This is ironic; all those things you thought no Republican, let alone a decent American or honest person, would do. Stuff like stealing elections and going to war under false pretences.
Submitted by Rainbow Girl on Wed, 05/15/2013 - 11:13pm
Not that you could tell the difference between local police forces and the military anymore (see, Occupy repressions and Boston massacre operations), as pointed out by Pentagon spokesman.
Apparently this de facto nullifies the Posse Comitatus Act making it unlawful for the army to intervene in local affairs without consent of the locals. Read below the fold...
Submitted by beowulf on Tue, 05/14/2013 - 10:21pm
Joe Firestone wrote a piece earlier here at Correntewire to report that strange doings are afoot at the Circle K House of Representatives.
On May 9, 2013, The Republican House passed H.R. 807 the Full Faith and Credit Act. The Bill says in part:
(a) In General- In the event that the debt of the United States Government, as defined in section 3101 of title 31, United States Code, reaches the statutory limit, the Secretary of the Treasury shall, in addition to any other authority provided by law, issue obligations under chapter 31 of title 31, United States Code, to pay with legal tender, and solely for the purpose of paying, the principal and interest on obligations of the United States described in subsection (b) after the date of the enactment of this Act.
(b) Obligations Described- For purposes of this subsection, obligations described in this subsection are obligations which are--
(1) held by the public, or
(2) held by the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and Disability Insurance Trust Fund.
Read below the fold...
Submitted by lambert on Mon, 05/13/2013 - 12:43pm
Reuters on the IRS scandal, which does seem to be genuine:
IRS Kept Shifting Targets in Tax-Exempt Groups Scrutiny: Report
That's the headline. And by "shifting" we mean "expanding."
When tax agents started singling out non-profit groups for extra scrutiny in 2010, they looked at first only for key words such as 'Tea Party,' but later they focused on criticisms by groups of "how the country is being run," according to investigative findings reviewed by Reuters on Sunday.
Over two years, IRS field office agents repeatedly changed their criteria while sifting through thousands of applications from groups seeking tax-exempt status to select ones for possible closer examination, the findings showed.
At one point, the agents chose to screen applications from groups focused on making "America a better place to live."
Yeah, who could want that? Still, I guess as long as you don't put "Occupier" in the Occupation (!) line on your 1040, you should be OK, right? Read below the fold...
Submitted by lambert on Sat, 05/11/2013 - 1:18pm
It looks like young Ezra (and, to be fair, everybody else) missed a major policy change in Obama's shift to the new, shorter (for individuals*), final version of the basic application.** As it turns out, the issue (or at least one of the issues; gawd knows what other time bombs are buried in the thing) wasn't only the length and complexity of the form, though that was and is bad enough; the issue is the actual content of the form. Here's what I'm talking about. It's right in plain sight. I'm using a screen dump of the new, shorter, finalized form from Ezra's article:
Figure 1.
Yes, Equifax (a private "consumer reporting agency") could be affecting your eligibility for ObamaCare (a Federal program). Now, this is a major policy change, or perhaps a policy determination. Here's the equivalent language in the draft 26-page "Single Streamlined Application." As you can see, the language had not then been finalized:
Figure 2.
Alrighty then. Let's break out the old lawyerly weasel-wording parser and actually compare what the two forms say. Read below the fold...
Submitted by libbyliberal on Tue, 04/23/2013 - 11:00pm
The two Boston bombings of April 15th killed 3 people and wounded over 170. The two suspects are 19-year od Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s and his deceased older brother Tamerlan, who died after a shootout with the police.
Bill Van Auken of wsws: Read below the fold...
Submitted by a little night ... on Thu, 04/18/2013 - 11:40pm
CUNY adjuncts still don't know what will happen with their Health Insurance as of April 30. Probably nothing.
So much for Whatever.
(Sorry, I posted this prematurely. I was trying to write a whole history of this problem but got overwhelmed. Will update when I can, and I hope I am proved wrong in my prognostications.) Read below the fold...
Submitted by ubetchaiam on Tue, 04/09/2013 - 3:30pm
"Next time you hear that voting machines are reliable and safe "because they have been tested and certified," think of this important article, which reveals
proven corruption, payoffs and bid-rigging connected to Ciber, Inc., a firm that signed off on our voting machines. Ciber's okay was the foundation for federal
acceptance of voting machines all over the USA." Read below the fold...
Submitted by libbyliberal on Mon, 04/01/2013 - 6:01am
One of my favorite though admittedly depressing quotes of wisdom:
“Hope was the last temptation of Christ.”
This being Easter it seems relevant. Read below the fold...
Submitted by DCblogger on Wed, 03/06/2013 - 5:06pm
Submitted by lambert on Thu, 02/07/2013 - 1:31pm
Super post from Gaius Publius. Ron Wyden's questions caught my eye:
A number of senators have questions about this policy (and they damn well better). Among them Senator Wyden (D-OR). He’s asking publicly:
“[H]ow much evidence does the President need to decide that a particular American is part of a terrorist group?”
“[D]oes the President have to provide individual Americans with the opportunity to surrender?”
“[C]an the President order intelligence agencies or the military to kill an American who is inside the United States?”
Think about those questions. The first one doesn’t specify “foreign” terrorists, and suggests that the definition of “terrorist” is, as Rachel Maddow noted in one of her features on this, a problem of “identity”— who you are in your heart, not what you did or plan to do. The second question is stunning — can I give myself up to save my life? Not if I don’t know I’m on the list to begin with.
And the third question addresses the obvious next step after we allow U.S. citizens to be targeted — can kills be done within the U.S., if they’re not already doing so?
Yikes!!!! Read below the fold...
Submitted by Rainbow Girl on Thu, 01/17/2013 - 7:51pm
Business Roundtable CEOs announce their proposal to impose Austerity "fix the debt." This is grotesque.
(1) push eligibility age to 70 (SSI and Medicare)
(2) chained CPI
(3) some vague "means testing" for "some people"
(4) a goody for private health insurers (not again!): they get to compete with Medicare. Read below the fold...
Submitted by DCblogger on Mon, 01/14/2013 - 11:54am
Submitted by libbyliberal on Thu, 01/10/2013 - 2:40pm
Kevin Zeese addresses the unfriendly to ordinary citizens end-of-2012 "fiscal deal" from Obama and Congress and the further challenges to come.
"... Congress passed a watered down fiscal cliff package that will raise taxes on everyone, but the worst is yet to come, and this “deficit cutting” measure contains some surprises.
snip
"... Obama has been laying the ground work to cut social insurances since 2010.
Read below the fold...
Submitted by DCblogger on Mon, 01/07/2013 - 6:38pm
Submitted by lizpolaris on Thu, 01/03/2013 - 8:02am
Whenever I see legislation hurried thru congress at the last minute - hurry, hurry, hurry just pass this bill OR ELSE!!!!1! - I wonder what it's really for.
Now we know - the groups facing a fiscal cliff were multinational corporations, not the US government. Read below the fold...
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