While Barack Obama is serious about anti-trust laws

Going to be interesting to see what Obama can do to lay the law down on the oil industry and energy speculators and traders now saying "the sky's the limit" and up to $800 per barrel oil is possible.
($30 Bucks a Gal)

War Crimes Tribunal anyone?

L.A. Confidential @ 2:

While Barack Obama is serious about anti-trust laws

Going to be interesting to see what Obama can do to lay the law down on the oil industry and energy speculators and traders now saying "the sky's the limit" and up to $800 per barrel oil is possible.
($30 Bucks a Gal)

Speculation and "big oil" have not much to do with the prices of gas. They're not pumping up the price just to steal all your money, the reason the price is up has almost all to do with the fact that oil is traded in dollars and the dollar's value is weak and getting weaker. Inflation is the true cause of the high price of gas- measured in Gold, oil's value has remained stable. Start blaming the Fed and the rest of our gov't for weaking our currency(and essentially lowering our living standards), not the oil companies. The oil companies are making big profits, but of course you'll make huge profits of dollars when the value of the dollar is weak- what's important is purchasing power.

I don't really like what Obama's on about with our anti-trust laws. Anti-trust laws actually stifle competition. There's a large difference between a company that has a large market share because they satisfy their consumers and a company that has a large market share because the government is involved. Dominick Armentano's talked about this a lot, you can get his book or watch this video regarding anti-trust laws.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C4gRRk2i-M

Shoaib Qadri @ 6:

I don't really like what Obama's on about with our anti-trust laws. Anti-trust laws actually stifle competition.

No they don't stifle competition. Anti-Trust laws target greed but someone is always going to say . . "how dare someone dictate to me how much profit I can and can not make!"

i am laughing over here about the doocy rant against olbermann.... bwahahahaaa.

"Next time you see Keith Olbermann on TV, just remember, that is a guy who picks on people's children," Doocy concluded, becoming visibly angrier as he spoke. "I am steamed," he acknowledged. "How can you pick on a kid? ... That is over the line, buddy."

poor little doocy, 20 years old and your old man has to still try to protect you from your own embarrassment....

the doocy clan: tools for the elite

Follow the money and global crimes...

...Have to reopen the investigation into when much of this originated
Cheney and Bush's Secret Energy Meeting...
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Cheney_Energy_Task_Force

On other related crimes and inter-connected pardons...

Bush... Pardoned Secret Agent Libby ...
Clinton... Pardoned Libby's Client... Marc Rich... international commodities trader

L.A. Confidential @ 2:

While Barack Obama is serious about anti-trust laws

Going to be interesting to see what Obama can do to lay the law down on the oil industry and energy speculators and traders now saying "the sky's the limit" and up to $800 per barrel oil is possible.
($30 Bucks a Gal)

Kristol predicts McCain will call on Lieberman: Developing... at Raw Story
http://www.rawstory.com/

David Freedeso writes about the Republicans eight step plan at National Review
Eight-Step Plan
House conservatives offer a platform.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MzMwOThiYmE0YWE5NGExMmQwN2U3Mjk3ODU...

I### If only the Repubs had forced Bush, Cheney and the other radicals into a twelve step program the U.S. Iraq and the rest of the world would not have to clean up after their immoral and illegal crimes.

Guess whose coming to talk with Amy Goodman today? Hans Blix to discuss Iraq and Iran
http://www.democracynow.org/

former MN Gov. Jesse Ventura was on the Howard Stern show this morning - great interview.

L.A. Confidential @ 8:

Shoaib Qadri @ 6:

I don't really like what Obama's on about with our anti-trust laws. Anti-trust laws actually stifle competition.

No they don't stifle competition. Anti-Trust laws target greed but someone is always going to say . . "how dare someone dictate to me how much profit I can and can not make!"

..Well...yeah why should someone dictate to you how much profit you're allowed to make, if that profit was made in a completely legal fashion due to consumers wanting the product? So the creator of facebook shouldn't be earning what he's earning? Apple shouldn't be allowed to have the profits they're earning? I don't see anti-trust laws as actually targeting greed but rather punishing efficient companies that have an appeal to consumers and rewarding inefficient companies that don't give the best product/service.

Rebel Patriot @ 19:

BaScOmBe against Bitter Elitist Bullshit @ 17:

Ga. test scores raise red flags
The state's school leaders were so shocked by dismal scores on state math and social studies tests that the state superintendent released a statement to prepare parents and others for the results.
•Clayton graduation test scores lag behind state average
•Two Gwinnett students sprayed 'KKK' in school

America the Beautiful Stupid and Ignorant, Huh?

The American state gets what it pays for. It wants uneducated masses. Easier to control them and to manipulate them.

George Carlin sums it up the best IMO.

warning: language

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMqJvhmD5Yg

Maybe the Union should have let the CONfederates secede!

Shoaib Qadri @ 18:

L.A. Confidential @ 8:

Shoaib Qadri @ 6:

I don't really like what Obama's on about with our anti-trust laws. Anti-trust laws actually stifle competition.

No they don't stifle competition. Anti-Trust laws target greed but someone is always going to say . . "how dare someone dictate to me how much profit I can and can not make!"

..Well...yeah why should someone dictate to you how much profit you're allowed to make, if that profit was made in a completely legal fashion due to consumers wanting the product? So the creator of facebook shouldn't be earning what he's earning? Apple shouldn't be allowed to have the profits they're earning? I don't see anti-trust laws as actually targeting greed but rather punishing efficient companies that have an appeal to consumers and rewarding inefficient companies that don't give the best product/service.

Right and the Feds bailing out Wall Street is rewarding efficient companies okay then whatever ya say.

L.A. Confidential @ 22:

Shoaib Qadri @ 18:

L.A. Confidential @ 8:

Shoaib Qadri @ 6:

No they don't stifle competition. Anti-Trust laws target greed but someone is always going to say . . "how dare someone dictate to me how much profit I can and can not make!"

..Well...yeah why should someone dictate to you how much profit you're allowed to make, if that profit was made in a completely legal fashion due to consumers wanting the product? So the creator of facebook shouldn't be earning what he's earning? Apple shouldn't be allowed to have the profits they're earning? I don't see anti-trust laws as actually targeting greed but rather punishing efficient companies that have an appeal to consumers and rewarding inefficient companies that don't give the best product/service.

Right and the Feds bailing out Wall Street is rewarding efficient companies okay then whatever ya say.

Huh? I didn't say that the Fed bailing out wall street was a good thing, where did you get that from? That's exactly what I'm against.

Oh, and thanks for rounding me up, Nicole.

We need to make sure that we have Barack's back if the media goes on the offense.

Shoaib Qadri @ 23:

Samson- @ 21:

Shoaib Qadri @ 18:

L.A. Confidential @ 8:

..Well...yeah why should someone dictate to you how much profit you're allowed to make, if that profit was made in a completely legal fashion due to consumers wanting the product? So the creator of facebook shouldn't be earning what he's earning? Apple shouldn't be allowed to have the profits they're earning? I don't see anti-trust laws as actually targeting greed but rather punishing efficient companies that have an appeal to consumers and rewarding inefficient companies that don't give the best product/service.

capitalism tends towards monopolies, and is based upon inequality.

blind faith in the (not)free market is a dangerous proposition.

and, btw, isn't 'greed' a virtuous quality for the market fundamentalists?

trust neither government nor corporations.

Well we can go into a long discussion about this- but many will disagree with the idea that capitalism leads to monopolies or is bent towards inequality. But rather with a true free-market, an actual monopoly is pretty much impossible. Of course some companies gain a larger share of the market, but if thats due to satisfying customers, I don't see the problem. Even if they somehow managed to gain 99% of the market, if their product/service slips, someone else will come to take their customers away.

Now there are actual examples of monopolies that were created due to Government laws and restrictions, these obviously aren't a product of a free-market.

What makes you say that faith in a free-market is a dangerous proposition? The current status in this country is not a free-market so no I don't put any faith into this one.

"Greed" might be the virtuous quality that Wall-Street exalts, but they are hardly a pro free-market type group. They get government bailouts and special protection all the time.

you are right, the 'current status' is not a free market. and the biggest reason for that is that there is no such thing as a free market. never has been, never will be.

and, of course, capitalism is based on inequality. are you trying to argue that capitalism is egalitarian? what creates value is the finite nature of capital, and the system favors the few over the many, thus the system is inherently unequal.

i agree that the government-corporate collusion is a very dangerous relationship. it hurts the people, it hurts business and it hurts government. corporations should not control government, and government should serve as honest regulators of, not patsies for, corporations.

FBI tried to fight detainee abuse, opened 'war crimes' file

By Eric Lichtblau and Scott Shane
New York Times
Article Launched: 05/21/2008 01:33:10 AM PDT

WASHINGTON - In 2002, as evidence of prisoner mistreatment at Guantánamo Bay began to mount, FBI agents at the base created a "war crimes file" to document accusations against U.S. military personnel, but were ordered to close down the file, a Justice Department report disclosed Tuesday.

The report, an exhaustive, 437-page review prepared by the Justice Department inspector general, provides the fullest account to date of internal dissent and confusion within the Bush administration over the use of harsh interrogation tactics by the military and the CIA.

In one of several previously undisclosed episodes, the report found that U.S. military interrogators appeared to have collaborated with visiting Chinese officials at Guantánamo Bay to disrupt the sleep of Chinese Muslims held there, waking them up every 15 minutes the night before their interviews by the Chinese. In another incident, it said, a female interrogator bent back an inmate's thumbs and squeezed his genitals.

The report describes what one official called "trench warfare" between the FBI and the military over the rough methods being used on detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The report says the FBI agents took their concerns to higher-ups, but that their concerns often fell on deaf ears: Officials at senior levels at the FBI, the Justice Department, the Defense Department and the National Security Council were all made aware of the
Advertisement
agents' complaints, but little appears to have been done as a result.

The report quotes passionate objections from FBI officials who grew increasingly concerned about the reports of practices such as intimidating inmates with snarling dogs, parading them in the nude before female soldiers, or "short-shackling" them to the floor for many hours in extreme heat or cold.

Such tactics, one FBI agent said in an e-mail message to supervisors in November 2002, might violate U.S. law banning torture.

More senior officials, including Spike Bowman, who was then the head of the FBI's national security law unit, tried to sound the alarm as well.

"Beyond any doubt, what they are doing (and I don't know the extent of it) would be unlawful were these enemy prisoners of war," Bowman wrote in an e-mail message to top FBI officials in July 2003.

Many of the abuses the report describes have previously been disclosed, but it was not known that FBI agents had gone so far as to document accusations of abuse in a "war crimes file" at Guantánamo. The report does not say how many incidents were included in the file after it was started in 2002, but the "war crimes" label showed just how seriously FBI agents took the accusations. Sometime in 2003, however, an FBI official ordered the file closed because "investigating detainee allegations of abuse was not the FBI's mission," the report said.

The inspector general, Glenn Fine, found that in a few instances, FBI agents participated in interrogations using pressure tactics that would not have been permitted inside the United States. But the "vast majority" of agents followed FBI legal guidelines and "separated themselves" from harsh treatment, the report says.

http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_9331182]http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_9331182

Senate Judiciary Committee was probably aware of this at the time. Although controlled by 'R' up until January 2007, Patrick Leahy would have still been in the loop as much as Arlen Specter. Just another smoking gun which begs the question, 'Why was impeachment taken off the table?'

Those who purposefully discount (or are too delusional to see) the complicity of Democrats aren't really in much of a position to preach to others about morality, justice, truth and peace.

Excellent Robert Parry article on the Harriman/Walker/Bush crime family ties to the Nazis.

They weren't Nazi appeasers, they were Nazi employers.

Some background on W. Averell Harriman in 1963.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=11191&pid=125833&m...

Shoaib Qadri @ 31:

Samson- @ 28:

Shoaib Qadri @ 23:

Samson- @ 21:

Well we can go into a long discussion about this- but many will disagree with the idea that capitalism leads to monopolies or is bent towards inequality. But rather with a true free-market, an actual monopoly is pretty much impossible. Of course some companies gain a larger share of the market, but if thats due to satisfying customers, I don't see the problem. Even if they somehow managed to gain 99% of the market, if their product/service slips, someone else will come to take their customers away.

Now there are actual examples of monopolies that were created due to Government laws and restrictions, these obviously aren't a product of a free-market.

What makes you say that faith in a free-market is a dangerous proposition? The current status in this country is not a free-market so no I don't put any faith into this one.

"Greed" might be the virtuous quality that Wall-Street exalts, but they are hardly a pro free-market type group. They get government bailouts and special protection all the time.

you are right, the 'current status' is not a free market. and the biggest reason for that is that there is no such thing as a free market. never has been, never will be.

and, of course, capitalism is based on inequality. are you trying to argue that capitalism is egalitarian? what creates value is the finite nature of capital, and the system favors the few over the many, thus the system is inherently unequal.

i agree that the government-corporate collusion is a very dangerous relationship. it hurts the people, it hurts business and it hurts government. corporations should not control government, and government should serve as honest regulators of, not patsies for, corporations.

I'm not trying to say that the free-market is egalitarian(economic egalitarianism would be difficult because each person values something differently. And to force it on people would be wrong. If one person owns a lot of luxury cars, but I have no interest in owning ANY car- is this inequality a bad thing? It is freedom), but it seems like you're pushing the idea that the free-market's purpose is to push wealth into the hands of the few and leave everyone else with nothing.

no, that is not the idea i'm 'pushing'. why? because there is no such thing as a "free" market, again.

is that your idea of economic egalitarianism? a desire for luxury cars? it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the value an individual places on something. come on, be serious.

what you are, skillfully, avoiding is the 800lb gorilla in the room: capitalism and the market system sets up a system where a very small minority does well, while the vast majority of people struggle to keep their heads above water. those struggling make it possible for the haves to live as they do. the "free" market advocates contend that wealth has increased, and that we are richer today than we were in the 70s, and i find that assumption not only inaccurate, but dishonest. See: wars.

we live in a capitalist world economy, and we have been in this system for centuries. the billions that struggle everyday to get by are a product of the system, a system-qualification, not an accidental by-product. their situation was created and sustained by the capitalist system b/c this is exactly what the system requires.

Keep those hearings and subpoenas coming...
http://www.democrats.com/book/export/html/13268

On May 20th, 2008 at 3:57 pm, The Whole Bird said:

We are conservatives, yes. And many of us are indeed Christians, yes. It is because we are conservatives and many are Christians that we do react to this news different than those who are not jumping on the “..I would never wish this on anyone…” bandwagon.

I am a conservative, so I’m not a hypocrite. I don’t pretend I think one thing and then say another.

I am a conservative, so I believe in moral absolutes. A bad man is still a bad man, even if he gets a disease. Bad things happening to bad men is good.

I am a conservative, so I don’t eulogize criminals. It’s another assault on their victims.

I am a Christian, so I know that God is also not warm and fuzzy all of the time. If you believe He is, you should read about hypocrisy, Sodom & Gomorrah, Jericho, and Noah & the Flood.

So please, stop with the self-righteous “we should be better than this” talk.

I would feel bad for Kerry, Obama, Clinton, Pelosi, and even Jimmy Carter.

I am a conservative, so I will not feel bad for Ted Kennedy simply because he’s a politician when I wouldn’t feel bad for Sirhan Sirhan. Their crimes are different, but their victims are still just as dead.

I am a conservative, so I believe all should be held to the same standard. Period.

And yet they preach so much about compassion, not being judgemental, forgiveness, fellowship, and the family.
This person is more than a conservative christian, they are batshit f-ing crazy!
I'm stunned by the callousness and I don't stun easy at all.

"I am a conservative, so I’m not a hypocrite.", does anybody else see the irony here?

His whole rant is ripe with hypocrisy.

When his pastor said that one should not be judgemental he must have heard that one should be mental.

These wingnuts are seriously f-ed in the head.

Samson- @ 34:

Shoaib Qadri @ 31:

Samson- @ 28:

Shoaib Qadri @ 23:

you are right, the 'current status' is not a free market. and the biggest reason for that is that there is no such thing as a free market. never has been, never will be.

and, of course, capitalism is based on inequality. are you trying to argue that capitalism is egalitarian? what creates value is the finite nature of capital, and the system favors the few over the many, thus the system is inherently unequal.

i agree that the government-corporate collusion is a very dangerous relationship. it hurts the people, it hurts business and it hurts government. corporations should not control government, and government should serve as honest regulators of, not patsies for, corporations.

I'm not trying to say that the free-market is egalitarian(economic egalitarianism would be difficult because each person values something differently. And to force it on people would be wrong. If one person owns a lot of luxury cars, but I have no interest in owning ANY car- is this inequality a bad thing? It is freedom), but it seems like you're pushing the idea that the free-market's purpose is to push wealth into the hands of the few and leave everyone else with nothing.

no, that is not the idea i'm 'pushing'. why? because there is no such thing as a "free" market, again.

is that your idea of economic egalitarianism? a desire for luxury cars? it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the value an individual places on something. come on, be serious.

what you are, skillfully, avoiding is the 800lb gorilla in the room: capitalism and the market system sets up a system where a very small minority does well, while the vast majority of people struggle to keep their heads above water. those struggling make it possible for the haves to live as they do. the "free" market advocates contend that wealth has increased, and that we are richer today than we were in the 70s, and i find that assumption not only inaccurate, but dishonest. See: wars.

we live in a capitalist world economy, and we have been in this system for centuries. the billions that struggle everyday to get by are a product of the system, a system-qualification, not an accidental by-product. their situation was created and sustained by the capitalist system b/c this is exactly what the system requires.

Free-market advocates definitely do not say that we are richer today than we were previously- if you simply compare the value of the dollar we all know what the real situation is. Republicans today are not free-market advocates(even though they'll pretend to be)- try not to associate them with it.

We live in a managed-economy, not a free-market world economy. The WTO and central bank institutions show that very easily. You continue to blame the free-market even though you acknowledge there is none.

Well what I'm saying is that economic egalitarianism is not achievable because people don't value everything the same way- so they only way to really do that would be to have an outside force, like the government, to decide on what is considered equal and make it compulsory, which is in all ways an attack on freedom. Luxury cars is just a really really simple example, though not a good one I agree..

The free-market does NOT set up a system where only a few do well, you keep stating that as fact but bring up nothing to support your argument The free-market leads to a system of exchange that makes whoever involved better off than they were before.(Even if someone buys a cigarette, you can say they're not better off because its not good for their health- but if that's what makes them happy then they are better off).

I'd be more than welcome to provide you with some more further-indepth reading regarding the free-market, its purpose, and its efficiency in increasing everyone's standard of living and freedom. It would take up pages to talk about it all, and there already people who've reached the conclusions better than I have(especially regarding the ethical arguments against a free-market)- like Murray Rothbard for example.