From Wikipedia: "Plausible deniability is a term coined by the CIA during the Kennedy administration to describe the withholding of information from senior officials in order to protect them from repercussions in the event that illegal or unpopular activities by the CIA became public knowledge."
Now, as it applies to Obama, also from Wikipedia: "The term most often refers to the denial of blame in (formal or informal) chains of command, where senior figures assign responsibility to the lower ranks, and records of instructions given do not exist or are inaccessible, meaning independent confirmation of responsibility for the action is nearly impossible. In the case that illegal or otherwise disreputable and unpopular activities become public, high-ranking officials may deny any awareness of such act or any connection to the agents used to carry out such acts. The lack of evidence to the contrary ostensibly makes the denial plausible, that is, credible. The term typically implies forethought, such as intentionally setting up the conditions to plausibly avoid responsibility for one's (future) actions or knowledge." LINK
I work everyday with some very bright people. Many of them have a higher IQ than me and most of them are more "book smart." But sometimes it seems like I'm the only person out there who truly understands and sees just how thoroughly and irreparably corrupt this whole system is.
The people running this country in DC and NYC have made a complete mockery of freedom, free markets, Rule of Law and justice. There is no such thing as those principles as they apply to the United States. None. Gone. For anyone to have even a sliver of hope that I'm wrong is just sheer stupidity. There is no hope for this country. Period. It's in 5,000 years of history. It's not my idea or original view. It's just a fact.
All you have to do is think about how you would operate if you were in their shoes and you could basically do whatever you wanted without fear of being arrested or prosecuted. That's it. I would do exactly what they are doing.
I can understand why people who have kids need to have some denial/hope, but it's just that. Nothing more. They are going to let Obama skate away from these scandals using the good old "plausible deniability." "They" refers to Congress and the public. And then he'll have to endure a week or two of intense criticism for being "too detached." And then it will be back to corruption as usual.
And I'm not just bashing Obama. There are plenty of instances during W's term and during Bubba's term that the same concept applies. It's not about Democrats vs. Republicans. There's really not much difference between the two parties in terms of the degree of corruption allowed, enabled and committed. It is "US" vs. "THEM" - with "THEM" being the people running DC and Wall Street. But then again, I guess it depends upon what the meaning of the word "is," is.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
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I think one of the characteristics of being paranoid is that you're the only one that can see the big picture. In this case you're not paranoid cause I see it too.
ReplyDeleteI'm not paranoid. I'm just amazed at how many people I know don't care or don't care to look
DeleteYou would not do exactly what they are doing! Come on Dave! You wouldn't be able to sleep at night!
ReplyDeleteDean, I would never be in that position because I'm not the kind of empty, no values/morals/ethics, selfish, egotistic, hubristic type of person that has the ability to assume that kind of position.
DeleteThey also have to be willing to perform oral sex on the people who put them into power. I guarantee you every single President after Teddy Roosevelt has callouses on his knees. Obama for sure does.
Dave, I think you need a good laugh.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-21/tuesday-humor-story-so-far
Unfortuately, when you point this out to others, you're criticized and condemned for being too negative and not having a positive attitude. Before the 2008 crash, I warned people and they just shrug it off. When it happen, their thinking patterns were still pre-2007 because the crisis didn't affect them directly. Eventually, you just quit because you're just wasting your breath. Thw next crash will be the same: a few saw it coming while millions get clobbered except it'll be worse.
ReplyDeleteHires-to-openings ratio looking uglier & uglier http://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm … Looks like rising structural unemployment
http://economistsview.typepad.com/timduy/2013/05/rising-structural-unemployment.html
Geez MJ, don't be such a negative Nellie - LOL Thanks for the link
DeleteNot only that, but you're a jerk for buying gold. You should be buying the stock of productive American companies engaged in serious industry. Like the business of distributing carbonated/caffeinated high fructose corn syrup to millions of lard asses across this sprawling petro-carnival. Oh yeah, how are they gonna pull off this "taper" crap? Is it some sort of magic act like yanking on the tablecloth without trashing the china? I can't get my mind around it.
ReplyDeleteLOL
DeletePBS Killed Wisconsin Uprising Documentary "Citizen Koch" To Appease Koch Brothers
ReplyDelete"Citizen Koch," a documentary about money in politics focused on the Wisconsin uprising, was shunned by PBS for fear of offending billionaire industrialist David Koch, who has given $23 million to public television, according to Jane Mayer of the New Yorker. The dispute highlights the increasing role of private money in "public" television and raises even further concerns about the Kochs potentially purchasing eight major daily newspapers.
The film from Academy Award-nominated filmmakers Carl Deal and Tia Lessin documents how the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision helped pave the way for secret political spending by players like the Kochs, who contributed directly and indirectly to the election of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker in 2010 and came to his aid again when the battle broke out over his effort to limit collective bargaining.
Originally slated to appear on PBS stations nationwide as part of the "Independent Lens" series, "Citizen Koch" had its funding pulled after David Koch was offended by another PBS documentary critical of the billionaire industrialists.
"People like the Kochs have worked for decades to undermine public funding for institutions like PBS," Deal told the Center for Media and Democracy. "When public dollars dry up, private dollars come in to make up for the shortfall."
And that private funding can conflict with PBS' "public" mission and its editorial integrity. The PBS distributor "backed out of the partnership because they came to fear the reaction our film would provoke," Deal and Lessin said in a statement. "David Koch, whose political activities are featured in the film, happens to be a public-television funder and a trustee of both [New York PBS member station] WNET and [Boston member station] WGBH. This wasn’t a failed negotiation or a divergence of visions; it was censorship, pure and simple.”
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/05/12118/pbs-killed-wisconsin-uprising-documentary-citizen-koch-appease-koch-brothers
Dave, if this helps, I agree with the way you feel. The reason people refuse to see the reality that is very clear to us is that they choose to live in the Matrix (like in the movie). It is easier to just go along with the system (until it collapses) and have some measure of satisfaction or happiness than to challenge a system that you are powerless to change. Unless we have enlightened leadership as we approach the crisis period we are condemned to go through crises before we can effect change.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you and I could be that leadership, but unfortunately everytime we "leap once more into the breach", when we turn around there is no one behind us.
If you look at the world from a pure energy perspective, (everything is energy) then you can see that these people are not only living in a government Matrix, but also a physical reality Matrix. Quantum physics, universal energy may be our way out of this predicament and illusion.
Another insightful article, Dave. I had a good response but unfortunately I couldn't prove that I wasn't a robot and it was erased.
ReplyDeleteSouth Florida Water Management District agreed to $26 million Mecca land buy before learning of $15 million appraisal
ReplyDeleteThe district’s land purchasing practices have drawn complaints of cronyism and criticized by its inspector general for years. As the agency responsible for restoring the Everglades, the district purchased $1 billion in land over the last two decades.
A Post investigation in 2012 revealed deals in which the district paid millions of dollars above the appraised value for one property owned by a close friend of a top administrator and another owned by the family of Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, who was a congressman at the time.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection implemented guidelines in July recommending that the state’s five water management districts not pay more than 90 percent of the appraised value for land. Barnett did not inform the district board about the recommendation. The district’s offer is 100 percent of the county’s higher appraisal and 124 percent of the $21 million appraised value determined by its own independent appraiser.
At the May 7 board meeting, Daniel O’Keefe, the new chairman of the district board, voted against the $26 million offer, saying he wanted more information.
“We’re stewards of the taxpayers’ dollars and we’re responsible for that,” O’Keefe said. “In my opinion, we can’t spend more than the appraised value for the property.”
But board member Glenn Waldman, a Broward County attorney, recommended making the $26 million offer: “I would go back to the county and say, we’ll accept your appraisal and not a penny more.”
The nine governing board members either declined to be interviewed or did not respond to request for interviews. After learning of the undisclosed appraisal, O’Keefe referred all questions to the district’s spokesman, Randy Smith. In responding to a written request for comment from Melissa Meeker, the district’s executive director, Smith replied that Barnett’s comments represent the district’s comments.
http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/water-district-board-agrees-to-26m-land-buy-before/nXt94/?
if this is what they do in the sticks, imagine what they do in the big cities.............
After big donations to Gov. Scott, insurance company may reap $52M
ReplyDeleteTALLAHASSEE — Two months after contributing $110,000 to Gov. Rick Scott's re-election campaign, an upstart property insurance company is likely to reap a $52 million windfall, paid from the coffers of Citizens Property Insurance Corp.
Sitting on a record cash surplus of $6.4 billion, Citizens is hoping to sign a special deal today with Heritage Property and Casualty Insurance Co., a St. Petersburg firm that opened nine months ago and has made significant political contributions.
Heritage has donated more than $140,000 to Scott and the Republican Party of Florida in recent months, and spent tens of thousands more lobbying the Legislature. Now it's in line to get special treatment from Florida's state-run insurance firm in the form of an unusual and lucrative "reinsurance quota share" agreement.
If the Citizens board of governors approves today, the state-run insurer will pay Heritage up to $52 million to take over 60,000 policies, about $866 a piece.
Proponents say the push to shrink Citizens will pay off when the next hurricane hits, saving consumers from having to bail out the state-run insurer. Critics see the campaign cash and lobbying by Heritage as evidence that Citizens and Scott are tapping the insurer's $6.4 billion surplus for special giveaways to politically connected companies.
"Citizens' board continues to fall prey to Tallahassee lobbyists who cook up these get rich funding schemes," said Rep. Frank Artiles, R-Miami.
It's the second time this year Citizens is looking to subsidize an upstart private insurer using its massive surplus, which has been built up over seven years as the state has dodged hurricanes. In February, Citizens' board approved a deal with Weston Insurance, agreeing to pay the young company $63 million to take out 30,000 policies. Weston has spent more than $250,000 on lobbying this year, and two of Citizens' seven board members abstained from voting because of conflicts of interest.
In both deals, the payments are structured as backdated "reinsurance" agreements, where Citizens essentially pays the company to cover Citizens' losses on certain policies over a specified period of time. Since the period of time is in the past, the company can actively select policies that had no losses, in effect making the deal virtually risk-free.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/banking/sweet-deal-for-state-taxpayers-or-startup-st-pete-insurance-company/2122303
How do you spell "pay day"?
Why Are Homeowners Being Jailed for Demanding Wall Street Prosecutions?
ReplyDeleteBankers go free while cops tase peaceful protesters and the Department of Justice targets journalists
A two-day long housing protest outside the Department of Justice this week has resulted in nearly 30 arrests and several instances of law enforcement unnecessarily using tasers on activists, according to eye-witnesses. The action – which was organized by a coalition of housing advocacy groups, including the Home Defenders League and Occupy Our Homes – called for Attorney General Eric Holder to begin prosecutions against the bankers who created the foreclosure crisis.
"Everyone here is fed up with Holder acknowledging big banks did really bad stuff but [saying] they're too big to jail," says Greg Basta, deputy director of New York Communities for Change, who helped organize the event. Holder has previously suggested that prosecuting large banks would be difficult because it could destabilize the economy. The attorney general recently tried to walk those comments back – but the conspicuous lack of criminal prosecutions of bankers tells another story, one that Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi has written about extensively.
Alexis Goldstein, a former Wall Street employee and current Occupy Wall Street activist who was also at the event on Monday, agrees. "I want Eric Holder to uphold the rule of law, regardless of how much power the criminal has," says Goldstein. She says the lack of criminal prosecutions has created a "culture of immunity" that only gets further entrenched by the small settlements that banks now consider a cost of doing business. "There's no risk," she says, adding that the DOJ is effectively "incentivizing breaking the law."
Activists note with dismay that the government has been significantly harder on people who stage nonviolent demonstrations against Wall Street than it has on the crooked bankers responsible for the housing crisis. Goldstein and Basta both say they witnessed law enforcement using tasers on multiple protesters this week.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-are-homeowners-being-jailed-for-demanding-wall-street-prosecutions-20130522#ixzz2U3ecy5qb
Park Avenue: money, power and the American dream - Why Poverty?
ReplyDeleteHow much inequality is too much?
740 Park Ave, New York City, is home to some of the wealthiest Americans. Across the Harlem River, 10 minutes to the north, is the other Park Avenue in South Bronx, where more than half the population needs food stamps and children are 20 times more likely to be killed. In the last 30 years, inequality has rocketed in the US -- the American Dream only applies to those with money to lobby politicians for friendly bills on Capitol Hill.
http://youtu.be/6niWzomA_So