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Jonathan Wilson - Fanfare (Vinyl)
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Update: A tragic train accident in the Bronx. This is such a heavily traveled weekend. There will have been a lot of families and college students on that train, I imagine. This was an early train from Poughkeepsie to NYC. The article mentions that a freight train derailed in this same area in July.
4 Dead in Metro-North Train Derailment in the Bronx
At least four people were killed after a Metro-North Railroad train derailed Sunday morning in the Bronx along the Hudson River, officials said.
A total of 67 people were injured — 11 critically — a New York Fire Department spokesman, Jim Long, said.
The derailment occurred when several cars of a train headed south from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., left the tracks about 7:20 a.m. near the Spuyten Duyvil station under the Henry Hudson Bridge on the Hudson Line, according to a Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman, Aaron Donovan.
NYTimes editorial board has a column today on cuts that the Pentagon needs to make. Keep in mind, their budget doubled after Bush took office and under Obama it has remained doubled. It's been 12 years since 9/11. We've got residual and presumably special forces in Iraq and the withdrawal from Afghanistan is well under way, though a large residual force is being negotiated there too and we don't know how many contractors will be involved. What I don't see in the numbers this editorial are numbers for mercenaries and other types of contractors (including intelligence industry contractors where we know the percentage of that force is a very large percentage of total personnel).
I want the veterans who served to be taken care of. The risk when wars are over and when the country becomes weary of war is that the veterans get shafted. We saw it happen after Vietnam and I'm sure it happened after other wars. Gung ho hawks and jingoisic presidents and their military advisors and Congress never seem to figure on the decades long cost of war, taking care of the millions who served, the injuries, the lives ruined and all the associated costs that don't end after the ticker tape parades are over. We've still got troops in Germany and Japan and all over the world after World War I. In this case, we're looking at keeping a large force in Afghanistan until "2024 and beyond" and unlike the residual forces left in place after World War II, and whether or not they call it "training", these troops will still be in a combat situation in a volatile, highly dangerous area and the deaths and injuries will almost certainly continue. Given the track record of insider attacks from Afghan forces, they are in a ridiculously dangerous position in a landlocked country and highly outnumbered by Afghan forces and civilians.
So while the politicians like to tell the country that they've ended wars, this is a country that is in a perpetual war, trying to keep things under control to some extent in two areas of failed wars, involved in covert wars in at least 80 countries that are designed to be hidden from the people in whose name the wars are waged and the people who foot the bills for them, with the new, elite special forces who, while much smaller in number, must cost a bloody fortune and are probably covered in the black budget that hardly anybody ever sees numbers for. I've never heard anyone say that those wars would reduced in number.
Last but not least, the very nature of our military is changing radically in that the vision of the future is both the covert special forces, drones and other remotely controlled robotic vehicles of war, and also the Cyber Command which we know is growing at an astronomical rate but of course we have no idea of the specific numbers on that. It is clearly the place to be if you're a defense contractor transforming yourself into an cyberwar and cybersecurity expert in order to feed on the brand new trough. I don't hear anybody talking about making cuts in that arena and in fact there are all kinds of public-private partnerships, investment in companies, new facilities, etc. The only thing we know from the leaked Snowden documents about the Cyber Command is that their missions are focused almost entirely on offensive operations, attacks, rather than defense. Billions and billions and billions are being poured into intelligence and the new cyber army but the people who pay for it know almost nothing about it.
For anyone trying to do analysis on Pentagon spending going forward ... good luck with that. The areas being touted as the future of our military, special forces, intelligence, cyberwar, are covert. I would guess that this would make them less vulnerable to pressures from the public, from investigative journalists, etc. and that when the pressure is on to cut the bloated, obscene amounts of money that have been flowing for more than a decade, they will be much less susceptible to pressure than traditional forces and veterans. To me, this seems like a really bad situation and more transparency on the ways the trillions of dollars are spent is needed. A lot more transparency. If everybody knows that everybody else has cyberarmies, and if the internet is the world's battlefield, then the cyberarmies are today's conventional forces and the public has the right to know what's being done in our name and what the hell is being spent. The grunt who has to serve on bases all over the world and in harm's way should not be more vulnerable to cuts than the keyboard commando or drone pilot in the air conditioned control room just because the public knows more about what is spent to equip him. There needs to be transparency for so many reasons, not the least of which is that the Pentagon still can't account for their spending and they haven't been able to for decades at least. There are trillions and trillions that nobody can account for. How much of that has been black budget money? It's outrageous. Where are the
Anyway, despite the attention span of a gnat that the media has, the sequester hasn't gone away and the debt ceiling and the new Catfood Committee hasn't gone away. The president and the austerity crew still determined to cut trillions. The deadline for the latest Catfood Committee looms and after the holiday is over, will probably dominate the news. We've been assured by the Democrats "in the know" that a Grand Bargain is not going to happen this year. Okay, then how are they going to resolve the postponed debt ceiling and cuts situation? And who is going to take the hit on the Pentagon budget? Will the real waste, fraud and abuse be addressed or will the military's 99% be required to make the sacrifice while the 1% and the elite and covert trough continue to thrive?
Putting Military Pay on the Table
After a decade of war, the very idea of cutting benefits to soldiers, sailors and Marines who put their lives on the line seems ungrateful. But America’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan is over or winding down, and the Pentagon is obliged to find nearly $1 trillion in savings over 10 years. Tough choices will be required in all parts of the budget. Compensation includes pay, retirement benefits, health care and housing allowances. It consumes about half the military budget, and it is increasing.
In a speech last month, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned that without serious savings in this area, “we risk becoming an unbalanced force, one that is well compensated but poorly trained and equipped, with limited readiness and capability.” Meanwhile, Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff, told a hearing: “The cost of a soldier has doubled since 2001; it’s going to almost double again by 2025. We can’t go on like this, so we have to come up with [new] compensation packages.”
[...]
One problem is that unrestrained compensation costs will edge out funds for training, readiness and weapons. A recent Congressional Budget Office study said that between 2001 and 2012, when private-sector wages were effectively flat, basic military pay rose by 28 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars. The study also said that cash compensation for enlisted personnel, including food and housing allowances, is greater than the wages and salaries of 90 percent of their civilian counterparts. And health care costs are projected to rise from $51 billion in 2013 to $77 billion by 2022.
Bill Black on The Real News. Black says this is the first installment in a series.
Documents in JPMorgan settlement reveal how every large bank in U.S. has committed mortgage fraud
Bill Black: Justice Dept.'s failure to understand pervasive schemes of fraud in financial industry obstructs meaningful prosecution of banks
Al Jazeera on Scahill and "Dirty Wars" which opened in Europe this week.
Listening Post - feature: Behind Dirty Wars
The feud fueled and started by the failed NSFWCorp (now Pando Daily) crew continues. They've been whining all weekend. I'm more and more convinced that this is their way of siphoning attention from Greenwald and NewCo toward themselves and also may be part of some operation to try to undermine NewCo while there is a lull and before it gets up and running. You can see from their Twitter feeds (@paulcarr, @MarkAmesExiled, @yashalevine, @sarahcuda and to some extent though he seems to be staying out of it @thewarnerd). Glenn hasn't been saying much as they go on and on but they have been whining about how his former legal partner brought up their past writings and past actions, which is ironic because they pride themselves in being ruthless investigative journalists who proudly attack others, no matter their status. So it looks like Glenn decided to address all of it in a side post today but particularly to address the latest hit piece that Mark Ames did on at their new home, Pando.
Here is a bit of Glenn's response. You'll need to go there to read the full post with all the links. One thing of interest is that Glenn says that some national security reporters in the media have picked up on all of this, which, as you know, I find very interesting.
Sunday, December 01, 2013
But now, this week's attack has been seized on by various national security establishment functionaries and DC journalists to impugn our NSA reporting and, in some cases, to argue that this "privatizing" theory should be used as a basis to prosecute me for the journalism I'm doing. Amazingly, it's being cited by all sorts of DC journalists and think tank advocates whose own work is paid for by billionaires and other assorted plutocrats: such as Josh Marshall, whose TPM journalism has been "privatized" and funded by the Romney-supporting Silicon Valley oligarch Marc Andreesen, and former Bush Homeland Security Adviser and current CNN analyst Fran Townsend ("profiteering!", exclaims the Time Warner Corp. employee and advocate of the American plundering of Iraq).
Indeed, Pando.com itself is partially funded by libertarian billionaire Peter Thiel, the co-founder of Paypal and CIA-serving Palantir Technologies. The very same author of this week's Pando post had previously described Thiel (before he was funded by him) as "an enemy of democracy" and the head of a firm "which last year was caught organizing an illegal spy ring targeting American political opponents of the US Chamber of Commerce, including journalists, progressive activists and union leaders" (one of whom happened to be me, targeted with threatened career destruction for the crime of advocating for WikiLeaks)).
Moreover, the rhetorical innuendo in the Pando post tracks perfectly with that used by NSA chief Keith Alexander a few weeks ago when he called on the US government to somehow put a stop to the NSA reporting: "I think it's wrong that newspaper reporters have all these documents, the 50,000-whatever they are and are selling them and giving them out as if these-you know, it just doesn't make sense," decreed the NSA chief. This attack is also the same one that was quickly embraced by the Canadian right to try to malign the reporting we're now doing with the CBC on joint US/Canada surveillance programs.
I didn't realize that The Young Turks were raising money via Indiegogo for a new studio. They lost their CurrentTV studio and have been working out of temporary digs while they raised the money to get set up in their own studio. The fund raiser is not technically over yet but they reached their 250K goal. They are also doing a holiday fundraising drive.
WE DID IT!!! Exciting Indiegogo News
So, this is very interesting too. I would think that it's going to be very tricky to keep the right people in charge of NSA and Cyber Command, for a number of reasons. What was the deal with the Foreign Policy article last week introducing us to Fran, the den mother of the NSA? Inglis had announced a December retirement, which means very soon. Is this a last minute panic kind of thing or was it intended that Inglis be kept in place all along?
The James Clapper Plan to “Change” NSA by Keeping John Inglis in Charge
Yesterday, Ellen Nakashima reported that James Clapper supports splitting CyberCommand off of NSA. To understand whether this would represent real change or not, consider that they’re considering John Inglis — currently Keith Alexander’s Deputy — to lead NSA.
At a White House meeting of senior national security officials last week, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. said he was in favor of ending the current policy of having one official in charge of both the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, said the individuals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Also, officials appear inclined to install a civilian as director of the NSA for the first time in the agency’s 61-year history. Among those said to be potential successors to the current director, Gen. Keith B. Alexander, is his deputy, John C. “Chris” Inglis.
Glen Ford.
Obama’s Ludicrous Afghanistan Declarations
“Since when has the U.S. voluntarily left anyplace it has forcibly occupied?”
The most ridiculous actor in the fictitious U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is not President Hamid Karzai, the hustler the U.S. installed as its puppet after the American invasion in 2001. The real clowns in this charade are those Americans that pretend to believe President Obama when he says the U.S. war in Afghanistan will end on the last day of next year. Obama is, of course, lying through his teeth. The United States and its NATO allies plan to keep 10,000 to 16,000 troops in the country, occupying nine bases, some of them set aside for exclusive American use – and would remain there at least ten years, through 2024. Shamelessly, Obama claims these troops – including thousands from the Special Operations killer elite – will have no “combat” role. It’s the same lie President Kennedy told in 1963, when he called the 16,000 U.S. troops then stationed in Vietnam “advisors,” and the same bald-faced deception that Obama, himself, tried to pull off, unsuccessfully, in Iraq – until the Iraqis kicked the Americans out.
[...]
Far from ending U.S. imperial wars, Barack Obama has expanded the theaters of armed conflict. He tried to keep U.S. troops in Iraq, but the Iraqis insisted on the withdrawal terms and timetable they had negotiated with President George Bush. Iraq is now paying a heavy price, as the U.S. and its allies arm Iraqi Al Qaida and other jihadist elements fighting to overthrow the government of neighboring Syria. These U.S.-backed jihadists – the same ones the Americans fought against in Iraq for eight years – now wage war against Shiites on both sides of the border.
Pressure is mounting for a vote on Sensenbrenner's bill. This is an epic battle building. I think we'll see maneuvers and propaganda at levels that even surpass what we saw over the summer. They will try like hell to push this off at least until after the holidays. With all of the budget craziness looming again, adding this to the mix and another push for the immigration bill could make the next few weeks a pandemonium in Washington.
Pressure builds on Boehner for NSA vote
One House Democratic aide argued that the Republican leaders are boxed in. If they don't allow a vote on standalone NSA reform legislation, the aide said, members will demand NSA-related amendments to must-pass legislation like the defense and intelligence authorization bills.
"They're stuck. They would deal with this in the way they deal with a lot of things — by just not moving the legislation," the Democratic aide said. "Except how are they going to get other important pieces of legislation that they want to move unless they move this first?"
[...]
Sensenbrenner’s bill now has at least 102 co-sponsors, evenly split between 51 Republicans and 51 Democrats.
OMG. I know a lot about the kind of feelings that divorces bring about, but this? .... I should have thought of it!
Man Erects Giant Middle Finger Next To Ex-Wife's House
Action
Stop Watching Us.
The revelations about the National Security Agency's surveillance apparatus, if true, represent a stunning abuse of our basic rights. We demand the U.S. Congress reveal the full extent of the NSA's spying programs.
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Blog Posts and Tweets of Interest
More Tunes
Jonathan Wilson - Her Hair Is Growing Long