Dear President Obama: It's not about remodeling, jets or even bonuses

ftm

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Friday January 30, 2009 · 8:53 AM PST

2009/01/30 · 08:53

Obama has spoken out against the Merrill office remodeling, taken away Citigroup's new corporate jet and now condemned the 2008 Wall Street bonuses but what's really at stake makes these expenses insignificant.

Plans are leaking from his treasury to saddle taxpayers with the huge current and future losses from ill-advised bank lending.

Check out the numbers:

Poll

19 votes Show Results

What's Obama going to do?

19 votes Vote Now!

What's Obama going to do?

Move quickly with massive bailout and saddle taxpayers with majority of bailout cost

5 votes

Immediately seize and break up ailing large banks to save taxpayers dollars

5 votes

Help healthy small and medium size banks and let the large banks founder and then seize them

1 vote

Force large banks to restructure before commiting additional taxpayer bailout dollars

3 votes

We won't know until it is too late to have a voice in the bailout

5 votes

See my comment below

0 votes

Bank bailout exploding (3-4 Trillion)

ftm

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Wednesday January 28, 2009 · 7:29 AM PST

2009/01/28 · 07:29

Wake up Kossacks, Barack's honeymoon is over. The financial establishment is railroading Obama into a mega bank bailout.

If recent press accounts are correct, Obama can pack up our dreams about health care reform, clean energy and virtually everything else we want to do. Instead new federal borrowing will be devoted to propping up our dysfunctional and parasitic banking system.

Find out over the fold just how big the latest bank bailout numbers are and how to avoid a high cost bailout.

Poll

48 votes Show Results

How much Kossackian energy should be devoted to the bailout

48 votes Vote Now!

How much Kossackian energy should be devoted to the bailout

Most ( if you choose this, please start agitating about this)

14 votes

Let's wait and see what Obama proposes before we go ballistic

17 votes

Just raise taxes on the rich to fund the bank bailout and Obama's spending priorities

15 votes

This issue is too abstract to get worked up about

2 votes

Just another my issue is more important than your issue diary

0 votes

Hold on to your wallet: Bankers prepare US Treasury raid

ftm

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Friday January 23, 2009 · 6:24 PM PST

2009/01/23 · 18:24

Barack Obama faces a trillion dollar decision. Is he going to saddle taxpayers with the full cost of resurrecting our dysfunctional banks? Or is he going to share that cost with bank stakeholders(managers, bondholders, shareholders)?.

Money center banks know what is at stake and are maneuvering for maximum advantage. In the last few days, the managers of JP Morgan Chase, Bank America and Citigroup have each taken steps to try to preserve their jobs. Follow me over the fold to find out how.

Poll

75 votes Show Results

How will Obama take on the bankers?

75 votes Vote Now!

How will Obama take on the bankers?

Set an example by immediately seizing and restructuring Citigroup and Bank America

18 votes

Set tough condtions for new TARP money and then seize banks that fail to comply

28 votes

Bail out bankers by overpaying for bad assets

23 votes

Not do much and allow credit and the economy to further contract

6 votes

Awol Update XI: Infectious Media Cowardice

ftm

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Wednesday September 22, 2004 · 6:49 PM PDT

2004/09/22 · 18:49

Today a Wall Street Journal article probes whether the CBS hysteria will cause the network news to avoid controversial stories:

Already, there is concern by some observers that CBS's gaffe will cause other networks to think twice about pursuing high-stakes scoops.
"People in the network news organizations who are looking for a rationale to soften up have found it," says Todd Gitlin, a professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University in New York. "They weren't taking too many risks even before this, and they will take even fewer now."

Not to be outdone by the broadcasters, the NYT editorial page telegraphs its response to CBS's vilification:
Read More

AWOL Update X: White House cBS'ing

ftm

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Monday September 20, 2004 · 1:56 PM PDT

2004/09/20 · 13:56

Now that peddling questionable memos from partisan sources is a no-no, let's compare the Lloyd memo released by the White House in February to the phony CBS memos.

1. Supplier

CBS Memos: Burkett, Democrat
Lloyd Memo: Lloyd, volunteer for Bush 2000 campaign

2. Content

CBS Memos: Secretary who typed Killian's memos says content accurate
Lloyd Memo: US News & World Report, Boston Globe and NYT all note significant inaccuracies

ftm

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Thursday September 16, 2004 · 1:51 PM PDT

2004/09/16 · 13:51

Smoke due to the CBS memos now obscures the fire struggling to take under Mr. Bush. Three undeniably mainstream press outlets - Boston Globe, US News and CBS-- have now concluded that Mr Bush did not fulfill his commitment to serve in the Texas Air National Guard. These three establishment outlets now contradict the President's claim that he "put in his time". While web denizens have known of Mr. Bush's inadequate service for months, this new mainstreaming of the story is welcome news.

Unfortunately the rest of the mainstream press has put hands over eyes and thumbs in ears. Particularly noted is the absence of the New York Times -- even though the Boston Globe is owned by the New York Times Corp. It's downright bizarre to have some of the mainstream press concluding Mr. Bush lied about his military service while at the same time other key national outlets act as if the story merits no coverage.
Read More

Awol Update VIII: Where is the Press?

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Wednesday August 04, 2004 · 9:29 AM PDT

2004/08/04 · 09:29

The recent recovery of Mr. Bush's missing payroll records once again exposes the press's failure to definitively investigate Mr. Bush's military service. The press's inability to resolve the AWOL issue has Josh Marshall arguing that the White House has succeeded in drowning the issue in a sea of documents.

While Marshall has correctly identified the White House strategy, he -- like the press -- ignores an obvious shortcut through the documents to heart of the issue. Despite the reams of official records, Bush's minders have built their case that Mr. Bush fulfilled his military commitment on one, lone unofficial document. This document -- a memo by Albert Lloyd, a retired Texas Air National Guard (TXANG) Personnel Officer - is not only factually incorrect it also just happens to obscure the most suspect element in Mr. Bush's military record. Even a minimal press investigation of the Lloyd Memo would give voters in November a much better understanding of both Mr. Bush's military record and the apparent efforts Mr. Bush's minders have made to limit public knowledge of his record. Read More

Bush and Torture: Stonewalling the Torture Questions

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Sunday July 11, 2004 · 10:36 AM PDT

2004/07/11 · 10:36

The torture scandal is currently off the media radar screen as important issues like the relative thickness of the candidates' hair, wallets and waists dominate the coverage. Fortunately the Washington Post editorial page doesn't seem satisfied to leave the issue until after the election to sort out:

Congress also has a duty to probe more deeply into the actions of Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and former CIA director George J. Tenet. Mr. Rumsfeld stated publicly last month that at Mr. Tenet's request he ordered that several prisoners in Iraq not be registered with the International Red Cross, as required by the Geneva Conventions. As an official Army report put it, this was "contrary to Army doctrine and in violation of international law." If, in fact, Mr. Tenet and Mr. Rumsfeld conspired to violate the Geneva Conventions in Iraq, they should be held accountable -- just like the lowly reservists whom the Pentagon now prosecutes.

ftm

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Sunday May 30, 2004 · 2:16 PM PDT

2004/05/30 · 14:16

In case you've lost your directory of administration legal hacks, John Yoo is the former Justice Department official who authored key memos arguing that the Geneva Conventions don't apply to the US detainees from the Afghanistan conflict. Last wednesday Mr. Yoo tried to defend US detention policies in Guantanamo and Iraq on the WSJ editorial page: Read More

Torture and Bush: Feith-based Geneva Conventions

ftm

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Tuesday May 25, 2004 · 6:51 PM PDT

2004/05/25 · 18:51

On yesterday's WSJ editorial page, Douglass Feith displays his virtuosity by spinning US detention policy and the Geneva Conventions into a big ball of fuzz. He begins by trumpeting the virtues of the Geneva Convention:

I drafted our point paper on Feb. 3, 2002. Here is an unedited quotation of the key section on the Defense Department's interest in the Convention:

The Convention is a good treaty.

One could quibble about details, but the Convention is a sensible document that requires its parties to treat prisoners of war the way we want our captured military personnel treated.
U.S. armed forces are trained to treat captured enemy forces according to the Convention.
This training is an essential element of U.S. military culture. It is morally important, crucial to U.S. morale.
It is also practically important, for it makes U.S. forces the gold standard in the world, facilitating our winning cooperation from other countries.

ftm

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Sunday May 23, 2004 · 7:38 PM PDT

2004/05/23 · 19:38

This diary is taking on the character of Washington Post promotional material, but remarkably the Post editorial page continues to hit the right notes regarding the torture scandal. Today they demand that the administration stop screwing around and reveal just what policies were in place to direct interrogations in Iraq and elsewhere. Read More

Torture and Bush: NYT has more on White House

ftm

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Friday May 21, 2004 · 9:12 AM PDT

2004/05/21 · 09:12

The Times details how the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion brought interrogation practices developed in Afghanistan to Abu Ghraib prison.

The interrogation center at Abu Ghraib prison was run by a military intelligence unit that had served in Afghanistan and that had taken to Iraq the aggressive rules and procedures it had developed for the Afghan conflict, according to documents and testimony.

The Times' Neal Lewis also writes today how in late 2001 and early 2002 Justice Department lawyers crafted legal strategies to exempt US officials from the federal War Crimes Act. Alberto Gonzales then endorsed that Justice Department advice in his 1/25/02 memo to Mr. Bush. Even though that memo warned Mr. Bush that the U.S. risked "widespread condemnation from our allies" should the US try to avoid jurisdiction from the Geneva Convention; he made the call to exempt Afghanistan detainees from the Geneva Convention protection. This ill-advised policy regarding Afghan detainees clearly contributed to the torture in Iraq. The Washington Post editorial page called Bush out yesterday to finally change his disastrous detainee policy. These new revelations closely connecting the torture and his policies require more than that. Mr. Bush established the legal environment tolerant of torture. He needs to take personal responsibility for the torture. Mr. Bush is hiding in the White House while our soldiers and country suffer the consequences of his failed detention policy.

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Dear President Obama: It's not about remodeling, jets or even bonuses

Bank bailout exploding (3-4 Trillion)

Hold on to your wallet: Bankers prepare US Treasury raid

Awol Update XI: Infectious Media Cowardice

AWOL Update X: White House cBS'ing

AWOL Update IX: A Press Divided

Awol Update VIII: Where is the Press?

Bush and Torture: Stonewalling the Torture Questions

Torture and Bush: More Spew from John Yoo

Torture and Bush: Feith-based Geneva Conventions

Torture and Bush: WP Editorial Page Keeps Up the Pressure

Torture and Bush: NYT has more on White House