Good Morning!
Longwood Gardens. February, 2013. Photo by joanneleon.
John Butler Trio - Treat Yo Mama (Live at Wave Aid)
News and Opinion
Obama's Possible Frack-Friendly Energy Plan a 'Nail in the Coffin' for Climate
Choice of MIT professor Ernest Moniz, known for championing gas fracking, as head of Department of Energy receives rebuke
Reports that President Obama is poised to nominate MIT professor Ernest Moniz to be the next head of the Department of Energy is raising serious concerns for those worried that the administration will betray its promise to take on the threat of the climate crisis by making a major domestic push for natural gas drilling using the controversial practice known as fracking.
The choice of Moniz, known for his adamant support for fracking—which he's called "paradigm-shifting"—seems to confirm reporting last week that a major part of Obama's plans for energy creation in his second term will be to "initiate widespread gas fracking in the US."
Attytood. He came to a similar conclusion as
I did about the Tiger Woods distraction.
Big oil, Obama, and the 1 Percent Party
For background, read yesterday's post on Comcast, Corbett and the 1 Percent Party. I haven't blogged about the whiney Washington press corps and the whole Tiger Woods affair, but I will note that Tiger Woods sure is a convenient smokescreen while the real business of government gets done.
Slimin’ Jamie Dimon’s Scheming to Stick the FDIC with WaMu Losses
We’ll go into more details on JP Morgan’s WaMu machinations below. The very short version is this story came to the fore last year, when Deutsche Bank filed a putback suit against both JP Morgan and the FDIC for dud loans in 99 WaMu mortgage securitizations (recall that when a mortgage backed bond is found to have worse merchandise in it than than the investors were promised, the trustee is supposed to put the bad loans back to the originator and have them replaced with good loans or get cash compensation. The Deustche Bank suit was noteworthy because trustees normally do nothing). The FDIC has made a compelling case that WaMu is no longer its problem and JP Morgan assumed the relevant liabilities.
Yet we’ve been told that in the next few weeks, JP Morgan is about to enter into a settlement with Deutsche Bank regarding…hold your breath….the liabilities it insists sit with the FDIC. I’m not making this up (the source is legally savvy). I’m not even sure how you paper up something which is so clearly nonsensical.
Martin Wolf Misses the Real Reason the Eurozone’s Unhappy Marriage Has Not Broken Up Yet
Even though a Greek departure would not have significant economic ramifications for the rest of the Eurozone, the fear is that it would lead to contagion, since if Greece left, it would demonstrate to other periphery countries that it could be done too.
[...]
It is hard to imagine how an exit could make matters any worse. Greece would get the Eurozone boot off its neck, be able to deficit spend to get its idle resources back to work, and depreciate its currency to make its goods more attractive on world markets.
So why are the periphery countries suffering this level of unproductive pain? Because the countries aren’t making the decisions. It’s powerful local politicians who are selling out their countries, working in cahoots with Eurozone technocrats. And I can assure you none of them are sharing in the suffering of periphery country workers.
This is the plague of our modern social order: detached and corrupt leaders, whether intellectually, monetarily, or both. The old code of noblesse oblige, which at least required the elites to have some concern about what happened to the lower orders, is a dead letter. It’s curious that someone as incisive as Wolf is unwilling to factor the behavior of the ruling classes into his assessment. Perhaps, as Michael Thomas said of Punch Sulzberger, he is dining with people he should be dining on.
Scott Shane.
White House Tactic for C.I.A. Bid Holds Back Drone Memos
The strategy is intended to produce a bipartisan majority vote for Mr. Brennan in the Senate Intelligence Committee without giving its members seven additional legal opinions on targeted killing sought by senators and while protecting what the White House views as the confidentiality of the Justice Department’s legal advice to the president. It would allow Mr. Brennan’s nomination to go to the Senate floor even if one or two Democrats vote no to protest the refusal to share more legal memos.
[...]
Only after an unclassified Justice Department white paper summarizing the legal arguments was leaked to NBC News this month did the administration make two legal opinions on the targeted killing of American citizens briefly available to members of the Intelligence Committees.
But the documents were available to be viewed only for a limited time and only by senators themselves, not their lawyers and experts.
The arrangement frustrated members of the committee, who were not allowed to have their staff members study the highly complex legal opinions. But the reinvigorated public discussion set off by the nomination of Mr. Brennan has raised hopes in Congress that the debate will continue even if he is confirmed.
Marcy. This is really serious stuff. It's not just politics. The oversight law says that this administration must give the Senate Intelligence committee this information. This is so serious that there should be demands for Dianne Feinstein's resignation as chair, imho, if she allows this to continue and goes forward with the Brennan vote. I think it's so serious that the Senate should shut down everything that this administration wants until they provide the additional legal opinions on targeted killing.
White House Capitulates to Benghazi Truthers Rather Than Coming Clean on Targeted Killing
I get that the Benghazi truther demands are, at this point, pointless. I get that the President would rather cede to a bunch of nutcases from the Republican party than Senators from his own party.
But what does it say that this information on targeted killing–which the Administration should provide to the intelligence Committees under the National Security Act, by law, in any case–is more precious than a bunch of partisan hackery the Republicans have been pursuing since September.
There must be some reason the Administration would rather kowtow to sensationalized requests from Republicans rather than commit to the transparency it’d take to get 2 Democrats and a Republican to vote for Brennan.
But no reason for doing so would be respectable.
bmaz over at Emptywheel.
DOJ Gives Blackwater a Whitewash On Felony Charges
How little of a wrist slap is the sentence? I’ve had common DWI clients sentenced to more. Compare and contrast to the punishment the DOJ sought to impose on Aaron Swartz.
[...]
Did Judge Flanagan do that? Well, we do not know because there is no sentencing minute entry on the docket as there normally is. It just isn’t there. What’s more, we cannot know if there was a stipulation to hide the plea entry and immediate sentencing plans in the plea agreement (docket number 364), because the plea agreement is SEALED.
All ability of the public to know this was coming, and to discern what really happened, has been secreted from the public. Secret justice (or, more properly, injustice).
How and why did all this occur? Undoubtedly because of the highly classified and incestuous relationship between Blackwater and the US Government, and the resulting ability of Blackwater to literally blackmail and extort concessions through graymail threats (See here for a short history of graymail).
So, through secrecy, classification, graymail and direct collusion with the DOJ, Blackwater, and its executive henchmen, win and the American public lose yet again. I have been practicing criminal law for 25 years and I am absolutely offended by what occurred in Judge Louise Flanagan’s courtroom today. Both she and the Obama Department of Justice should be made to answer for it.
Graymail
Graymail is the threatened revelation of state secrets in order to manipulate legal proceedings. It is distinct from blackmail, which may include threats of revelation against, and manipulation of, any private individual. Graymail is used as a defense tactic, forcing the government to drop a case to avoid revealing national secrets.
Graymail can occur in two ways:
To straightforwardly blackmail the government, forcing them to drop the case using the threat that if the trial proceeds the defendant will reveal classified information he or she already knows.
To request use of classified material, e.g. as evidence, in the trial. The defendant speculates that the government will be unwilling to make the material fully available to the case, and that this will raise the possibility, in the eyes of the judge or jury, that the unreleased material might clear the defendant, making it difficult to prove guilt.[1]
Human Rights Watch. h/t to emptywheel who questions whether the U.S. has any involvement.
Mexico's Disappeared
The Enduring Cost of a Crisis Ignored
This 176-page report documents nearly 250 “disappearances” during the administration of former President Felipe Calderón, from December 2006 to December 2012. In 149 of those cases, Human Rights Watch found compelling evidence of enforced disappearances, involving the participation of state agents.
Israel gives OK for oil drilling in Golan Heights
Israel's Energy and Water Resources Ministry said Wednesday it has issued a permit for the American-Israeli company Genie Energy to drill for oil on the plateau. The company is headed by Effi Eitam, a hawkish former Israeli Cabinet minister.
Craig Murray. I'm pretty floored by this and feel like I fell through the looking glass reading the press release. I also had no idea that Murdoch was in the oil business. Israel tried to drill in Golan Heights 20 years ago but they were stopped, and peace talks fell through. Syria's Assad obviously is in a weaker position right now and his military is tied up in a civil war with both native and foreign-backed, imported militias, but he's still in power. But Israel feels confident enough to go ahead with this drilling project. Are they anticipating a turn around in the situation there or an intervention?
Israel Grants Oil Rights in Syria to Murdoch and Rothschild
Israel has granted oil exploration rights inside Syria, in the occupied Golan Heights, to Genie Energy. Major shareholders of Genie Energy – which also has interests in shale gas in the United States and shale oil in Israel – include Rupert Murdoch and Lord Jacob Rothschild. This from a 2010 Genie Energy press release:
Claude Pupkin, CEO of Genie Oil and Gas, commented, “Genie’s success will ultimately depend, in part, on access to the expertise of the oil and gas industry and to the financial markets. Jacob Rothschild and Rupert Murdoch are extremely well regarded by and connected to leaders in these sectors. Their guidance and participation will prove invaluable.”
“I am grateful to Howard Jonas and IDT for the opportunity to invest in this important initiative,” Lord Rothschild said. “Rupert Murdoch’s extraordinary achievements speak for themselves and we are very pleased he has agreed to be our partner. Genie Energy is making good technological progress to tap the world’s substantial oil shale deposits which could transform the future prospects of Israel, the Middle East and our allies around the world.”
For Israel to seek to exploit mineral reserves in the occupied Golan Heights is plainly illegal in international law. [...]
This blog post is also by Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, now human rights activist. The BBC, apparently, is going to run a comedy series designed to undermine his criticisms of the UK's alliance with Uzbekistan. Mitchell and Webb are a British comedy team known for their award winning show, "That Mitchell and Webb Look", and they have book, "That Mitchell and Webb Book". I think the piece is interesting because if what Murray is saying is true, the British government is using a popular comedy team and the BBC network for government propaganda. (Warning: There is one disturbing photo in this blog post of an Uzbekistan detainee who was killed while in custody, so if you're reading it, you'll know to skip over it if you need to.)
That Mitchell & Webb Crook
The comedy in “Our Men” comes from the exposure not of the hypocrisy of foreign policy, but from the exposure of our drunken and incompetent Ambassador. That is exactly what the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has put a huge media effort into telling everybody I was, ever since I blew the whistle on the Uzbek regime and our complicity with it.
The comedy also aims to defuse the horror of our alliance with Uzbekistan and make it banal, accepted and safe.
There is an obvious issue of copyright here, as the substance and themes of Our Men are clearly taken from my book Murder in Samarkand. My literary agent therefore contacted the man of business at Mitchell & Webb’s production company, Big Talk. He said that the series is completely different from Murder in Samarkand ; it has nothing to do with human rights and “the writers have researched the project with the diplomatic service“. That is a direct quote from my agent’s record of the conversation.
They have to furlough the entire civilian workforce if the sequestration cuts happen. The entire civilian workforce. Amazing. The cuts aren't that big. You'd think that cutting a few fat defense contracts would take care of it pretty easily. Money is
pouring into cyberterrorism work and all the opportunistic defense contractors that live off the trough are running for it. They can still afford to do all the various bizarre Pentagon research, can do covert wars all over the place, drone strikes aplenty (they are not cheap) but as soon as anyone touches their budget, they go right for the jugular and cut the jobs or the veterans services or benefits.
800,000 DoD Civilians Face Furloughs in April
The U.S. Defense Department said Wednesday it will furlough almost 800,000 employees — essentially its entire civilian workforce — beginning in late April.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta today told Congress and Defense employees that the department will be forced to furlough almost all of its civilian employees if the budget cuts known as sequestration take effect March 1 and are not quickly averted.
There are many college courses available online. This is a lecture from a course on the American Revolution at Yale.
The Logic of Resistance
The American Revolution (HIST 116)
Professor Freeman lays out the logic of American resistance to British imperial policy during the 1770s. Prime Minister Lord North imposed the Intolerable Acts on Massachusetts to punish the radicals for the Boston Tea Party, and hoped that the act would divide the colonies. Instead, the colonies rallied around Massachusetts because they were worried that the Intolerable Acts set a new threatening precedent in the imperial relationship. In response to this seeming threat, the colonists formed the First Continental Congress in 1774 to determine a joint course of action. The meeting of the First Continental Congress is important for four reasons: it forced the colonists to clarify and define their grievances with Britain; it helped to form ties between the colonies; it served as a training ground for young colonial politicians; and in British eyes, it symbolized a step towards rebellion. The lecture concludes with a look at the importance of historical lessons for the colonists, and how these lessons helped form a "logic of resistance" against the new measures that Parliament was imposing upon the colonies.
00:00 - Chapter 1. Introduction: The Logic of Resistance
03:23 - Chapter 2. North's Intolerable Acts and Colonial Solidarity
11:28 - Chapter 3. The First Continental Congress
19:14 - Chapter 4. Jefferson's Dinner Party and the Influence of Enlightenment Thought on the Colonists
27:24 - Chapter 5. Jefferson's Reflection on Hamilton's Favorite Hero
35:58 - Chapter 6. The Logic of Colonial Unity from the British Perspective
45:48 - Chapter 7. Edmund Burke's Warning and Conclusion
Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://open.yale.edu/...
This course was recorded in Spring 2010.
Action
Tell Obama: Reject Keystone XL & Stop Golfing With Big Oil!
Obama Golfed With Oil Men As Climate Protesters Descended On White House
On the same weekend that 40,000 people gathered on the Mall in Washington to protest construction of the Keystone Pipeline -- to its critics, a monument to carbon-based folly -- President Obama was golfing in Florida with a pair of Texans who are key oil, gas and pipeline players. ...
But on his first “guys weekend" away since he was reelected, the president chose to spend his free time with Jim Crane and Milton Carroll, leading figures in the Texas oil and gas industry, along with other men who run companies that deal in the same kinds of carbon-based services that Keystone would enlarge. They hit the links at the Floridian Yacht and Golf Club, which is owned by Crane and located on the Treasure Coast in Palm City, Fla.
Send President Obama A Letter
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Blog Posts and Tweets of Interest
Evening Blues
Targeted Killing Timeline
Madeleine Albright Supports Drones Because American Lives More Precious Than Other Lives
White House Wants Everyone to Know Obama Supports Cutting Social Security Benefits
Bradley Manning Supporters Plan International Protests to Mark 1,000th Day in Jail Without Trial
Austerity Program Set to Begin Next Week
It’s Time for MoveOn to Move and Stop Blocking Change
You Can’t Wash Away Fracking’s Effects
NATO Wants US to Buy $22 Billion SOFA in Afghanistan
John Butler Trio - Ocean