The CIA base in the Persian Gulf came up in several conversations over the week-end, along with the “nominal” subordination or transfer of JSOG to the CIA.
This is clearly an Executive move to sidestep the War Powers Act.
This means that the military-industrial complex is in charge of our “national security” apparatus and policy, we now have four wars, and we are certain to have seven in the near term, adding Somalia, Yemen, and Iran as well as Syria while scuttling out of Afghanistan.
Phi Beta Iota: Dr. Robert Gates spent the week-end telling obvious lies and strong mischaracterizations about every topic he addressed. The US Executive is out of control and detrimental to the Constitutional health of the Republic. Impeachment is called for now–and could explain the timing of Gates/ departure.
Two Princeton scholars clash over the president's record, but the real divide is between assimilation and racial unity.
By Erin Aubry KaplanLos Angeles Times, June 19, 2011
It was the kind of insular, issue-driven, black-on-black debate that ordinarily doesn't attract the media spotlight, even on the slowest news day. But thanks to the unprecedented profile of Barack Obama, the most famous black person in modern history, this one got hot.
The moral philosopher Cornel West, if Barack Obama’s ascent to power was a morality play, would be the voice of conscience. Rahm Emanuel, a cynical product of the Chicago political machine, would be Satan. Emanuel in the first scene of the play would dangle power, privilege, fame and money before Obama. West would warn Obama that the quality of a life is defined by its moral commitment, that his legacy will be determined by his willingness to defy the cruel assault by the corporate state and the financial elite against the poor and working men and women, and that justice must never be sacrificed on the altar of power.
Phi Beta Iota: Cornell West is a Nobel-level philosopher (when the Nobel is not being pimped by Nowegian politicans). He has kept his integrity when white men like Larry Summers and half-white men like Barack Obama have lost theirs–if they ever had it. This discussion is NOT about race. It is about integrity. West wins, Obama loses…as do we all.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is expanding its shadowy battle against militants in Yemen, including a planned new CIA base nearby in the Persian Gulf, in an attempt to stop a lethal branch of al-Qaida from capitalizing on the political turmoil in Yemen.
The White House has increased the numbers of CIA officers in Yemen, and has signed off on the new base from which to fly armed drones to hunt militants in Yemen, to be completed by next year.
Our economy is almost entirely based on a Darwinian competition–many products and services fighting for shelf space and market share and profits. It's a wasteful process, because success is unpredictable and unevenly distributed.
The internet has largely mirrored (and amplified) this competition. eBay, for example, not only pits sellers against one another, it also pits buyers. Craigslist makes it easy for buyers to see the range of products and services on offer, making the marketplace more competitive. Google, most of all, encourages an ecosystem where producers can evolve, improve and compete.
I think the next frontier of the net is going to use the datastream to do precisely the opposite–to create value by making coordination easier.
Businesses are being sold incredibly expensive advertising campaigns that are disguised as “no risk” ways to acquire new customers. In reality, there’s a lot of risk. With a newspaper ad, the maximum you can lose is the amount you paid for the ad. With Groupon, your potential losses can increase with every Groupon customer who walks through the door and put the existence of your business at risk.
Groupon is not an Internet marketing business so much as it is the equivalent of a loan sharking business. The $21,000 that the business in this example gets for running a Groupon is essentially a very, very expensive loan. They get the cash up front, but pay for it with deep discounts over time. (This post applies to Groupon operations in the United States and Canada; it’s different in other parts of the world.)
In many cases, running a Groupon can be a terrible financial decision for merchants. Groupon’s financials also raise questions about its ongoing viability. Buying Groupon stock could be as bad a deal for investors as running a Groupon offer is for merchants.
I defer to NightWatch but it is the naivete of the IC that cannot
comprehend that the rest of the world does not look like the US……….This is territory that is NOT administered by the Government of Pakistan but rather by the Tribal Elders. The permission is required by Pakistani Law, something that the US continues to fail to understand. I guess, in the vain of old movies, “What we have here is a failure to communicate”……
Being binary is bad for business, so when will politics cure its bipolar disorder? Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch on the lessons Washington should learn from the real world.
Nothing in American life today seems as archaic, ubiquitous and immovable as the Republican and Democratic parties.
The two 19th-century political groupings divide up the spoils of a combined $6.4 trillion that is extracted each year from taxpayers at the federal, state, county and municipal levels. Though rhetorically and theoretically at odds with one another, the two parties have managed to create a mostly unbroken set of policies and governance structures that benefit well-connected groups at the expense of the individual.
Democrats and Republicans are at risk of becoming irrelevant, says Reason.com's Nick Gillespie, as more voters identify as Independents or with other groups like the Tea Party. He talks with WSJDN's Kelsey Hubbard about the shortcomings of the longstanding duopoly in American politics.
Americans have watched, with a growing sense of alarm and alienation, as first a Republican administration and then its Democratic successor have flouted public opinion by bailing out banks, nationalizing the auto industry, expanding war in Central Asia, throwing yet more good money after bad to keep housing prices artificially high, and prosecuting a drug war that no one outside the federal government pretends is comprehensible, let alone winnable. It is easy to look upon this well-worn rut of political affairs and despair.
Phi Beta Iota: A Wall Street Journal informal poll shows 83% of respondents now ready to vote for a third party, with some excluding the Tea Party as flaky. Ralph Nader led this fight, others are finishing it. We are honored to be in that number.
Why Groupon Is Poised For Collapse
