One law for the rich, another law for the poor....

[unusualmusic_lj_archive]

Hullabaloo points out:

Following up on my post last week about the shall we say, friendliness between the business and national security elites, here's a story from 2006 for the wtf files:

President George W. Bush has bestowed on his intelligence czar, John Negroponte, broad authority, in the name of national security, to excuse publicly traded companies from their usual accounting and securities-disclosure obligations. Notice of the development came in a brief entry in the Federal Register, dated May 5, 2006, that was opaque to the untrained eye.

Unbeknownst to almost all of Washington and the financial world, Bush and every other President since Jimmy Carter have had the authority to exempt companies working on certain top-secret defense projects from portions of the 1934 Securities Exchange Act. Administration officials told BusinessWeek that they believe this is the first time a President has ever delegated the authority to someone outside the Oval Office. It couldn't be immediately determined whether any company has received a waiver under this provision.

...



A trip to the statute books showed that the amended version of the 1934 act states that "with respect to matters concerning the national security of the United States," the President or the head of an Executive Branch agency may exempt companies from certain critical legal obligations. These obligations include keeping accurate "books, records, and accounts" and maintaining "a system of internal accounting controls sufficient" to ensure the propriety of financial transactions and the preparation of financial statements in compliance with "generally accepted accounting principles."MORE

Think of the possibilities...


Pam'ss House Blend:

Meantime, our Obama's response to 77 members of Congress sending him a letter to ask him to help repeal DADT?Pass the hot potato

ENDA has been been introduced into the house and it includes the transgender population this time


Our heterosexual privilege knapsack


NC:Anti-bullying bill passes -- awaits Gov. Perdue's signature


In the meantime:

Obama: No apology for CIA fucking up Chile Let us look forward! Ignore history!

Q The point being that almost no Latin American nation has been free from CIA -- bloody CIA intervention, Chile being a prime example, President Bachelet being one of its victims. Is it time for a historical apology?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, look, I think you answered your own question right at the beginning, which is I’m interested in going forward, not looking backward. I think that the United States has been an enormous force for good in the world. I think there have been times where we’ve made mistakes. But I think that what is important is looking at what our policies are today, and what my administration intends to do in cooperating with the region.MORE

It's a good thing we don't have rationing like all those horrible European countries or people wouldn't be able to get health care when they need it...



Glenn Greenwald:

The "Neda video," torture, and the truth-revealing power of images


Obama, the Right, an defendants Rights Remember that Supreme Court ruling that defendants have no constutional right to access states evidence and request a DNA to prove their innocence? Guess who supported this? Obama's DOJ.

Comments

[the-willow.insanejournal.com (from livejournal.com)]

...

He lost me with Chile. Just fucking lost me. Latin America is a fricking trace paper version of Africa, except it was mostly America doing the carving up and propping up of puppets. And he can't even say:

"I'm sorry on the behalf of the American people for our governments former policy of destabilizing you continually in order to exploit your natural resources. I hope you accept this apology and move forward with me into a time where each nation in Latin America is treated as an equal to the United States of America and the rest of the world, in terms of needs and desires and goals for its people. The slow down of the global economy has proven we are all interconnected and the time for isolationist and expansionist thinking is long in the past."

Really? He can't say that?

An apology? No one's effing ask him for reparations, but an apology for Noriega and the Iran-Contra dealings and the Bananna Republic, overthrows so American companies could further their dealings (it's not just Iran and Iraq folks. There be history here).

Not a I'm sorry the CIA has been undermining your ability to govern yourselves as recently as this decade?

Fuck, America elected a kinder, gentler Bush. Who 'happens to be brown'.

My mother pointed out in late Feb, March that the man's hair was going prematurely grey right quick. She thought it was the stress of trying to lead the nation. I now have other theories.

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

I still cannot finish the Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, I cant leave the first third of the book, which details what the united states did to Latin America, because I am so furious and crying and so sickened. So to see him pull his BS fills me with such rage that I feel like whacking him with books like those, pointing out to him how much of a monster he is becoming. And I get even more annoyed when someone mentions his being a community organizer. I spit at that. Fuck his comm. organizing.