Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktI don’t know how many of you have been following the “Occupy Wall Street” protests but I thought this was a decent historical perspective of the movement. There’s a great tradition of populist anger against the economic elite. The protesters don’t seem to have any real leadership or defined goals, they appear to want it that way, but they are reflecting similar complaints going all the way back to the Shay and Whiskey Rebellions.
It is my possibly vain hope that reading up on such historical matters might inspire efforts like Occupy Wall Street to greater cogency and a deeper, more solid foundation in longstanding (if embattled and problematic) American values than they now seem to possess. You don’t have to look as late as the 19th-century Populists and the 1930′s labor movement, for example, to find an American left deeply immersed in both economic issues and an ambitious vision of a better country. Those things were present at the creation.
Occupy Wall Street probably doesn’t, when you shake it down, want to secede from the union like the whiskey rebels — happily enough. But those rebels didn’t start out by wanting to secede, either; they’d fought in the awful front lines of the Revolution in hopes that those sacrifices might lead to something for them and their families; it didn’t. Occupy Wall Street does seem to want to secede, somehow, from the hopeless-feeling regurgitation, through the two political parties, of elite finance theories and policies that never seem sincerely dedicated to any fundamental improvement of opportunity for what they call, not wrongly, “the 99%.”
But a lot of efforts to state a goal for the protest itself devolve in sloganeering about the economic situation and self-admiring paeans to the virtues of protesting. Wouldn’t galvanizing this stuff require… leadership? Our founding democratic-finance activists weren’t such communitarians that they refused to have leaders and set achievable goals. They were used to being rank-and-file — even though as miltiamen, they elected their leaders.
And they knew where they’d succeeded and failed. This thing in Zuccotti Park is open-ended. It has no declared closing date. How can it ever declare victory, get the hell out, build its organization, and come back to fight another day? (lms)
Here’s a story that people have been waiting for:
SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born Islamic militant cleric who became a prominent figure in al-Qaida’s most active branch, using his fluent English and Internet savvy to draw recruits to carry out attacks in the United States, was killed Friday in the mountains of Yemen, American and Yemeni officials said. (lms)
From the department of who didn’t see this coming:
Most Bank of America customers will soon see a new charge on their statements — $5 for any month in which they use a BofA debit card to make a purchase.
Consumers should prepare for more such charges, analysts say, as big banks strive to recover revenue they have lost to financial reforms adopted in the aftermatch of the economic meltdown.
The new Bank of America fee will be phased in early next year, said Anne Pace, a spokeswoman for BofA, the nation’s largest retail bank.
Customers will still be able to use their cards at the bank’s automated teller machines without being charged, the bank said Thursday.
They also can make debit purchases free if they have a mortgage from Bank of America or if they have a total of $20,000 on deposit at Bank of America and in certain Merrill Lynch accounts (you may recall that Bank of America’s corporate parent bought Merrill Lynch as the financial crisis set in).
The bank, like others, has been testing ways to recover debit-card revenue that is going away because of new regulations.
Banks previously had charged merchants 44 cents on average every time they accepted a debit card for a purchase. Under new regulations that take effect Saturday, banks with more than $10 billion in assets will be able to charge merchants only 21 cents to 24 cents per transaction.
Bank of America and other big banks have said they will compensate by charging customers. “The economics of offering debit cards have changed,” Pace said in interview. (lms)
****
Texas was a “weak Governor” state until the decade of Perry. Perry has assiduously turned perhaps thousands of appointments into crony opportunities, shaping the bureaucracy in a way no other governor ever tried to do on a grand scale. This is not insidious in itself, but there are so many instances of barely qualified “friends” replacing experienced technocrats that it hurts Texas, while it benefits Perry. Today’s big story in Austin involves the biggest money bureaucracy in state government – the Texas Department of Transportation, or “TXDOT”. Big $$ for crony
From the story:enempany lobbyist and former top aide to Gov. Rick Perry was chosen Thursday
An energy company lobbyist and former top aide to Gov. Rick Perry was chosen Thursday to lead the 12,000-employee Texas Department of Transportation and will be paid at least $100,000 more annually than the career engineer he succeeds. lpartment of Transportation and will be paid at least -…$1more annually than the career engineer he succeeds.
The former
Note from me: This new salary is the max allowed for a state employee, but they are going to try to gain an exemption to pay Wilson even more.
Filed under: Uncategorized |
All Things in Moderation 
I'm I the only one who still uses cash?
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use cash, but mostly I use credit cards. I use two cards that have points values, so essentially result in a 1% or 2% return on whatever I'm buying, depending, and my Target card, because it's an automatic 5% off of whatever I buy. I have used my debit card (I didn't for years, just started maybe 5 or 6 years ago, but I'm not going to ever again). Regions Bank is doing this identical thing (except they require a total of $25k on deposit to wave the fees). For my account, they'd also wave the fees because my paycheck is direct deposited (why they wave the fees for this, I don't know), but that wouldn't be the case for my wife. The problem is, it's difficult to give something away for free for years and years and then start charging for it. If no bank keeps it free, lots of folks used to lived without paying by debit card, and they'll do it again. It may be the best strategy. It would be bette to encourage folks to pay with cash, especially under a certain amount. Folks paying with ATM cards to buy $2 drink must be killing those retailers.
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We use both cash and debit card. It would be easy to go back to all cash though. Businesses would really like it if people used cash I think, but I wonder if a lot of people will go back to using checks. I wonder how everyone would like that. I'm also curious if it will affect online shopping, I always use my debit card for that.
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We set a weekly budget with cash. granted, we have credit cards and aren't shy about using them (a habit that we're trying to break) — but we've found it saves us a lot of $$ at the grocery store when you walk in with your available funds and can't just put stuff in the cart. we also menu plan for the week, which makes a huge difference.
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So it looks like it was drones that killed al-Awlaki. I wonder how you guys feel about that. I'm going to read Greenwald's piece this morning but I thought I'd wait until I at least finished my coffee. I doubt there will me many complaints but he generally takes the civil liberties position.
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read greenwald's piece. i guess i don't see the difference, really, between droning a US citizen in a non-war zone and any other extrajudicial killings.
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Greenwald continues to tell it the way he sees it. You could probably get in some trouble today NoVA over at the Plumline if you wanted.What's most striking about this is not that the U.S. Government has seized and exercised exactly the power the Fifth Amendment was designed to bar ("No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law"), and did so in a way that almost certainly violates core First Amendment protections (questions that will now never be decided in a court of law). What's most amazing is that its citizens will not merely refrain from objecting, but will stand and cheer the U.S. Government's new power to assassinate their fellow citizens, far from any battlefield, literally without a shred of due process from the U.S. Government. Many will celebrate the strong, decisive, Tough President's ability to eradicate the life of Anwar al-Awlaki — including many who just so righteously condemned those Republican audience members as so terribly barbaric and crass for cheering Governor Perry's execution of scores of serial murderers and rapists — criminals who were at least given a trial and appeals and the other trappings of due process before being killed.
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lm: I'd rather drones than US servicemen, but not looking forward to the armed police drones hovering around all our cities "for our protection". Robocop had it wrong–ain't gonna be cyborg police officers or giant gun-robots, it's gonna be armed, camera-covered drones. nova: I treat my credit cards like cash. I frequently pay on them off cycle, by doing it online. So, I get my paycheck, pay outstanding bills, then go to the credit card website and pay as much of the balance off as I can (often all of it), so though I may spend $1000 in a month, my bill comes with $50 because I make 3 payments or so a month. We're going on a cruise in November of 2012, and I'm going to pay for 75% of the cruise with sea miles, and maybe redeem travel points on another card for a portion of the plane tickets. If I'm going to be spending $1000 anyway, why not have it take $10 off the cruise? I've already paid for $1200 of the cruise tickets . . . all with credit card miles.
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"Many will celebrate the strong, decisive, Tough President's ability to eradicate the life of Anwar al-Awlaki — including many who just so righteously condemned those Republican audience members as so terribly barbaric and crass for cheering Governor Perry's execution of scores of serial murderers and rapists — criminals who were at least given a trial and appeals and the other trappings of due process before being killed."This is a good point.However, the rational for nailing Anwar al-Awlaki is that he had joined the enemy, and was in the midst of planning an attack on the US. We didn't give Isoroku Yamamoto a trial before shooting his plane down in World War II. If there had been an American citizen on board who had been helping the Japanese plan attacks against America, I don't think we would have been worried, at the time, about the fifth amendment. But I certainly understand feeling queasy about the precedents being set. Nevertheless, it continues to establish a very solid piece of advice: don't plan terrorist attacks against America, and don't associate with people who do. Frankly, I have more trouble with our long term military commitments, ala Afghanistan and Iraq, than I do with this particular drone attack. On the whole, I think it's a good idea to demonstrate that we're getting better and better and taking out terrorist leaders and disrupting their organization. That we can do that without, say, committing hundreds of thousands of troops to repeated invasions of various oil-rich countries–so much the better!But it seems clear to me, on the foreign policy front, the Obama administration has pretty much continued the Bush doctrine, with very little variation. The only variation has been cosmetic–Obama's done it without quite the same cowboy swagger (which is not a put-down on Bush–loved the swagger, myself).
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I know it's easy for people like Greenwald to stick to their principles as they're not the ones making the decisions, but I'm glad he's out there reminding all of us of the dangers we face by giving the Executive Branch so much unilateral power. It's one of the reasons I miss Feingold in the Senate also. We need to be reminded what our principles are and tread very carefully, IMO.I prefer targeted drone strikes to invasion also but it does feel in many ways like we're heading into uncharted territory.
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i guess it really comes down to is this a war and are these guys illegal combatants? Take this guy who was arrested the other day for wanting to use r/c planes to attack DC. why didn't we just shoot him? I'm not seeing a difference other than location.
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I would not waste much legal hair splitting on this one: The accessory nature to the Xmas bomber makes him, like Bin Ladn, an air pirate. Pirates can be taken dead or alive under the international laws against piracy.FWIW, the body of piracy laws are the closest analog we have for dealing with non-state terrorism generally. Remember your O'Brian and your Hornblower, or read them, if you have not. Especially O'Brian…
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http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/July-August-2005/feature_burgess_julaug05.msp
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"why didn't we just shoot him? I'm not seeing a difference other than location."What Mark said. Also, I think from a general standpoint, his leadership role in Al Qaeda put him in a different category than the remote control terrorist.
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mark, is that the argument the Executive Branch made? I'm really curious about where or under what circumstances the debate took place. It does seem sometimes, from a non-lawyer perspective, there's a legal precedent for just about anything.
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Greenwald has an update: What amazes me most whenever I write about this topic is recalling how terribly upset so many Democrats pretended to be when Bush claimed the power merely to detain or even just eavesdrop on American citizens without due process. Remember all that? Yet now, here's Obama claiming the power not to detain or eavesdrop on citizens without due process, but to kill them; marvel at how the hardest-core White House loyalists now celebrate this and uncritically accept the same justifying rationale used by Bush/Cheney (this is war! the President says he was a Terrorist!) without even a moment of acknowledgment of the profound inconsistency or the deeply troubling implications of having a President — even Barack Obama — vested with the power to target U.S. citizens for murder with no due process.there's more — but you should click to his site for that.
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"his leadership role in Al Qaeda"there's dispute over that.http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/20/opinion/20johnsen.html
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It is not sporting to kill a pirate who is captured without a tribunal where he can be tried. But a pirate who is running, or hiding in Tripoli is fair game. I know, this guy was not in Tripoli. Historical allusion. Pirates who are captured are subject to tribunals and thus we have modeled some of our terrorism procedures on piracy law.
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I really am just echoing greenwald here. they hit the "smite" button on a us citizen b/c they said, but didn't bother to prove, that he's a terrorist. and it stinks.
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LMS, I think Justice has not been clear on its rationales, and because CIA executions have gone on since the Cold War, it is all full of BS now, we just do it. Let me be clear that I think the civil libertarian view is paramount. I just do not get exercised about this one because it could have been justified. OTOH, if a pirate lays down his arms and says he submits, he should not be killed on the spot, but be tried. Suppose this asshole had submitted or peaceably surrendered. Then we are into the other debate as to whether he gets a tribunal or the criminal procedure protections of the Bill of Rights. Were I a SCOTUS J., I would opt for BoR protections for citizens, in that case.
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Have we defined terrorism in piracy terms internationally and I missed it? Bush treated terrorism in more traditional terms, if I remember correctly, as an act of war on our soil (9/11). I get the comparison but I'm still wondering if we've made the case to the world or our citizens that terrorists are pirates. I'm just asking questions.
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I posted a Rick Perry update to this open thread, sort of the way PL and Fix multitopic – but the assassination is too much more interesting than the ordinary graft and corruption of state government for the Perry bit to be noticed, and I should have posted it separately.
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No, LMS, we have not, but for sea and air terrorism the the overlap allows invocation of a standing body of international law.The argument that piracy law, which allows chasing down the pirate in a foreign country, be expanded to all forms of terrorism, has been sharply denounced by the states that harbor terrorists.
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markI saw the update re Texas. We've had a lot of revelations locally about out-sized salaries and compensation packages for city managers and other personnel. Now that so many city council meetings are becoming quite contentious because of cut backs and the State forcing cities to either pay a fee for Redevelopment money or give it over to the state entirely, some of those salaries are coming down. Sunlight has an affect it seems.
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I think one of the problems or considerations, if you will among the public, is no one really likes these guys so they don't get particularly exercised over their deaths. And I totally get that, I'm just not sure some of this "beyond the law" stuff won't come back to bite us and maybe we're becoming immune to the lack of legal justification. I happen to be one of those crazy Americans who actually read the Torture Memos and, as a non-lawyer citizen, the legal argument left a lot to be desired in my humble opinion, so I do worry about this.
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