The secret drone wars - the quiet expansion of presidential power under Obama

from reuters...

The Obama Administration has approved five times the number of covert drone strikes that his predecessor did. Thomson Reuters Digital Editor Chrystia Freeland sits down with Reuters' Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist David Rohde to discuss his special report detailing the quiet expansion of presidential power under Obama.

glenn...

David Rohde, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning former New York Times reporter and current Reuters columnist, explains how President Obama has significantly expanded executive power and triggered massive anti-American rage in the world through the use of drones and assassinations — or, as Stephanie Cutter and modern-day Democrats would say, he’s showing how Tough And Strong he is (it should be noted that Rohde, who spent months as a hostage of the Taliban, knows much about what motivates anti-American hatred and Terrorism)...

imagine seeing pakistani drones circling over your neighborhood... imagine having your neighbors or members of your family killed by a drone strike... yes... imagine...

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Yemenis are unnerved by U.S. drones patrolling their skies...?

well, no shit, sherlock... imagine how YOU'D feel if you looked up and saw one of those purveyors of death flying overhead several times a day...

reuters...

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Democrats becoming Republicans? Republicans becoming Democrats? I'm so confoozed...!

the nyt...

Coalition for Obama Split by Drift to G.O.P., Poll Finds

Critical parts of the coalition that delivered President Obama to the White House in 2008 and gave Democrats control of Congress in 2006 are switching their allegiance to the Republicans in the final phase of the midterm Congressional elections, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

Republicans have wiped out the advantage held by Democrats in recent election cycles among women, Roman Catholics, less affluent Americans and independents. All of those groups broke for Mr. Obama in 2008 and for Congressional Democrats when they grabbed both chambers from the Republicans four years ago, according to exit polls.

reuters...

Tea Party-backed Republicans spur party switches

For lifelong Republican Joe Errigo, deciding to cross party lines and support a liberal Democrat for New York governor wasn't nearly as difficult as one might expect.

Republican candidate Carl Paladino -- backed by the conservative Tea Party movement -- raised such political hackles he spawned a "Republicans for Cuomo" movement supporting Democrat Andrew Cuomo.

Similar groups can be found in heated races elsewhere nationwide, often those featuring Tea Party-endorsed candidates, attacked by Democrats and some moderate Republicans as extreme.

[...]

In Delaware, where Christine O'Donnell has Tea Party support, Republicans backing Democrat Chris Coons include a former state judge and former U.S. Congressman. A "Republicans for Coons" Facebook site reads: "Because we just can't support Christine O'Donnell."

In Arizona, "Republicans for Giffords" are backing Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords over conservative Iraq War veteran Jesse Kelly.

In Nevada, incumbent Democrat Sen. Harry Reid, who faces Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle, counts among his Republican supporters an array of influential gaming and casino executives.

isn't it great reading the news in the morning so we can find out what's REALLY going on...?

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Some real data on U.S. healthcare costs - $800B annually and for WHAT?

reuters has actually done some research...

One example -- a paper-based system that discourages sharing of medical records accounts for 6 percent of annual overspending.

"It is waste when caregivers duplicate tests because results recorded in a patient's record with one provider are not available to another or when medical staff provides inappropriate treatment because relevant history of previous treatment cannot be accessed," the report reads.

Some other findings in the report from Thomson Reuters, the parent company of Reuters:

* Unnecessary care such as the overuse of antibiotics and lab tests to protect against malpractice exposure makes up 37 percent of healthcare waste or $200 to $300 a year.

* Fraud makes up 22 percent of healthcare waste, or up to $200 billion a year in fraudulent Medicare claims, kickbacks for referrals for unnecessary services and other scams.

* Administrative inefficiency and redundant paperwork account for 18 percent of healthcare waste.

* Medical mistakes account for $50 billion to $100 billion in unnecessary spending each year, or 11 percent of the total.

* Preventable conditions such as uncontrolled diabetes cost $30 billion to $50 billion a year.

"The average U.S. hospital spends one-quarter of its budget on billing and administration, nearly twice the average in Canada," reads the report, citing dozens of other research papers.

"American physicians spend nearly eight hours per week on paperwork and employ 1.66 clerical workers per doctor, far more than in Canada," it says, quoting a 2003 New England Journal of Medicine paper by Harvard University researcher Dr. Steffie Woolhandler.

notably not chronicled and all the more visible due to its absence: healthcare industry profits...

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Warren Buffett - "Were it not for government bailouts ... many of his company’s stock holdings would have been wiped out"

so much for the legendary "oracle of omaha"...

from rolfe winkler, blogging at reuters...

A good chunk of his fortune is dependent on taxpayer largess. Were it not for government bailouts, for which Buffett lobbied hard, many of his company’s stock holdings would have been wiped out.

Berkshire Hathaway, in which Buffett owns 27 percent, according to a recent proxy filing, has more than $26 billion invested in eight financial companies that have received bailout money. The TARP at one point had nearly $100 billion invested in these companies and, according to new data released by Thomson Reuters, FDIC backs more than $130 billion of their debt.

To put that in perspective, 75 percent of the debt these companies have issued since late November has come with a federal guarantee.

Without FDIC’s debt guarantee program, even impregnable Goldman would have collapsed.

And this excludes the emergency, opaque lending facilities from the Federal Reserve that also helped rescue the big banks. Without all these bailouts, the financial system would have been forced to recapitalize itself.

Banks that couldn’t finance their balance sheets would have sold toxic assets at market prices, and the losses would have wiped out their shareholder’s equity. With $7 billion at stake, Buffett is one of the biggest of these shareholders.

He even traded the bailout, seeking morally hazardous profits in preferred stock and warrants of Goldman and GE because he had “confidence in Congress to do the right thing” — to rescue shareholders in too-big-to-fail financials from the losses that were rightfully theirs to absorb.

a mitigating view from raw story...

To be fair, his holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, has received no government aid. In fact, Berkshire became a major lender in the wake of frozen US credit markets, injecting $5 billion into General Electric, Goldman Sachs and even motorcycle-maker Harley Davidson at hefty interest rates.

the lesson here...? the super-rich can pretty much do what they want and say what they want and still take comfort in the thought that they will only continue to get richer no matter what...

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Why Raise Taxes??????????

Let's just start collecting the ones due right now. Why should the wealthy corporatists and bankers pay little to no taxes?

The Senate is looking into it. It'll be interesting to see how far it actually goes.

Senate report says dividend taxes being dodged

By Donna Smith

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. financial institutions are using stock swaps and intricate loan transactions to help foreign investors avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes on dividends paid by U.S. companies, according to a Senate report to be released on Thursday.

The report by the U.S. Senate Homeland Security subcommittee on permanent investigations said investment bankers use phrases like "dividend enhancement," "yield enhancement" and "dividend uplift" to market an array of transactions "whose major purpose is to enable non U.S. persons to dodge payment of U.S. taxes on stock dividends."

Committee Chairman Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who along with Minnesota Republican Sen. Norm Coleman led the year-long investigation into these transactions, said the Internal Revenue Service has not done enough to crack down on abusive swap and loan transactions.

"There is no business purpose other than avoiding taxes," Levin told reporters at a briefing on Wednesday. "The IRS ought to go after that, they ought to go after that heavily, they have not."

The committee estimates that using offshore entities to avoid paying U.S. taxes costs the federal treasury about $100 billion annually. The report did not put a specific amount on tax losses due to stock swaps and loans transactions with offshore entities, but said the amount is "substantial."

[...]

Levin said transactions aimed at avoiding U.S. dividend taxes have become widespread in the offshore hedge fund industry and that some of the funds function as shell companies controlled by Americans.

"It adds insult to injury when so-called 'offshore' hedge funds turn out to have a shell operation offshore and their real headquarters are in the
United States with U.S. personnel advising them on how to dodge U.S. taxes," said Levin.

...........and they're talkin' 'bout thowin' me in Debtor's Prison, and seizing everything I own, including wife, children, and pets, for owing less than $5,000.

Go figure......................

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Now, HERE's an idea I can get behind - getting rid of toy guns

symbolic gesture or not, this makes sense to me... i've never been able to stifle my distaste for toy guns and, yes, you gamers out there, controllers on those violent video and computer games are directly analogous to guns...

Venezuela calls on children to lay down toy weapons in exchange for toys.

The toy exchange program comes at a time when the homicide rate in Venezuela has tripled in less than 10 years.

Deborah Lutterbeck reports.

SOUNDBITE: National Crime Prevention Director Edwin Rojas, saying (Spanish):
"This is an activity intended to give a lesson: we are exchanging toys of a belligerent nature, toys that have a violent connotation, for educational toys or sporting goods. We're fundamentally hoping to facilitate and make parents and their families aware that violence is often generated through the stimulation provoked by violent toys."

"the stimulation provoked by violent toys"... < profmarcus pauses to adjust his tin-foil hat > why do you think violent toys are so prevalent...? hmmmmmmm...?

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Bwahahahahahaha

Talk about cutting off the nose to spite the face............

Reuters has the story......

Iran withdraws $75 billion from Europe: report

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has withdrawn around $75 billion from Europe to prevent the assets from being blocked under threatened new sanctions over Tehran's disputed nuclear ambitions, an Iranian weekly said.

[...]

"Part of Iran's assets in European banks have been converted to gold and shares and another part has been transferred to Asian banks," Mohsen Talaie, deputy foreign minister in charge of economic affairs, was quoted as saying.

Iranian officials were not immediately available to comment on the report in Shahrvand-e Emrouz, a moderate weekly, which did not specify the time period for the withdrawals which it said were ordered by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"About $75 billion of Iran's foreign assets which were under threat of being blocked were wired back to Iran based on Ahmadinejad's order," the weekly said.

[...]

EU diplomats have said the bloc is preparing an asset and funds freeze on Iran's biggest bank, state-owned Bank Melli, but that it first wants to see how Tehran responds to the new offer.

Iran is making windfall gains from record global oil prices and said in April its foreign exchange reserves stood at more than $80 billion.

Iran's foreign reserves figure has been climbing steadily. Some analysts say that, alongside rising oil revenues, Iran has been helped by its decision to shift away from the U.S. dollar into other currencies as the dollar has weakened.

Iran has made the shift as Washington has tried to isolate the Islamic state, including imposing sanctions on Iranian banks. That has pushed many Western banks to scrap dollar dealings with Iran or even end business completely.

Well, at least it'll make the Asians happy.

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Using an anti-personnel tank shell, Israel murders a Reuters cameraman and makes Carter's case

carter, rightly, calls the gaza situation an atrocity...


Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter
delivers a speech at the American
University in Cairo April 17, 2008

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter called the blockade of Gaza a crime and an atrocity on Thursday and said U.S. attempts to undermine the Islamist movement Hamas had been counterproductive.

Speaking at the American University in Cairo after talks with Hamas leaders from Gaza, Carter said Palestinians in Gaza were being "starved to death," receiving fewer calories a day than people in the poorest parts of Africa.

"It's an atrocity what is being perpetrated as punishment on the people in Gaza. it's a crime... I think it is an abomination that this continues to go on," Carter said.

Israel has been blockading Gaza most of the time since Hamas took control of the impoverished coastal strip in June last year, allowing only basic supplies to enter.

ever-helpful, israel manages to strengthen carter's denunciation by killing a reuters cameraman using one of those horrific, flechette-loaded shells that, upon explosion, shreds everything and everybody within a broad diameter...

note - this video clip is NOT for the squeamish...

The editor-in-chief of Reuters demanded that Israel launches a "thorough and immediate investigation" into the killing of one of its cameramen in the Gaza Strip yesterday (David Byers writes).

Footage of Fadel Shana, 23, being killed by a tank shell in the Gaza Strip has been released by the news agency, which said that the cameraman was hit despite clear markings that showed him to be a journalist.

After medical examinations of Shana's body, Reuters said that Israel had used a controversial type of tank shell which scatters metal darts, or flechettes, around the surrounding area after exploding, risking civilian casualties. Israel refused to comment on the report, but stated that the weapons were not illegal.

how can this insanity be allowed to continue...?

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