All Blog Posts from Coop's Corner
Wingnut Nation
(CBS)
A document said to be obtained by California attorney Orly Taitz purports to be a certified copy of the president's original Kenyan document dated February 17, 1964 listing Barack Obama's hospital of birth as "Coast General Hospital" in Mombasa. The document also includes a stamp from an "Office of the Principal Registrar, Coast Province, Republic of Kenya."
If true, might that be the smoking gun that the so-called "birther" movement has been looking for?
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Neocons To Obama: Hello, Mr. Softy
(AP / CBS)
One is Elliott Abrams, who was deputy national security adviser overseeing Near East and North African affairs from 2005 to January 2009. A sharp critic of Oslo peace negotiations between Israel and Yasir Arafat, Abrams was identified as a strong supporter of Israel with ties to Vice President Dick Cheney. During the 2006 Lebanon war, Abrams opposed the State Department view that the U.S. ought to act as a more neutral broker between Israel and the Arabs. In a Saturday op-ed, Abrams laid out his critique, arguing that the U.S. is following a "highly ideological policy path," one that will get in the way of any sober appreciation of the facts on the ground.
"The administration view begins with a critique of Bush foreign policy—as much too reliant on military pressure and isolated in the world. The antidote is a policy of outreach and engagement, especially with places like Syria, Venezuela, North Korea and Iran. Engagement with the Muslim world is a special goal, which leads not only to the president's speech in Cairo on June 4 but also to a distancing from Israel so as to appear more "even-handed" to Arab states. Seen from Jerusalem, all this looks like a flashing red light: trouble ahead."
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Wall Street's Bonus Babies
If there is such a thing as reincarnation, I could think of a lot worse fates than to return as one of the nearly 5,000 bankers and traders who belonged to Wall Street's millionaire club in 2008, a year, coincidentally, in which the United States' financial system came apart at the seams.
On Thursday, the New York attorney general's office issued a detailed accounting of Wall Street's bonus culture. If you have time, take a look. It makes for an intriguing read.> But aside from the report's charts and statistics, the conclusion reconfirms the widely-held suspicion that investment bankers are from Mars, while the rest of us inhabit an entirely separate universe.
For instance, the study found that the nation's big investment banks continued to lavish royal monetary packages on employees with scant regard for the corporate bottom line. When they profited, so did their employees. When they did poorly, employees were still paid handsomely. "And when the banks did very poorly, they were bailed out by taxpayers and their employees were still paid well," according to Andrew M. Cuomo, New York's attorney general. "Bonuses and overall compensation did not vary significantly as profits diminished."
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On Thursday, the New York attorney general's office issued a detailed accounting of Wall Street's bonus culture. If you have time, take a look. It makes for an intriguing read.> But aside from the report's charts and statistics, the conclusion reconfirms the widely-held suspicion that investment bankers are from Mars, while the rest of us inhabit an entirely separate universe.
For instance, the study found that the nation's big investment banks continued to lavish royal monetary packages on employees with scant regard for the corporate bottom line. When they profited, so did their employees. When they did poorly, employees were still paid handsomely. "And when the banks did very poorly, they were bailed out by taxpayers and their employees were still paid well," according to Andrew M. Cuomo, New York's attorney general. "Bonuses and overall compensation did not vary significantly as profits diminished."
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