It is about the lack of evidence. They can't even get the names of the detainees straight down in GITMO. They can't release them because they think they are bad, but they can't try them because they have zero proof of guilt. If they sent the detainees to a criminal court, the charges would be immediately dismissed.

Someone who worked with the detainees from GITMO came to my law school and described the process. Gist of what I learned was: they don't have any evidence. GITMO wasn't ever built to support a criminal court system. They aren't suspects down there, they are detainees. The military runs the place to generate intelligence, not convictions. The criminal justice system is a process, and GITMO was never up the standards of criminal justice from the beginning.

To be clear, I support sending them to criminal courts. And I support sending them to courts knowing that the charges will be dismissed and the detainees released. But I wanted to point out what the decision makers (Obama) are probably weighing right now.

http://www.propublica.org/feature/their-own-private-guantanamo-723

Of the 30 men who have pursued habeas petitions, 26 have been released. The GOV gets hearsay evidence, needs only meet a preponderance standard, and gets secret transcripts. Now imagine what happens when you send these guys up against a "reasonable doubt" standard. The GOV doesn't have a chance. They don't have any real evidence. GITMO was never built to make evidence for convictions. The GITMO detainees are just that, detainees. They will all have to be released because they weren't ever charged with anything.

We can expect this kind of release ratio when the detainees get put before a court. Cops find evidence for convictions. Soldiers and CIA spooks don't collect evidence sufficient for courts. The initial decisions regarding evidence collection made in 2001 have made due process convictions impossible.

The point of Glass-Seagall, the commodities rules pre modernization, and savings and loans regulations was to prevent coke addled traders from wrecking the global economy. The repeal of those regulations is what allowed the Patrick Batemans of the world to wreak the havoc they did. Other than the coke, what they did was legal. Which is exactly why all the old timey regulations need to come back in a hurry.

Chomsky argues that the idea of Obama, one you can project all your idea onto as he says nice things, is in fact a pre meditated political strategy that the Obama campaign very successfully used to win the 2008 election. I agree with Chomsky on this point entirely. I think Tom Tomorrow does as well.

The Baucus bill is health care reform that actually increases insurance company profits. If it passes, then no other health care bills will be able to be passed. Then we will be stuck with a bill that serves only to bailout the health insurance industry at the cost of the un-insured.

The mandate requires the un-insured to buy health insurance. But the crippling limitations on the public option prevent insurance costs from going down. And the insurance companies have already said they will raise premiums if health care reform passes. The Baucus bill manages to be the worst of all worlds. Snowe's support ensures its passage, because now the bill is bipartisan. Truly terrible news.

Obama gave away every meaningful healthcare reform, to get this one republican senator. Obama can now say he has bipartisan support for a stinker of a bill. I guess this is Obama's version of bringing everyone to the table. Big Pharma, the insurance lobby, a single republican, and Wall Street. Good luck paying for insurance without a public option but with a mandate.

This is just good enough of a reason to ditch the public option. Obama can say that he needs a bipartisan bill. Then using bipartisanship he can convince the beltway pundits of his responsibility in refusing to give in to the "populist" cries of the masses for a public option.

Such rhetoric is not distinguishable from the rhetoric of late 30s Germany. There isn't a meaningful difference.

These are the worst of the worst. But the innocent ones must be let free. But the innocent can't be let free here. One must contemplate why it is they can't be let free here. Could it be that years of unnecessary confinement could motivate them towards revenge? Refusing that they be let free here just acknowledges the evil that GITMO did.

Second time? I am pretty sure most of our recessions were caused by Wall Street gambling, and every one of our depressions were caused by Wall Street gambling. In the last 30 years going backwards off the top of my head:

Sub prime bubble

Tech stock bubble

East Asian crisis

Long Term Capital Management near catastrophe

S&L Crisis

Junk Bonds Crisis

Wall Street crisis happen every 4-7 years. The ones that didn't result in a recession only didn't do so because of extraordinary government intervention.

Chomsky says that political contributions are the strongest predictor for eventual policy. Wall Street backed the Democrats and Obama instead of the Republicans. During the boom they pay Republicans, during the bust they pay Democrats. I think we are seeing the policy they paid for.

Nixon came to power by convincing the non-unionized white working class that their interests were not aligned with black people. This split the New Deal coalition and allowed anti middle class measures to be adopted en mass. These anti middle class measures were sold as penalizing black people, but had the practical effect of destroying the middle class.

The end of Bretton Woods Capital controls

Escalation of war in Vietnam

War on Drugs

The tax reforms of the 80s

Reagan's great anti union crusade

Entitlement reform

Tort reform

Christianist judges

Each of these were ostensibly designed to harm the interests of black people more than white people, but ended up hitting both. The problem is Nixon believes his own bullshit.