http://www.armytimes.com/…

The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.

Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.

Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.

It is not the first time an active-duty unit has been tapped to help at home. In August 2005, for example, when Hurricane Katrina unleashed hell in Mississippi and Louisiana, several active-duty units were pulled from various posts and mobilized to those areas.

Ah yes. After Hurricane Katrina. When they went around unconstitutionally taking people’s firearms and checking old women into walls.

As far as I understand using the military for policing was not legal. It had been made legal between 2006 and 2008 but due to the controversy it was repealed. Perhaps the Bush administration missed that.

http://www.bloomberg.com/…

Morgan Stanley and Goldman have defended their business model, saying they have adequate capital and don’t need the deposit funding that banks have. Mack, 63, lambasted short sellers for pushing his firm’s shares lower.

In a memo to employees yesterday, Mack said the management committee is “taking every step possible to stop this irresponsible action in the market” and urged employees to contact clients to reassure them that the firm is performing strongly and has plenty of capital.

“There is no rational basis for the movements in our stock or credit-default spreads,” Mack wrote in the memo. “We’re in the midst of a market controlled by fear and rumors, and short sellers are driving our stock down.”

Things are bad and people don’t want to lose their investments. That is rational behavior. As for the short sellers… also rational. They expect prices to drop and wish to take advantage of that. It bugs me when individuals use the word rational in this way. Which is really “I don’t understand what’s going on or wish to excuse or diminish the action by claiming no one understands.” By definition those actions are rational.

The rumors surely are abundant. Who’s merging with who? Who’s got Morgan Stanley? Is it Wachovia? Citic Group? HSBC? Wells Fargo? JPMorgan Chase? Seems like people are just throwing out names. “What banks still exist? Yeah that one will buy them!” I’m guessing the reason Goldman isn’t getting this kind of attention is because they are a larger firm.

According to their press release MS has $170+ billion liquid. Some, months ago, was criticizing MS for having that much on hand as it would hurt their earnings just sitting around. They had a good quarter considering the environment. Goldman did relatively worse but still is in an decent position overall. It seems to me there is some game going on. As if there are forces trying to make these firms merge with a bank. Both firms’ credit default swaps are at 10ish levels below what Moody has rated them for which would put them at junk levels and their stocks plummeted on what looks to me to be nothing but positive news.

Unless GS and MS are lying about their liquid assets and the market knows something I don’t… I can’t help but feel like something bigger is going on. Perhaps it’s is just fear and shorters, people selling off to invest into safer things (gold stocks were up 7-12% yesterday) and those furthering the issue by taking advantage of it. With language like this I’m concerned the industry will become even that much more regulated and the world will be thrust further into financial crisis.

http://hosted.ap.org/…

Democratic candidate Barack Obama on Saturday backed away from rival John McCain’s challenge for a series of joint appearances, agreeing only to the standard three debates in the fall.

In May, when a McCain adviser proposed a series of pre-convention appearances at town hall meetings, Obama said, “I think that’s a great idea.” In summer stumping on the campaign trail, McCain has often noted that Obama had not followed through and joined him in any events.

Obama’s reversal on town hall debates is part of a play-it-safe strategy he’s adopted since claiming the nomination and grabbing a lead in national polls. Advisers to the Illinois senator, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss strategy, say Obama is reluctant to take chances or give McCain a high-profile stage now that Obama’s the front-runner.

On Saturday, in a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said the short period between the last political convention and the first proposed debate made it likely that the commission-sponsored debates would be the only ones.

“We’ve committed to the three debates on the table,” campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Saturday in an interview. “It’s likely they will be the three appearances by the candidates this fall.”

Asked by The Associated Press if that meant Obama would not agree to any other debates, Psaki said, “We’re not saying that.” She said the McCain campaign had rejected Obama’s proposal for two joint town hall meetings.

McCain’s campaign disparaged Obama for backing off. McCain has not yet formally agreed to the commission-sponsored debates, but the McCain campaign says he plans to.

“We understand it might be beneath a worldwide celebrity of Barack Obama’s magnitude to appear at town hall meetings alongside John McCain and directly answer questions from the American people, but we hope he’ll reconsider,” spokesman Brian Rogers said.

The first debate planned by the commission is set for Sept. 26 in Oxford, Miss., three weeks after the Republican National Convention concludes Sept. 4. The Democratic convention is scheduled for Aug. 25-28.

The other presidential debates are set for Oct. 7 and Oct. 15 and the vice presidential debate for Oct. 2.

A day after Obama clinched the Democratic nomination in early June, McCain challenged Obama to a series of 10 town hall meetings. The candidates’ campaigns began negotiations, telling reporters that they agreed in spirit to joint appearances.

When the idea first came up from the McCain campaign that May, Obama was still battling Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Obama said then: “Obviously, we would have to think through the logistics on that, but … if I have the opportunity to debate substantive issues before the voters with John McCain, that’s something that I am going to welcome.”

In June, Plouffe had suggested Obama-McCain meetings more along the lines of the historic Lincoln-Douglas debates. During Abraham Lincoln’s Senate campaign against Stephen Douglas in 1858, the candidates met seven times across Illinois. One spoke for an hour, the other for an hour and a half, and the first was allowed a half-hour rebuttal.

Plouffe said Saturday that Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois will be Obama’s representative in further discussions with the commission.

The Commission on Presidential Debates, established in 1987, sponsors and produces debates featuring the presidential and vice presidential candidates of the major parties. The nonprofit and nonpartisan organization has sponsored all the presidential debates since 1988.

Looks like more evidence that Obama is not what he’s been made out to be. If he was such a great speaker and an element for true change for this country I’d expect him speaking at every single venue made available to him. If his policies are solid and he’s confident in them why wouldn’t he want to go up against McCain? I know the reason. The same reason McCain and Obama don’t want to go up against Nader, Barr, Baldwin, or McKinney. They’d get ripped apart and made to look the fools they are.

This is in no way surprising. If I were full of it, had a cult of personality, and was without intellectual integrity… I’d do the same thing.

As for the “nonpartisan” Commission on Presidential Debates… how nonpartisan is it to only include 2 of the several candidates who can technically win the election? The two that happen to be in the 2 major parties?

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Pig Book 2008

http://www.cagw.org/…

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today released the 2008 Congressional Pig Book, the latest installment in an 18-year exposé of pork-barrel spending.

“When Congress adopted earmark reforms last year, there was hope that the number and cost of earmarks would be cut in half.  By any measure, that has not occurred,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.

In fiscal year 2008, Congress stuffed 11,610 projects (the second highest total ever) worth $17.2 billion into the 12 appropriations bills.  That is a 337 percent increase over the 2,658 projects in fiscal year 2007, and a 30 percent increase over the $13.2 billion total in fiscal year 2007.  Alaska led the nation with $556 in pork per capita ($380 million total), followed by Hawaii with $221 ($283 million) and North Dakota with $208 ($133 million).  CAGW has identified $271 billion in total pork since 1991.

For the first time, the names of members of Congress were added to the projects.  The top three porkers were members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, beginning with Ranking Member Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) with $892 million; Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) with $469 million; and Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) with $465 million.

The Pig Book Summary profiles the most egregious examples, breaks down pork per capita by state, and presents the annual Oinker Awards.  All 11,610 projects are listed in a searchable database on CAGW’s website www.cagw.org.   Examples of pork in the 2008 Pig Book include:

 $3 million for The First Tee;
$1,950,000 for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service;
$460,752 for hops research;
$211,509 for olive fruit fly research in Paris, France;
$196,000 for the renovation and transformation of the historic Post Office in Las Vegas;
$188,000 for the Lobster Institute in Maine; and
$148,950 for the Montana Sheep Institute.

“Americans do not send their hard-earned tax dollars to Washington so that Sen. Daniel Inouye can bring home $173 million in defense pork and receive the Pacific Fleeced Award or get sapped by $4.8 million going to wood utilization research, on which the government has spent $91 million since 1985,” concluded Schatz.

Only the 2nd highest pork year? Come on Congress… next year go for gold. Not like you have to tax us directly for much of it.

http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/…

Unless a police officer is dutifully enforcing a legitimate warrant, or has unassailable probable cause to believe that an individual has committed a felony, he has no business attempting to arrest anybody. That was the understanding that prevailed in the Anglo-Saxon world, in one form or another, from 1215 until the mid-1960s to mid-1970s, at least here in the United States.Fifty years ago, the statutes of nearly every state recognized the right to resist unlawful arrest. Today, it is recognized only Michigan, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Mississippi.* The question has been examined, and upheld in remarkably candid terms by courts in Mississippi. This is ironic, given that Mississippi is the same state where Cory Maye was convicted of first degree murder for killing a police officer who invaded Maye’s home in a late-night paramilitary raid at the wrong address.

A 1963 Mississippi Supreme Court decision (King v. State) favorably cited a legal scholar’s conclusion that “the right of personal liberty is one of the fundamental rights guaranteed to every citizen, and any unlawful interference may be resisted. Every person has a right to resist an unlawful arrest; and, in preventing such illegal restraint of his liberty, he may use such force as may be necessary.”

Not quite four decades earlier, a judge presiding over the criminal trial of a police officer accused of murdering a man who resisted arrest underscored the fact that a citizen has the right to kill a police officer attempting to arrest him without probable cause or a valid warrant. The judge instructed the jury that if the officer had been attempting an illegal arrest, the defendant was permitted to employ “whatever force was necessary to avoid the arrest, even to the extent of taking the life of [the] defendant.”

In other words: A police officer who kills a civilian in the course of an unlawful arrest is a murderer; a citizen who kills a police officer when threatened with lethal violence in the course of an unlawful arrest is exercising his innate right to self-defense.

Like jury nullification the right to resist unlawful arrest is something simply not talked about by those in power and generally not know by the public. It’s something which as our nation moves closer and closer to a police state needs to be taught to others in an attempt to counteract some of the government’s abuses.