NYT. Yes, the guy who is so upset about more Americans getting health insurance is covered by his wife's Wall Street plan. A spokesman at Goldman said Senator Ted Cruz gold plated health care plan 'comes at no cost to the taxpayers'. USA Today, 2010: Overall, Goldman Sachs received a $12.9 billion payout from the government's bailout of AIG, which was at one time the world's largest insurance company. In other words, Goldman might not be around giving the Cruz family benefits without the taxpayer bailout.
NYT: WASHINGTON — Global leaders at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s annual meetings here on Sunday pleaded, warned and cajoled: the United States must raise its debt ceiling and reopen its government or risk “massive disruption the world over...” Speaking Republicans I say: We didn't need a permission slip to start a war in Iraq, and we sure as heck don't need one to crash the world economy. Again.
The Grand Bargain, the plan that would cut entitlements for the middle and lower class, 'chained CPI' to cut Social Security, cuts to Medicare for the aged and cuts to Medicaid for the poor.
Senator Ted Cruz, latest Tea Party star, has a close connection to Wall Street. His wife is a Goldman VP. Executives at Goldman Sachs typically have 40K a year Cadillac health plans, a benefit paid for by GS. This is the type of gold plated plan taxed in part as income under ObamaCare.
Reminds me of the Peter Sellers film, I'm All Right Jack, where Sellers is an incompetent bull-headed union boss who constantly makes excessive demands, resulting in walk outs, and strike after strike. That was a film, this is today's Republican Party making an ass of themselves.
Since Articleman is not here to give us his more discerning take, I will predict that the Republicans in the House, led by Speaker Boehner, will not pass a 'clean continuing resolution', or any government spending Bill the President will sign, by this Monday. Their ultimate list of demands for federal law and finances includes everything from means testing for Medicare, less regulation of Wall Street, tax cuts for the rich, approving the XL pipeline to deregulation of environmental laws.
Meet the New Boss..Assange run for Aussie Senate flops: ..In leaked e-mails....Assange’s deputies had overridden the party’s governing body, the national council, to allow for preference deals that place right-wing anti-abortion or fringe parties.....ahead of leftist parties like the Greens...Ms. Cannold, an ethicist, has not spoken to Mr. Assange since. “This internal corruption revealed him to be no different,” she said, than the politicians he was claiming he’d be keeping accountable..
You've heard, when a unseasonable winter storm hits, those who say it convinces them there is no global warming? A controlled psychological study shows this is a common human trait, associating your personal state with global climate. Abstract of the study at link.
BBC: At a court hearing in London the government told a judge that David Miranda, the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, was carrying 58,000 documents related to British intelligence on electronic devices when he was stopped and searched at Heathrow airport on August 18.
One Israeli official even suggested that whoever planned the rocket barrage might have miscalculated.
“It’s quite likely that there was kind of an operational mistake here,” one senior Israeli suggested. “I don’t think they wanted to kill so many people, especially so many children. Maybe they were trying to hit one place or to get one effect and they got a much greater effect than they thought.”
He may even be eligible in 6 1/2 years as 3 1/2 years will be credited to the 35 yrs, 10 of which are all that is needed, with 'good conduct' for his parole.
A college baseball player jogging on the streets of Oklahoma was shot to death by three teenagers, one of whom told police they were “bored and didn’t have anything to do, so we decided to kill somebody,” authorities said....
Another tragedy caused by the widespread presence in America of guns, psychopaths, idiots and fools.
BBC: The Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) says the company did not have enough third-party liability insurance. (MMA filed for bankruptcy protection in Canada and the United States last week in the wake of the 6 July derailment.) The CTA's order covers both Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway (MMA) and its Canadian subsidiary. Forty-seven people were killed in Lac-Megantic after a train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded in the town.
While the public is thoroughly distracted with unending news and commentary on phone call logs, metadata, roller coaster accidents or the lack of accountability for the murder of a teen in Florida, one lonely article in the New York Times discusses how Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Blackrock are fleecing the consumer on Main Street with a game of merry go-round played with 1,500 lb. bars of aluminum in the environs of bankrupt Detroit:
If the Democrats don't get all 7 nominations approved today, or this week, this will make the Democratic leadership look like dumb doormat suckers for Republican chicanery, like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football that Lucy always pulls at the last second.
It's so secret, so bad, Greenwald knows it's a nightmare. Greenwald - The Great All Powerful Snowden:
"Snowden has enough information to cause harm to the U.S. government in a single minute than any other person has ever had....The U.S. government should be on its knees every day begging that nothing happen to Snowden, because if something does happen to him, all the information will be revealed and it could be its worst nightmare."
..."After scandals with the distribution of secret documents by WikiLeaks, the exposes by Edward Snowden, reports about Dmitry Medvedev being bugged during his visit to the G20 London summit (in 2009), it has been decided to expand the practice of creating paper documents," the source said.
The source added that typewriters were already being used at Russia's defence and emergencies ministries for drafts and secret notes, and some reports had been prepared for President Vladimir Putin by typewriter....
As Director (acting) of the Dag Transportation Safety Blog, reports on each of two recent transportation disasters are below. For the Asiana flight 214, they say the official NTSB report will be over 900 pages long and take 18 months. DTSB works on a swifter less verbally expansive, 'in your face' manner in issuing reports.
.....Assange stated pointedly that steps had been taken to foil any US attempt to block publication. "There is no stopping the publishing process at this stage," he said....he added: "Great care has been taken to make sure Mr Snowden cannot be pressured by any state to stop the publishing process."..
...During Friday morning's television interview, Lon Snowden......He voiced concern his son was being exploited by Wikileaks, which has offered legal assistance to the 30-year-old. "I don't want to put him in peril, but I am concerned about those who surround him," he said. "I think Wikileaks, if you've looked at past history, you know, their focus isn't necessarily the constitution of the United States. It's simply to release as much information as possible."....
