Korean Job Discussion Forums

[BS.Dos.]

Like your head of state is gonna change anything.

Get a grip and snap out of it.

[Kuros]

Troll this. Troll that.

Like a Brit is going to have anything substantive to contribute.

[BS.Dos.]

^Nice.

I've just been talking to an FT from Ohio who reckons that only 10 of the 50 states actually make any money for the union. I can't verify what she said, but if it's true, wouldn't something a little more decentralized be more efficient, like a confederation perhaps?

[Ya-ta Boy]

[Kuros]

[Ya-ta Boy]

[BS.Dos.]

[Ya-ta Boy]

[bacasper]

[Robot_Teacher]

Are we talking about the DS of A? For years, I've thought of it as the Divided States of America. Not only is each state unique, but the American people choose segregation and intimidation as a way of life using the legal and justice systems. Obama administration is not going to fix anything or make it better as that's not where the real power is. The power is held CEO's, filthy rich folks, lawyers, doctors, and the justice system. Too bad it's got to be that way.

[bacasper]

The Obama Deception

The full-length version of Alex Jones' documentary, The Obama Deception, is now available on youtube in High Quality.

This extraordinary film explains how this relative unknown went from State Senator to US President in six years, and goes into depth about the power base behind his meteoric rise.

It goes into detail about how he is leading the bankers' efforts to bankrupt the country, but also gives hope and concrete measures on what to do to resist.

Very informative and highly recommended.

[Rory_Calhoun27]

Yeah.... let me get right on that.....


but only AFTER I see the documentary on how gwb ruined the economy people BRAGGED that he would take to higher levels than Bill Clinton..... he IS the first MBA to be president, after all!

My guess is there are plenty of Political Psychologist PHD students in grad school right now looking on dissertations re: gwb's need to finish the job his dad started in iraq to win his affection..... now that's the book I want to read!

[bacasper]

Here's another one:

Obama doesn�t talk like Bush; he just acts like him

THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER
Posted Mar 20, 2009 @ 12:02 AM

NEW YORK � You can�t blame Dick Cheney for being annoyed at Barack Obama. Obama is closing Guant�namo. He�s ordering the CIA to interrogate prisoners according to the rules written in the Army Field Manual, which doesn�t allow torture. He�s even phasing out such classic Bushian phrases as �enemy combatant� and �war on terror.�

But the dark prince of neoconservatism should relax. Obama�s inaugural address may have promised to �reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals,� but � in all the ways that matter � he�s keeping all of Bush�s outrageous policies in place. Sure, he talks a good game about �moving forward.� But nothing has really changed. From reading your e-mails to asserting the right to assassinate American citizens to bailing out companies whose executives pay themselves big bonuses, Obama�s changes are nothing but toothless rhetoric.

Closing Gitmo, reported The New York Times, was merely �a move that seemed intended to symbolically separate the new administration from Bush detention policies. But in a much anticipated court filing, the Justice Department argued that the president has the authority to detain terrorism suspects there without criminal charges, much as the Bush administration had asserted. It provided a broad definition of those who can be held, which was not significantly different from the one used by the Bush administration.�

What will happen to the 241 POWs still at Gitmo? They won�t be called �enemy combatants� anymore but most won�t be going home. �The filing signaled that, as long as Guant�namo remains open, the new administration will aggressively defend its ability to hold some detainees there,� wrote the Times. Where will they go after that?

Welcome to Gitmo II � courtesy of Barack Obama.

Countless victims have been tortured by U.S. military personnel at Bagram, the U.S. air base in Afghanistan where Bush imprisoned 600 people without charges. Some were murdered in the camp�s notorious �salt pit.�

�Even children have not been spared,� says Amnesty International.
Now Bagram is being expanded � nearly doubled in size � in order to accommodate 200-plus detainees from Gitmo, as well as future POWs from Obama�s expanded war against Afghanistan. As bad as Guant�namo was, conditions at Bagram are worse.

Extraordinary renditions, the Times reports in a different article, will continue under Obama.

�In little-noticed confirmation testimony recently,� says the paper, �Obama nominees endorsed continuing the CIA�s program of transferring prisoners to other countries without legal rights, and indefinitely detaining terrorism suspects without trials even if they were arrested far from a war zone.�

During the 2008 campaign Obama�s critics accused him of saying nothing, albeit beautifully. Now that we�ve gotten to know him a bit, it�s time to refine that assessment: He�s just a weasel. An eloquent weasel. But a weasel who says the right things while doing the opposite.

On March 9, Obama ordered federal agencies to suspend Bush�s infamous �signing statements,� sneaky documents issued after the signing of a bill that ordered government agencies not to enforce the very same bill he�d just approved in front of the cameras. Signing statements, says the American Bar Association, use one-man dictatorial rule to negate the people�s will as expressed by Congress and are thus �contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional separation of powers.�

�Yet two days later � literally � Obama signed a $410 billion spending bill and appended to it a signing statement claiming that he had the constitutional authority to ignore several of its oversight provisions,� writes Glenn Greenwald of Slate.

Greenwald regrets having to quote the vile Rich Lowry of the right-wing National Review magazine. So do I. But even the right is right sometimes:

�Barack Obama has perfected a three-step maneuver that could never even be attempted by a politician lacking his rhetorical skill or cool cynicism. First: Denounce your presidential predecessor for a given policy, energizing your party�s base and capitalizing on his abiding unpopularity. Second: Pretend to have reversed that policy upon taking office with a symbolic act or high-profile statement. Third: Adopt a version of that same policy, knowing that it�s the only way to govern responsibly or believing that doing otherwise is too difficult.�

This week�s example is Obama�s grandstanding over $165 million in bonuses paid to executives of AIG, which received billions in federal bailout money. He feigned outrage: �How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?� But his Treasury Department knew about the bonuses � which amount to roughly 55 cents per American � ages ago. He also knows there isn�t much the government can do legally to claw the money back.

Unlike the word count limit of this column, Obama�s perfidy knows no limits. He�s already become more dangerous to democracy and basic human rights than George W. Bush. Unlike Bush, he has no political opposition. Cheney may nitpick, but most Republicans are happy to see Bush�s policies remain in place. Meanwhile, liberals remain loyal, silent and tacitly pro-torture.

Ted Rall is a columnist for Universal Press Syndicate.

[Tiger Beer]

[BS.Dos.]

I'm surprised to hear that Texas is pulling on DC. I'd have thought that it would've been the other way round tbh. I'm sure that I read on here a few weeks back someone was saying that Texas has a lower than average state tax band. Surely, If they're pulling more out of Washington than they're putting in, doesn't Washington have any say in how they (TX) set their state tax or are state taxes set by Washington?

I was in NY in Feb and had dinner with one of my GF friends who was telling me that for every dollar NY sends to Washington, they only get 0.80 cents back. He wasn't best pleased about it either.