“There’s not much, though, where he can bury Cheneyco and not take down others with them, so IMO, he won’t.”

Thanks for your response. I thought you might make those points (especially the last one above). Which makes me think there is potential that Comey really does have “something” on team B but they put him in a position to be a better witness for team B through the NYT’s leak.

Yes, it’s all about forms of chemical energy. And atomic energy.

It’s about energy, but also about finance; it never could have occurred without eCommerce and offshoring and money laundering. (And completely corrupt system of election financing helped enormously.)

When you have dark money, predatory relationships, and thugs in expensive suits, you have growing financial inequalities, social destabilization, you incentivize thugs at the expense of thoughtful, competent people, and then violence reigns.

Personally, the only way that I see to restore some balance is through better (international) law enforcement and some kind of Peace Corps 6.0 concept: languages, better aid for really solid education, health care, and the kind of unsexy drudgery involved in digging wells. And better alternative energy programs, locally based. Sunlight doesn’t cost a dime, a euro, a yuan, a ruble, a peso, or a yen.

I think there might be some wiggle room yet with the trade stuff, don’t know that the Bushies got it all wrapped up before they left for the shadows. But left-behinds could make traction while we floundered around looking for answers. Ultimately we will find that nearly every one of these problems we’ve been wrestling with, from Enron’s frauds to the Plame affair to the Abramoff corruptions to the matter of torture, they have all revolved around the same core issue: energy.

The French used to say, Cherchez la femme. Not any more; now it’s Cherchez de l’énergie.

I mean, really, at some point those opinions may have to stand before a judge and someone from DoJ will have to argue the case. In fact, that is what I think Holder is doing with Al-H. He is going to let the case run out on the arguments made in the memos. And its going to be a major slap down. First nut to crack is going to be the exec’s claim that they can withhold from judiciary. I guess the precedent would be that denial of clearances for OPR.

Really now OT, but there’s more to that whole mess.

Ick!
You mean, on top of $80,000,000 paid by Native Tribes for lobbying, on top of using tax shelters and offshore banking to subsidize West Bank terrorism, on top of employing former legislative aids as shake down artists ‘lobbyists’, on top of privatizing the US energy resources, and also ‘privatizing’ (or, at the very least, creating involvements in Russia that could lead to McCainian stupidity like, “We’re all Georgians now”… on top of all that, I’ve not even scratched the surface?!

If these people aren’t sociopaths, then I don’t have a clue what that word means.

there was also one in the AG office that woudl presumably not be accessible to Comey

And, to tout my credentials, I actually did work as proofreader for about five years, even had a union card!

Meanwhile, great, great coverage. The CYA only points to the incredible cynicism of those in power.

I’ve been thinking about the entire torture embroglio, and I can only see it as a tremendous failure of the entire “establishment” (as we used to call it). On one hand, there’s the sadistic, depraved clique around Cheney/Bush, certain spook/Special Ops types, etc.; on the other, milquetoast, even if sometimes brilliant, bureaucrats, whose idea of heroism is sending an email, etc. — This widespread failure is why we have such a lukewarm, at best, response by the political and media elites to any real investigations. It would indict too many.

And btw, Al McCoy has a new article out on current developments, see Confronting the CIA’s Mind Maze: America’s Political Paralysis Over Torture

But more on that when we’ve made a dent in torture…