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The McGlynn 26 Dec
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Archive for December, 2008
18 Dec
Shoe Attack On Bush
[youtube pvf60G1m1Wo&hl=en&fs=1]
“This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog.”
The shoe-throwing incident happened as Bush discussed falling levels of violence in Iraq [AP]
George Bush, the US president, has had a pair of shoes hurled at him at a press conference during his last surprise visit to Iraq before leaving office in January.
An Iraqi reporter called Bush “a dog” and shouted out “this is the end” at Sunday’s news conference in Baghdad, before throwing his shoes at the US leader.
Bush, who had been giving a joint press statement with Nuri Al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, ducked behind a podium as the shoes narrowly missed his head.
He was reported to be unhurt after the attack by Muntadar al-Zeidi, a correspondent for Al-Baghdadiya television, the Associated Press news agency reported.
The outgoing US leader had just told reporters that while the war in Iraq was not over “it is decisively on its way to being won,” when al-Zeidi got to his feet and hurled abuse – and his footwear – at the US president.
Sign of contempt: In Iraqi culture, throwing shoes at someone is a sign of contempt.
The hurling of shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush on his farewell visit to Iraq strikes many in the Middle East as a fittingly furious comment on what they see as his calamitous legacy in the region.
Arab and Iranian TV stations have gleefully replayed the clip, sometimes in slow motion, of an Iraqi reporter calling Bush a “dog” and throwing his shoes at him – the Middle East’s tastiest insults – at a Baghdad news conference on Sunday.
The affront was a twisted echo of the triumphal moment for Bush when joyous Iraqis used their footwear to beat a statue of Saddam Hussein toppled by U.S. invading troops in 2003.
“It indicates how much antagonism he’s been able to create in the whole region,” former Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher told Reuters, adding that the incident was regrettable.
Bush had harmed America’s reputation and the friendship many had felt for it. “Despite past mistakes in its policies, there was always a redeeming factor. In this particular case, there doesn’t seem to have ever been a redeeming factor,” Maher said.
18 Dec
CIA Helped Shoot Down 15 Civilian Planes
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CIA Helped Shoot Down 15 Civilian Planes
Full Article: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/11/world/printable4664791.shtml
WASHINGTON, Dec. 11, 2008(CBS/AP) With the help of CIA spotters, the Peruvian air force shot down 15 small civilian aircraft suspected of carrying drugs, in many cases without warning and within two to three minutes of being sighted, a U.S. lawmaker said Thursday.
It was the first public disclosure of the number of planes shot down between 1995 and 2001 as part of the Airbridge Denial Program, a CIA counternarcotics effort that killed an innocent American missionary, Veronica Bowers, and her infant daughter in 2001. A State Department investigation at the time said that Peruvian fighter jets forced another 23 planes to land.
Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra, senior Republican on the Intelligence Committee of the House of Representatives, told The Associated Press most of the 15 planes shot down with the help of the CIA crashed in the jungle. The wreckage has not been or could not be examined to ascertain whether narcotics were aboard the aircraft.
“The Bowers could have gone in the same category if they had crashed in the jungle,” Hoekstra said, speaking of the missionary family from Hoekstra’s state, Michigan……………………………
18 Dec
Schumer And The Whores On Wall Street
The McGlynn comment: Schumer is up for re-election in 2010. Hopefully New Yorkers will awake from their slumber, throw him out of office and elect a true liberal.
The Reckoning
A Champion of Wall Street Reaps Benefits
The New York Times December 14, 2008
By ERIC LIPTON and RAYMOND HERNANDEZ
“We are not going to rest until we change the rules, change the laws
and make sure New York remains No. 1 for decades on into the future.”
— Senator Charles E. Schumer, referring to financial regulations, Jan. 22, 2007
WASHINGTON — As the financial crisis jolted the nation in September, Senator Charles E. Schumer was consumed. He traded telephone calls with bankers, then became one of the first officials to promote a Wall Street bailout. He spent hours in closed-door briefings and a weekend helping Congressional leaders nail down details of the $700 billion rescue package.
The next day, Mr. Schumer appeared at a breakfast fund-raiser in Midtown Manhattan for Senate Democrats. Addressing Henry R. Kravis, the buyout billionaire, and about 20 other finance industry executives, he warned that a bailout would be a hard sell on Capitol Hill. Then he offered some reassurance: The businessmen could count on the Democrats to help steer the nation through the financial turmoil.
“We are not going to be a bunch of crazy, anti-business liberals,” one executive said, summarizing Mr. Schumer’s remarks. “We are going to be effective, moderate advocates for sound economic policies, good responsible stewards you can trust.”
The message clearly resonated. The next week, executives at firms represented at the breakfast sent in more than $135,000 in campaign donations.
Senator Schumer plays an unrivaled role in Washington as beneficiary, advocate and overseer of an industry that is his hometown’s most important business.
An exceptional fund raiser — a “jackhammer,” someone who knows him says, for whom “ ‘no’ is the first step to ‘yes,’ ” — Mr. Schumer led the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for the last four years, raising a record $240 million while increasing donations from Wall Street by 50 percent. That money helped the Democrats gain power in Congress, elevated Mr. Schumer’s standing in his party and increased the industry’s clout in the capital.
But in building support, he has embraced the industry’s free-market, deregulatory agenda more than almost any other Democrat in Congress, even backing some measures now blamed for contributing to the financial crisis.
Other lawmakers took the lead on efforts like deregulating the complicated financial instruments called derivatives, which are widely seen as catalysts to the crisis.
But Mr. Schumer, a member of the Banking and Finance Committees, repeatedly took other steps to protect industry players from government oversight and tougher rules, a review of his record shows. Over the years, he has also helped save financial institutions billions of dollars in higher taxes or fees.
He succeeded in limiting efforts to regulate credit-rating agencies, for example, sponsored legislation that cut fees paid by Wall Street firms to finance government oversight, pushed to allow banks to have lower capital reserves and called for the revision of regulations to make corporations’ balance sheets more transparent……………………
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17 Dec
“They Used Every Trick”
Click On:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/28262158#28262158
Chris Matthews revisited the decision to go to war with Iraq Tuesday, December 16,2008 on “Hardball,” hosting neocon hawk Frank Gaffney and Mother Jones’ David Corn in a discussion of weapons of mass destruction and Dick Cheney’s admission that the US would have invaded Iraq even without the pretense of WMD.
“Was there anything Saddam Hussein could have stopped that war?” Matthews asked Gaffney, and when Gaffney attempted to justify the case for war based on the first Gulf War, and not the presence of weapons of mass destruction, Matthews pounced.
“Why the long inspections debate if they didn’t matter?” he asked.
“Do you believe that the war had anything to do with [Cheney's] belief that [Iraq] had weapons of mass destruction stockpiled?” Matthews asked Gaffney. “Because he’s admitting that they didn’t have to have stockpiles for him to believe the war was justified. That’s what’s astounding.”
An exasperated Matthews cut to Corn as Gaffney attempted to make the case that the cost of inaction would have been greater than the cost of the war, and when Gaffney said Hussein presented a “mortal threat” to the American people, Matthews attacked him for “still [using] the strategic language” of the Bush administration.
“Where do you get this from?” Matthews screamed. “We can’t find the weapons, we can’t find the rationale, what kind of mortal threat? Where do you get these words from? Mortal means you die.
“You guys sold the war as a nuclear threat to the United States…you sold every trick you could to get us into this war,” he continued. “And now you’re backpedaling. And I do find it astounding….Four thousand people are dead because of the way you feel. And Frank Gaffney, you’re wrong about this.”
“It is regrettable that they had to die,” Gaffney said, “but I believe they did have to die,” citing Hussein’s chemical, biological, and nuclear capabilities. “The danger was inaction could have resulted in the death of a great many more Americans than 4,000. And that’s the reason I’m still delighted that we did what we did.”
“The American people don’t buy it, Frank,” Matthews said.
