Labels: Kennedys, me

Labels: Craig Ferguson, John Cusack

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

The debate over Prescott Bush's behaviour has been bubbling under the surface for some time. There has been a steady internet chatter about the "Bush/Nazi" connection, much of it inaccurate and unfair. But the new documents, many of which were only declassified last year, show that even after America had entered the war and when there was already significant information about the Nazis' plans and policies, he worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler's rise to power. It has also been suggested that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish the Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty.

Labels: George W. Bush, Israel

A Christian group based in San Diego found grounds for outrage over the new retro-style logo for Starbucks Coffee.

The Resistance says the new image "has a naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute," Mark Dice, founder of the group, said in a news release. "Need I say more? It's extremely poor taste, and the company might as well call themselves Slutbucks."

The group, which claims more than 3,000 members nationwide and has found a place on the fringe advancing various conspiracy theories, is calling for a national boycott of the coffee-selling giant.

Labels: Christofascist Zombie Brigade, idiocy

Thousands are losing their jobs as hard-pressed banks cut deep. But while layoffs are nothing new in the financial industry (they come with almost every downturn), this round seems different: it is eerily quiet.

So quiet, in fact, that people refer to these cuts as stealth layoffs. Some bosses hardly say a word after people are fired. At Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, for example, the first clue that someone is gone can be e-mail messages that are returned to senders from a former colleague’s inactivated corporate address.

[snip]

The idea that banks will slowly wield the knife again and again unnerves many employees. People know the cuts are coming — they just don’t know when or where.

“Nobody knows who is coming in; nobody knows who is going out,” said JoAnne Kennedy, who was laid off by JPMorgan Chase this year. “They want to keep it all as quiet as possible.”

To some bank workers, one round of layoffs seems to blur into the next. At Goldman Sachs, low performers were dismissed from January through March. A few weeks later, the bank quietly began letting more people go. All told, Goldman is axing about 8 percent of its work force, although incoming employees this summer will make up for some of that loss.

At Merrill Lynch, 1,100 people were laid off early this year, mostly in mortgage-related businesses. But in April, the firm announced 2,900 more cuts.

JPMorgan Chase said last fall that it would lay off 100 people in its fixed-income division and then followed up with several smaller rounds of cuts in other parts of the bank. The casualties will keep mounting as JPMorgan melds with Bear Stearns, the troubled investment bank it is buying.

Starting at the top, JPMorgan executives are eliminating jobs at their own bank, redeploying some people to other divisions and replacing others with Bear Stearns workers. As many as 5,500 Bear Stearns employees and 4,000 JPMorgan workers could lose their jobs before it is over.

The steady drumbeat of bad news on Wall Street is sapping morale. Wendi S. Lazar, a partner at the employment law firm of Outten & Golden, said companies are usually better off being open about cutting jobs.

“You’re seeing a very, very inconsistent message to employees,” Ms. Lazar said. “It’s, ‘I don’t know when it’s going to happen, it may be tomorrow, it may be next month; we may be able to keep you, we may not.’ ”

Layoffs are always difficult, but some of the recent cutbacks have been messier than usual. Some JPMorgan employees learned that people from Bear Stearns would get their jobs before the bosses said anything. JPMorgan clients told them first.

Some Lehman Brothers investment bankers found out their jobs were in peril when they saw cardboard boxes and dumpster bins in the hallways in March.

And when Bank of America dismissed some bankers recently, it told them that their annual bonuses had been almost wiped out and that their personal belongings would arrive in the mail. The bank announced many of the layoffs on Feb. 13, two days before many employees would be able to start cashing out stock options.

In January, when Ms. Kennedy was temporarily out of the office at JPMorgan because of surgery, her boss called to say her job had been eliminated. She did not return to her office and ended up asking the bank to send her the photos of her son that she kept on her desk.

Labels: employment

Most American pundits want to see Bush's remarks as an attack on Barrack Obama but folks - it's not always about your country and your political races. For one thing, as Brian Katulis adroitly notes, if negotiating is appeasement then the Bush administration has done an awful lot of appeasement itself over the last seven years. And Brian doesn't even mention working with Sunni Awakening members in Iraq who not too long ago were terrorists attacking US forces! For another, if Bush's remarks were really intended to help John McCain, the latter wouldn't go shooting himself in the foot like this:

“Yes, there have been appeasers in the past, and the president is exactly right, and one of them is Neville Chamberlain,'’ Mr. McCain told reporters on his campaign bus after a speech in Columbus, Ohio. “I believe that it’s not an accident that our hostages came home from Iran when President Reagan was president of the United States. He didn’t sit down in a negotiation with the religious extremists in Iran, he made it very clear that those hostages were coming home.'’

Need I say that "Iran-Contra" and "appeasement" really do belong in the same sentence together?

[snip]

Bush, in his speech to the Knesset, signalled clearly that his administration will quietly support Israel if it decided to take direct action against Iran - as it did recently against Syria. It's worth noting that any Israeli attack on Iran would almost certainly have to transit Iraqi airspace.

Labels: Israel

Myanmar's junta announced Thursday that a pro-military constitution has won overwhelming support in a referendum, which was held despite widespread criticism and in the midst of a national tragedy — a devastating cyclone that the Red Cross says may have killed more than 125,000 people.

Myanmar's government issued a revised casualty toll Wednesday night, saying 38,491 were known dead and 27,838 were missing.

But the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said its estimate put the number of dead between 68,833 and 127,990.

Even though the figures seemed precise, spokesman Matthew Cochrane said they were not based on body counts, but were only estimate designed to provide Red Cross donors and partner organizations with an idea of the numbers being discussed within the aid community.

U.N. officials have said there could be more than 100,000 dead in the May 2-3 cyclone.

With up to 2.5 million people in urgent need of food, water and shelter, aid agencies were preparing or moving in a wide-range of relief supplies including material for temporary shelters, rice, drinking water, kitchen utensils and medicines, including 2,000 anti-snake bite kits.

The World Health Organization said an increase in snake bites was feared in coming days. U.N. agencies and other voluntary groups have been able to reach only 270,000 of the affected people.

But instead of accepting foreign help freely, the government continued to issue only a few visas to foreign aid experts, and all but shut them out of the hardest-hit areas.

The regime insists it can handle the disaster on its own — a stance that appears to stem not from its abilities but its deep suspicion of most foreigners, who have frequently criticized its human rights abuses and crackdown on democracy activists.

Labels: Burma

Labels: arrogance, elitism, George W. Bush, rant

U.S. authorities have long considered Mohammed al-Qahtani one of the most dangerous alleged terrorists in U.S. custody, a man who could have been the 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11, 2001, plot if he had not been denied entry into the country.

But yesterday, amid concerns about using information obtained during abusive military interrogations, a top Pentagon official removed Qahtani from the military commission case meant to bring justice to those behind the vast Sept. 11 conspiracy.

Susan J. Crawford, the appointed official who decides which cases will be heard in the largely untested commission process, dismissed the charges against Qahtani while affirming those against five other alleged terrorists to stand trial at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Prosecutors reserve the right to charge Qahtani again, and the military says it can hold him without trial for the duration of the counterterrorism wars. But his defense lawyers and officials familiar with the case say it is unlikely that Qahtani will face new charges because he was subjected to aggressive Defense Department interrogation techniques -- such as intimidation by dogs, hooding, nudity, long-term isolation and stress positions.

Those techniques were later rescinded because of concerns about their legality. In 2005, an official military investigation concluded that Qahtani's interrogation regimen amounted to abuse.

Officials close to the case said Crawford's office was reluctant to sanction the charges against Qahtani because prosecutors had little evidence against him outside of his own coerced confessions, a point that most certainly would have become a central issue at trial.

"Their case was only based on evidence derived from torture," said Army Lt. Col. Bryan Broyles, who represents Qahtani. "In six-plus years, the evidence comes down to what they beat out of him. The prosecution evidence was entirely unreliable and inadmissible."

Crawford has not commented publicly since taking over as the top official for military commissions, and a Pentagon spokesman said yesterday she has not explained her decision. Officials close to the case said the office's top legal adviser, Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, concluded in an analysis that Qahtani's case was too weak to prosecute.

"Decisions relating to joining several accused are based upon such factors as the nature of the offenses, the evidence and applicable rules of procedure," said Navy Cmdr. J.D. Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman.

"My guess is that they will never charge him at all," said Charles D. "Cully" Stimson, a lawyer with the Heritage Foundation and former deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs. "It may be next to impossible to prove a case against him without what came out of his mouth."

Labels: torture

The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg conducted what he's calling an "interview" with Barack Obama regarding Israel, but it sounded much more like an inquisition. Goldberg repeatedly demanded that Obama swear his devotion to Israel and affirm prevailing orthodoxies ("I'm curious to hear you talk about the Zionist idea. Do you believe that it has justice on its side?"; "Go to the kishke question, the gut question: the idea that if Jews know that you love them, then you can say whatever you want about Israel, but if we don't know you –- Jim Baker, Zbigniew Brzezinski –- then everything is suspect. There seems to be in some quarters, in Florida and other places, a sense that you don’t feel Jewish worry the way a senator from New York would feel it"; "Do you think that Israel is a drag on America's reputation overseas?"; "If you become President, will you denounce settlements publicly?"). Afterwards, Goldberg pronounced himself satisfied: "Obama expressed -- in twelve different ways -- his support for Israel to me."

Marty Peretz, after a telephone conversation with Obama devoted primarily to Israel, similarly clears Obama of any suspicions of disloyalty, approvingly noting that Obama "recognizes" that Israeli settlements of the West Bank are not "the core problem" for the conflict with the Palestinians (to Peretz, such settlements "are very much a side-issue"). Peretz further decrees that Obama's "exhilarating experience with American Jews and with their bonds to the dream and realities of Israel" was evident in both Goldberg's interview and in Obama's call with Peretz.

Labels: Barack Obama, Israel

Labels: 2008 election, Scott Kleeb, Senate

I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal… I remember when de Mello, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man's life. I was playing golf -- I think I was in central Texas -- and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, 'It's just not worth it anymore to do.'

An ongoing exploration of the documents related to the Pentagon's "message force multipliers" program has unearthed a clip of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld suggesting that America, having voted the Democrats back into Congressional power, could benefit from suffering another terrorist attack, and doing so in the presence of the very same military analysts who went on to provide commentary and analysis of the Iraq War.

[snip]

But by far the most extraordinary part of this luncheon is the antipathy the gathered members exhibit toward the American people for having the temerity to vote the Democrats back into power. When Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong bemoans the lack of "sympathetic ears" on Capitol Hill, Rumsfeld offers that the American people lack "the maturity to recognize the seriousness of the threats." What's to be done? According to Rumsfeld, "The correction for that, I suppose, is [another] attack."

Labels: domestic terrorism, Donald Rumsfeld, LIHOP, MIHOP, Republicans

Labels: assholes, Republic Party

At a Clinton campaign rally Sunday night in Eleanor, only 30 miles down the road from Charleston (motto posted on the main drag: "The Cleanest Town in West Virginia"), the Secret Service held on to pocketknives for voters so they could give them back once the candidate left -- not exactly the norm at Obama's rallies anywhere. Even for Clinton fans this late in the game, the crowd was fairly hostile to Obama. R.K. and Peggy Horton, both 71, said they'd never voted for a Republican for president in their lives. But if Obama wins, they will, and they think a lot of their neighbors will, too.

Obama rubs the Hortons the wrong way because they think he's arrogant. It's the same thing you hear from voters in a lot of the parts of the country where Obama's infamous remarks about bitterness would probably also apply. But that's not his only problem in rural West Virginia. "They won't go for a black man, that's just it," R.K. Horton, a retired heating and air conditioning business owner, said of his neighbors. "I don't think it's being racist necessarily, they just don't like black people that well." For that matter, it's not just his neighbors. "The arrogance and all that bothers me more than black, but black is a close second," he said. "Our generation was back when blacks were the back of the bus, and it's hard to change that outlook. I just feel like I couldn't vote for him."

Labels: rant

Labels: 2008 election

Missouri and at least 19 other states are considering passing laws that would force people to prove their citizenship before they can vote. These bills are not a sincere effort to prevent noncitizens from voting; that is a made-up problem. The real aim is to reduce turnout by eligible voters. Republicans seem to think that laws of this kind will help them win elections, but burdensome rules like these — and others cropping up around the country — pose a serious threat to democracy and should be stopped.

The Missouri legislature is, as Ian Urbina reported in The Times on Monday, on the verge of passing an amendment to the State Constitution that would require proof of citizenship from anyone registering to vote. In addition to the Missouri amendment, which would require voter approval, Florida, Kansas, South Carolina and other states are considering similar rules.

There is no evidence that voting by noncitizens is a significant problem. Illegal immigrants do their best to remain in the shadows, to avoid attracting government attention and risking deportation. It is hard to imagine that many would walk into a polling place, in the presence of challengers and police, and try to cast a ballot.

There is, however, ample evidence that a requirement of proof of citizenship will keep many eligible voters from voting. Many people do not have birth certificates or other acceptable proof of citizenship, and for some people, that proof is not available. One Missouri voter, Lillie Lewis, said at a news conference last week that officials in Mississippi, where she was born, told her they had no record of her birth.

Proof of citizenship is just one of an array of new barriers to voting that have been springing up across the country. Indiana adopted a tough new photo ID voting requirement, over objections from Democrats that it would prevent eligible voters from casting a ballot. The critics were right. In last week’s Indiana primary, a group of about 12 nuns in their 80s and 90s were prevented from voting because they lacked acceptable ID.

As with Missouri’s proposed amendment, the driving force behind strict voter ID requirements in general is not a genuine effort to prevent fraud, since there is virtually no evidence that in-person voter fraud is occurring. It is, rather, the Republican Party’s electoral calculations. Barriers at the polls drive down voter turnout, especially among the poor, racial minorities and students — groups that are less likely than average to have driver’s licenses, and that are more likely than average to vote Democratic.

Labels: vote suppression

"The young men and women who choose to serve are defending the very rights and freedoms that allow Americans to speak out against government actions we oppose. They deserve our admiration, respect and enduring gratitude.

"At the same time, we must never forget that honoring this service and upholding these ideals requires more than saluting our veterans as they march by on Veterans Day or Memorial Day. It requires marching with them for the care and benefits they have earned It requires standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our veterans and their families after the guns fall silent and the cameras are turned off. At a time when we’re facing the largest homecoming since the Second World War, the true test of our patriotism is whether we will serve our returning heroes as well as they’ve served us.

"We know that over the last eight years, we’ve already fallen short of meeting this test. We all learned about the deplorable conditions that were discovered at places like Fort Bragg and Walter Reed. We’ve all walked by a veteran whose home is now a cardboard box on a street corner in the richest nation on Earth. We’ve all heard about what it’s like to navigate the broken bureaucracy of the VA – the impossibly long lines, or the repeated calls for help that get you nothing more than an answering machine. Just a few weeks ago, an 89-year-old World War II veteran from South Carolina told his family, “No matter what I apply for at the VA, they turn me down.” The next day, he walked outside of an Outpatient Clinic in Greenville and took his own life.

"How can we let this happen? How is that acceptable in the United States of America? The answer is, it’s not. It’s an outrage. And it’s a betrayal – a betrayal – of the ideals that we ask our troops to risk their lives for.

[snip]

"There is no reason we shouldn’t pass the 21st Century GI Bill that is being debated in Congress right now. It was introduced by my friend Senator Jim Webb, a Marine who served as Navy Secretary under President Ronald Reagan.. His plan has widespread support from Republicans and Democrats. It would provide every returning veteran with a real chance to afford a college education, and it would not harm retention.

"I have great respect for John McCain’s service to this country and I know he loves it dearly and honors those who serve. But he is one of the few Senators of either party who oppose this bill because he thinks it’s too generous. I couldn’t disagree more. At a time when the skyrocketing cost of tuition is pricing thousands of Americans out of a college education, we should be doing everything we can to give the men and women who have risked their lives for this country the chance to pursue the American Dream.

"The brave Americans who fight today believe deeply in this country. And no matter how many you meet, or how many stories of heroism you hear, every encounter reminds that they are truly special. That through their service, they are living out the ideals that stir so many of us as Americas – pride, duty, and sacrifice."

Labels: Barack Obama, John McCain, Veterans Affairs

Labels: Barack Obama, John McCain

Clinton "is trying to figure out how to land the plane without looking like surrender," a prominent figure in the Obama camp said Friday. This means, in all likelihood, bringing her campaign to a close in the next few weeks and trying to leverage her way onto an Obama ticket from a position of maximum strength, said several knowledgeable sources.

A person close to her, with whom her campaign staff has counseled at various points, said this week, "I think the following will happen: Obama will be in a position where the party declares him the nominee by the first week in June. She'll still be fighting with everybody -- the Rules Committee, the party leaders -- and arguing, 'I'm winning these key states; I've got almost half the delegates. I have a whole constituency he hasn't reached. I've got real differences on approach to how we win this election, and I'm going to press the hell out of this guy. ... Relief for the middle class, universal health care, etc.; I'm Ms. Blue Collar, and I'm going to press my fight, because he can't win without my being on the ticket.' "

Another major Democratic Party figure, who supports her for president, agreed: "It's not going to be a quiet exit. ... Obama has got a terrible situation. He marches to a different drummer. He won't want to take her on the ticket. But he might have to, even though the idea of Vice President Hillary with Bill in the background at the White House is not something -- especially after what [the Clintons] have thrown at him that he relishes. I believe she'll go for it."

However, several important Democrats aligned with Obama predicted that he -- and Michelle Obama -- will vigorously resist any Clinton effort to get on the ticket. Rather, Obama is more likely to try to convince Clinton to either stay in the Senate or accept another position in an Obama administration, should he win the presidency.

Several Clinton associates say there is still a ray of hope among some in her campaign: that a "catastrophic" revelation about Obama might make it possible for her to win the presidential nomination. But barring that, Hillary and Bill Clinton recognize that her candidacy is being abandoned and rejected by superdelegates whom she once expected to win over and that, even if she were to win the popular vote in combined primary states, she will almost certainly be denied the nomination

Labels: Oh God Please No