“Competitiveness” Is Peace

By: emptywheel Saturday January 22, 2011 8:10 am

I spent much of the day yesterday pointing out how stupid it was for Obama to put outsourcer, China nut, and TBTF bankster Jeff Immelt in charge of his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Meanwhile, Paul Krugman and Robert Reich have been focusing on Obama’s frame for the problem as “competitiveness.” In his piece, Krugman [...]

Jeff Immelt’s GE: The Too Biggest To Fail

By: emptywheel Friday January 21, 2011 12:50 pm

In my first post on how stupid it was for Obama to pick Jeff Immelt for his election season commission to appear focused on jobs, I looked mostly at how much GE has been outsourcing manufacturing and technology. Though I mentioned GE’s status as another TBTF finance company, I didn’t explain that in depth. Mike [...]

Sanders: I hope Immelt changes his mind, focuses on rebuilding manufacturing in the US

By: emptywheel Friday January 21, 2011 11:10 am

As I noted earlier, President Obama just named Jeff “Nut on China” Immelt  to head his election season effort to appear serious about jobs in the US. I asked for a statement from Senator Bernie Sanders–who has been critical of the way Immelt and GE received welfare in the Fed bailout–about what he thought of [...]

Cheney/Obama Justice: 3 Detainees + 1 Jailed Whistleblower = 19,000 Rich Tax Cheats

By: emptywheel Friday January 21, 2011 8:44 am

As a July 1, 2009 Wikileak cable released by Norway’s Aftenposten makes clear, the US and Switzerland included the acceptance of three Gitmo detainees and a settlement in a suit accusing UBS of harboring tax cheats–along with an effort to shut down a Swedish company’s business with Iran–in negotiations “resolving all issues between our countries.” [...]

Gulet Mohamed’s Interrogation without Counsel: Is this the New Miranda Policy?

By: emptywheel Friday January 21, 2011 6:03 am

Gulet Mohamed, the teen held in Kuwait, allegedly beaten, and interrogated by the FBI while in custody, is finally back in the United States. But before he reunited with his family, he was subjected to one more interrogation without his lawyer. FBI agents have detained and are interrogating Gulet Mohamed, an American teen who was [...]

Obama’s Kabuki Jobs Council, Brought to You By “Nut on China” Jeff Immelt

By: emptywheel Friday January 21, 2011 5:18 am

When Google announced that Eric Schmidt was stepping down yesterday, I joked that Schmidt must be leaving to lead Obama’s campaign economy — the one he’ll use to get re-elected with. After all, Schmidt is one of the Obama’s closest CEO buddies, and he’s leaving at the same time as Jim Messina and Patrick Gaspard [...]

Report Concludes Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Personally Killed WSJ Reporter Danny Pearl

By: emptywheel Thursday January 20, 2011 7:01 am

A long-term report on the murder of Danny Pearl has just been released. The WaPo describes the report this way. A recently completed investigation of the killing of Daniel Pearl in Pakistan nine years ago makes public new evidence that a senior al-Qaeda operative executed the Wall Street Journal reporter. Khalid Sheik Mohammed — the [...]

Some Terrorism Scares Are More Useful Than Other Terrorism Scares

By: emptywheel Thursday January 20, 2011 6:53 am

Particularly at those increasingly frequent times when our country experiences political violence and terrorism, it’s important to read David Neiwert, not least because his running list of domestic terror attacks demonstrates clearly that these are not isolated incidences. – July 2008: A gunman named Jim David Adkisson, agitated at how “liberals” are “destroying America,” walks [...]

UAW: A Seat at the Table

By: emptywheel Wednesday January 19, 2011 2:37 pm

There’s always a lot of tut-tutting when the White House releases the list of people who attend a state dinner. While a lot of that, for the dinner honoring Hu Jintao tonight, has to do with which members of Congress have blown off invites (John Boehner, Harry Reid, and Mitch McConnell, though McConnell’s wife Elaine [...]

“Foreclosure,” “Housing,” and “HAMP” Not Part of Epic on Obama’s Recovery Plan

By: emptywheel Wednesday January 19, 2011 7:54 am

Peter Baker has an almost 6500-word article describing Obama’s efforts to fix the economy. Obama’s frustration could set the tone for the remainder of his term. For all the trials of war and terrorism, the economy has come to define his presidency. During the first half of his term, he used the tools of government [...]

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