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Hissyspit's JournalTPM: Paul Ryan Insider Trading Rumor Quickly Debunked
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/paul-ryan-insider-trading-rumor-quickly-debunked.phpTPM2012
Paul Ryan Insider Trading Rumor Quickly Debunked
Benjy Sarlin
August 13, 2012, 4:35 PM
It had the makings of a scandal: Paul Ryan traded banking stocks during the financial crisis the same day as a meeting with top Treasury Department officials, a Virginia blog wrote Monday. But the rumor, which spread rapidly across the Internet, doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
The meeting in question took place on Sept. 18, 2008, between Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and congressional leaders including Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner and Harry Reid. The Richmonder, a progressive Virginia blog, noted on Monday that Ryan’s financial disclosure form from 2008 showed that he sold stock in Citigroup and JP Morgan, who were in crisis, the same day and bought stock in Goldman Sachs, which proved to be stronger. The blog claimed that Ryan also attended the meeting. The implication, they stated, was that he was using information gleaned from the briefing for personal profit.
It was wrong. In fact, the meeting with Bernanke took place in the evening after trading hours, meaning Ryan wouldn’t have had time to execute the move if he wanted to.
The Romney campaign said Ryan had nothing to do with the trades in the first place. They were part of a Russell 1000 index fund that automatically traded stocks as part of a pre-set formula. Ryan’s disclosure forms include several similar trade patterns at various points throughout the year.
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Nobel Laureates Call for End to TV's "Stars Earn Stripes"
Source: Reuters
Nobel laureates call for end to TV's "Stars Earn Stripes"
Mon Aug 13, 2012 5:32pm EDT
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Nine Nobel Peace laureates, including retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, on Monday called on television network NBC to cancel its "Stars Earn Stripes" reality show, labeling it a bid to "sanitize war by likening it to an athletic competition."
The competition show, due to air for the first time on Monday evening, puts eight celebrities such as singer Nick Lachey and politician Sarah Palin's husband Todd, through military-style training, including helicopter drops and long-range weapons firing.
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But in an open letter to NBC Entertainment Chairman Bob Greenblatt, the Nobel prize winners said that "preparing for war is neither amusing nor entertaining.
"It is our belief that this program pays homage to no one anywhere and continues and expands on an inglorious tradition of glorifying war and armed violence.
"Real war is down in the dirt deadly. People — military and civilians — die in ways that are anything but entertaining," the letter added.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE87C11020120813?irpc=932
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/08/13-3"Trying to somehow sanitize war by likening it to an athletic competition further calls into question the morality and ethics of linking the military anywhere with the entertainment industry in barely veiled efforts to make war and its multitudinous costs more palatable to the public."
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"The group also pointed out that sanitizing war for a primetime cable show is a profitable business for at least one of NBC's parent companies, General Electric. "GE is a big weapons manufacturer," the group said, and having 'a retired general hosting a war-o-tainment show is another step in the normalization of permanent war.'l
Paul Ryan Not Qualified to Be President, According to Mitt Romney Proposal This Year
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/13/paul-ryan-qualifications-mitt-romney_n_1773303.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009Paul Ryan Not Qualified To Be President, According To Mitt Romney Proposal This Year
The Huffington Post | By Nick Wing
Posted: 08/13/2012 2:37 pm Updated: 08/13/2012 4:31 pm
GOP vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is a skilled bowhunter and one-time Oscar Meyer Weinermobile jockey, but according to a proposal laid out earlier this year by Mitt Romney, he probably doesn't have the business accumen to serve as president.
Speaking at a campaign event in May, Romney appeared to endorse a supporter's idea for a constitutional amendment stating that a “president has to spend at least three years working in business before he can become president of the United States."
Romney continued, "You see, then he or she would understand that the policies they're putting into place have to encourage small business, make it easier for business to grow.”
(Video above via BuzzFeed)
Of course, the problem here is that Ryan, doesn't actually meet this criteria. From the Associated Press:
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Paul Ryan's Biggest Influence: 10 Things You Should Know About the Lunatic Ayn Rand
Bunch of links to really good articles here...http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/paul-ryans-biggest-influence-10-things-you-should-know-about-lunatic-ayn-rand
By Jan Frel
Paul Ryan's Biggest Influence: 10 Things You Should Know About the Lunatic Ayn Rand
Here's a treasure trove of background info on the woman who inspired Romney's VP pick to go into public office.
August 12, 2012 |
"The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand." That's freshly minted GOP vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan talking -- statements he would eventually recant -- at a party celebrating what would have been the prolific author's 100th birthday,
Rand's books are a big driver in the long-term right-wing campaign to delude millions of people into believing that there's no such thing as society -- that everyone must look out only for themselves. Lately, Rand's work has enjoyed a major revival of interest. Besides Ryan, she's inspired yoga-wear company Lululemon to publish her quotations on its products, and she's even made inroads into the North American semi-socialist enclave of Canada.
AlterNet has kept the pace with Rand's resurgence, doing our best to educate people about what a nutcase she was and how harmful her ideas are. These 10 articles, previously published on AlterNet, shed light on why Rand's influence on Ryan is so dangerous.
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2. Rand's Philosophy in a Nutshell
The bloggers at ThinkProgress explain that the philosophy Ayn Rand laid out in her novels and essays was, "a frightful concoction of hyper-egotism, power-worship and anarcho-capitalism. She opposed all forms of welfare, unemployment insurance, support for the poor and middle-class, regulation of industry and government provision for roads or other infrastructure. She also insisted that law enforcement, defense and the courts were the only appropriate arenas for government, and that all taxation should be purely voluntary. Her view of economics starkly divided the world into a contest between 'moochers' and 'producers,' with the small group making up the latter generally composed of the spectacularly wealthy, the successful, and the titans of industry."
3. Ayn Rand Railed Against Government Benefits, But Grabbed Social Security and Medicare When She Needed Them
AlterNet's Joshua Holland has the goods: "Her books provided wide-ranging parables of 'parasites,' 'looters' and 'moochers' using the levers of government to steal the fruits of her heroes' labor. In the real world, however, Rand herself received Social Security payments and Medicare benefits under the name of Ann O'Connor (her husband was Frank O'Connor).
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5. Billionaires and Corporations Use Rand's Writings To Brainwash College Students
Pam Martens reported that Charles Koch, who pushes "millions of dollars through his foundation into economic programs at public universities and mandating approval of faculty and curriculum in some instances," partnered with the "southern banking giant BB&T ... mandating that Ayn Rand’s book Atlas Shrugged is taught and distributed to students."
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7. Ayn Rand in Real Life
Author Hal Crowther writes, "For an eyewitness portrait of Ayn Rand in the flesh, in the prime of her celebrity, you can’t improve on the 'Ubermensch' chapter in Tobias Wolff’s autobiographical novel Old School. Invited to meet with the faculty and student writers at the narrator’s boarding school, Rand arrives with an entourage of chain-smoking idolaters in black and behaves so repellently that her audience of innocents gets a life lesson in what kind of adult to avoid, and to avoid becoming. Rude, dismissive, vain and self-infatuated to the point of obtuseness — she names Atlas Shrugged as the only great American novel — Rand and her hissing chorus in black manage to alienate the entire school, even the rich board member who had admired and invited her. What strikes Wolff’s narrator most forcefully is her utter lack of charity or empathy, her transparent disgust with everything she views as disfiguring or disabling..."
MUCH MORE AT LINK[p]
Tom Tomorrow: 'You May Call Me... The Nominee!'
Daily Kos Link: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/13/1118553/-The-Nominee
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Joan Walsh: Paul Ryan - Randian Poseur
http://www.salon.com/2012/08/12/paul_ryan_randian_poseurSUNDAY, AUG 12, 2012 07:20 AM EDT
Paul Ryan: Randian poseur
Mitt Romney couldn't have chosen a better example of the fakery at the heart of today's GOP
BY JOAN WALSH
Paul Ryan was born into a well-to-do Janesville, Wisc. family, part of the so-called “Irish mafia” that’s run the city’s construction industry since the 19th century. When his lawyer father died young, sadly, the high-school aged Ryan received Social Security survivor benefits. But they didn’t go directly to supporting his family; by his own account, he banked them for college. He went to Miami University of Ohio, paying twice as much tuition as an Ohio resident would have; the in-state University of Wisconsin system (which I attended) apparently wasn’t good enough for Ryan. After his government-subsidized out-of-state education, the pride of Janesville left college and went to work for government, where he’s spent his entire career, first serving Republican legislators and then in his own Congressional seat, with occasional stints at his family-owned construction business when he needed a job (reportedly he also drove an Oscar Mayer Wiener Mobile for a while).
Ironically, Ryan came to national attention trying to dismantle the very program that helped him go to the college of his choice, pushing an even more radical version of President Bush’s Social Security privatization plan, which failed. He has since become the scourge of the welfare state, a man wholly supported by government who preaches against the evils of government support. He could be the poster boy for President Obama’s supposedly controversial oration about how we all owe our success to some combination of our own hard work, family backing and government support. Let’s say it together: You didn’t build that career by yourself, Congressman Ryan.
Thus Paul Ryan represents the fakery at the heart of the Republican project today. It starts with the contradiction that Mr. Free Enterprise has spent his life in the bosom of government, enjoying the added protection of wingnut welfare benefactors like the Koch brothers. If Herman Cain is Charles and David Koch’s “brother from another mother,” as he famously joked, Ryan is the fourth Koch, swaddled in support from Americans for Prosperity and other Koch fronts. The man who wants to make the world safe for swashbuckling, risk-taking capitalists hasn’t spent a day at economic risk in his entire life.
CONTINUE READING
Krugman: "Galt / Gekko 2012"
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/11/galt-gekko-2012/?smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&seid=autoAugust 11, 2012, 3:45 PM
Galt / Gekko 2012
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There is, I gather, lots of horse-race speculation: It’s a disaster! No, it changes the conversation away from Bain and those missing tax returns! I have no idea who’s right.
What I do know is that anyone who believes in Ryan’s carefully cultivated image as a brave, honest policy wonk has been snookered. Mark Thoma reviews selected pieces I’ve written about Ryan; he is, in fact, a big fraud, who doesn’t care at all about fiscal responsibility, and whose policy proposals are sloppy as well as dishonest. Of course, this means that he’ll fit in to the Romney campaign just fine.
As I said, I have no idea how this will play politically. But it does look like a move from weakness, rather than strength; Romney obviously felt he needed a VP who will get people to stop talking about him.
A Few Things About Paul Ryan...
http://wonkette.com/480764/meet-your-new-vice-presidential-candidate-the-one-and-only-historys-greatest-monster-paul-ryanBY JIM NEWELL
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A few things about Paul Ryan: He wants to end Medicare and give people (those who are 55 and younger at the time of passage) coupons to buy private insurance plans on the market instead. Those coupons would be explicitly designed not to keep up with medical inflation, ensuring seniors pay higher out-of-pocket costs each year until the market collapses.
He wants to convert Medicaid and food stamps into block grants sent to the states and sharply reduced levels. He wants to bring non-defense discretionary spending down to 3% of the federal budget. He wants to slash taxes on the wealthy, giving them an average 12.5% in additional after-tax income. The only reason his budgets haven’t said a word about privatizing or dramatically cutting benefits in Social Security is because his fellow congressmen demanded he not take that on in addition to everything else, at this point. He voted for the Iraq War, Medicare Part D, and TARP.
The Ryan Budget is not just about saving money. He thinks broad social spending programs are immoral in how they foster “dependency.” There’s no other reason to cut every modest discretionary program like that.
Paul Ryan worships Ayn Rand, a sociopath who sneered at those who would give to charity.
So let’s see some campaign ads and shit, right?
MORE AT WONKETTE LINK[p]
Stratfor Emails Reveal Secret, Widespread TrapWire Surveillance System
Source: Russia Today
Stratfor emails reveal secret, widespread TrapWire surveillance system
Published: 10 August, 2012, 11:23
Edited: 10 August, 2012, 17:43
Former senior intelligence officials have created a detailed surveillance system more accurate than modern facial recognition technology — and have installed it across the US under the radar of most Americans, according to emails hacked by Anonymous.
Every few seconds, data picked up at surveillance points in major cities and landmarks across the United States are recorded digitally on the spot, then encrypted and instantaneously delivered to a fortified central database center at an undisclosed location to be aggregated with other intelligence. It’s part of a program called TrapWire and it's the brainchild of the Abraxas, a Northern Virginia company staffed with elite from America’s intelligence community. The employee roster at Arbaxas reads like a who’s who of agents once with the Pentagon, CIA and other government entities according to their public LinkedIn profiles, and the corporation's ties are assumed to go deeper than even documented.
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Hacktivists aligned with the loose-knit Anonymous collective took credit for hacking Stratfor on Christmas Eve, 2011, in turn collecting what they claimed to be more than five million emails from within the company. WikiLeaks began releasing those emails as the Global Intelligence Files (GIF) earlier this year and, of those, several discussing the implementing of TrapWire in public spaces across the country were circulated on the Web this week after security researcher Justin Ferguson brought attention to the matter. At the same time, however, WikiLeaks was relentlessly assaulted by a barrage of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, crippling the whistleblower site and its mirrors, significantly cutting short the number of people who would otherwise have unfettered access to the emails.
On Wednesday, an administrator for the WikiLeaks Twitter account wrote that the site suspected that the motivation for the attacks could be that particularly sensitive Stratfor emails were about to be exposed. A hacker group called AntiLeaks soon after took credit for the assaults on WikiLeaks and mirrors of their content, equating the offensive as a protest against editor Julian Assange, “the head of a new breed of terrorist.” As those Stratfor files on TrapWire make their rounds online, though, talk of terrorism is only just beginning.
Read more: http://rt.com/usa/news/stratfor-trapwire-abraxas-wikileaks-313/
What is TrapWire? Real-time, video facial profiling, linked to red-flag databases. Thousands of cameras across the U.S., the U.K., and Canada.
Three U.S. Soldiers Killed by Uniformed Afghan in Helmand
Source: Reuters
Three U.S. soldiers killed by uniformed Afghan in Helmand
KABUL | Fri Aug 10, 2012 3:04am EDT
(Reuters) - An Afghan wearing a uniform killed three U.S. soldiers in the southern province of Helmand, a spokeswoman for NATO-led forces in Afghanistan said on Friday.
"All we know is that they were killed by an Afghan in a uniform of some sort," the spokeswoman told Reuters, adding that it was too early to say if the shootings were by a rogue security force member or a Taliban infiltrator.
Afghan officials said the three men were all special forces members and were killed while attending a meeting in Sangin District late on Thursday.
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In a grim 24 hours for the NATO-led force, three U.S. soldiers and an American aid worker were killed earlier on Thursday in the eastern province of Kunar in an attack by a suicide bomber.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/10/us-afghanistan-shooting-idUSBRE87907Q20120810
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