Month: June 2010

Out Of Touch

From the VOMITORIUM

I hear some conserv pundits say, almost daily, that Repubs have ideas and have the will, just not the power to institute conserv ideals…..I will agree that there are some ideas coming from the GOP but most are recycled from the 80’s…just change the wording to make it sound new and fresh…..you know the stuff…tort reform, privatize Social Security,  cut the deficit, smaller government….yada yada yada…..

First of all, I would like to apologize to my conserv friends…I know it looks like I pick on the GOP way too much…but in reality they ask for it…..

The truth of the matter is that most conservs are old white guys that are out of touch with America….do not care what they call their latest proposal (Road Map For America’s Future…in case you were wondering)

GOP has NO new ideas for government or the economy…they are just re-hashes from the past or the fact that all the things that they are opposed to could have been addressed when they held the majority or their whining but others whining…..

I know,  if you are a conserv then you think I am being a “leftie” agitator…you would like more specifics….cool..I am down with that!

GOP candidate Angle  in Nevada thinks that you can eliminate unemployment by denying unemployment benefits to people out of work or,

GOP minority leader in the House, Boehner who compares the economic crisis to an ant or,

GOP Rand Paul who thinks that BP is being picked on and should be left alone or,

RNC chairman Michael Steele who thinks Obama started the war in Afghanistan…..

“The McChrystal incident, to me, was very comical. And I think it’s a reflection of the frustration that a lot of our military leaders have with this Administration and their prosecution of the war in Afghanistan,” said Steele. “Keep in mind again, federal candidates, this was a war of Obama’s choosing. This is not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in.”

And Steele is the chairman of the RNC…he is your spokesman!

Come Repubs admit it!  Your leadership and candidates are out of touch with the rest of the country…..how can you ask the people to vote for candidates that have no grasp of what it is to live in the real world?

Spies Like Them

Have you heard about the spies that were recently arrested in the US?  They were deep cover moles for Russia….and you thought the Cold War was over…silly Americans!

Anyway, there is a story on the Newser website about one of the spies….she is a red head and as anyone who visits Info Ink regularly knows I have a soft spot for red heads….and this “spy” could have got me to divulge anything she wanted to…….damn!

Read it and see what I mean….

http://bit.ly/cDtkNG

Change For Afghanistan

Recently I was reading some articles on the change in command for the troops in Afghanistan and I came across an interesting piece written by Patrick Martin…..

There is every indication that the change in command is the result of growing dissatisfaction with McChrystal’s counterinsurgency methods, which have failed to dislodge the Taliban-led guerrilla forces that control the bulk of southern and eastern Afghanistan. It presages a drastic increase in the level of US military violence, and especially the scale of civilian casualties among the Afghan population. Their “crime” is to sympathize with and support the anti-US insurgency.

Petraeus is already, according to one media report, preparing to modify the rules of engagement to allow for greater use of force.

According to a report Sunday in the British Independent, McChrystal had grown increasingly pessimistic about the prospects for success, particularly after he was compelled to postpone the planned offensive into the key southern city of Kandahar, a Taliban stronghold. He reportedly briefed NATO defense ministers earlier this month “and warned them not to expect any progress in the next six months.”

According to this schema, McChrystal had chosen the second and third goals, with the resulting spike in US-NATO casualties and increasing dissatisfaction among the rank-and-file soldiers ordered to take greater risks to avoid civilian casualties. The alternative, the author writes, is to focus on the first and third goals instead: “A state can protect its armed forces while destroying insurgents, but only by indiscriminately killing civilians as the Ottomans, Italians, and Nazis did in the Balkans, Libya, and Eastern Europe, respectively.”

This choice, what the author later calls “a policy of barbarism,” could perhaps be described as “the Hitler option.”  (excerpts from “The Hitler Option”)

I truly hate it when people use thew “Nazi” comparison, it usually turns me off when it is used,  but in this case it could well be used in a proper way.  My next question is, just how accurate is this analysis?  The answer will be in the news of the future……watch the happenings in Afghanistan and see how accurate the prediction or analysis is…..

Tap Dance At The G20

Inkwell Institute

International Studies Group

Recently in Toronto there was a meeting of the mindless…a group called the G20……a meeting of the top leaders from 20 different countries that meet to plan the world economy and here is what they decided:

The communiqué called for governments to halve their budget deficits by 2013 and for the ratio of national debt to gross domestic product to be stabilised by 2016. This was seen as a win for Germany and other countries backing deficit reduction. But the document made clear that these targets were not binding and, in a concession to the US, expressed the hope that governments would follow “growth-friendly fiscal consolidation plans”.

In a further bid to walk both sides of the street at the same time, the communiqué declared: “There is a risk that synchronised fiscal adjustment across several major economies could adversely impact the recovery. There is also the risk that failure to implement consolidation where necessary would undermine confidence and hamper growth.”

The G20 resolution on fiscal consolidation allowed all sides to claim a victory even as the differences widen. German chancellor Angela Merkel said the outcome was “more than I expected”. She claimed that the views of continental Europe had prevailed. German officials noted that the US had learned its lesson about writing public letters that sought to change the position of others. In the lead up to the summit, Obama issued a letter to G20 participants warning that too rapid fiscal tightening could impede global recovery. He noted that earlier G20 agreements had pointed to the need for export surplus countries—a reference to Germany and China—to increase domestic demand.

As usual this meeting was nothing more than a photo op for the leaders to appear to be working on solutions when all they were doing is a slow tap dance.  The reality is that the world cannot solve these problems it is up to the individual countries to find the answers and to pretend any thing else is just absurd.

Oil Spill Theater

Daily Agitator

Just like ALL issues or situations…the political theater is in full swing……the Gulf oil spill is a train wreck that I cannot stop staring at…..and the politics of the spill are so f*cking absurd that I cannot stop keeping up with ……

We have the CEO of BP who cannot take his foot out of his mouth….we have news organizations that are trying to link the spill to Obama and his band of radical environmentalists and we have state politics speaking and accusing and….all in all playing politics….with a disaster of this magnitude, that should be treason or some equally serious crime…

Mississippi’s Haley Barbour has gone on record as saying that the drilling moratorium is more disastrous than the spill…,.and then there is Louisiana’s  gov. Jindal…who has spent more time in front of the cameras than Paris Hilton….he has accused the government of slow action…he has accused BP of withholding info and cash…he has…..oh Hell he has accused everybody but Christ for the oil problems.

He has especially bitched about not having the proper tools at his disposal to fight the oil spill…..B-U-T!

a CBS News Investigates report that Gulf coast governors haven’t been fully utilizing the 17,500 National Guard troops authorized by the federal government to help them with the oil spill,  Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s office offered a tart response.In a statement sent to ProPublica, Jindal spokesman Kyle Plotkin said that Louisiana would “call up more National Guard troops as the Adjutant General tells us he needs them.”

He followed up with a harsh criticism of the federal government’s response efforts.

“We spend more time fighting red tape and bureaucracy than we ever should have to if the federal government understood this oil spill as the war that it is.”

Jindal’s statement doesn’t address the specific question of why Louisiana is using only 1,053 of the 6,000 National Guard troops available to the state. The governor said that he would “deploy every resource” available to win the war against the BP oil spill, and complained that Coast Guard and BP authorization were required for individual tasks, which apparently slowed down the deployment of National Guard troops. However, the governor’s office told CBS News that he has not specifically asked for more National Guard troops.

He is playing a political game…..he is following the GOP line that the government is to blame….every time I see him on the tube he is throwing out political barbs at the president….he seldom answers direct questions of what HE is doing….he is playing the people for political advantage……personally I think the pigs like this are the assh*les we can live without.

Yet Another Domino Theory

Inkwell Institute

2010 Economic Crisis

There are Domino Theories everywhere……the possibility of an uncontrollable economic problem is lurking in the wings…..what would that be, you may ask?

In the recent history of the world there have been several uses of the “Domino Theory”, where if one thing falls others will follow…..like Vietnam, if it fell to the communists then Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia and so on would fall to those hated “commies”.  And then there was most recently in the economic sphere where Greece is in trouble and if it falls so will Portugal, Ireland, Spain and quiet possibly the US will fall.  There have been other times and incidents where it has also been used but these are the most encompassing.

I see yet another possibility where there is the possibility of the theory actually having some legs this time…….Financial Reform could be setting the stage for another fall from grace.  Why?  I have NOT seen anything in the two versions of the bill that would prevent this uncontrolled gambling by banks and hedge funds….if anything it will just encourage them to try it again….and again….and again….

Let me put it this way……if you went to a casino and lost all your money but someone else paid for your loses….would you stop gambling?  NO!  You would not!  And that is what the FinReg bill will do….it will reward the gamblers for their loses and penalize the country at the same time….all I can say is……THIS IS THE GOVERNMENT THAT YOU VOTED FOR…..ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?   WHEN WILL YOU DIPSTICKS HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF THESE GAMES BEING PLAYED WITH YOUR LIVES?

It’s The Economy, Stupid!

Inkwell Institute

Professor’s Classroom

Subject:  Political Theory/Economics

Paper #20

I believe it was Clinton or maybe one of his lackeys that came up with that line….but it is accurate….we cannot talk political theory without talking about the economy (for this post in general terms)……But beyond the cute saying…..NO study of politics could ever be complete without a study of economics….for these two are forever twined…..

Just look at any modern political campaign……and what are the main issues?  90% of them are involved with some sort of economic planning…yes I said planning….the USSR and other ‘socialist’ regime are NOT the only political system that has its planning phase….even here in the good old US of A…..think it is wrong?  Then what to you call the plans to cut the budget?

As in almost all other subjects within political philosophy different ideologies view the economy in different lights…let us navigate through the major ideologies on the economy……the breakdown is pretty predictable….

Liberals see the economy as vital part of civil society and have a strong preference for a market or capitalist economic order hat is based on property, competition and material incentives.  However, classical liberals (from the old days) favor laissez-faire capitalism which is the real free markets….modern liberals recognize the limits of  the markets and accept limited economic management.

Conservatives show a clear support for private enterprise but have favored a limited pragmatic form of intervention to eliminate the free for all of laissez-faire and the risks of social instability.  The “New Right” is embracing a unregulated form of capitalism.

Socialists, especially the Marxists, have expressed a preference for common ownership and absolute social equality, which is expressed in forms of state collectivism and state central planning.  However the Social Democrats support regulated capitlaism, believing the market is a good servant but a bad master.

The Anarchists reject all forms of economic control or management….however the anarcho-capitalist advocates an entirely unregulated market economy……(NOT ALL Anarchists are bomb throwers….sorry to burst a bubble here).

Fascists have traditionally looked for a ‘third way’ for the economy……somewhere between capitalism and communism…….settling on the idea of corporatism, which draws labor and capital together in this so-called ‘organic whole’………It consists of nationalizations and planning in an attempt to subordinate profit to the needs of the nation……..(which never seems to work the way it is suppose to…kinda like socialism).

There you have the major ideologies and what the economy would look like if they were in control……once again the definitions are very simple in an attempt to make it a bit clearer to my readers….as you can see the economy and politics are linked together for all time…..one cannot study the one side of this equation and hope to grasp the complexities of governance…..

Afterword:  I am NOT trying to sway anyone to my way of political thinking (though I would not object if it did) I just want my readers to realize that there are many ways to view different issues and that not all of us see everything in right or wrong……..

One Small Step

This is a small step in the direction to protect the working poor, who by the way, are the only people who use these service…..about time they stepped up and did a little protection……

Starting Thursday, the state no longer will allow payday-loan operators to set interest rates as high as 460 percent annually. A 10-year-old law that allowed them to charge above the 36 percent annual rate cap imposed on other lenders, such as banks, will expire.

Miller said that to stay in business, many payday lenders likely will offer auto-title loans, which can generate annual returns of up to 204 percent, according to state law. The Center for Responsible Lending said more than 200 payday stores in Arizona have received auto-title loan licenses in the past two years, as it became more apparent payday licensing would end. Some payday lenders also will continue to offer check-cashing services.

Arizona will become the 16th state to impose an interest-rate cap on payday loans, according to the Center for Responsible Lending in Durham, N.C., which tracks payday-loan operations across the country. At least six other states are looking at imposing restrictions.

It is about time that state legislators pay attention to the workings of the social vulture, that make billions off the lives of the working poor.  My state has NOT yet made an attempt to isolate these predators….but I believe it is coming as soon as we flush the toilet known as the Barbour governorship and his massive protection of ALL businesses, even the vultures in the pay day loan scams.

Cyber Geeks Rebel!

Okay all you cyber geeks that depend on the internet for everything from shopping to sex it is time to wake up to a reality that is approaching……

A bill introduced by Joseph Lieberman, Independent Senator from Connecticut and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman, would give the US president wide-ranging powers, including the ability to order Internet providers to restrict access to the global network.

The bill, entitled the “Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act” (PCNAA), was presented in the Senate June 10 by Lieberman, with the support of Republican Susan Collins of Maine and Democrat Tom Carper of Delaware.

Known by the short name “Protecting Cyberspace,” the bill has been dubbed an Internet Kill Switch as it presents the Internet itself as a US national asset, over which the president would be given extraordinary powers in a declared “cyber emergency.” Under PCNAA, already extensive powers to force private companies to comply with emergency decrees would be greatly expanded. Any company on a list created by the Department of Homeland Security that also “relies on” the Internet, telephone system, or any other component of the US “information infrastructure” could be taken under the control of a proposed new National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications (NCCC), which would be a section of Homeland Security.

While you were asleep or watching “Dancing with the stars” your privacy and your rights are being attacked.  Wake up, dipstick!

The Mouth Stays!

By now we all have heard the words uttered by Rep. Barton as an apology to BP for making them contribute to a claims fund….it case you missed it…

“I think it’s a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would call a shakedown,” the Texan said. “In this case a $20 billion shakedown.” Barton said the administration has no authority to ask for this “$20 billion slush fund” and that litigation provides adequate due process for awarding damages.

“I apologize,” he said to Hayward. “I do not want to live in a country where every time a corporation does something wrong, it’s subject to a political process that amounts to a shakedown.”

After he made his now infamous apology the GOP scrambled to be on record to saying that he, Barton, did not speak for the Party.  After a meeting with the minority leader of the House, Barton came out and made an apology, sort of, it was nothing to remember.

The point was made that he was the ranking member of the GOP on the Energy Committee and if the Repubs win back the House then he would be the chairman of that committee.  Well the GOP had a meeting whether to strip him of is position or not and the votes are in….

House Republicans agreed Wednesday to keep Arlington Rep. Joe Barton as the party’s senior voice on energy policy, after one more apology – a private one to his colleagues – for the uproar he stirred last week by apologizing to oil giant BP.

“This issue is closed,” said House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio, who downplayed the episode as a “distraction” from discredited Democratic energy policies.

Now knowing that his words will show up a bunch of 30 second during this and future campaign ads for the Dems….why would they chance the fact that this could weigh heavy at the polls?

To me…Barton said openly what the rest of the cowards will not admit…..that they feel the same and if possible will do everything they can to stop the bleeding of money from BP.  They, the GOP, wants to keep an oil friendly guy on the Energy Committee, especially one that is in line for the chairmanship.

The GOP’s true colors will emerge as soon as they think it will not bite them in the butt at election time….my bet is that they will be on the side of BP in the near future.