouldn’t have an effect on young people buying inflated (read: over-priced) assets, especially when their debt load and income levels (wages) have a negative pressure on the affordability of those assets. Add to that the fact that companies are looking for people to be wage-slaves (Re: Tech Worker Shortage Doesn’t Exist — a representative story of companies looking for slave labor, ahem, “minimized cost labor” at home) and basically don’t treat people as people, but as capital, and I simply don’t see how it is mystifying that young people are refusing to chase the rabbit that they’ve all be told for the last 40 years is the thing people are supposed to do.
Choose One, Millennials: Upward Mobility or Affordable Housing
This garbage story overlooks the travesty of suburbanization of towns and small cities, where building codes and NIMBYism have basically revoked the ability of local government to plan (good lord! plan? that’s socializm!) higher density settlements that are affordable AND promote upward mobility. There is NOT a binary choice “mobility” or “housing” – just a lack of places that can serve as business incubators like those ‘costal cities’ referred to in the article. Not to say that it is certain that “if you build it they will come,” but look at the places that are seeing insane pricing spikes. High density, mixed-use, low resource footprint settlements are where “mobility” looks most prevalent. Because of the scarcity of these settlements, prices are going through the roof.
Why planners and government aren’t taking advantage of this I have no idea.
I’m not sure why this is so difficult to understand.
We know wages have not been keeping up with inflation for some time, housing prices are hugely inflated, and now you can add zero interest rates into the mix. Freeze wages and no interest paid for any savings at the bank, but really high prices for housing. Also through in low interest rates on debt.
For someone who owns a house, taking out a loan on the value of the house is pretty much the only way they can see any income -especially if they fall into one of the many categories of people hiring managers have decided to exclude from the labor market. For a young person who doesn’t own any real estate and they are just entering the market, buying one of these overpriced houses is the last thing they should be doing. They are going to have to depend on the support of their relatives who own real estate for quite some time until they themselves can inherit. This is only a mystery for the subset of intellectuals who still think we are in the 1950s.
Inherit???? You must be new around these parts.
“Estates” are being “claimed” to pay back Medicaid “benefits” provided during life. And my guess is that party’s just getting started.
My state, Mississippi, hasn’t expanded Medicare, which is stupid on several fronts. Free Federal money, more clients to exercise control over, and more revenues down the line from estate expropriation, from the lowest rungs of the ladder too, all add up to magical thinking and free money. Not making much money this year would put me in the Medicare bracket. Since Medicare hasn’t been expanded to include me, paying around $600 a month for a crap policy is not on my to do list, so HeritageCare is out. I can see the more savvy “poor people” moving much of their disposable income into “hard” assets, somewhat like preppers. Not only is the neo-liberal movement creating economically distinct classes, but an I assume unintended consequence is the creation of existentially distinct culture groups too. A good guide to the near future for the ‘disadvantaged’ would be the early history of the Latter Day Saints.
I take it that you mean Medicaid, not Medicare.
Yes, my bad.
My personal experience with this isn’t Medicaid trying to claim benefits in estates, but rather, public/private hospice facilities requiring a (near) complete forfeiture of assets in order to admit people for elderly care. The terms in these facilities are so onerous, that they include assets that may have even been transferred to other people in order to prevent asset shielding.
Who knows if children of boomers will be inclined to provide elder care instead of forfeiting an inheritance, however small.
If you are referring to nursing homes, medicaid is the entity which pays them which means you have to be virtually impoverished in assets before medicaid kicks in, as you note.
However, independent of that but related, is the clawback provisions of medicaid which is based on age. If you are older than 55 and qualify for medicaid, the state has the right to recover from your estate regardless of whether you are in a nursing home or not.
What Obamacare did with its medicaid expansion is to make persons eligible for medicaid regardless of assets (with the one exception of nursing homes–you still must be impoverished in assets).
But the clawback still applies. So the costs relative to that doctor visit you made when you were 58 will be recovered from your estate when you die at 78. Beyond that, states that have privatized medicaid have the right to collect from your estate the amounts of premiums the state paid the private insurers–regardless of whether you made any claims at all.
If you are younger than 55, the clawback only applies to expenses incurred if you are in a residential care facility with no likely expectation of leaving that facility.
The clawback threat is real and I have read, but don’t have time for the link, of medicaid reps arguing with the deceased’s family over how much should be spent on funeral expenses and how much should go to the state.
Link on Medicaid clawback.
This is where “estate planning” is for everyone, not just the well-to-do. Put the house in a Trust.
Easy to do if you know that, and have the money to pay a lawyer to do it. Just another ObamaCare minefield!
The clear policy of the oligarchs and all levels of gov’t–make the rich richer, the poor poorer. Make the more powerful more powerful the less powerful and so on. My problem with the younger people is that they are, as a demographic (with plenty of exceptions), weak and without courage. We saw how little support those with courage (the Occupy Movement) got from their peers–that was the opportunity missed. Instead the endless entertainments and relentless push to achieve yuppie-dumb occupies y’all’s attention.
On the other hand, my generation, completely and actively betrayed their ideals by moving rapidly from Woodstock to Ronald Reagan in a little over a decade–from trying to form communes to becoming K Street hustlers (my contemporaries) obsessed with buying suburban real-estate to out material and out suburb our own parents we criticized and made fun of–how fucking pathetic! But here’s the thing–that was a time when we could make tons of money, get what we wanted when economic groaf was better than LSD! Today, young people face a future that, increasingly, looks like a nightmare–how do y’all put up with that–there is no hope except for the privileged who will do great–but what about the middle and lower-middle? Their situation will be serfdom and they don’t utter a peep of protest.
I know young people who are veterans of Occupy who have not sold out–will their peers support them more than they supported those of us who did not go towards Reagan or the neoliberalism of so-called progressives.
“My problem with the younger people is that they are, as a demographic (with plenty of exceptions) weak and without courage.”
“On the other hand my generation completely and actively betrayed their ideals by moving rapidly form Woodstock to Ronald Reagan in little over a decade from trying to form communes to becoming K street hustlers.”
Both generations, seem to have failed, thus far, to create a political vision which can give some type of sustenance, hope and direction for organizing, to its respective peers.
Without a vision and a realistic organizing strategy, most, understandably, will choose to adopt to the despised system in some way because there appears to be no alternative.
Culturally and politically all of us desperately need a vision to believe in as well as the articulation of concrete steps that might (with a huge amounts of effort and luck)) make such a vision a reality.
If you build it they will come- more socialism :) Heaven forbid the powers that be interfere with the almighty free market that way. Nevermind that the reality is that part of the reason we have the places we do where commerce can exist is because the horrible awful terrible no good very bad government created roads and paid for electricity or subsidized indoor plumbing, and things like internet. We can’t do that sort of stuff HERE anymore though because socialism. Don’t worry though we’re perfectly good with building those things in nations we’ve decided to nation build in- It’s only socialism when the government transfers money from the taxpayers to other Americans, not when it transfers money to Iraqis, Afghanis, Ukrainians or anywhere else we’re looking to exploit next.
“early millennial/late x-er” — a fuzzy precision that shows the weak utility of those terms.
Seriously, does anybody believe that a millenial heir to billion smackers and a millenial who grew up in a trailer park are more alike than different, because of when they were born?
That puts a well-deserved torch to a lot of economic hooey. Thank you for that post.
I’ll just add that from what I’ve seen, hard-asset values aimed at “high net-worth individuals” (extravagant mansions, master artworks and even faddish junk modern art, fancy collectible racing or touring cars, yachts, famous designer fashions and jewelry) are at record or near record highs–at least by the terms of our debased currencies. Whether that is also true if adjusted for inflation I’m neither sure nor qualified to say. In any case, I don’t assume that point–I leave it aside. The present-day mantra is apparently, “If you gentrify it, they (i.e. the rich) will come.” All others, ‘go fish.’ Meanwhile, the president of the United States has completely perfected his imperturbable calm and composure on camera–the sure sign that, as things go right to Hell, all is well in hand among the band of incompetent bumbling fools in charge of things and their clones-in-waiting for the next perfunctory elections.
Why–again– are people rioting?
Note also, this from today’s Guardian (U.K.) newspaper:
Families facing eviction from New Era estate outraged at landlord’s mansion
“Westbrook partners investor attacked for £4m home as firm plans offshore ownership for flats to avoid corporation tax”
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/26/families-eviction-new-era-estate-westbrook-investor-4m-mansion
Westbrook, btw, is a private equity firm.
Mish’s piece is very entertaining. Gotta love that fancy econometric model! Now, if it only related somehow to reality…
Of course they will blow up the economy again. The only questions are when, and what will be primary transmission vector. Shale oil? Maybe.
The Fed is a bad disaster flick, a B-movie, that we keep having to watch over and over again.
I love the bit where J-Yel digs her stash of monopoly money out of a cubby hole in the basement of 33 Liberty Street to save the banks:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/expd/15068369673/
We need a good lawyer who will take on ‘People vs. The Fed,’ and not charge 100% contingency, like our Justice Dept (all awards go to the Treasury) typically does.
The case will seek damage compensation of $16 trillion.
That’s a lot of money, even at 10% contingency.
Shouldn’t be hard to get a good lawyer, I think.
I am intrigued by this: ‘Secular Attitude Change Underway.’
Maybe for the 99%.
What we need is attitude change on the part of the 0.01%. You know, instead of owning 3 islands, one should be sufficient and instead of a vacation house in every country, just every other country.
Maybe then, they will be less inclined to ‘innovate.’
My God, they innovate alright – new ways of charging your more and selling more stuff and services you don’t need or can’t rid the addictions of, via self-activated, self-sustaining brainwashing.
Man over supercomputer…
Yeah, but Carlson is much more expensive than scalable, mass-produced supercomputers.
And he is probably also more energy intensive than a computer…needs fresh produce, health care, etc.
EOS (End of Sarcasm)
Another one of those instances when the Onion’s not joking again….
http://www.theonion.com/articles/heavy-police-presence-in-ferguson-to-ensure-reside,37528/
How truly sad, in this joyous holiday season, for those poor “peace officers” to be all dressed up and no one to club, gas, tase, shoot, handcuff, arrest, threaten, blind, intimidate and humiliate.
‘Tis the season, after all, of Peace on Earth and goodwill toward men.
Openly working on bomb during negotiation.
Is that their version f good-mad-scientist, bad-mad-scientist trick?
If only the onion had gone that extra mile and put Hebrew identification tags on the side of that warhead. (Something like, “Built in Megiddo with pride” would have been perfect.)
Federal Reserve…corruption scandals.
Corruption from day one – they have printed money for the government to spend, instead of giving to the People. That’s corruption.
It’s a case of “People vs. The Federal Reserve” and any monetary reward should not go the Treasury but to whom? Of course, the plaintiff, this is plain enough, and the plaintiff is?
We will take it all the way to the People’s Supreme Court.
Tech worker shortage doesn’t exist.
Maybe or maybe not.
This is certain – CHEAP tech worker shortage does exist.
Gotta contain that raging wage inflation.
EOS.
There definitely is no shortage of tech workers, but as you say, there’s a shortage of U.S. tech workers who are willing to be quasi-slave laborers. For more on the fake shortage of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) workers, see this blog:
http://normsaysno.wordpress.com/
The blog also points out that there’s plenty of age discrimination against people older than 35.
The BusinessWeek article hits the nail on the head. You can tell what the industry wants by what they are asking for (an expansion of the H-1B program) and what they are not asking for (liberalization of immigration law to allow more tech workers to become US residents/citizens).
One of the best commentaries about Obama lies in the Robert Parry link regarding Hagel. Parry has been around the block in Washington and understands that town better than most reporters. We begin:
The key word here is “corruption.” The Washington Establishment and, indeed, the “Imperial” establishment encompassing all sectors of our lives and all major public and private institutions are corrupt–what I mean Parry means is that the people and institutions we speak of do not have, as their primary goal, the mission they allegedly serve or claim to serve. Military operations do not bring peace, educational institutions do not educate and so on. The American Establishment resurrected after the famous “Powell Memo” with an almost furious vengeance–not that it ever was seriously threatened but the wheel were beginning to fall of the wagon by the late sixties.
Also, let’s be clear here–I think Obama is mainly “unable” rather than “unwilling” to go against the grain in Washington. The American Presidency simply lacks the real power it pretends to. Every ruler is dependent on, at least, a reliable and honest security detail and that has been missing since 1963. If, and I assert that it can be and is, the Praetorian Guard around the President can be controlled by forces outside the Presidency then the President’s power is severely limited.
It is, I believe, clear that Obama has been dragging his feet on National Security policy since the last “surge” in Afghanistan which was clearly forced on him. He has been dragging his feet on Syria, on war with Iran and seems uninterested in the Nuland/Kagan neocon Cold War or worse with Russia. The political reality being what it is and, if Washington is dominate by the neocons, then the best he can do is operate his own foreign policy in secret–and this is a good sign. I think Obama may be playing a rope-a-dope role in that area for the next couple of years.
To show the power of the neocons, Robert Kagan, perhaps the Satrap of Washington for the neocons, wrote a very critical story of Obama in the neo-neocon POS rag TNR and Obama invited him to lunch ” that one observer described as a ‘meeting of equals.'” These sorts of observations are critically important in Washington where rank and hierarchy are sacred not unlike Japan or any Imperial Court and certain “signals” an protocol indicate rank.
On the down side, Parry offers us little on the palace politics that ousted Hagel–but it seems all pretty complicated and most of the forces at work are obscure at this time. Washington is confused and the hundreds of “shoes” that are up in the air have not yet dropped.
It is well known that Parry is an Obama supporter.
You should not making excuses for Obama AND stop trying to influence NC readers on the sly.
The Presidency has lots of power. And has only grown stronger over the last 20 years (via signing statements, secret interpretations, access journalism, etc.) The problem is that the Presidency is bought and paid for AND Obama is a neolibcon at heart so he doesn’t use the bully pulpit for any populist purpose (just the opposite).
=
“Dragging his feet”?!?!? He’s done virtually everything the neolibcons wanted. He turned the Lybian “no-fly” zone into a bombing campaign, he arms and trains Syrian rebels, he was ready to bomb Syria, he has supported the Ukraine coup, and he has not released info related to MH-17. The Iran peace initiative is a joke that is going nowhere as every effort is made to covertly attack Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah.
=
=
=
H O P
I tend to agree, in that he either DOES or DOES NOT have have the power to make crucial foreign policy decisions. I seriously doubt “palace intrigue” allows him that much leeway, and indeed, why would it? Isn’t that the point in having a puppet in the first place?
Quote from Robert Parry on the Hagel ouster:
“In a time of corruption, the countervailing forces of wisdom and courage will never be found among the credentialed, but rather among the outcasts of the establishment, those who were forced to the margins because they objected to the venality, because they stood up against misguided “group think.”
But Obama has been unwilling – or possibly unable – to come to grips with this reality. Despite his personal intelligence and rhetorical skills, Obama never has been willing to challenge people cloaked in credentials – those who went to the best schools, worked at big-name firms, won prestigious awards or held fellowships at famous think tanks.
The tragedy of Obama is that I’m told that he understands the stupidity of the modern U.S. establishment and does sometimes consult with “realists” who offer practical advice for how he can resolve some of the most nettlesome problems facing the United States around the world. But he does so virtually in secret, with what politicians like to call ‘deniability’.”
Interesting how it parallels Banger’s thesis. We are so f’ed!
Yes, stay tuned for my comment in moderation–I address some of that.
I am, as many know here, much more sympathetic to Obama than most here because I know what he is up again. We have a, mainly, false idea of what the Presidency is and what powers the POTUS has. His power is fairly limited. Also in that essay is the important observation that Robert Kagan and Obama were seen (by an observer of a lunch they had together) as “equals.” Real power in Washington is no more reported in the mainstream media than it was in the Soviet Union–I will re-iterate here in the face of Yves’ objection yesterday, that the mainstream media in this country is “controlled” by the National Security State (NSS). By “controlled” I mean that clear lines (everyone in the media knows what those lines are) are drawn around the area that can be reported and the area that cannot be talked about–within the allowable area the MSM is give wide latitude by the NSS in matters under its jurisdiction–in other areas there are other factions within the oligarchy who handle their end (bidness and so on).
The best Obama can do is to drag his feet and confuse things and that seems to be what he is doing. The confused and zig-zag nature of U.S. foreign policy is due to the WH “meddling” and “micro-managing” that you can read in the press as code words for “sabotage.” The WH does not trust DoD, CIA or the State Department that was brought under the domination of neoconservatives by Hilary Clinton and continued by virtual CIA agent and Skull and Bones loyal John Kerry who I believed threw the 2004 Presidential campaign–I once suspected it now I’m 90% sure he did.
Why is Obama afraid?–well, think about it. The assassinations of the 60s proved that no popular figure no matter what office he holds is vulnerable to being shot. Now, I don’t believe the oligarchs are threatening Obama with being shot–that would cause more trouble than its worth–but there are other sticks and a lot of carrots around. He could become ill, his daughters could meet with unfortunate accidents and so on. These guys and gals (who run the country) are serious and I don’t think most people who comment here fully grasp that fact.
See my comment above.
Stay tuned maybe something will come through that I wrote today on this matter.
Killings by Utah police outpacing gang, drug, child-abuse homicides
…”Police are trained and expected to react to deadly threats. As many deadly threats emerge is the exact amount of times police will respond,” wrote Ian Adams, a West Jordan police officer and spokesman for the Utah Fraternal Order of Police. “The onus is on the person being arrested to stop trying to assault and kill police officers and the innocent public. … Why do some in society continue to insist the problem lies with police officers?”
But Robert Wadman, a criminal justice professor at Weber State University and former chief of the Omaha, Neb., police department, said the factors leading up to the decision to shoot a subject are more subtle than what prosecutors consider when reviewing the legal justification. Under Utah law, an officer is justified if at the moment of the shooting the officer reasonably believes deadly force is necessary to prevent death or serious injury.
“Sometimes the line between is it legal and is it necessary becomes difficult to distinguish,” Wadman said. “In the judgment of the officer, ‘Is my life in jeopardy? Yes.’ At that point in time, they’re legally grounded in using deadly force. But the question is, is it necessary? That’s something that needs to be firmly addressed, for example, in training.”
‘Officers may use any force available’
The Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) division of the Utah Department of Safety oversees, directly or indirectly, the basic training of all police recruits in Utah. At its four-month academy, cadets are introduced to the use-of-force continuum, a diagram showing officer force options — simply showing up at the scene; verbal commands, touching or holding a subject, pepper spray, police dogs, baton, Taser, or deadly force — arrayed in a circle for the officer’s selection.
“Officers may use any force available provided they can justify the reasonableness of force used,” the manual states.
Adams maintains that officers in Utah typically use less force than may be justified. (oh really…In the past five years, more Utahns have been killed by police than by gang members. Or drug dealers. Or from child abuse.)
oh this is cute
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2014/11/25/witness-40/
h/t atrios
More sleight of hand from Just Security, this time from Julia Spiegel, Samantha Power’s new Mini-me. The US government’s concession on the geographic scope of obligations is an easy one – now they do their toothless finger-wagging “prohibition” overseas too. Note what Speigel cannot bring herself to say: “prevent, investigate, and, [pr… choke, gag, pr-p-p…] remedy” acts of torture. The word is prosecute. The P-word came up many times in Geneva. Until the US government prosecutes its torturers, it is in breach of the Convention Against Torture.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-25/more-medicine-goes-off-limits-in-drug-price-showdown.html
Unless more is done about a wave of new and expensive drugs, some priced at as much as $50,000 a month, Miller says that health plans are going to be swamped as costs double to half a trillion dollars as soon as 2020.
If they keep raising prices, drug companies “face an increasingly ugly backlash from plan sponsors,” Express Scripts’ Miller said.
uh don’t mind us…likely an officer’ll shoot us before we need your meds
And generic drugs are getting more expensive as well.
Thanks to some very innovative and smart corporate executives.
I’m guessing they’re going with the Walmart model where you charge 2 cents less than the competing company that owned the original patent?
The savvy never fails to astound
Living ‘Hand To Mouth’ In Modern American Poverty
With guest host Jane Clayson.
Smashing the assumptions about what it’s really like to live in poverty in America.
http://onpoint.wbur.org/2014/11/24/living-hand-to-mouth-in-modern-american-poverty
Poverty and illegal immigrants in America.
People still are lining up to sneak into the country because they admire our freedoms. They will us an even greater nation.
The biggest “save the world” idea that needs to stop is greenhouse gas reduction. There is no humanity in explaining why people in India should not have access to he oil markets (Keystone XL) like Americans do.
yeah that will help, make global warming worse.
Indians without multiple automobiles? Oh, the humanity…
Oil…$70…line in sand.
Looks like money is coming out of oil, into the S&P or cash…more than 100 stocks hit record highs this week.
Gotta be nimble to speculate.
Methinks that the speculators think the DOW is too big to fail.
Sadly, considering a good number of Americans retirement is tied to it, they’re probably right. Uncle Sugar will step in and rescue from themselves. However, I do think our side of the aisle needs to loudly insist that tax rates for speculation need to go up since the taxpayers are taking on “risk” too.
Dudley re: American Banker. Reading the comments was surprising – and a measure of how perverted our sense of logic has become. One of the comments was to quote a Wikipedia description of a Fire Warden. HUH? The knowledge base of the blogger is linked to Wiki? Don’t get me wrong – I love Wiki – but to take a top line description and believe that is the sane argument….I’m glad I am old and retired.