still pissed off

Obama administration continues to blockade torture-murder investigations at Gitmo. Andrew Sullivan gives the obvious explanation why, and clings to what is to my mind totally unjustified hope:

The enormity of what might have happened - the torturing to death of an innocent 21 year-old, held captive since he was 16 and the removal of his organs - would recruit even more Jihadists than Cheney managed in his seven years of torturing and covering up... If you want to know how the government "lost" the last tape of the torturing of Jose Padilla, or why the CIA, with impunity, destroyed the tapes of their waterboarding, this reason remains... And someone somewhere in the military or CIA has told the Justice Department to stay away, just as they persuaded the president to withhold photographs proving that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were worldwide policy on Cheney's and Bush's orders.

Of course the CIA lied about torture, and the effectiveness thereof. Even within the CIA. This is what happens when you run torture states, particularly with complete opacity (tho' there's really never any other kind):

"What I told Brian Ross in late 2007 was wrong on a couple counts," [former CIA operative John Kiriakou] writes. "I suggested that Abu Zubaydah had lasted only thirty or thirty-five seconds during his waterboarding before he begged his interrogators to stop; after that, I said he opened up and gave the agency actionable intelligence. ... I relied on what I'd heard and read inside the agency at the time. ... In retrospect, it was a valuable lesson in how the CIA uses the fine arts of deception even among its own.

Obama administration adopts Bush administration position that it can order the assassination of anyone, anywhere. This is in addition to the pseudo-justice system it has set up with some real trials (where they're sure they can get convictions under ordinary rules), some fake "military tribunal" trials (where they're sure they can get convictions using torture-extracted 'evidence'), and some no trials at all (where they know they can't get convictions but want to keep someone locked up forever anyway):

Just think about this for a minute. Barack Obama, like George Bush before him, has claimed the authority to order American citizens murdered based solely on the unverified, uncharged, unchecked claim that they are associated with Terrorism and pose "a continuing and imminent threat to U.S. persons and interests." They're entitled to no charges, no trial, no ability to contest the accusations.

Impeach. Obama. Now, and bring Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney to trial.

Oh, and briefly

There's a thing going around today about FOX being the US's most trusted media source. The survey in question strongly oversamples baby boomers - I only have the summary pages, of course, but judging from the oversampling it looks, at a guess, like they don't call cell phones. This doesn't necessarily change the result, but it does throw it into rather sharp question.

I got reminded of something interesting

How is it already 11:30? Damn!

I wanted to mention yesterday, but forgot - thanks to cow for the reminder - the projected budget deficits coming up over the next few years. This year is projected for US$1.35 trillion, with a T. Sadly, since Mr. Obama has started using some of Mr. Bush's off-budget bullshittery, that number is almost certainly going to come in a little higher - and break last year's record deficit - even if all else stays the same.

But I wanted to go to a source I don't usually tap for economic material, Glenn Greenwald, mostly because he's talking about the politics of the deficit. Mr. Obama's proposed 'freeze' - which he opposed during the campaign in a slightly different flavouring - doesn't include most of the budget. It excludes all nondiscretionary spending, it excludes all interest payments (of course), and most of all, it not only excludes military spending, but Defence Secretary Robert Gates has promised military contractors and suppliers that the military budget will continue to rise, steadily, every year, full stop.

Let's do some math, shall we? 2009 numbers. Military spending: 44.4% of the budget. This will rise. Interest payments on debt: 10.9% of budget. This will rise. Medicare/Medicade/Health: 19.7% (mostly non-discretionary, unless I'm wrong about the makeup of that, but I don't think I am). 44.4+10.9+19.7= 75% of the on-book budget. (This ignores Social Security, which has a theoretical trust fund, which is at best a figment of accountancy imagination. But I digress.)

Almost 75% of the budget is immune from any "freeze" of any sort. Particularly the damn-near-half that's military spending, and the more-than-half that's military-and-debt. And the military portion is only going up.

Where do you think this takes us?

In other news, seasonally-adjusted new home sales fell to the lowest level since March 2009, much, much worse than expected. (Seasonal adjustment makes the drop less, not more, so going to the "real numbers" makes the picture worse, not better.) Talking heads are saying, durr, it's December, ignoring, again, these are seasonally-adjusted numbers.

Mish Shedlock rounds up a bunch of downward-revisions in jobs and durable goods orders, noting also WalMart's Sam's Club division laying off 10,000. Teen and recent graduate unemployment is particularly bad, and states are running out of funds for their unemployment compensation packages - 24 are borrowing already, nine more will be by July.

Garth at GreaterFool.ca thinks the Canadian housing bubble is about to burst. That's been a theme for a while over there, but the report showing expensive cities for housing - with Vancouver leading the list globally - has really rather set him off.

Zero Hedge has a really interesting column up about Goldman Sachs offering to "take [a] haircut" on AIG derivative contracts, despite public statements from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that Goldman absolutely refused, followed by GS being made entirely whole with tax dollars funnelled through AIG. Gosh, I wonder what Goldman Sachs wonk might have been involved with that manoeuvre?

Federal Reserve Open Markets Commission notes today said "everything's getting better but it's still an emergency and we aren't changing anything despite the fact that everything's getting better," which is a real nothing-to-see-here-move-along statement. The market apparently likes the tablet; AAPL is up 1.5% at the moment, which is after the announcement. The USD hasn't done much interesting in several days. Can$ is at US$0.937, falling slowly from a spike high of US$0.98 over the last week or so, probably on oil but that's entirely ex recto. Oil is continuing its decline, down to US$73.68 as we are well into one of the two off-peak-demand seasons. Look for that to start its seasonal rise in late March or early April in advance of summer "driving season."

'scuse me while I whip this out

Sketchy Characters cover art
Crime and the Forces of Evil