The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Bill Moyers and Neil Barofsky 26 October 2012
Neil Barofsky, Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street (Free Press, 2012)
Bill Moyers and David Stockman, 21 January 2012
Charles H. Ferguson, Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America (Crown Business, 2012)
October 29, 2012
Since mid-2009 the US has been enjoying a virtual recovery courtesy of a rigged inflation measure that understates inflation. The financial Presstitutes spoon out the government’s propaganda that prices are rising less than 2%. But anyone who purchases food, fuel, medical care or anything else knows that low inflation is no more real that Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction or Gadhafi’s alleged attacks on Libyan protesters or Iran’s nuclear weapons. Everything is a lie to serve the power-brokers.
During the Clinton administration, Republican economists pushed through a change in the way the CPI is measured in order to save money by depriving Social Security retirees of their cost-of-living adjustment. Previously, the CPI measured the change in the cost of a constant standard of living. The new measure assumes that consumers adjust to price increases by lowering their standard of living by substituting lower quality, lower priced items. If the price, for example, of New York strip steak goes up, consumers are assumed to substitute the lower quality round steak. In other words, the new measure of inflation keeps inflation down by reflecting a lowered standard of living.
Statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com), who closely follows the collecting and reporting of official US economic statistics, reports that consumer inflation, as measured by the 1990 official government methodology has been running at about 5%. If the 1980 official methodology for measuring the CPI is used, John Williams reports that the current rate of US inflation is about 9%.
An adapted excerpt from this book, cued to me by a friend, can be found as indicated below, followed by Neil Sheehan's review of the book.
Looking back on the troubled wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, many observers are content to lay blame on the Bush administration. But inept leadership by American generals was also responsible for the failure of those wars. A culture of mediocrity has taken hold within the Army’s leadership rank—if it is not uprooted, the country’s next war is unlikely to unfold any better than the last two.
EXTRACT:
Relief of generals has become so rare that a private who loses his rifle is now punished more than a general who loses his part of the war.
. . . . . . .
To a shocking degree, the Army’s leadership ranks have become populated by mediocre officers, placed in positions where they are likely to fail. Success goes unrewarded, and everything but the most extreme failure goes unpunished, creating a perverse incentive system that drives leaders toward a risk-averse middle where they are more likely to find stalemate than victory.
Integrity lost….again.
TRR: Is a General losing his job over Benghazi?
Washington Times, 28 October 2012
Is an American General losing his job for trying to save the Americans besieged in Benghazi? This is the latest potential wrinkle in the growing scandal surrounding the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack that left four men dead and President Obama scrambling for a coherent explanation.
On October 18, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta appeared unexpectedly at an otherwise unrelated briefing on “Efforts to Enhance the Financial Health of the Force.” News organizations and CSPAN were told beforehand there was no news value to the event and gave it scant coverage. In his brief remarks Mr. Panetta said, “Today I am very pleased to announce that President Obama will nominate General David Rodriguez to succeed General Carter Ham as commander of U.S. Africa Command.” This came as a surprise to many, since General Ham had only been in the position for a year and a half. The General is a very well regarded officer who made AFRICOM into a true Combatant Command after the ineffective leadership of his predecessor, General William E. “Kip” Ward. Later, word circulated informally that General Ham was scheduled to rotate out in March 2013 anyway, but according to Joint doctrine, “the tour length for combatant commanders and Defense agency directors is three years.” Some assumed that he was leaving for unspecified personal reasons.
While many of you criticize WaPo, believe this is a real and growing problem within Army. I have read both Ward and O'Reilly DoDIG reports — shocking. IMHO, if 5 percent of what's in those reports is 10 percent true, those two generals should be going to Disciplinary Barracks at Leavenworth. Yet both cases have been at route step for months. O'Reilly is a West Pointer, Ward is not. At least in Sinclair case, a court martial process is gearing up. Even worse, we have field grade officers throughout Army mimicking this kind of behavior, particularly the O'Reilly variant. Toxic leadership gets a great deal of lip service but almost zero action in Army. Center for Army Leadership and Association of the United States Army have both written on topic, but nothing seems to happen. For those of you familiar with Anton Myrer's classic historical novel on military leadership, “Once an Eagle,” Courtney Massengales seem to be proliferating in Army. At least that's what I'm perceiving.
Washington Post, October 28, 2012, Pg. 3
By Ernesto Londono
The accusations leveled against three Army generals over the past six months are as varied as they are striking, the highest-profile of a growing number of allegations of wrongdoing by senior military officials.
Posted: 27 Oct 2012 11:26 AM PDT
Activism – Wendy Cockcroft: Since ACTA was decisively beaten on 4th July 2012, the first time a free trade agreement had been scuppered by the people of EU member nations, the big business lobbyists have taken heed and resolved to change in order to be more successful. Hence the secrecy. CETA and the EU-India trade agreement are the next big battles. We need your help.
The term “Free Trade Agreement” is a misnomer. The idea is to remove barriers, taxes, and tariffs, but since people can end up being shackled to a multinational corporation’s agenda, the only freedom is in the ability of the corporations to operate in ways that often end up utterly destroying local economies or harnessing law enforcement agencies to protect their interests. The worst part is that we the taxpayers have to foot the bill for our losses of national sovereignty and civil rights. We saw ACTA off in July, but there are two more major agreements to deal with and we need to be ready to contact our M.E.P.s when the time comes.
Reference: National Intelligence Program (NIP)
Does not include the Military Intelligence Program (MIP) that is between $30 and $50 billion a year.
Continue reading “Reference: National Intelligence Program (NIP) – and Questions Not Asked”
