Withdraw Now

President Obama appears committed to a foolish and depraved course of action in Afghanistan.

Rethink Afghanistan.

Stocks Rallying, Economy Dying

We need some drama, President Obama.

From the Global Economic Crisis, health care reform to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, it appears your end-game is half-measures and posturing.

This manages to inflame the always combustible rightwing, piss off the left wing, and give Joe Six Pack a vague idea that you're just another politician during extraordinarily difficult times. Bad politics, bad policy.

From Tech Ticker: Bulls Ignore Warnings from Soros, Roubini and Other Skeptics by Aaron Task:

Coincidentally (or not), the past few days has brought a raft of dour comments from the few analysts who correctly predicted the credit crisis before it became obvious to everyone.

Here's a sample:

George Soros says the U.S. banking system is "basically bankrupt," in sharp contrast to Goldman's upgrade of the large banks.

Nouriel Roubini says "markets have gone up too much, too soon, too fast," and will retreat when economic news refutes the V-shaped consensus, Bloomberg reports.

Joseph Stiglitz told Bloomberg TV investors have become 'irrationally exuberant' about prospects for a recovery. "There's a lot of risk...ahead of some big bumps."

Christopher Whalen tells Tech Ticker the fourth-quarter will be a "bloodbath" for banking as says stocks rallying while the "real economy is dying" is not a healthy sign.

Meredith Whitney warned about the likelihood of a second credit crunch, especially for small businesses, a WSJ op-ed last week.

Meanwhile, stocks are now 15%-20% overvalued based on Robert Shiller's long-term cyclically adjusted P/E ratio and Henry reports that Wall Street analysts are forecasting a return to record profit margins, which are only likely if more layoffs are coming, which begs the question: How can the economy maintain forward momentum if unemployment continues to rise and consumers remain in lock-down mode?

The fact there's so much to worry about is probably good news for bulls from a short-term perspective, as I wrote here. But long-term investors - as well as traders sitting on fat profits - would be wise to heed these collective warnings.

How the Feds Imprison the Innocent

If you are targeted by a U.S. Attorney, you are pretty much out of luck. Innocent? That's no defense.

Just ask Wisconsin's Keith Roberts and Georgia Thompson.

From Paul Craig Roberts' How the Feds Imprison the Innocent:

Harvey Silverglates’ Three Felonies A Day focuses on how federal prosecutors invent creative interpretations of statutes, sometimes creating new felonies out of vague language or thin air, felonies never legislated by Congress. Federal criminal law is today so vast and so poorly worded that Silverglate reports, truthfully, that each of us, every American, commits three felonies every day without knowing it. ...

Federal judges, an increasing number of whom are former federal prosecutors, permit the prosecution of Americans for crimes that the defendants did not know were crimes, crimes that never before existed until the federal prosecutor brought the charge. The invention of crimes by prosecutors violates every known legal principle in Anglo-American law. Yet, it has become commonplace. Defense attorneys, a group that also increasingly consists of former federal prosecutors, as Silverglate accurately reports, have lost confidence that it is possible to defend a client from a federal prosecution and see their role, not as the defense, but as negotiators of a plea bargain that reduces the charges and prison time of the defendant, no matter how innocent. Silverglate shows that many of the plea bargains create precedents that prosecutors can exploit to trap more innocent victims. ...

This is the way America works today. Just as state and local police cannot stand up to the FBI, elected state and local officials are powerless in the face of their pursuit by corrupt federal prosecutors.

Silverglate himself was the attorney in some of the landmark cases that he reports. The reader, even one with the usual illusions and delusions that blind Americans to their predicament, will be scared by Silverglate’s documented account, case by case, of how easy it is in 'freedom and democracy' America to frame the totally innocent.

In Silverglate’s concluding chapter, 'For Whom the Bell Tolls,' the answer is obvious even to a naif: 'It tolls for all.'

Wish That Jew Were Dead, Prays Evangelical

Update: Click to view the actual court filing (PDF) and Click to listen to the imprecatory prayers and see the hateful materials discussed in the Dallas Morning News article.

The Dallas-based Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches reportedly wants Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), dead. But Weinstein is not crazy about the idea.

Gordon Klingenschmitt, a former U.S. Navy chaplain, is being sued by Weinstein and his family in a case that could, as Diane Jennings reports in this morning's Dallas Morning News, "test the limits of free speech and prayer."

Underlying the case is a growing fight in the military between those who want America's armed forces to be secular and those praying and working for armed forces that fight for Christ.

Does Klingenschmitt really want Mikey Weinstein dead? Reports Jennings who asked Klingenschmitt this very question: "'I pray the Psalm that his days are few,' he replied." Weinstein reports numerous threats made against his family.

Writes Jennings: "Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, said he wants Gordon Klingenschmitt, a former U.S. Navy chaplain, to 'stop asking Jesus to plunder my fields ... seize my assets, kill me and my family then wipe away our descendants for 10 generations.'" The suit also asks the court to stop the defendants – Klingenschmitt and Jim Ammerman, the founder of the Dallas-based Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches – from 'encouraging, soliciting, directing, abetting or attempting to induce others to engage in similar conduct.'"

The full piece can be read at: Lawyer sues to end Dallas group's 'threat' prayers.

Obama May Regret 'High-handed' Scorn of Progressives

As the GOP continues its mission of spite and opposition to President Obama, it seems less than productive for Obama and his aides to assume what Joe Conason calls a "scornful and high-handed attitude toward the progressive wing of their own party."

To take Wisconsin as an example, Obama did not win the Democratic primary by 17 points and the general election by 14 points so that Obama could refuse to renounce and end the foreign and domestic policies of George W. Bush.

As we have said in these pages, the historic victory last year was celebrated as a triumph for the politics of peace and justice of Robert Kennedy in 1968, and not the pandering of Sen. Hubert Humphrey.

Gore Vidal: America Rotting Away, Obama Letting It Go On

Gore Vidal served in the U.S. Army Reserve during World War II, emerging as an eloquent critic of American foreign policy over the last 60 years, among his myriad accomplishments.

As President Obama begins his descent into aping Sen. Hubert Humphrey, disappointing 10,000,000s who voted him into office as the next Robert Kennedy, the London Times (Sept. 30) offers an interview with Vidal on topics ranging from the "War on Terror" to President Obama's performance in office.

Vidal castigates Obama on Afghanistan and the president's refusal to take a solid stand on seemingly any issue, except an abiding commitment to compromise with neocons and know-nothing Republicans. [Came upon this from The American Conservative which calls Vidal the "politically incorrect man of the Left" and the "Last of the Republicans."] The Times' headline reads: "Gore Vidal: 'We’ll have a dictatorship soon in the US.'"

Here's an excerpt from the London Times piece.

How’s Obama doing? 'Dreadfully. I was hopeful. He was the most intelligent person we’ve had in that position for a long time. But he’s inexperienced. He has a total inability to understand military matters. He’s acting as if Afghanistan is the magic talisman: solve that and you solve terrorism.'

America should leave Afghanistan, he says. ''We’ve failed in every other aspect of our effort of conquering the Middle East or whatever you want to call it.' The 'War on Terror' was 'made up', Vidal says. 'The whole thing was PR, just like ‘weapons of mass destruction'’.

Texas Murders Innocent, Now Covers Up

Update: Dallas Morning News: "Gov. Rick Perry looks like a desperate man with his decision to jettison the chairman of the state's forensic science panel."

The state of Texas executed an innocent man, Cameron Todd Willingham, in 2004

Hey, if anyone wants to devise an index on the intelligence, scientific acuity and general enlightenment of American states, Texas is right down there with Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. So, no surprise here.

David Grann's piece in the New Yorker on Cameron Todd Willingham is a must read, reporting that the equivalent of witchcraft was used to convict and murder Willingham though a range of Texas officials, including Gov. Rick Perry were presented with scientific information exonerating Willingham before Texas decided to kill him. Maybe the Texas folks just couldn't understand the material.

Now, after the state murder, when the Texas Forensic Science Commission was to review the findings of arson expert Craig Beyler, who was hired by the commission to investigate and subsequently released a report blowing the whistle on Texas, Rick Perry this week summarily fired three members of the Commission that was seen as poised to rule in effect that Texas had executed an innocent man.

From Jeff Carlton at the Huffington Post:

DALLAS — A report concluding a faulty investigation led to a Texas man's execution won't be reviewed by a state board as planned Friday after Gov. Rick Perry abruptly removed three people from the panel, forcing the meeting's cancellation.

Perry, who has said the execution was appropriate, replaced the head of the Texas Forensic Science Commission and two of its eight other board members Wednesday. The upheaval on the commission came just 48 hours before it was to consider a report critical of the arson finding leading to Cameron Todd Willingham's execution for the deaths of his three daughters in a 1991 fire.

Baltimore-based arson expert Craig Beyler, who was hired by the commission, concluded the arson finding was scientifically unsupported and investigators at the scene had 'poor understandings of fire science.' His report has bolstered arguments from advocacy groups that Willingham was innocent and wrongly executed.

Hey Mr. President, NO Trashing Media Shield Bill

Whether it's political posturing or actual policy prescriptions, President Obama's attacks on the bill protecting reporters’ confidentiality are shameful and undemocratic.

Lisa Graves at the Center for Media and Democracy has a piece explaining why, if the point were not glaringly obvious, our government is generally not to be trusted with information management and that our fellow citizens are the rightful custodians of information.

It's a classical liberal thing vis a vis a national security state claim. Graves' piece, Government Lied about National Security Letters and the Patriot Act, is a must-read.

President Obama, what are you thinking? Are you thinking? We elected you in part for an open government, not to be only sort of like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.