This Week in the News
This week, Congress began looking into exemptions from trading limits on oil futures given to certain wall street banks and hedge funds by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The exemptions allowed these entities to buy large amounts of oil futures contracts thus artificially inflating the price of oil over the last year. Previously, only airlines and trucking companies were exempt from the limits on futures imposed by the federal government. Contacted for comment, Douglas Slick of the Petroleum Institute stated, "This is just more liberal claptrap. Are you suggesting that a governmental regulator gave preferential treatment to a small group of well heeled investors that allowed those investors to cash in at the public's expense? Sorry boys, I don't think anyone is going to believe that story. "
This week, the Senate Intelligence Committee officially reported something we already knew: the run up to the war in Iraq was based on lies. The Committee released its official report on the run up to the 2003 invasion and concluded that , ""In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when it was unsubstantiated, contradicted or even nonexistent ... As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed." Republicans loyal to the President immediately pounced on the Report calling is skewed and unpatriotic. Said Sen. Chris Bond, "This report flies in the face of our finest traditions. I cannot begin to tell you how dangerous it is to attempt to tie the use of American power to the truth or some accurate assessment of the truth. Look at it,- Vietnam, Chile, Nicaragua, the Bay of Pigs, the Drug War. Some of our best stuff has come from convincing the American people that the sky -- or the dominoes -- were about to fall on them. Take that club out of our bag and what are we left with? UN Peacekeeping missions thats what. Humanitarian interventions. Dropping grain and medicine on little platforms with little parachutes from DC-3s Nothing fun. Nothing with any real swag attached to it."
This week, Sen. Barak Obama clinched the Democratic nomination for President, the first African American to win the nomination of a major party. Immediately, the Republican National Committee swung into action and formed the "I'm Not a Racist But" (INRB) working group. According to George Rockwell, the INRB's chair, the focus of the group will be on "voters who understand that John McCain has only a sliver of a campaign and believe that Republican policies have devastated this country, but cannot bring themselves to vote for Obama. They need some way to vote Republican while convincing themselves they are not racist." Asked where the group hopes to get its inspiration, Tolliver responded, "We'll start with some traditional pretexts for racism like states rights. Then we might move into some more subtle areas like suggesting that Sen. Obama might try to exact revenge on white people --We call that the "Wright Stuff' strategy. We are optimistic, white America has been denying its racism for centuries, so there is a lot to work with."
This week, (ok a little while ago but I 've been busy) Sen. John McCain's campaign announced that former Hewlett Packard CEO, Carly Fiorina was part of the Senator's campaign team and inner circle of advisors. Fiorina was the most powerful woman in corporate America until she was ousted by HP Board after an ill fated merger with Compaq and revelations that Ms. Fiorina had hired private detectives to spy on various board members she thought were critical of her. Despite leaving in disgarce, Fiorina received a $42 million severance from HP. Asked if this made Fiorina one of the overcompensated CEO's McCain often rails against, one advisor noted, "No not really.Most of that populist stuff is just for show. I mean, we were critical of the Christian right. Now we play all sorts of tonsil hockey with them. We were against warrantless wiretapping. Now we are for it. We were against lobbyists and then hired a bunch on the campaign. We will not be victimized by principal here. The Senator stands foursquare against the tyranny of principals -- even those he claims to have as is own."
This week, the Senate Intelligence Committee officially reported something we already knew: the run up to the war in Iraq was based on lies. The Committee released its official report on the run up to the 2003 invasion and concluded that , ""In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when it was unsubstantiated, contradicted or even nonexistent ... As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed." Republicans loyal to the President immediately pounced on the Report calling is skewed and unpatriotic. Said Sen. Chris Bond, "This report flies in the face of our finest traditions. I cannot begin to tell you how dangerous it is to attempt to tie the use of American power to the truth or some accurate assessment of the truth. Look at it,- Vietnam, Chile, Nicaragua, the Bay of Pigs, the Drug War. Some of our best stuff has come from convincing the American people that the sky -- or the dominoes -- were about to fall on them. Take that club out of our bag and what are we left with? UN Peacekeeping missions thats what. Humanitarian interventions. Dropping grain and medicine on little platforms with little parachutes from DC-3s Nothing fun. Nothing with any real swag attached to it."
This week, Sen. Barak Obama clinched the Democratic nomination for President, the first African American to win the nomination of a major party. Immediately, the Republican National Committee swung into action and formed the "I'm Not a Racist But" (INRB) working group. According to George Rockwell, the INRB's chair, the focus of the group will be on "voters who understand that John McCain has only a sliver of a campaign and believe that Republican policies have devastated this country, but cannot bring themselves to vote for Obama. They need some way to vote Republican while convincing themselves they are not racist." Asked where the group hopes to get its inspiration, Tolliver responded, "We'll start with some traditional pretexts for racism like states rights. Then we might move into some more subtle areas like suggesting that Sen. Obama might try to exact revenge on white people --We call that the "Wright Stuff' strategy. We are optimistic, white America has been denying its racism for centuries, so there is a lot to work with."
This week, (ok a little while ago but I 've been busy) Sen. John McCain's campaign announced that former Hewlett Packard CEO, Carly Fiorina was part of the Senator's campaign team and inner circle of advisors. Fiorina was the most powerful woman in corporate America until she was ousted by HP Board after an ill fated merger with Compaq and revelations that Ms. Fiorina had hired private detectives to spy on various board members she thought were critical of her. Despite leaving in disgarce, Fiorina received a $42 million severance from HP. Asked if this made Fiorina one of the overcompensated CEO's McCain often rails against, one advisor noted, "No not really.Most of that populist stuff is just for show. I mean, we were critical of the Christian right. Now we play all sorts of tonsil hockey with them. We were against warrantless wiretapping. Now we are for it. We were against lobbyists and then hired a bunch on the campaign. We will not be victimized by principal here. The Senator stands foursquare against the tyranny of principals -- even those he claims to have as is own."
posted by Jack Reed at 2:36 PM
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