Thursday, September 25, 2014

The Breitwald Convergence Continues




From the Andrew Breitbart Memorial Temple of Intemperance:
GLENN GREENWALD: 'PEACE PRIZE PRESIDENT' HAS BOMBED SEVEN MUSLIM COUNTRIES

Liberal columnist Glenn Greenwald and Matt Drudge agree on one thing this week: Both noted that Syria has become the 7th Muslim country that the "Peace Prize president" bombed...
You can click on the link if you want, but I wouldn't go into the comment section without a HazMat Suit and a full battery of shots for everything from distemper to whatever that sentient snot from Prometheus is called.  However even the conspiracy mongers at the Breitbart reliquary have not yet disappeared so far up Alex Jones' ass that they would seriously suggest that The Kenyan Usurper is scattering munitions willy-nilly over Muslim counties for the expressed purpose of creating more terrorists.

But Glenn sure did:
At this point, it’s more rational to say they do all of this not despite triggering those outcomes, but because of it. Continuously creating and strengthening enemies is a feature, not a bug. It is what justifies the ongoing greasing of the profitable and power-vesting machine of Endless War.
Elsewhere and unrelated,  Brother Charles Pierce has this nuanced take on the resignation of  Eric Holder and his mixed record as AG:
I wish Holder had gone after the criminals on Wall Street, too, that being an actual scandal and all. But the socialist Alinskyite president whom Holder served didn't want to do that, and therefore, that horse is long out of the barn and happily in its dotage by now. But he stepped up boldly when the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, and he refused to resign when the Darrell Issa's of the underworld demanded his head. In this sense, Holder clearly aspired to the late Mr. Behan's view of critics in general: "Fk the begrudgers." There's something to be said for that.
One of Eric Holders great and enduring contributions to American political discourse is how effective his unremitting blackness was at driving Conservatives absolutely berserk.  Drove them to very openly use their Outside Voice in front of teevee cameras when they really shoulda oughta been using their Inside Voice in some dank corner of a neoconfederate dive bar.



Not that it made the slightest difference, of course: our courtier press' unparalleled ability to pretend such Conservatives simply do not exist makes making them the story all but impossible. But it was great fun watching the Raving Bigot Party turn itself positively umber and twist itself  like a sack of epileptic pythons trying not to scream "N*GGER!" at the tops of their collective lungs whenever the subject turned to Holder.

Or Obama.

Holder also leaves with decent, extensive civil rights record, which one would think might cut some ice with a former civil rights attorney, like, say, Glenn Greenwald.

But of course for Glenn, nothing exists outside of his own pet issues:


In addition to reporting on the important and consequential issue of domestic surveillance and NSA overreach, Glenn routinely lapses into the worst kind of conspiracy mongering and venomous, fact-free bombast.

And with one or two notable exceptions, our Liberal media ignores Glenn's outbursts of reckless assholery just as consistently and universally as our courtier press ignores the lunacy of our Conservative citizens.

Which is interesting.  

25 comments:

Compound F said...

Oh, that "Wall Street" thang?

What wuz that, anyway?

Also, Holder is Black? pshaw.

Compound F said...

Moreover...

And with one or two notable exceptions, our Liberal media ignores Glenn's outbursts of reckless assholery just as consistently and universally as our courtier press ignores the lunacy of our Conservative citizens.

...both sides doo-doo it! Suggesting that you are, in fact, David Brooks. Cue spooky theremin...

meanwhile, back in Syriraq...boom, pow, kabaam.

Horace Boothroyd III said...

The driving purpose of the Obama foreign policy is to drum up business for his masters in the Military-Industrial Complex, against which we were warned by the Last Good Republican (except for Richard Nixon, who was more liberal than Obama) General Eisenhower: the credulous simpletons of the Daily Kos have been pounding that line for some time, so it kind of makes sense that Greenwald might reward their endless toadying by picking up the ball and moving it forward a bit.

The CredSimps also enjoy a good "Holder was never a liberal anyway" bedtime story - in fact they are dancing with glee over his announced retirement even as we speak - and it's no surprise to see Pernicious G grab a piece of that action as well. The name of Deval Patrick has been raised as replace, but I think the good governor is too smart to rise to the bait: he knows how fast the alleged "progressives" will turn on him after he makes his first hard decision, and how they would try to devour him like a bag of rabid weasels.

Robt said...

Two notes of thought provoked from your post,

1-
The President's decision on limited military action(s). Considering the odds for mission creep.
The decision is a "left over diarrhea sandwich. At this point, I tend to agree ---so far.
Congress can gain world support for this if they just debate and vote. If that vote was affirmed that is.
I have not heard of a superior plan of action , YET!

2-
Holder's provisional resignation. Staying on until successor is confirm, Brilliant!
Some of Holder's interveiws over the , "too big to fail " and "too big to jail" was so very alarming, pointed and compelling. Direction for Congress was called to arms.
The huge question that needs to be answered,
Does jailing and letting enormous to huge to fail entities that would definitely crush the U.S. economy. has to be equivocated and addressed in law. Perhaps by breaking these enormous gargantuan Godzilla's little by little until they aren't to big too fail where they would crush the American economy may not be a instant resolve but it is a long term end.

Kathleen said...

"Something to be said for that". Gee, thanks, Pierce. As distasteful as it is, did you ever consider that maybe, however unfortunately, the banksters may have not broken any laws? Or maybe the administration decided to devote its energies to saving nation from total economic meltdown and for whatever reason determined frog marches may have done more harm than good?

Also, too, Chuckles Todd was interviewed at Breitbart.com, which Charles Johnson pointed out links frequently to white supremacist sites. So there's that.

Lit3Bolt said...

Shaw beat you to it:

"I learned to never wrestle with a pig. You just get dirty and the pig likes it."

GG is immune to discourse and reason, and all of his blogging is agenda driven. You could talk about the weather with Glenn and that would prove you're a jack-booted Greater American-Israeli Imperialist who giggles at the thought of dead Muslim children.

Any reference to the GG puke funnel invariably helps GG. He's now a master of the clickbait headline, breathlessly reporting on the broken record of US foreign policy as if he's discovered lost chapters of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

That entire book about the dangers of a Manichean world-view? That was defensive projection by GG.

Most interesting, however, is that GWB was merely a "tragic figure" that GG appeared to have some sympathy for, failing to rise to the occasion of the tumultuous events of his time.

Obama, however, is Neutral Evil and just promotes Evil for Evil's sake because that is what Evil Presidents do. GG clearly had high expectations for Obama, but *cough* isn't dealing with the disappointing reality as well as others. That the security state could be too well-entrenched for a President to remove without the aid of the Courts or Congress never seems to cross his mind. Obama refused to do everything GG expected him to do; ergo, he is Evil.

With a mind-set like THAT, is it any wonder that nobody wants to even whisper GG's name? He's annoying asshole kid from high school who enjoys it when he gets smacked around, because he thinks that makes him cooler.

Kathleen said...

@Robt

The "too big to fail" is indeed a frightening concept. But I can understand the administration's reluctance to put energy into prosecution at that point in time. Again, I think we have to remember how bad the economic situation was. . My concern is that had prosecution been pursued, the fallout would have caused more harm than good and I'm not sure how much of what went on was actually "illegal", as ethically and morally abhorrent as it was. As for appointing Wall Street insiders, I think there's a case to be made for "keeping your enemy close" and having people that understood Wall Street's machinations. I think the administration began to take small bite solutions to address some kind of reform - the Consumer Protection Bureau, the wringing of payments from Wall Street. Not perfect, not root cause addressing of the real issues, but those issues can't be addressed without Congress, and we all know how that has been working out. Just my thoughts. Bottom line, I think PBO and Holder did the best they could with what they had at the time, again, the focus being stopping the bleeding.

Anonymous said...

I always thought that Obama came into office with the single goal of keeping the train on the tracks, and everything he's done has been with an eye to that. Executive acts like prosecuting the moneylenders of the Empire or stopping the Bottomless Cup of War on Terror would take the train off the tracks and right into a bus full of pregnant cheerleader nuns. You think the country went nuts when the president said killing a teenager was bad? Let him give a speech proposing stopping the bombing campaign in the Middle East, and pass the popcorn and Everclear.

Pinkamena said...

@Kathleen, I've been saying "Under which law?" to the people excoriating the O Administration for not prosecuting the Banksters". Never got a real answer yet, but at least one response of "He should've just arrested them, we'd find something to charge them with."

And people wonder why I keep saying they're blind to their own fascist tendencies.

Robt said...

Re Kathleen,
That is what DG's post provoked in thought for me about Holder and his announced resignation.
I watched Holder's addresses with Congress. Hearings on to big to fail. Sen Warren and Holder had some very important exchanges that proved fruitful.
The actual official discussion that Holder brought to bear was indeed the "Too big to fail" and if he used the laws to bear at the Gov't discretion of law breaking. For the sake of the U.S. economy, that for now targeted legal strike to try to make the banks adhere is more conducive at present than breaking up completely and crashing the economy of the entire country.
These were some of Holder's very stong addressings of legal corrections for the U.S in the future.
He made significant ground and established direction and placed the Godzilla banks on warning that it is coming.
One of Holder's best in my book.
This is why part of the outcome strategy was to incrementally reduce the size and power of these too big to fail. A gradual approach might not send us into a Great-er depression.
To end,
This is one of Holder's actions that I hold up as one of his strong because it initiated a formidable direction change.
And your absolutely right about Congress is actually the place that should address this formally with absolute resolve.

Anonymous said...

@Robt said :
"This is why part of the outcome strategy was to incrementally reduce the size and power of these too big to fail."

Ha ha ha ha ha!
Where is the evidence for this? They are bigger and bolder and not chastened in the least.
You can argue that Holder was good for voter rights, civil rights (perhaps) and prison/sentencing issues but to argue that this shill did anything to antagonize, restrict, or investigate with the intent to jail and not merely fine the banks/financial sector is pure fantasy. How else do you think Holder is supposed land softly into that promised pile of money? At the NAACP? I suspect that Lanny Breuer is getting Holder's office ready for him at this very moment. Oh reality why do you have to be so real? Clearly GG is the greater evil. At least that's what pinkamoron and drifty keep telling me anyway.

Kathleen said...

@Anon 11:00am @Robt and @Pinkemena

Thank you for filling in gaps in my knowledge here. I am so happy to see that you agree with me that the economy would have probably crashed had PBO/Holder pursued wholesale transformation of the existing banking/finance complex (which is also inextricably linked to CIA and the whole military/security complex). I think PBO was thinking about jobs, 401k's, affect on businesses if Americans went broke, etc.
Anonymous 2:03PM - I think GG is evil, period. I can't speak for Robt, Pinkemena or Driftglass in that regard.

Anonymous said...

@Kathleen Nice try. Sadly I don't have enough time nor the energy to educate you or disabuse you of your binary understanding of the 2008 crash. Suffice it to say averting immediate disaster does not preclude a larger crash that will come due to the pathetic attempt(s) to curb unhealthy economic forces that are still festering. And if you only need two examples of this fecklessness just repeat after me: Geithner and Daley. PBO/Holder may have done alot of good in many areas but curbing military excesses (PBO) and financial malfeasance and criminality (PBO/Holder) is certainly not anything to brag about. Good luck with your unicorn.

gratuitous said...

Speaking of pet issues . . .

Nah, it's too easy.

I'll just pull a quote I read yesterday that I'm still pondering:

"You've completed a 20-year cycle of escalating missile attacks, kidnappings, interventions, and turning your country into a giant prison. The result, they tell you, is that now the threat is even greater than before. And the solution? Let's do all the same things that worked so well the first time."

Some things are indeed too big to fail, and it would really, truly upset the apple cart to expect those things to abide by the rules.

Pinkamena said...

"I don't have time to educate you" is trollese for "I know I'm wrong".

@Kathleen, I think Saint Glenneth of Rio is "evil" in the D&D sense - self-centered to the point that it corrupts his actions. Beyond that he's on the side of the angels, as they say.

Anonymous said...


Oh pinky, it's obvious this economic talk is way above your pay grade. Perhaps you should take a gander at Covington & Burling

"Lanny A. Breuer is the firm’s Vice Chairman and one of the leading trial and white collar defense attorneys in the United States.He specializes in helping clients navigate corporate crises, anti-corruption matters, money laundering investigations, cybercrime incidents, Congressional investigations, securities enforcement actions, and other criminal and civil matters presenting complex regulatory, political, and public relations risks."

Oh to be an HSBC banker. It's pure gold I tells ya!

Pinkamena said...

So now it just spams random quotes to try and bolster its trolling? Ignored.

Anonymous said...

You're so cute pinky. Stupid but cute.

Robt said...

"your so cute pinky"?
Going to call someone a "Lib-tard", next?

I imagine your Vice chairman Larry Breuer was there for for Bank America and Goldman Sachs when they had to pay out Billions?
Ouch !!
He didn't get the call? He didn't come to the rescue?
Anyways,
Would you happen to have his phone number?
You see I have this pesky SEC problems and since you mentioned your close friend Bruer, name dropping and all. Perhaps I can use you as a reference in soliciting his service? What do you say, be a pal?

Horace Boothroyd III said...

Well, you know, with all the anger that people feel against the bankers - regardless of whether any specific laws may have been broken and all the guns running free in this country it is only a matter of time before somebody (or some bodies) snaps and starts a random walk down Wall Street while shooting people. They will only be workers bees, but when enough of them get topped the crazy will percolate upwards and soon enough bankers will start falling from their helicopters over Brooklyn Heights. Cold comfort, one would think, that they are technically innocent of any particular crime. Numerous revolutions have begun this way, if anyone cares to run the background, and it certainly wipes the smug off the faces of the undeserving.

Would this be Fascism? Well, no, not if it were spontaneous action by an outraged citizenry rather than a lawless government.

Robt said...

Re
Anonymous said...
@Robt said :
"This is why part of the outcome strategy was to incrementally reduce the size and power of these too big to fail."

Ha ha ha ha ha!
Where is the evidence for this?

Evidence? Evidence? Of what?

I simply stated that Holder in Congressional hearings, and other functions, which I cited some on the CSPAN. One in particular with Sen Warren as example.
Their discussion was what are the options for out of control very large finance.
Breaking them up ( as with the Bells) is the obvious. But their was cause and effect of that action to our national economy.
Out of all the official debate, Holder himself stated that for him as the AG to use Rico Act, or any other already existing powers could be done.
But again and again, it came to the cause and effect. That An AG's action in this matter could do huge economic harm if undertaken in force. That something this big can and does lay with Congress.
They could incrementally down=size them through legislation and slowly.
This is fundamentally what I was saying. That Holder held a very important role in moving this debate that action can be taken.
Not that the Justice Dept is to go Hans Solo on the American finance sector and bring down the house.
This is why part of the outcome strategy was to incrementally reduce the size and power of these too big to fail.
----Yet, I have a feeling this somehow IS NOT what you read. Did you want to read something that wasn't there? For the sake of arguing that you do not like Holder?-----
Because you can dislike Holder for what ever might be itching you cerebellum.
Look, I say this because I know, I watched it, I followed it. It is out there for your purview if you desire?

To be clear for you and your Superior intellect that no one else on this planet possesses.
Holder worked for a law firm in his early days that represented Chiquita

Chiquita Banana and a couple of others for their hiring of murderous groups in South America that were responsible for many deaths.
So Holder is not a pure Saint. Neither am I. That doesn't prevent me from pursuing what is best today. It doesn't prevent Holder from making good legal decisions as AG either.
Can I find things I disagree with Holder over. You bet.
I will tell you this ,
Eric Holder has been extremely better at the AG job for America by far greater than Bush's Alberto Gonzales could ever accomplish if he spent his entire life as AG.
After Alberto, Holder shined.

Anonymous said...

It is painfully obvious that you morons have no idea what Covington and Burling is our who they represent. Please educate yourselves, and quickly. Laws were clearly broken (e.g. drug money laundering at HSBC) but the DOJ refused to prosecute out of fear (cause and effect, yeah right) and because it would endanger their follow-up careers once they left government. Btw, the fines levied as punishment are a joke. The perpetrators don't pay them and the company just makes them a business expense because breaking the law is lucrative enough to offset those fines-even the record breaking ones. Plus they are always structured so that they offer tax relief to the offending company once again burdening the tax payer further. Lib-tard is a weak insult to use, especially since I'm closer to a progressive socialist than anything else, but in this case if the garment fits....also who the fuck cares what holder did when he was a private attorney at Chiquita. It's what he didn't do while he was AG that's criminal. If there is no one guarding the hen house what do you think the foxes will do? And finally, being the skinniest kid (Holder) at fat camp (Alberto) is quite the accomplishment, no? This is your metric? Sad.

Horace Boothroyd III said...

As an old school anarcho-syndicalist I am sick and tired of smug little bastards running around acting like middle school boys who just figured out how to masturbate. Certainly we could go the Al Capone route and prosecute all the bankers for public jaywalking, but as banking is not in and of itself a criminal conspiracy the simple act of smacking a few rogue operators (for very real crimes that really should be prosecuted, I very much agree with Anon there) will do exactly nothing to address the root problem that capital allocation in this country is being decided as the side effect on the operations of a crooked gambling house. Holder could hoist the Green Lantern as high as he liked, but he has little power to save the world. Yet, like his dark hued master, he WON'T. EVEN. TRY.

Kathleen said...

@Anon 7:32am This reminds me of a T shirt several women from one of these uber boot camps were wearing at the start line of a marathon that read: "Your workout is my warm up!".

I am duly chastised.

Robt said...

Re anonymous,
The differences between Holder and Gonzo are extremely relevent,
Is there a difference between SCOTUS Scalia and Ginsberg?

I get it that your pesimistic of crime and punishment. This isn't the TV series Law and Order.
You have been trying to argue with me that nothing ever gets done. You seem to elevate your self esteem by telling everyone that only yOU know ALL!
O haven't seen any nominations for the AG position but I am willing to believe your name is not on the list.
Why is that?
You are still reading right past my words
How about some etiquette.......?
Do you think crimes were commuted in the finance industry?---Do you think I recognize there where crimes in the finance industry ?
Do you comprehend that I advance the notion that accountability should occur and justice should prevail?
If you answer yes to these,
Then explain Why you name calling and telling me how much smarter you are to everyone else.

I mean, if you are so knowing and smart, why has your superior intellect forsaken you to be submitted to the same level of grief that I am at my un-superior level?

--Do you think that big finance in this country if prosecuted in the manner in which you say, will not have devastating negative effects on America's economy. World economy?
You imply that your completely fine with another great depression ?
You do not think that there are stategic long term actions that can address this that would not cause critical mass economically.
Final question;
Are youallowing pent up hate to cloud your judgement in this matter?