Afghanistan "Kill Team"

Afghanistan "Kill Team" Rolling Stone report on "Morning Joe"





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That's not "change we can believe in."

With Obama, What Are The Republicans Complaining About?

From Forbes (blog):

First, no one can accuse President Obama of not cutting federal spending; he cut a half-trillion-dollars from Medicare without reforming it. Top Administration aides and the Republican congressional leadership are now conspiring to extend this cuts-without-reform approach to Social Security. House Republican Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling opines publicly that Social Security cannot be preserved without major benefit cuts while the president’s debt commission is on the record saying “benefit adjustments” will be required, and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner also pushes hard in secret talks for benefit cuts.

The bipartisan scheme being cooked up would convert Social Security into the world’s biggest welfare program by means testing it and forcing everyone to work into their seventies. There are indications that “means testing” would include not only determining benefit levels by the retiree’s wealth and income, but also would include both raising the FICA payroll tax cap on workers’ taxable earnings and increasing the tax on Social Security benefits for “upper-income” beneficiaries. By abandoning any effort to transform Social Security into a compulsory, actuarially sound, market-based, retirement-saving program, the bipartisan welfare approach to Social Security “reform” would actually increase dependency on government and make an already bad deal much worse for most workers. Pay more; get less — doubling down on a Ponzi Scheme.


Second, no one can fault the president for partisanship; he embraced the Republican proto-type for a state-run health care system (including an individual health-insurance mandate and centralized medical planning) and jammed through the Congress a national version of it partially funded by the Medicare cuts. The Godfather of ObamaCare, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, is among the GOP’s front-runners for president in 2012.

Third, no one can accuse President Obama of standing in the way of “bipartisan tax reform.” He allowed the Bush tax cuts to be extended as a good-faith gesture to pave the way for negotiating tax reform within a bipartisan framework. Rather than scrapping the tax code as the Kemp Commission recommended more than a decade ago, Republicans and the president are operating together inside a bi-partisan paradigm that would preserve the oppressive and economically destructive progressive income tax rather than replacing it with a pro-growth, pro-family system that taxes only income consumed at a single, low rate.

Story continues here.


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That's not "change we can believe in."

More on tax dodgers

While we're at it:

Ten giant U.S. companies avoiding income taxes: Sen. Bernie Sanders list

In the UK, 500,000 protested this weekend over spending cuts and corporate tax dodgers.

At the same time, 60 Minutes in USA ran a story on tax dodging corporations.



Now, since Obama has stated his intention to close tax loopholes, it will be interesting to see how he responds to the growing outrage over the hugely wealthy companies and individuals who regularly pay no tax.

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That's not "change we can believe in."

New York Day of Rage

Slowly, very, very slowly, Americans are just starting to wake up.



Let's note that this follows events in Wisconsin and Michigan. Let's see where it spreads and how. I'm just posting this here as something I can refer back to.

GE, World's Largest Corporation, Paid Zero Dollars in U.S. Taxes Last Year

Update:
White House defends embrace of G.E. CEO despite report company didn't owe taxes in 2010

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From AlterNet

You know how we've been covering the efforts of U.S. Uncut, the growing campaign to stop corporate tax dodgers from exploiting overseas tax havens? Well here's an excellent example of why such efforts are desperately needed, from the front page of the New York Times:

General Electric, the nation’s largest corporation, had a very good year in 2010.

The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States.

Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

How can that be, you ask?

The company has been cutting the percentage of its American profits paid to the Internal Revenue Service for years, resulting in a far lower rate than at most multinational companies.

Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore. G.E.’s giant tax department, led by a bow-tied former Treasury official named John Samuels, is often referred to as the world’s best tax law firm....The team includes former officials not just from the Treasury, but also from the I.R.S. and virtually all the tax-writing committees in Congress.

If that doesn't make your blood boil, I don't know what would.

Story continues here...




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That's not "change we can believe in."

Obama creates indefinite detention system for prisoners at Guantanamo Bay

Here's another one for the "If Bush had done this there would have been outrage" category.

From Washington Post (thanks to Cryptogon)

President Obama signed an executive order Monday that will create a formal system of indefinite detention for those held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who continue to pose a significant threat to national security. The administration also said it will start new military commission trials for detainees there.

The announcements, coming more than two years after Obama vowed in another executive order to close the detention center, all but cements Guantanamo Bay's continuing role in U.S. counterterrorism policy.

Administration officials said the president is still committed to closing the prison, although he made no mention of that goal in a short statement Monday.



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Just as a reminder...

Here was Obama on Guantanamo Bay before he was elected. This is candidate Obama talking...



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That's not "change we can believe in."

Eight years to the day

Eight years to the day since Bush invaded Iraq, Obama launches a new war in Libya.

This from a President who campaigned on a platform of "change" and "hope".

The silence from Obama supporters is deafening.

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That's not "change we can believe in."

Obama And Family Vacation In Rio While World Goes To Hell

Bush was deplored by so-called liberals for taking vacations and ignoring disasters. But they are notably silent when Obama jets off to Rio as the world faces multiple serious crises.

Obama And Family Vacation In Rio While World Goes To Hell

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That's not "change we can believe in."

The clarifying Manning/Crowley controversy

From: Salon.com

By Glenn Greenwald

The forced "resignation" of State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley -- for the mortal sin of denouncing the abusive detention of Bradley Manning -- has apparently proven to be a clarifying moment for many commentators about what the President is and how he functions in these areas. Writing at Time's Swampland, Mark Benjamin identifies the real crux of the controversy:

Free speech advocates are shocked, and, as I wrote last week on TIME.com, concerned over Obama's record as the most aggressive prosecutor of suspected government leakers in U.S. history.

Those advocates have wondered whether the penchant for secrecy in the Obama administration comes from the President, or those around him. Obama's statement on Manning, followed by Crowley's resignation, seem to suggest some of this comes from the President himself.

It's long been obvious that the Obama administration's unprecedented war on whistleblowers "comes from the President himself," notwithstanding his campaign decree -- under the inspiring title "Protect Whistleblowers" -- that "such acts of courage and patriotism should be encouraged rather than stifled." The inhumane treatment of Manning plainly has two principal effects: it intimidates future would-be whistleblowers into knowing that they, too, will be abused without recourse, and it will break him psychologically (as prolonged solitary confinement and degrading treatment inevitably do) to render him incapable of a defense and to ensure he provides whatever statements they want about WikiLeaks. Other than Obama's tolerance for the same detainee abuse against which he campaigned and his ongoing subservience to the military that he supposedly "commands," it is the way in which this Manning/Crowley behavior bolsters the regime of secrecy and the President's obsessive attempts to destroy whistleblowing that makes this episode so important and so telling.


Read more at Salon.com

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That's not "change we can believe in."

Revolt: Obama escalates Bush policies of unlawful wars, economic looting

From: Examiner.com

By Carl Herman


Lifting the Veil is a two-hour film that documents how the Obama Administration is continuing and escalating the policies of the Bush Administration in the unlawful areas of US wars and economic fraud.

These policies are easily shown as Orwellian unlawful, as I explain and document here.


The American response will be revolution because:
the "emperor has no clothes" facts are right in front of us,
Americans will choose the US Constitution over their fear to act, and
Americans will reject psychopathic "leadership" that murders millions and steals trillions under our flag and honor.




Continue reading on Examiner.com: Revolt: Obama escalates Bush policies of unlawful wars, economic looting - National Nonpartisan | Examiner.com


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That's not "change we can believe in."