November 20, 2009 archive

Breaking: Barack Obama is a socialist, Ronald Reagan is the Devil

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    Wall Street must LOVE Socialism, because it is doing great under our new President, who has been declared a socialist by people who think capitalism is what happens when the bank overcharges you for no reason on overdraft fees.

     So, if the wingnuts can say anything about this President and need no facts to prove so, barring any admission that Barack Obama IS a socialist, admits that he does think he is the Messiah after all or somebody finds Sean Hannity’s crystal ball that gives him supernatural powers of clairvoyance, Ronald Reagan logically MUST be the devil.

    Proof? You dare ask for Proof? Well who needs proof when you have a wild imagination and a blackboard to spell it out on, and thus I can prove that Barack Obama wants to kill all the smurfs, is, in fact a sekrit communist muslim, and Ronald Reagan is the devil.

    All below the fold.

Fort Hood Probe: “Troubling Questions”

Daniel Zwerdling, of National Public Radio, once again with his outstanding investigative journalism is getting information, some damning again, that are clearing up the many questions raised especially after the round of first initial reports and seeming changing stories of those being asked the questions in those many reports.

He joins this short discussion at the PBS News Hour on some of what he’s found.  

WWL Radio #44 Trolling for Assassins: The Christian Right’s Jihad on America

Join WWL Radio cohosts Diane Gee and Michael Gottlieb tonight on BTR at 6PM Eastern Time.

The title may shock you, but we do not think we are overstating our case.

Join us tonight as we explain how, by use of Biblical passage, coded messages, and flat out threatening statements, the Right Wing is ramping up rhetoric in order to ignite an attempt on President Obama’s life, if not incite an actual coup to take over the United States for “Ultra-conservative Christianity.”

The Secret Service reports their threat level is up 400% from any other President in history, for protecting the POTUS.

As we condemn Islam for not speaking out against their lunatic fringe, as we condemn Israel for not condemning their lunatic fringe calling for the *death of non-jews, (There’s a book out by that name) the Christian Right on our own soil remains largely silent against the lunatic fringe threatening our elected President, and anyone who supports them.

This is evident on every level, from Hatch’s Holy War on Health Care, to Stupak’s War on Women.

Our diligent duty as prophets of the dire is to forewarn you. Its up to you whether or not to be forearmed!  

See you there! As always, respectful questions and commentary are welcomed. Call in, or use our attached live chat function!

Join Gottlieb and Diane tonight at 6pm EDT on Wild Wild Left Radio, via BlogtalkRadio, for an interesting hour of Political Reporting and Commentary.

WWL Radio: Free Speech in Practice.

The call in number is 646-929-1264

Listen to The Wild Wild Left on internet talk radio

The live chat link will go live around 5:15.

CHAT LINK:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/F…

Docudharma Times Friday November 20




Friday’s Headlines:

Guidelines Push Back Age for Cervical Cancer Tests

Behind Asia’s nice manners, tough lessons for Obama

Angry Congress lashes out at Obama

Effects of judge’s Katrina ruling could be huge

The 26-year-old victim of the First World War

French PM to Irish leader: keep out of Thierry Henry scandal

Karzai inaugurated – but where were the crowds?

Hong Kong hands over Tiananmen dissident Zhou Yongjun for trial

A healing in Mozambique

Ethiopia convicts military men of coup plot

Palestinians accuse Israel settlements of diverting water

Venezuela blows up border bridges with Colombia

Late Night Karaoke

Open Thread

I no Longer Support Univeral Health Care

I am sorry.  I really want a universal health care system.  Here is my take.  All voluntary reconstructive surgery will be taxed at 10% of the bill, the tax to be paid into the US Treasury.  This tax will not apply to reconstructive surgery from injury nor disease.

More to make it better?

Warmest regards,

Doc

On Murdoch And Google, Or, Hey, Rupert, Where’s My Check?

Our favorite irascible media tyrant is in the news once again, and once again it’s time for me to bring you a story of doing one thing while wishing for another.

In a November 6th interview, Sky News Australia’s David Speers spent about 35 minutes with the CEO of NewsCorp, Rupert Murdoch; the conversation covering topics as diverse as software piracy, world economics, the role of Fox News (and Fox NewsPinion©) in American politics, a strange defense of Glenn Beck, and, not very long afterwards, an even stranger defense of immigration.

We have heard a lot about the…how can I put this politely…challenges Murdoch seems to face associating factual reality with his reality, and we could have lots of fun going through his factual misstatements-but instead, I want to take on one specific issue today:

Rupert Murdoch says he hates it when people steal his content from the Internet to draw readers to their sites…which is funny, if you think about it, because he has no problem at all stealing my content (and lots of yours, as well) for his sites.

Obama Believes in Guilty Verdicts

If you haven’t read Glenn Greenwald’s latest, you should.  He details how the Obama administration is all about trials for alleged terrorists at Gitmo, when they even occur, that are assured of guilty verdicts.

“‘Administration officials say they expect that as many as 40 of the 215 detainees at Guantanamo will be tried in federal court or military commissions . . . . and about 75 more have been deemed too dangerous to release but cannot be prosecuted because of evidentiary issues and limits on the use of classified material’ . . . If true, that means that there are 75 so-called ‘Fifth Category’ detainees who might be subject to indefinite detention without trial” — The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder, yesterday, quoting The Washington Post.

(crossposted at Daily Kos)

Overnight Caption Contest

larger here

Goldman, Geithner, & Summers: A Fall From Grace In The Making?

Three weeks ago on October 28, Henry Blodget at The Business Insider wrote that:

When the historians finally finish sorting through the appalling decisions that have been made in the past two years, this one will probably be at the top of the heap.

Last fall, as AIG began to realize how screwed it was, it started negotiating with the counterparties to all the credit default swaps it had written.  One of the AIG’s goals was to persuade these counterparties–including Goldman Sachs–to accept buyouts discounts of as much as $0.40 cents on the dollar.

These sorts of negotiations are exactly what should happen when a company gets in trouble.  It goes to its creditors and says, look, we can’t pay you everything, so here’s your choice: Take something, or take your chances in banktuptcy court.  (And, in this case, this wouldn’t have been much of a choice, given the standing of CDS holders in the liquidation line).

But then Tim Geithner, head of the New York Fed, stepped in. 

A few weeks later, the counterparties–all of whom voluntarily did business with AIG and understood the risks–were bailed out at par: 100 cents on the dollar. 

Thus began the most nauseating giveaway in the history of the country.

Bloomberg has the whole sickening story:

By Sept. 16, 2008, AIG, once the world’s largest insurer, was running out of cash, and the U.S. government stepped in with a rescue plan. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the regional Fed office with special responsibility for Wall Street [run by Tim Geithner], opened an $85 billion credit line for New York-based AIG. That bought it 77.9 percent of AIG and effective control of the insurer.

The government’s commitment to AIG through credit facilities and investments would eventually add up to $182.3 billion.

Beginning late in the week of Nov. 3, the New York Fed, led by President Timothy Geithner, took over negotiations with the banks from AIG, together with the Treasury Department and Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s Federal Reserve. Geithner’s team circulated a draft term sheet outlining how the New York Fed wanted to deal with the swaps — insurance-like contracts that backed soured collateralized-debt obligations…

Part of a sentence in the document was crossed out. It contained a blank space that was intended to show the amount of the haircut the banks would take, according to people who saw the term sheet. After less than a week of private negotiations with the banks, the New York Fed instructed AIG to pay them par, or 100 cents on the dollar. The content of its deliberations has never been made public…

The New York Fed’s decision to pay the banks in full cost AIG — and thus American taxpayers — at least $13 billion. That’s 40 percent of the $32.5 billion AIG paid to retire the swaps. Under the agreement, the government and its taxpayers became owners of the dubious CDOs, whose face value was $62 billion and for which AIG paid the market price of $29.6 billion. The CDOs were shunted into a Fed-run entity called Maiden Lane III.

Read the whole story (and then marvel about how Tim Geithner is now Treasury Secretary) >

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