Something legal -- that shouldn't be

A study was just released proving still more that letting the wealthy and corporations offshore profits, first, shouldn't even ever been made legal and that it should, now, be reversed and made against our tax laws:

Exhaustive Study Finds Global Elite Hiding Up to $32 Trillion

A new report reveals how wealthy individuals and their families have between $21 and $32 trillion of hidden financial assets around the world in what are known as offshore accounts or tax havens. The actual sums could be higher because the study only deals with financial wealth deposited in bank and investment accounts, and not other assets such as property and yachts. The inquiry was commissioned by the Tax Justice Network and is being touted as the most comprehensive report ever on the "offshore economy." It also finds that private banks are deeply involved in running offshore havens, with UBS, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs handling the most assets.

And the crazy thing is, of course, that it is legal, and that we allow this, but to go back to the beginning of it all, what's really insane is that, because of "campaign contributions" to their--our--legislators, the laws were written for the wealthy in the first place, so they could get away with this kind of rather treasonous obscenity in the first place. 

And sure, the wealthy will always have the laws written for themselves first but let's not let it be THIS easy for them. Let's at least see to it this is rescinded and made illegal.  Let's at least do that. Then, after that, let's take away tax cuts for offshoring jobs in America.

It's difficult to believe we even have to say this.

Link:s  

Matt Taibbi Explains Wall Street’s "License to Steal," Offshore Tax Havens and Private Equity Firms

"Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History." (Spiegel & Grau, 2011)

Matt Taibbi & William Black on Bailout Secrets & How New Foreclosure Deal Spares Banks from Justice

Jan 11, 2013 | STORY

"Failure of Epic Proportions": Treasury Nominee Jack Lew’s Pro-Bank, Austerity, Deregulation Legacy

Jan 11, 2013 | STORY

Matt Taibbi: After Laundering $800 Million in Drug Money, How Did HSBC Executives Avoid Jail?

Unfortunately over far too many American's heads

Click on picture for legibility.

That "separation of church and state" thing? That applies here. Or should.

From the party that wants smaller, less-intrusive government. Yeah, right

Just now, from Yahoo! News: Montana GOP policy: Make homosexuality illegal Yes sir, ladies and gentlemen, the political party that keeps saying it wants smaller and less-intrusive government, comes this little gem. First, they've made it clear for years they want to reach government into the private lives--and wombs--of women and men across the country, telling them they can't have very legal abortions and now this--they want to make it that two consenting adults of the same sex could be arrested for having conjugal sex in the privacy of their own homes. Great idea, that, eh? A little of the article: HELENA, Mont. – At a time when gays have been gaining victories across the country, the Republican Party in Montana still wants to make homosexuality illegal. The party adopted an official platform in June that keeps a long-held position in support of making homosexual acts illegal, a policy adopted after the Montana Supreme Court struck down such laws in 1997. The fact that it's still the official party policy more than 12 years later, despite a tidal shift in public attitudes since then and the party's own pledge of support for individual freedoms, has exasperated some GOP members. "I looked at that and said, 'You've got to be kidding me,'" state Sen. John Brueggeman, R-Polson, said last week. "Should it get taken out? Absolutely. Does anybody think we should be arresting homosexual people? If you take that stand, you really probably shouldn't be in the Republican Party." At least when the Libertarians say they want smaller and less-intrusive government, they (seem to) mean it. Link to original post: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gays_in_montana

Manslaughter?

Oh, hell no.

Scott Roeder, the conservative, right-wing, anti-abortion freak who took the law into his own hands, decided Dr. George Tiller should be murdered and then drove 3 hours down I-35 to Wichita to do just that--murder Dr. Tiller--may only get a manslaughter charge for this gross, unjustifiable, psychotic act.

I say psychotic because you have to have lost a touch with reality when you select to murder someone, for starters, and then decide you'll drive 3 hours down the turnpike to do it.

It's disappointing and surprising to me that the Judge in the case, Judge Warren Wilbert, is going to allow the defense the opportunity to consider letting the dirtbag Roeder off with a mere manslaughter charge.

Mind you, the jury may well find this guy guilty of first degree murder, as they ought, but the judge should have thrown this option out, right off, and for two reasons.

First, abortion is legal in the US, like it or not, and has been for decades. (Does precedent mean anything here?).

Second, there is virtually no question that Roeder killed Dr. Tiller and that he drove 3 hours, from Overland Park to do it.

If that's not premeditated, there is no such thing as premeditated murder.

And the fact that this coward Roeder shot Dr. Tiller in Tiller's church, as he was helping at the service is so gross, absurd, ironic and hypocritical it's off the charts.

Hopefully, even the religious zealouts have to see that.

Pyrrhic victories, surely and at best

First, a reminder:

Pyrrhic victory, defined:

Origin: 1880–85; < Gk Pyrrikós; after a remark attributed by Plutarch to Pyrrhus, who declared, after a costly victory over the Romans, that another similar victory would ruin him

Pyr·rhic victory (pĭr'ĭk) Pronunciation Key
n. A victory that is offset by staggering losses. [After Pyrrhus.]

If ever there were Pyrrhic victories, it would be anyone who assumes we've gotten a victory or victories by attacking Iraq.

The fact is, I really don't think anyone's claiming any victories, as such, other than the one claimed by our now ex-president George W. Bush, that he kept us safe from another attack or some such.

Why Pyrrhic?

Well, let's see. more than 4,200 American soldiers killed, many thousands handicapped, maimed and really, destroyed, one way or another, by this war; spending beyond which we can't afford; debt for the war beyond which we can't afford; this was has bankrupted us morally, with our peers in the world; the fact that we tortured people which, may I remind you, is against our own internal law as well as international law?

And so much more.

Yes, Pyrrhic victory.

No one discusses this possibility, really.

No one argues or discusses that maybe we're a war and a bridge and many incursions too far.

In over our heads.

Between this arbitrary war and our unregulated banking and financial and spending messes and our Constitutional issues, huge debts, questions and problems, we're rattled to our foundations.

And no one's talking about it.

Not really.

We're whistling past the graveyard, it seems.

And how can you solve the big problems if you aren't acknowledging their existence?

Gitmo' savings! (from SNL)