Phillip Knightley: When is a terror threat not a terror threat? Let's ask a man called Felix... - Commentators - Opinion Dzerzhinsky took over anti-terrorism duties in the newly-emerged Russia at the end of the First World War when the country was riven with revolt and violence. He realised that he had no chance of identifying all the terrorist threats and those planning to perpetrate them. Instead he developed a questionable technique that has become part of espionage theory throughout the international intelligence community: you lure the terrorist to you. When the story of the foiled bomb plot first broke it seemed too good to be true. In the tradition of Dzerzhinski, the Saudi intelligence service had apparently "dangled" one of its agents in front of known al-Qa'ida members hoping for a "bite". The Trust appeared to be a huge anti-Bolshevik organisation working from Moscow to overthrow the Communists and reverse the revolution. In intelligence circles the Trust became a textbook operation and its principles copied worldwide. But they are risky.
The M1 Abrams: The Army tank that could not be stopped - Open Channel Saurabh Das / AP file U.S. M1 Abrams tanks withdraw to a safe position after mortar rounds landed nearby in Kufa, Iraq, on April 29, 2004. By Aaron Mehta and Lydia Mulvany, Center for Public Integrity Editor's note: This article was corrected after publication. The M1 Abrams tank has survived the Cold War, two conflicts in Iraq and a decade of war in Afghanistan. But now the machine finds itself a target in an unusual battle between the Defense Department and lawmakers who are the beneficiaries of large donations by its manufacturer. The Pentagon, facing smaller budgets and looking towards a new global strategy, has decided it wants to save as much as $3 billion by freezing refurbishment of the M1 from 2014 to 2017, so it can redesign the hulking, clanking vehicle from top to bottom. Its proposal would idle a large factory in Lima, Ohio, as well as halt work at dozens of subcontractors in Pennsylvania, Michigan and other states. The Center for Public Integrity The cash and the tank. Sen.
JPMorgan Chase Fought Rule on Risky Trading Jim Young/Reuters JPMorgan’s trading mistakes “were self-inflicted, and this is not how we want to run a business,” said Jamie Dimon, above, the bank’s chief executive. The bank’s shares tumbled 9.3 percent on Friday. Several visits over months by the bank’s well-connected chief executive, , and his top aides were aimed at persuading regulators to create a loophole in the law, known as the . Even after the official draft of the Volcker Rule regulations was released last October, JPMorgan and other banks continued their full-court press to avoid limits. In early February, a group of JPMorgan executives met with Federal Reserve officials and warned that anything but a loose interpretation of the trading ban would hurt the bank’s hedging activities, according to a person with knowledge of the meeting. In the February meeting was Ina Drew, the head of JPMorgan’s chief investment office, the unit that suffered the $2 billion loss. JPMorgan officials declined to comment for this article.
So then Who in the Hell Are We? “This is not a reflection of who we are or what we stand for.” -- Jeff Gearhart, Wall-Mart general counsel, on the firm’s Mexico bribery [Torture] “is not the norm.” -- Mike Pannek, Abu Ghraib prison warden. “This is not who we are.” -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the US massacre of 16 Afghan villagers. “This is not who we are.” -- General John Allen, commander of forces in Afghanistan, on Koran burning “This is not who we are.” -- Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta on troops posing with enemy body parts “This is not who we are.” -- Secretary of State Clinton, also on troops posing with enemy body parts Spying by the New York Police on Muslims in Newark, NJ, which the Newark Police Chief was alerted to, is “not who we are” -- Newark Mayor Cory Booker “I can tell you something all of you know already - that using pepper spray on peaceful protesters runs counter to our values. “You can't say, well, we developed trade and the economic relations first and the disregard of human rights.
Obama’s Goldman-Sachs surrender Rarely does one see a more perfect illustration of the Obama administration’s tortured relationship with Wall Street. On August 9, the Justice Department and the SEC both announced the end of investigations into potential criminal behavior related to Goldman’s handling of mortgage-backed securities in the runup to the financial crisis. That same day, the Center for Responsive Politics reported that Goldman’s employees had switched from giving 75 percent of their campaign donations to Democratic candidates in 2008 to giving 70 percent of their donations to Republicans in 2012. That’s called having your mortgage fraud cake and eating it too. And misdeeds there were, as the 635-page Levin-Coburn report on the financial crisis, which was released in April 2011, makes clear beyond any reasonable doubt.
The Greediness of Brain Drain The phrase “brain drain” used to mean, in the 1950s and ‘60s, the flight of professionally-trained people from dictatorships to find opportunity in the U.S. and other Western countries. Now “brain drain” is used in American media to mean an active U.S. government policy to attract foreign entrepreneurs, scientists, physicians, nurses and other skilled laborers in short supply to the U.S. Behind this push for a “great sucking sound” are companies like Intel, Google, Microsoft, and Pfizer, with their media cheerleaders like Tom Friedman of the New York Times, and members of Congress like Kansas Republican Congressman Jerry Moran and Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner. The arguments for a deliberate “magnet brain drain,” are porcine. Our companies need these skills. Also, what about having ready and able specialists here who may have to be paid more than their overseas counterparts? Now we see the grossest of contradictions.
Norman Solomon’s Quest for Congress The veteran activist and writer may become one of the most progressive people on Capitol Hill. Solomon decided that, at this point, running for Woolsey’s vacant seat was the best way to advance the movement. Norman Solomon isn't the typical candidate for Congress. And that's a compliment – he might actually be one of the most promising candidates ever, from a progressive standpoint. Solomon is running for the House seat currently held by Rep. The Second District is among the most left-leaning in the nation, so there's no doubt that a Democrat will replace Woolsey. Solomon became an activist for progressive causes in his early teens and has stayed true to that path for nearly half a century. The frontrunner in the race, Jared Huffman, bills himself as “one of the state's top environmental leaders” and has served three terms in the California State Assembly. But the sources of his funding have become a liability for Huffman, who accepts money from both lobbyists and corporations.
JPMorgan’s Connections to the House Finance Committee As CEO Jamie Dimon testifies today, we lay out JPMorgan’s ties to the committee — and just who is investigating the bank’s big losses. JPMorgan Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon testifies before the House Financial Services Committee on Capitol Hill on June 19, 2012. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is on Capitol Hill again today, this time to talk to the House Financial Services committee about the bank's recent multibillion-dollar trading loss. His Senate hearing was hardly a grilling [3]; senators mostly praised him for his "emphasis on continuous quality improvement," in the words [4] of Senator Jim DeMint, R-S.C. As we charted last week, JPMorgan happens to have plenty of connections [5] to the Senate committee. The House Connections JPMorgan has two in-house lobbyists with connections to the House Financial Services committee. Rick Lazio joined JP Morgan in 2004 [6] as chief of government relations. The SEC The CFTC The OCC The Fed The FDIC The DOJ
Paul Krugman’s Economic Blinders “I see little in Krugman’s logic that would oppose Rubinomics, which has remained the Democratic Party’s program under the Obama administration.” Paul Krugman is widely appreciated for his New York Times columns criticizing Republican demands for fiscal austerity. He rightly argues that cutting back public spending will worsen the economic depression into which we are sinking. And despite his partisan Democratic Party politicking, he warned from the outset in 2009 that President Obama’s modest counter-cyclical spending program was not sufficiently bold to spur recovery. These are the themes of his new book, End This Depression Now. All this is a good idea as far as it goes. Here’s the problem: To focus the argument against “Austerian” advocates of fiscal balance, Mr. Mr. The effect of Mr. So it is important to note what Mr. In Mr. subtitled “How the Economy can Borrow its Way Out of Debt.” Mr. Many of Mr. Perhaps I can prod Mr. Mr. Mr. But I fear that Mr. The problem with Mr. Notes.