Aldebaran wrote:
He had me in the palm of his hand, enthralled and almost moved to tears, until he said that he was glad Obama won. Insert sound of needle violently scratching record as music stops.
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Aldebaran wrote:
8bitagent wrote:It's like the racist, foaming at the mouth right wingers(who should be loving Obama like they did Bush) are there to keep the left from questioning this administration.
Nordic wrote:He had me in the palm of his hand, enthralled and almost moved to tears, until he said that he was glad Obama won. Insert sound of needle violently scratching record as music stops.
Nordic wrote:
He had me in the palm of his hand, enthralled and almost moved to tears, until he said that he was glad Obama won. Insert sound of needle violently scratching record as music stops.
Obama Begins Inauguration Festivities With Ceremonial Drone Flyover
WASHINGTON—Taking the oath of office for his second term today, President Barack Obama joined thousands of supporters in the nation’s capital for traditional inauguration festivities that included a prayer invocation, a parade along Pennsylvania Avenue, and a ceremonial flyover of three combat drones. “When Obama was being sworn in on the Capitol steps, we could hear the drones screeching by overhead and everyone got really excited,” spectator Andrew Meyers, 34, said as he eagerly trained his eyes on the unmanned aerial vehicles that have taken out several hundred innocent civilians during presidentially authorized strikes in Pakistan and Yemen. “They go by super fast, but luckily there are Jumbotrons all over the National Mall, so nobody missed out. Wait, they’re coming back!” At press time, sources confirmed that inaugural celebrants were enjoying the Jumbotron’s live closed-circuit feed of the still-open prison facility at Guantánamo Bay.
Politics: Choice of Mary Jo White to Head SEC Puts Fox In Charge of Hen House
BY MATT TAIBBI
JANUARY 25, 2013 | 9:00AM EST
I was shocked when I heard that Mary Jo White, a former U.S. Attorney and a partner for the white-shoe Wall Street defense firm Debevoise and Plimpton, had been named the new head of the SEC.
I thought to myself: Couldn't they have found someone who wasn't a key figure in one of the most notorious scandals to hit the SEC in the past two decades? And couldn't they have found someone who isn't a perfect symbol of the revolving-door culture under which regulators go soft on suspected Wall Street criminals, knowing they have million-dollar jobs waiting for them at hotshot defense firms as long as they play nice with the banks while still in office?
I'll leave it to others to chronicle the other highlights and lowlights of Mary Jo White's career, and focus only on the one incident I know very well: her role in the squelching of then-SEC investigator Gary Aguirre's investigation into an insider trading incident involving future Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack. While representing Morgan Stanley at Debevoise and Plimpton, White played a key role in this inexcusable episode.
As I explained a few years ago in my story, "Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?": The attorney Aguirre joined the SEC in 2004, and two days into his job was asked to look into reports of suspicious trading activity involving a hedge fund called Pequot Capital, and specifically its megastar trader, Art Samberg. Samberg had made suspiciously prescient trades ahead of the acquisition of a firm called Heller Financial by General Electric, pocketing about $18 million in a period of weeks by buying up Heller shares before the merger, among other things.
"It was as if Art Samberg woke up one morning and a voice from the heavens told him to start buying Heller," Aguirre recalled. "And he wasn't just buying shares – there were some days when he was trying to buy three times as many shares as were being traded that day."
Aguirre did some digging and found that Samberg had been in contact with his old friend John Mack before making those trades. Mack had just stepped down as president of Morgan Stanley and had just flown to Switzerland, where he'd interviewed for a top job at Credit Suisse First Boston, the company that happened to be the investment banker for . . . Heller Financial.
Now, Mack had been on Samberg's case to cut him in on a deal involving a spinoff of Lucent. "Mack is busting my chops" to let him in on the Lucent deal, Samberg told a co-worker.
Spiro C. Thiery wrote:8bitagent wrote:It's like the racist, foaming at the mouth right wingers(who should be loving Obama like they did Bush) are there to keep the left from questioning this administration.
It is absolutely that, if not originally by design, they have been taking advantage of it for years. Proverbially speaking: If the foaming at the mouthers were NOT there, we would have to invent them.
It wasn't too many pages back on this very thread that a few of us were arguing over which of the two presidential choices would greater embolden resistance of the movement ever rightward (I still maintain that we are better off not having the mass-perceived lesser evil in power, as resistance therewith is quelled, and the drift continues unabated). But what do I know?
BTW, 8bit, sorry if I was a bit snarky. I get to worked up sometimes.
Which brings me to...Nordic wrote:He had me in the palm of his hand, enthralled and almost moved to tears, until he said that he was glad Obama won. Insert sound of needle violently scratching record as music stops.
Yeah, I kind of had that reaction, but have to cringe and agree to disagree with him, chalking it up to his naivete in that regard. As upsetting as it is, the sad reality is that he is one of very few prominent Black voices who has any influence upon the many generations of African Americans who are being so cleverly indoctrinated into the nationalistic mindset by this president. The racial gap in attitude towards the American government is being bridged on a level which might even surpass the JFK/LBJ era.
MLK did not dream of a day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and shout, "We got Osama!!"
In response to Rockefeller’s critique, Obama said he’s not involved in drafting such memos, the senators told POLITICO. He also tried to assure his former colleagues that his administration is more open to oversight than that of President George W. Bush, whom many Democratic senators attacked for secrecy and for expanding executive power in the national security realm.
“This is not Dick Cheney we’re talking about here,” he said, according to Democratic senators who asked not to be named discussing the private meeting.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/o ... z2NXGZug6V
8bitagent wrote:
If Bush would have flat out said "were invading Iraq, just because...and a lot of people gonna die", it wouldnt have made it any less unjust.
hava007 wrote:8bitagent wrote:
If Bush would have flat out said "were invading Iraq, just because...and a lot of people gonna die", it wouldnt have made it any less unjust.
not entirely true, though tempting to think so. if bush said so and so, he would not have probably gain consent from the people. if the people decide to go to a dirty war, its still unjust towards the target, but just in terms of the domestic process. which makes a huge difference, as you very well know.
8bitagent wrote:btw just wanted to point out to everyone that on a LOT of issues it's hard for me to disagree with Obama...
gun issues, gay marriage, teachers, women's issues, etc...Im right there with Obama.
Spiro C. Thiery wrote:8bitagent wrote:btw just wanted to point out to everyone that on a LOT of issues it's hard for me to disagree with Obama...
gun issues, gay marriage, teachers, women's issues, etc...Im right there with Obama.
You mean, like the president, you just decided this last election cycle that your position on gay marriage had finally "evolved" enough to "come out" in support of it?
His educational policy is a huge corporate sell-out, too.
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