Col. Pat Lang — Editorial - China hacked Clinton's e-mail

Another shoe drops. Short.

Sic Semper Tyrannis
Editorial - China hacked Clinton's e-mail
Col. W. Patrick Lang, US Army (ret.)

At the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lang was the Defense Intelligence Officer (DIO) for the Middle East, South Asia and counter-terrorism, and later, the first Director of the Defense Humint Service. At the DIA, he was a member of the Defense Senior Executive Service. He participated in the drafting of National Intelligence Estimates. From 1992 to 1994, all the U.S. military attachés worldwide reported to him. During that period, he also briefed President George H. W. Bush at the White House, as he had during Operation Desert Storm.

He was also the head of intelligence analysis for the Middle East for seven or eight years at that institution. He was the head of all the Middle East and South Asia analysis in DIA for counter-terrorism for seven years. For his service in the DIA, Lang received the Presidential Rank Award of Distinguished Executive. — Wikipedia

UPDATE

Page confirmed China penetration of HC e-mail.

Media bewildered as China sells huge amounts of Treasuries and nothing happens in bond market, rates don't soar. Idiots.

Bloomberg and other financial media outlets are running a story about how China sold $180 billion in Treasuries and the market did nothing.

Why are we not surprised?

It seems that Bloomberg and the rest of the financial media mental midgets are still clueless. They still believe, I guess, that China sets rates in the U.S. or, that dollars come from anywhere else, but the U.S. government.

We have long said here in Mike Norman Economics that the worries over China selling our Treasuries or, any other entity selling Treasuries is meaningless because, a) there will always be demand for Treasuries when the Federal Gov't is spending $11 trillion per year (Gross "withdrawals" as per the Treasury's end of the Fiscal Year statement), which equates to vast amounts of resrves piling up in the bankiing system. And, b) when reserves pay nothing and Treasuries pay something.

Here are some of the idiotic statements by the media with regard to the China sales:

"America has relied on foreign buyers as the Treasury market swelled to $12.7 trillion in order to finance stimulus that helped pull the economy out of recession and bail out the banking system." 

America relied on foreign buyers to stimuluate its economy and savce the banking system?? Seriously??? Hahahaha. What utter idiocy.

And this...

"Now, the Asian nation is stepping back as it raises money to support flagging growth and a crumbling stock market, and allows its currency to trade more freely." 

China is selling Treasuies to "raise money to support flagging growth." Hhahahaha....are you fucking kidding me??? China is spending in yuan.

Then there's this by the woman who will probably be our next  president:

And in 2007, Democrat Hillary Clinton, then a Senator from New York, said in a letter to then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and then-Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke that foreign ownership of U.S. debt was a “source of great vulnerability.” The economy “can too easily be held hostage to the economic decisions being made in Beijing, Shanghai and Tokyo,” she said.

A real, "leader," she is going to be. Running over to China, begging them not to sell. Pathetic. And worse yet, that's "insight" coming from her advisers.

Let us not forget, either, the quote from our military commanders. This one from former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen who said:

“I’ve said many times that I believe the single, biggest threat to our national security is our debt, so I also believe we have every responsibility to help eliminate that threat,” he said. “We must, and will, do our part.”

There you go, people. These are our leaders. Totally, fucking, clueless ideologues who think they needn't know or understand anything more than the shit that litters their brain dead minds, which they spew out to us on a daily basis. And the media is there pathetic mouthpiece.

Bloomberg...ha!!

There is no "left" anymore

I am writing this in response to the Ambrose Evans-Pritchard article that Tom posted earlier. Pritchard makes an excellent yet very disturbing observation that the left has not merely become ineffective, but has morphed into the "enforcer of the policies of the right," and those policies, which everybody knows, are the policies of plutocracy, inequality, war, an ever-expanding police, carceral and surveillance state.

Forty years ago this would have been unthinkable. Even three years ago this would have been unthinkable. After Obama's second election victory here in the United States the pundits were declaring the Republican Party as dead and the conservative movement in general as history. Yet only two years later they went on to win sweeping victories in the 2014 midterm elections.

Recent losses by the liberals in the U.S. have a lot to do with Obama, let's be honest. His embrace and protection of the corporate class, the laissez-faire attitude his administration took toward Wall Street criminality, his support of tax cuts for the rich, the lack of any real aggressive jobs program, the backing of austerity, his push for grand bargains to cut Social Security and of course, Obamacare, which was seen, correclty in my view, as a huge giveaway to insurance companies, were all at least partially responsible for extremely high levels of voter dissatisfaction on both sides that led to the violent shift to the right.

The media, partically Fox News, was also very effective in branding Obama and his policies as liberal and socialist even though they were clearly in the favor of large moneyed interests and big corporations, but the public didn't see it that way and the left and the "liberal media" (if there is such a thing) had no answer.

Even though just about every metric of middle class well-being has collapsed under Obama the decline started long ago. It has been in progress for at least forty years if not longer. You can begin by tracing it back to Jimmy Carter and his moves at deregulation, which was one of the original tenets of Milton Friedman neoliberalism.

Of course this followed with the Reagan-Thatcher era, where the doctrine broadened to include Europe. Once again these leaders and their newly created and well-endowed propaganda organizations, the "think tanks," effectively derided the policies of the left, branded them as failed and limiting and basically re-wrote history.

Bill Clinton accelerated the trend by creating the first of what was to become the "faux left," a Trojan Horse by any other name, which was "left" or "Democratic" in title only. Clinton backed with unrestricted zeal the removal of all restrictions and regulations on the financial sector, which unleashed a level  of financial speculation that we hadn't seen in at least 70 years. He pushed through welfare reform, which was nothing of the sort, but rather, a redistribution of government financial support to the wealthy and big business and away from the truly needy. He introduced mandatory sentencing for many sorts of minor drug offenses and the prison population skyrocketed. His trade deals, NAFTA in particular, led to huge job outsourcing and of course how can we not forget his balancing of the budget, which caused private sector household savings to collapse and debt levels to skyrocket, something that still burdens a huge segment of the citizenry today.

Clinton was, and still is, a disaster. He quitely backs cuts to Social Security and other social safety nets by praising the crazy aims of the Simpson-Bowles commission. And, unbelievably, we may even be on the verge of electing another Clinton next year who despite her rhetoric is sure to bring the same policies her husband brought if she wins the White House. This is the left's chosen candidate!!!

FYI...Hillary was silent on the passage of fast track for the Trans Pacific Partnership, recently. What does that say about her position on trade, big business and job outsourcing, hmm? She is a consummate corporate insider and she and her husband have reaped millions in speaking fees from big business and the moneyed crowd so they're not about to shy away from them.

Pritchard went on to say this in his article:

"We Conservatives have watched in disbelief as one Socialist party after another immolates itself on the altar of monetary union, defending a project that favours the elites - a 'bankers' ramp', as the old Left used to call it."

"We have watched our friends on the Left apologise for 1930s policies. We have seen them defend a regime of pro-cyclical fiscal cuts imposed on the whole eurozone by a handful of "Ordoliberal" reactionaries in the German finance minstry."

Pritchard is speaking of Europe here, but his words ring true not just in Europe but everywhere. "Apologize for the policies of the 1930?" This is truly unbelievable that the left has run away from these policies? Why? They stopped a world depression dead in its tracks, lifted millions out of poverty and won a World War.

The left truly has "immolated" itself as he says.

I for one do not see a resurrection of the left anytime soon. It's nice that we have a guy like Bernie Sanders running for president here in the U.S. but what chance does he have? Still, you gotta respect a person that can publicly call himself a Democratic Socialist with a straight face in today's rabid conservative climate. My god, it's almost unbelievable that any serious sitting Senator would have the guts to ascribe that term to themselves, let alone run for president. It's refreshing. Even so, the left establishment bashes him. They hate him. The very people who share the same principles and ideals that he shares and which, harken back to the glory days of the Democratic Party...they despise him! Go figure.

It's true that the right must be sitting there watching in astonishment at how the left is not only self-destructing, but also how easy it is to get liberals to do the bidding of conservatives. Bernie Sanders is a breath of fresh air, but again, he doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of being elected.

I am afraid the left's descent into the enforcer of the conservative will, will in fact continue and that should not only be a disappointment to anyone who stands on the side of equality and democratic values, but it should also be something very scary. When there is no countervailing force anymore and when the side in control has moved so far to the extreme and has the ability to snuff out the other side's proposals without as much as lifting a finger then we are in trouble. The system has become dangerously corrupt.

Disingenuous, back-stabbing Obama lobbying harder than he's ever lobbied before for this big business corporate welfare giveaway

President Obama is pushing hard for passage of the TPP trade deal. Never mind the fact that he spoke out against such deals when he was candidate Obama. It's just another example of his shameless backstabbing and insatiable penchant for neoliberal "change."

Obama says that trade is "inevitable." No, it's not. Certainly not this kind of trade: secret deals that circumvent our own domestic laws and regulations on environment, labor (even child labor), patents, net neutrality and so forth?

News flash, Mr. President...in a vast, highly productive and technologically advanced economy like the U.S. there is pretty much ZERO need for trade deals. It would be much easier and more in the interest of our country and society to just have the government ensure that the residents of our nation have sufficient incomes to enjoy the fruits of their own labor.

We have 46 million people on food stamps, millions of homeless and millions more without the basics. Do we really need to be working to implement policies that feed, clothe, house and raise the living standards of foreigners so our industries can profit? Couldn't our industries profit just the same by selling their product to Americans who have labored to create that very output?

It's maddening to see the president lobby so hard for a deal that likely won't benefit a single American worker. In the decade of the 1970s the nation created 19.4 million jobs with a labor force of only 100 million. There was no TPP or NAFTA. It was also a time of heavy unionization.

Then NAFTA went into effect in January 1994 and from that point on through the end of Clinton's second term the economy created 18.4 million. Less jobs than the 70s and most of those jobs had nothing to do with NAFTA. It was the Internet and dot-com explosion and the whole, Y2K investment boom.

Furthermore, NAFTA's rollout was over a period of 10 years so, what has happened since? I'll tell you what has happened. Nothing. Since 2000 we created only 10 million jobs. Ten million jobs in 15 years with a labor force that is 50% larger that the labor force in the 1970s. Some job creator.

Let's not forget to mention, too, that real wages have declined. Labor's share of national wealth has shrunk and actually, it has never been smaller than it is today. Some boom. Some benefit.

For this we need more trade agreements?

I get even more upset when I see organizations like the creepy Third Way supporting this. The Third Way is to policy what Scientology is to religion. It's like a cult, disguising itself with very "reasonable" sounding ideas that people have been  brainwashed to believe in. Things like debt reduction (to save our kids and grandkids...yeah, right) grand "bargains," to strip Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid from our seniors.

The Third Way is nothing more than an insidious, slick, propaganda operation aligned with the Powers that Be: the same forces that want to dismantle the social safety nets. Their policies are policies of enrichment for the few and lack for everyone else.

The President, Fix the Debt, The Third Way, the Republicans...we are clearly so outnumbered and outgunned that it's a fucking joke, but at least if we're going to go down we can go down swinging and not like a bunch of pansies.

If we know what the consequences of these policies will be (which, we do) and know how to make some money off them at least we can create some wealth and protection for ourselves as it all comes tumbling down.

Get ready, because it's coming.

Robert Parry — Neocons: The ‘Anti-Realists’

America’s neocons, who wield great power inside the U.S. government and media, endanger the planet by concocting strategies inside their heads that ignore real-world consequences. Thus, their “regime changes” have unleashed ancient hatreds and spread chaos across the globe, as Robert Parry explains.

Empire-building in the name of freedom, human rights, democracy and the American way.

Parry see President Obama as a reluctant (spineless) realist, who goes along to get along. I am not so sure he is not a card-carrying neocon that sometimes talks like a realist. But practically speaking, there is no discernible difference in behavior.

Consortium News
Neocons: The ‘Anti-Realists’

Robert Parry

Seems We Can't Blindly Trust Either Political Party - Bill Clinton Was As Bought As They Come (Bush & Obama ... & us too?)

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)



Maybe even more bought than Dubya? And what does that portend about who
REALLY owns Obama?

What'd Mark Twain supposedly say? "It is easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled."

Picking up an theme once discussed in comments at Warren Mosler's blog, do we have a simple class war between two industry segments?

DNP - bought by the banking (& entire F.I.R.E.) industry? 

GOP - bought by the oil & F500 & MICC & general mfg industry?

While the MiddleClass is kept divided & conquered, bickering over which serf-master to capitulate to? Worse, are these two lobbies now colluding, to permanently own the US Middle Class?

Can we at least get a 3rd party (software industry? Labor/MiddleClass?) or no parties at all? Instead, just distributed democracy, like during George Washington's 2 original terms?

Seems we can't blindly trust either political party, and need to set our sights on trusting our distributed electorate ... and what's left of our democracy.

If this concept resonates with you, then read on. The following is posted, with permission from Chuck Spinney. It may appear later on his personal blog.

*****

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Chuck Spinney

Attached herewith is an important report in the Guardian. It places the deregulation of Wall Street during the Clinton Administration into a particularly smarmy perspective by examining documents just released by the Clinton library. Note the connections to players now in the Obama Administration.

This report paints a revealing albeit depressingly familiar portrait of how the iron triangle of individuals and money moving between government executive positions, and private sector, together with friendly legislators in Congress encourages corruption that leads ultimately to taxpayer bailouts. Consider please the following:
1. Note how the memos make it look like President Clinton was being rushed, implying a certain degree of passivity and manipulation by advisors. But before taking this at face value, bear in mind, Clinton was never a passive actor; quite the opposite, he was a highly energetic president. He set the tone, and he picked these advisors; he stayed with them; and he passed many of them on to President Obama.

2. Note that the repeal of Glass Steagall -- Clinton’s signature deregulation of the financial markets and perhaps the major contributor to the rise of speculation that culminated in 2008 crash -- was not a last minute affair. In fact, the memos show effort to repeal reaches bat to at least in February 1995 and May 1997 and the reference to eating the paper after you read it suggests a degree of malevolent cynicism.

3. Note the tight connection between the repeal Glass-Steagall and the pending Citigroup merger with Travelers Group, and particularly, the central the role played by Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin in the promotion of the of that repeal. Rubin was Secretary of the Treasury from 11 January 1995 to 2 July 1999 -- the period covered by the memos contained in the Guardian report.

4. Finally, the reader should note that four months after leaving the Treasury Department, in Oct 1999, Rubin joined Citigroup. Here is a contemporary portrait painted by a 27 October 1999 report in the New York Times,

“Mr. Rubin, 61, a former top official of Goldman, Sachs & Company, said yesterday that he had joined Sanford I. Weill and John S. Reed, the chairmen and chief executives Citigroup, in what Mr. Reed described as a ''three-person office of the chairman'' that will oversee what has become the first true American financial conglomerate since the Depression.
The appointment came less than a week after the Clinton Administration and Congress agreed on a compromise bill that would overhaul the laws that regulate the financial industry, a measure that removes many of the restrictions preventing banks, securities firms and insurance companies from buying one another or engaging in one another's businesses. Both Mr. Rubin and Citigroup strongly supported the bill, which would greatly benefit the company. Mr. Rubin said he played a role in arranging the final compromise that will probably lead to the repeal of the so-called Glass-Steagall legislation. But he said that had nothing to do with his decision to join the company.”

By 2007 Rubin was Chairman of Citigroup. And in 2008, nine years after the repeal of Glass Steagall, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression hit Wall Street to trigger the worst and longest recession since the Great Depression. That crisis, among other things, collapsed the stock markets, destroyed retirement nest eggs, wrecked the housing markets, and put millions of people out of work — and our nation has still not recovered. Then the “best government money can buy” added insult to injury by bailing out of the banks that created the mess, while ducking the issue of re-regulating their behaviour with anything close to proven power of defunct Glass-Steagall Act. Some observers are now warning the government’s failure to reign in speculative behaviour is setting the stage for yet another crash (e.g., here and here)

And what about Rubin’s role? According to information in Wikipedia, on 3 December 2008, shortly after the financial collapse, the Wall Street Journal characterized Rubin’s mix of oversight and management responsibilities at Citigroup "murky." In an interview with the Journal, Rubin defended himself, saying: "I think I've been a very constructive part of the Citigroup environment." But, the Journal reported that Citigroup shareholders suffered losses of more than 70 percent since Rubin joined the firm and that he encouraged changes that led the firm to the brink of collapse.[23] Investors filed a lawsuit in December contending that Citigroup executives, including Rubin, sold shares at inflated prices while concealing the firm’s risks. A Citigroup spokesman said the lawsuit was without merit.[24].

But what happened to Rubin personally? According to a 20 September 2012 report in Bloomberg, Rubin received a total compensation of $126,000,000 from Citigroup between 1999 and 2009. Among other things, the former eagle scout is now co-chairman of the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations.

Chuck Spinney   The Blaster

---------------------

Wall Street deregulation pushed by Clinton advisers, documents reveal

Previously restricted papers reveal attempts to rush president to support act, later blamed for deepening banking crisis

Radley Balko — 7 Ways The Obama Administration Has Accelerated Police Militarization

There were signs that President Barack Obama might rein in the mass militarization of America's police forces after he won the White House. Policing is primarily a local issue, overseen by local authorities. But beginning in the late 1960s with President Richard Nixon, the federal government began instituting policies that gave federal authorities more power to fight the drug trade, and to lure state and local policymakers into the anti-crime agenda of the administration in charge. These policies got a boost during Ronald Reagan's presidency, and then another during President Bill Clinton's years. Under President George W. Bush, all of those anti-drug policies continued, but were supplemented by new war on terrorism endeavors -- yet more efforts to make America's cops look, act and fight like soldiers....

Indeed, in his first interview after taking office, Obama's drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, said that the administration would be toning down the martial rhetoric that had dominated federal drug policy since the Nixon years. "Regardless of how you try to explain to people it's a 'war on drugs' or a 'war on a product,' people see a war as a war on them," Kerlikowske told The Wall Street Journal. "We're not at war with people in this country."

Unfortunately, while not insignificant, the change in rhetoric has largely been only that. The Obama administration may no longer call it a "war," but there's no question that the White House is continuing to fight one. Here's a quick rundown of where and how Obama's policies have perpetuated the garrison state:

The Huffington Post
7 Ways The Obama Administration Has Accelerated Police Militarization
Radley Balko

Washington's Blog Everything You Wanted to Know about Spying … But Were Afraid to Ask

Spying, the big picture

Link roundup

Washington's Blog
Everything You Wanted to Know about Spying … But Were Afraid to Ask

Setting the record straight: The truth about business investment under Obama

We've heard this pat line over and over again, that Obama is "anti-business." The president's detractors say that his anti-business views along with his regulatory excess (is this even true?) are the reason that businesses are not investing. They state it as if it is fact...businesses are not investing.

Is this really true?

I will once again examine this claim. The charts below have been constructed from data from the Bureau of Economic analysis.

Chart 1. Real Total Business Investment (billions $)

This first chart shows that total business investment under Obama beat Reagan, Bush 1 and Bush 2. And you can see that both Bush's--Republicans--were negative, by the way. Only Clinton beat Obama and that was over a period of eight years as opposed to Obama's three. Clinton also had the benefit of a booming economy, the Internet boom and Y2K. In addition, once Clinton started running surpluses, business investment slowed considerably. That's not evident necessarily in the chart, but it is upon examination of the data.

Chart 2. Real Growth in Business Investment compared to growth in GDP

The second chart is even more eye-opening. It shows that the growth in business investment relative to the growth in the economy has NEVER BEEN FASTER THAN NOW! (Again, I went as far back as Reagan.) Business investment is surging as a percent of GDP. In Obama's three years in office, the growth in business investment has been more rapid than Reagan, Bush 1, Bush 2 and even Clinton!

Let me be clear, I am not here to champion or support Obama. There are lots of things that this president is doing wrong--terribly wrong--and I was among the first to point out his hard-core neo-liberal leanings. I spoke about it way back in 2008 when he first selected his economic team.

However, let's call a spade a spade. The claim that businesses are not investing under Obama because of his "anti business" attitude is PURE BULLSHIT!! The numbers speak for themselves.