Q) Was that the act of the government, or individual Saudi subjects? A) The act of individual Saudi subjects who were supporters of Al Qaida. Official government involvement = 0.
The alleged hijackers being mostly Saudi is nothing?
Q) Was that the act of the government, or individual Saudi subjects? A) The act of individual Saudi subjects who were members of Al Qaida. Official government involvement = 0.
Recognizing the Taliban as legitimate government is nothing to do with it?
Q) Did the recognition of the Saudi Government result in the attacks? A) No. It was irrelevant.
You need to find another dealer.
You don't seem to be catching the important details. Al Qaeda was in Afghanistan, openly hosted there, training went on there, the attack came from there. If it would have been 19 Canadians that made the attack, nothing would have changed. It still would have been Afghanistan that would have been attacked, not Canada.
The whole point of Sarbanes-Oxley is people had no clue Enron was doing weird shit. You can hate it all you want. but its goal is to encourage transparency to protect its investors. I see nothing wrong with that
Transparency is fine in the abstract, but the implementation has a big role in determining if it is good or bad policy. Sarbanes-Oxley isn't looking so good in retrospect.
THE HONORABLE TOM FEENEY: As Milton Friedman said, often a congressional solution is worse than the problem. That's another one of those truisms that has been proved by Sarbanes-Oxley. Another one is that Congress tends to have two speeds-zero and overreact. In the case of Sarbanes-Oxley, we clearly overreacted. And most importantly, I think, Sarbanes-Oxley proves the rule that the unanticipated, unintended consequences of complex legislation are often much, much worse than the positive effects that you intended. . . .
. . . some accountants, for example, have looked at the newspaper subscriptions for the officers in a $2 billion or $5 billion company. We're talking about $70 or $100 or $150 a year for newspapers in a $2 billion company, and that has generated reviews that will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Procurement decisions on a very minor level have triggered these things. Why is this?
President Barack Obama backed the recommendations of his jobs council to amend the Sarbanes-Oxley regulations to make it easier for small companies to go public.
The jobs council, headed by GE CEO Jeff Immelt and including Sheryl Sandberg and Steve Case, found that the Sarbanes-Oxley was a key factor in reducing the number of IPOs smaller than $50 million from 80 percent of all IPOs in the 1990s to 20 percent in the 2000s.
Obama also said the "Spitzer Decree," which bans investment banks from using banking revenues to pay for research and expert analysis of publicly-traded companies, deserves reconsideration as well. The council said the rule shares the blame for the decline in IPOs among small companies.
No one denies that there was a corporate governance problem that came to a head with the Enron scandal. But in their zeal to pass new legislation, no one in Congress ever stepped back to consider the magnitude of the problem. Some 12,000 companies are required to file public financial statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission. According to George Benston, professor of accounting at Emory University, no more than a few dozen per year have ever been implicated in dishonest bookkeeping. But rather than simply step up enforcement by the SEC, all companies were treated as guilty until proven innocent and forced to comply with onerous new regulatory requirements.
The most burdensome provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation is section 404, which requires establishment of extensive new internal controls for financial reporting. A recent study by Financial Executives International, an industry group, found that the average compliance cost for large companies was $4.6 million, involving 35,000 hours of internal manpower, $1.3 million for external consulting and software, and additional audit fees of $1.5 million.
These numbers are probably very low. FEI admits that the complia
Actually, I have been listening to what Romney is saying, and he isn't saying much. He will cut the rates across the board 20%, and he will make it revenue neutral by closing some mythical loopholes. . ..
The fact is taxes have to go up for the middle class if he is going to be revenue neutral. So, either he is lying about being revenue neutral, or lying about not raising taxes on the middle class. Can't have it both ways
It appears that you don't really understand what Romney is planning, or how it works, or what the actual numbers are. I guess great minds think alike as your comments are very similar to the Obama campaign talking points about Romney's plan. Try this article, from which I excerpt, for a better understanding of Romney's plan:
. . . In many regards, the Romney plan is like that of Obama’s bipartisan Simpson-Bowles Commission. Both plans share a structural consistency of low tax rates and a broader tax base. One important difference is that Romney proposes to keep the top tax rate on capital gains and dividends unchanged while Simpson-Bowles proposes raising those rates considerably. Furthermore, the Simpson-Bowles plan is an explicit tax increase–$80 billion a year more than even Obama has proposed–while Romney’s tax reform plan is revenue neutral.
Fallacies Behind the Democrats’ Attack
The core of the Democrats’ argument is that you can’t reduce income tax rates by 20 percent, as the Romney plan proposes, without raising taxes on the middle class. The analysis supporting this attack comes from a report by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center (TPC), purveyors of a proprietary tax model used to estimate the budgetary and distributional consequences of tax proposals. The TPC analysis concludes that there are not enough tax breaks (excluding tax preferences for savings and investment) for high-income earners to offset the cost of the lower rates. As a result, TPC estimates that the Romney plan would reduce the tax payments of high-income earners by $86 billion in 2015 and that revenue neutrality would then require an $86 billion tax increase on the middle class.
The core of the Democrats’ argument is that you can’t reduce income tax rates by 20 percent, as the Romney plan proposes, without raising taxes on the middle class.
The TPC model has an important limitation when it is used to consider the impact of such large reforms as Romney’s plan. It assumes that any tax reform would not help the economy. In this sense, the TPC model is consistent with the models used by the official revenue estimators at the U.S. Treasury Department and the Joint Committee on Taxation. But those models are intended primarily to analyze the impact of modest changes to the tax code, not fundamental tax reform. In fact, there is plentiful economic evidence that tax reform could result in measurable economic growth. Depending on the reform and the model used to analyze it, tax reform can increase the capital stock, encourage work and innovation, and improve the allocation of resources in the economy.
In addition to the modeling limitation, TPC also misconstrues analysis on the relationship between tax reform and economic growth. Not only does the TPC model assume zero economic growth, but the Center’s analysis (subsequently echoed by many other commentators) points to research I published with AEI colleague Alan Viard to argue that economic growth is not possible from revenue-neutral income tax reform. This conclusion is a false interpretation of our research.
An increase in labor supply is one means by which an economy can grow; as Viard and I pointed out, revenue-neutral tax reform is indeed unlik
Indefinite detention qualifies as torture. In civilized countries.
Indefinite detention is the accepted norm in military conflicts - you can be held until the conflict is over. So, I'm afriad you are quite wrong there. It is also used in many countries to keep very dangerous prisoners behind bars.
And to your other post, you stupid troll, I did not specify a country and you're cherrypicking. That is trolling.
We've already seen that Australia uses it, but so do Japan, UK, US, Sweden (and Sweden), Norway, and many other countries one generally considers part of the civilized world. Looks like you don't quite have this right.
In light of unprovoked invasion of these countries (instead of KSA),
The invasion of Afghanistan was greatly provoked - - 9/11 - perhaps you've heard of it? Afghanistan hosted Al Qaida even to the point of integrating it into the government. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had nothing to do with 9/'11 as a government. So, you don't have this right.
the evidence of double-tap attacks on reporters and civilians,
On innocent civilians or reporters? Not so much.
executions by drone and whatever they call "collateral damage" is all that is required to make that statement valid.
The attacks by drones are attacks, not executions. You've been wrong in the particulars, and in general.
You're THE idiot. . . . you stupid troll . . . you're cherrypicking. That is trolling. . . Last, but not least, FOAD.
I take it you mean: Forged a Troll From Your post, as that's all your edit is.
Yeah, he did it with NDAA, I suppose. See Bradley Manning's treatment, which qualifies as a torture (not in the USA but in countries who have the notion of human rights and decency).
Actually it was an executive order.
Which countries? Austrialia?
Solitary confinement After an absence of nearly nineteen years, in 1990 the concept of solitary confinement was reinstated. Under Section 36 of the Correctional Services Act 1982 the Chief Executive Officer may direct that a prisoner be kept separately and apart from all other prisoners within the prison if in his or opinion it is desirable:
Come on. What the USA does in Afghanistan and Iraq (but not limited to those places) is terrorist in nature, which with the help from Manning Wikileaks proved beyond a shadow of doubt.
Quite the reverse. Or did you find "evidence" of the US setting off truck bombs in civilian market places? I thought not.
Al Qaida is not being treated as a government, in nature it is essentially like pirates - Hostis humani generis - enemies of all mankind.
Bin Laden wasn't a head of state but the military leader of a band of unlawful combatants and war criminals. Killing him was not a violation of US law, but a strike against an enemy military commander, no different than the planned ambush and killing of Admiral Yamamoto.
I have never seen any claim that the SEALs made Bin Laden kneel, but rather they shot him on sight. If you want to claim that the SEALs made him kneel and executed him - (serious) reference, please.
As to killing a US citizen, I assume you are referring to Al Awlaki, who was openly calling for the killing of Americans and acting as an Al Qaida trainer and planner for planned, attempted, and actual attacks against the United States. He was making war against the United States. Killing him was entirely appropriate, reasonable, and legal. There was no more need for charges and trial against him than there was against the many other Americans in a similar position, many of whom were shot down en mass by the US government without trial - and quite rightly so. (One interesting note - the men depicted there were not actual war criminals and unlawful combatants, unlike Al Qaida, so they had far more legal protection than Al Qaida is entitled to in terms of the Law of War.)
Assange faces essentially no risk of either torture or "torture" by the US government as President Obama banned enhanced interrogation techniques. Even if charged with espionage, the death penalty is more theoretical than actual as the US hasn't executed a spy for about 60 years - they have all been getting life in prison. This includes the disastrous John Walker who passed the Soviets the means to local US submarines at sea - a much more serious problem than the worst allegation against Assange. As to a missile for Assange - those are being shot at terrorists trying to kill people, or those directly supporting them. Assange just doesn't qualify.
I could go on, but you should be getting the drift by now.
Currently, the only thing keeping Mr Assange from torture and death is the public spotlight.
Torture and death from whom? It wouldn't be the US. Not that they were legally torture under US law as determined at the US Department of Justice, but the US only waterboarded three terrorists, the most recent in about 2003, (although it continues to routinely waterboard its own pilots and special forces members for training - thousands of them), and President Obama stopped enhanced interrogations, so no "torture" by the US. The US hasn't put a spy to death in the 60 years since the Rosenbergs, and that was over nuclear weapons secrets. (Even the disastrous John Walker only got life in prison, and he enabled the Soviets to break American codes, enabling them to know where American submarines were, among many other things.) Assange has been prolific, to be sure, but nowhere as dangerous as handing the power of nuclear weapons and the locations of American submarines to a sworn enemy. So, he faces no torture, and very unlikely death.
The biggest risk Assange faces with any real certainty is ennui in a Swedish prison, although he might yet end up facing charges in the UK after that for jumping bail and fleeing the law. If the rumored secret grand jury investigation in the US pans out, he might have more serious charges filed against him, but then it is a strictly legal matter, and they have to figure out how to get him legally, which may not be easy or possible. Even then, they still have to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt, and the worst he is likely to face is more prison time.
He's right. At one time, I "had a friend" that would have put a bullet through Assanges' head on "unofficial" orders.
Is that a fact? And your friend actually told you this*? Leaves me wondering what kind of a friend you have there, sharing what would obviously be highly classified information. ..if true. . . for you to spread around? Even more so, does he have friends . . . . or maybe a team (?) ofhisownpreparingfor action against Assange . . . . maybe with FBIsupport?
I would think that when it comes to Assange, even if the US government was inclined to direct action, they would be open to following Napoleons advice: Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. Assange has made plenty of them, and they seem to be continuing. Instead of going to Sweden to clear his name, he has managed to commit actual offenses in the UK (jumping bail and fleeing the law) and confine himself in a small apartment for an indefinite term. As things are going he could easily be there for years, ultimately be captured and sent to Sweden, be cleared in Sweden, and then returned to the UK to face charges for jumping bail and fleeing the law.
Besides, since the US only waterboarded three people, the most recent in about 2003 in pretty much the immediate aftermath of 9/11 to try to get some insight into Al Qaeda's next attack after having just suffered 3,000 dead, and there has been endless carping about it ever since, what do you think would happen if the US employed your "friend", or someone that is actually dangerous, to kill a "journalist" like Assange, and word got out -as it inevitably would? Somehow I just don't see that happening since Assange hasn't actually participated in direct warfare against the US, unlike Al Awlaki.
In any event, you can rest assured that Julian Assange takes strong evasive measures whenever possible - no catching him with his pants . . . down.
* So you fancy your friend as the ruthless sort then?
Blah blah blah. No president does anything single-handedly. Lincoln didn't tear through the Confederacy like an action hero. FDR didn't paradrop into Nazi Germany. Obama didn't pull the literal trigger on Osama.
That is an awful lot of verbiage to say you agree with me. (See above: "in his success he is indebted to others")
Obama didn't pull the literal trigger on Osama. But it was his decision to refocus efforts on finding OBL, it was his decision to go with troops on the ground rather than an airstrike, it was his decision to keep the Pakistanis out of the loop. All of those turned out to be the right choices, and Obama deserves credit for that.
So, once again we agree.
All you Republicans claiming the credit should go exclusively to the military, . . .
And now you are claiming something that isn't true. I didn't write that. The primary article that I quote doesn't state that, in fact it is the reverse. Quoting from above, "Let’s cheerfully and ungrudgingly give credit to Barack Obama for approving the military operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden." That contradicts your claim. You go pretty far off the mark in a very short distance.
Maybe you were confused by the post I responded to which stated, "Ask Osama about his experience in international affairs." I pointed out that the implied Raid on Bin Laden was a military and intelligence action, not diplomatic.
. . . . ask yourself this: If the mission had ended with a dozen dead SEALs instead of a dead terrorist, would you be placing the blame solely on the military?
Well, since neither I nor the primary author I quote gives them sole credit, it doesn't immediately follow that they would deserve sole blame, does it? (Would you attribute any blame to President Obama if there was a failure? Even if it was the result of his not accepting a strong recommendation about not going under present conditions?) Besides, I doubt you are aware of how thoroughly the military goes through such failures, such as occurred at Desert One, and the years of hard questions that would follow from the media, military, and government. It was self-criticism over Desert One that led to the reforms that ultimately enabled the raid against Bin Laden to succeed.
So, after agreeing with me, then making a false claim about my position, you never get around to addressing the main point in the main piece I quote: "While we may not know all the details about and behind this operation, it’s fascinating to see how many of the things that made the success of this operation possible were not so long ago decried by many of the president’s fans and fellow partisans." President Obama was successful primarily because of not fulfilling his platform. I'm not surprised you won't touch that. That's a pity though, as it would have been a chance to demonstrate real insight, if you have any, rather than simple Republican bashing.
Ask Osama about his experience in international affairs.
Killing Bin Laden was indeed a military and intelligence coup, but in his success he is indebted to others. (He didn't build that, at least not alone.)
Let’s cheerfully and ungrudgingly give credit to Barack Obama for approving the military operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. . ..
While we may not know all the details about and behind this operation, it’s fascinating to see how many of the things that made the success of this operation possible were not so long ago decried by many of the president’s fans and fellow partisans.
For one thing, it apparently would not have happened without those infamous enhanced interrogation techniques — “torture,” according to critics of the Bush administration.
The enhanced interrogation techniques reportedly led to identification of the courier who eventually led our forces to bin Laden’s hiding place. Critics of waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques assured us that “torture” could not produce reliable information.
They were probably right that sometimes such techniques yield false information. But the bin Laden operation shows that they can also produce actionable intelligence.
You may remember that many Democrats called for criminal prosecution of CIA interrogators who were acting under orders vetted by legal counsel. Attorney General Eric Holder actually considered bringing such prosecutions.
Fortunately, he decided not to do so — fortunately for the individuals involved but fortunately also for his own reputation. Who would want to be known for prosecuting the people who helped track down bin Laden?
It has also been reported that in hunting down bin Laden our forces relied on intercepted communications. I wonder if any of them included contacts between suspected terrorists abroad and persons in the United States.
This was the “domestic wiretapping” revealed to great acclaim by the New York Times and presented as an intolerable infringement of civil liberties. Given what we know now, it’s a good thing our folks were tuning in.
Obama deserves credit also for employing the Navy SEALs, who are part of the Joint Special Operations Command. It was fashionable a few years ago to call the JSOC “Dick Cheney’s death squad” and “Cheney’s assassination team.”
The assumption behind such criticism was that Bush administration officials were using what they termed the war against terrorism as a smokescreen for persecuting domestic dissidents. But there is not a scrap of evidence that either the Bush administration or the Obama administration was doing anything of the kind. They were too busy trying to protect us.
There was criticism as well of the idea of targeting particular individuals for assassination. But, in ordering the raid on bin Laden’s compound, Obama authorized the killing of bin Laden. And no Miranda warnings first.
This morning, The New York Times offers a lengthy look at President Obama’s relationship with leaders in the Arab world, full of revealing detail. It never quite comes out and explicitly says the president’s approach has failed, but the overall picture is withe
And yet the Supreme Court says it is. Who to believe.....
The constitution does not permit them to delegate that power to the executive.
An AUMF is an authorization by the legislature for the executive to use military force, the same as a Declaration of War. You may not like that the magic incantation isn't used, but it isn't needed legally.
For a country that prides itself on freedom of speech - they like to tell people to shut up.
Assange provided secret military documents, including lists of informants, to enemies of the United States against whom there is a shooting war going on. I have little doubt General George Washington himself would have had Assange tried and shot for that.
If you can't figure out why Assange's actions might be a bad thing, there probably isn't much hope for you. Maybe a repeat of middle school would help?
The last time congress officially declared war was World War II
Exactly. Every war that the US has fought since then has been illegal.
-jcr
An Authorization for Use of Military Force by Congress is legally equivalent to a Declaration of War. The Supreme Court decided that long ago. "Declaration of War" is not a required magic incantation to make the use of force by the state legal.
The chances of a person being killed by a terrorist attack are by far lower than the chances of dying from a traffic accident or a heart attack. Actually they are far less than the chances of an innocent person to die accidentally shot by a police officer.
Tell that to the Iraqis, who suffer bombings and assassinations daily, and for whom truck bombings in market places was a regular hazard for years.
Or maybe you can tell it to the FBI for that matter. The make regular arrests and attain convictions for plot after plot after plot. I will show a few at the end of the post.
The only reason it is rare, is the United States takes active, effective measures against it, not because there aren't people trying to conduct attacks. Frankly, your post makes as much sense as saying that statistics show so few deaths from food poisoning that it obviously isn't a problem, so we should do away with refrigeration.
Denver: Man Arrested for Providing Material Support to a Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization
Jamshid Muhtorov was arrested by members of the FBI’s Denver and Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Forces on a charge of providing and attempting to provide material support to the Islamic Jihad Union, a Pakistan-based designated foreign terrorist organization. Full Story
Baltimore: Man Pleads Guilty to Attempted Use of a Weapon of Mass Destruction in Plot to Attack Armed Forces Recruiting Center
U.S. citizen Antonio Martinez, aka Muhammad Hussain, pled guilty to attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction against federal property in connection with a scheme to attack an armed forces recruiting station in Catonsville, Maryland. Full Story
Washington Field: Man Pleads Guilty to Shootings at Pentagon, Other Military Buildings
Yonathan Melaku, of Alexandria, Virginia, pled guilty to damaging property and to firearms violations involving five separate shootings at military installations in northern Virginia between October and November 2010, and to attempting to damage veterans’ memorials at Arlington National Cemetery. Full Story
1.Tampa: Florida Resident Charged with Plotting to Bomb Locations in Tampa
A 25-year-old resident of Pinellas Park, Florida was charged in connection with an alleged plot to attack locations in Tampa with a vehicle bomb, assault rifle, and other explosives. Full Story
2.Baltimore: Former Army Solider Charged with Attempting to Provide Material Support to al Shabaab
A man who secretly converted to Islam days before he separated from the Army was charged with attempting to provide material support to al Shabaab, a foreign terrorist organization, and was arrested upon his return to Maryland after traveling to Africa. Full Story
I hope I live to see those war criminals, Bush and Obama among them, hauled in front of the Hague and sentenced to spending the rest of their lives in jail.
Brace yourself for disappointment.
Tell me, do you have similar hopes for the planners of the 7/7 Bombings? The Madrid bombings? The Bali Bombing? The Mumbai attack? The 9/11 attack? Any of the countless other terrorist bombings and attacks? No? I thought not.
Obama could already order him killed without any official designation as enemy of state.
Even if he was a US citizen.
Although this guy is one of the more recent examples, the US government has been involved in this sort of thing before.
There are some mostly forgotten incidents in which the US government shot down large number of people who some would probably say were just out for a walk. Technically, they were in the same status as that first guy the government killed with a missile. The funny thing is, under the rules this falls under, no charges, judge, or jury is required.
Did Bush execute any US citizens without due process?
There is no question of due process involved. If you are fighting with the enemy, you are the enemy. Simple to understand. Example.
This isn't the first time this question has came up. There was a period when the US government shot down, en mass, large numbers of Americans without filing charges, trial, or any judicial due process. There is video depicting one of the more famous incidents.
Germany was initially only limited to their own immediate neighborhood in Europe back in World War 2, right? How did that work out last time?
Germany had been a world power into World War 1, and had regained much of their might by World War 2, including a blue water navy. China is still working their way there for the first time.
China has a huge population that needs more resources. And this being a small planet, your resources are eventually on the menu, whether you acknowledge that fact or not.
Russia is allying, informally, with other Asian countries that also worry about China’s ascendance. South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, and India have seen Chinese ships assert sovereignty over contested areas in East and Southeast Asia.
Russian bases in Vietnam and the Seychelles will be welcomed by those countries along the Chinese periphery. Indeed, Russia’s moves probably come after quiet diplomacy by several of them to strengthen their hand against China – diplomacy certainly supported if not initiated by the U.S.
He already is. (imprisoned indefinitely without trial)
There is a difference, an important one - any day Assange wants, he can surrender to the police from whom he fled after losing his court appeals, return to Sweden, answer the formal questions from prosecutors before charges are filed (as is the way in the Swedish legal system), and then face trail over the accusations of serial sex crimes. At present Assange is in a cell of his own choosing - he imprisons himself.
Or, you know, any military personnel that expresses support for Assange (according to TFA).The analyst in question wasn't charged, but it seems that he did lose his access to classified information.
And that is probably exactly as it should be. They didn't allow Communists in the military during the Cold War either.
Assange has made unredacted US military secret information available to anybody who wants it, including the Taliban and Al Qaida - the organizations engaged in a shooting war with the United States. The Taliban and Al Qaida have taken copies of those documents, studied them, and actively seek to kill people listed on them. (The question of their success in this is irrelevant.) That is aiding the enemy of the United States with intelligence information. Any soldier supporting Assange's actions should be suspect, and probably should not have access to classified information*. I'm not sure how this isn't clear to you, or why you would find it troubling. But as you say, why let facts get in your way?
* Would it trouble you to learn that members of the German American Bund might have faced limited prospects in the military in WW2?
Perhaps you should read more about that decision as there are two aspects of it, and most people stop paying attention after the first. The first part says the government can't stop publication of things like the Pentagon Papers. The second, neglected part, enables the government to attempt to prosecute the crimes associated with the publication, potentially including the publication itself. So far the government has generally declined prosecution after publication.
Slashdot Mirror
Financing "the database" is "nothing"?
Q) Was that the act of the government, or individual Saudi subjects?
A) The act of individual Saudi subjects who were supporters of Al Qaida. Official government involvement = 0.
The alleged hijackers being mostly Saudi is nothing?
Q) Was that the act of the government, or individual Saudi subjects?
A) The act of individual Saudi subjects who were members of Al Qaida. Official government involvement = 0.
Recognizing the Taliban as legitimate government is nothing to do with it?
Q) Did the recognition of the Saudi Government result in the attacks?
A) No. It was irrelevant.
You need to find another dealer.
You don't seem to be catching the important details. Al Qaeda was in Afghanistan, openly hosted there, training went on there, the attack came from there. If it would have been 19 Canadians that made the attack, nothing would have changed. It still would have been Afghanistan that would have been attacked, not Canada.
Mod down
The whole point of Sarbanes-Oxley is people had no clue Enron was doing weird shit. You can hate it all you want. but its goal is to encourage transparency to protect its investors. I see nothing wrong with that
Transparency is fine in the abstract, but the implementation has a big role in determining if it is good or bad policy. Sarbanes-Oxley isn't looking so good in retrospect.
Reforming Sarbanes-Oxley: How to Restore American Leadership in World Capital Markets
THE HONORABLE TOM FEENEY: As Milton Friedman said, often a congressional solution is worse than the problem. That's another one of those truisms that has been proved by Sarbanes-Oxley. Another one is that Congress tends to have two speeds-zero and overreact. In the case of Sarbanes-Oxley, we clearly overreacted. And most importantly, I think, Sarbanes-Oxley proves the rule that the unanticipated, unintended consequences of complex legislation are often much, much worse than the positive effects that you intended. . . .
. . . some accountants, for example, have looked at the newspaper subscriptions for the officers in a $2 billion or $5 billion company. We're talking about $70 or $100 or $150 a year for newspapers in a $2 billion company, and that has generated reviews that will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Procurement decisions on a very minor level have triggered these things. Why is this?
Time to Reform Sarbanes-Oxley
Obama Endorses Sarbanes-Oxley Reform To Make Small IPOs Easier
President Barack Obama backed the recommendations of his jobs council to amend the Sarbanes-Oxley regulations to make it easier for small companies to go public.
The jobs council, headed by GE CEO Jeff Immelt and including Sheryl Sandberg and Steve Case, found that the Sarbanes-Oxley was a key factor in reducing the number of IPOs smaller than $50 million from 80 percent of all IPOs in the 1990s to 20 percent in the 2000s.
Obama also said the "Spitzer Decree," which bans investment banks from using banking revenues to pay for research and expert analysis of publicly-traded companies, deserves reconsideration as well. The council said the rule shares the blame for the decline in IPOs among small companies.
The Crimes of Sarbanes-Oxley
No one denies that there was a corporate governance problem that came to a head with the Enron scandal. But in their zeal to pass new legislation, no one in Congress ever stepped back to consider the magnitude of the problem. Some 12,000 companies are required to file public financial statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission. According to George Benston, professor of accounting at Emory University, no more than a few dozen per year have ever been implicated in dishonest bookkeeping. But rather than simply step up enforcement by the SEC, all companies were treated as guilty until proven innocent and forced to comply with onerous new regulatory requirements.
The most burdensome provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation is section 404, which requires establishment of extensive new internal controls for financial reporting. A recent study by Financial Executives International, an industry group, found that the average compliance cost for large companies was $4.6 million, involving 35,000 hours of internal manpower, $1.3 million for external consulting and software, and additional audit fees of $1.5 million.
These numbers are probably very low. FEI admits that the complia
Actually, I have been listening to what Romney is saying, and he isn't saying much. He will cut the rates across the board 20%, and he will make it revenue neutral by closing some mythical loopholes. . . .
The fact is taxes have to go up for the middle class if he is going to be revenue neutral. So, either he is lying about being revenue neutral, or lying about not raising taxes on the middle class. Can't have it both ways
It appears that you don't really understand what Romney is planning, or how it works, or what the actual numbers are. I guess great minds think alike as your comments are very similar to the Obama campaign talking points about Romney's plan. Try this article, from which I excerpt, for a better understanding of Romney's plan:
The Romney Tax Plan: Not a Tax Hike on the Middle Class - By Alex Brill, The American - a magazine of ideas by the American Enterprise Institute
. . . In many regards, the Romney plan is like that of Obama’s bipartisan Simpson-Bowles Commission. Both plans share a structural consistency of low tax rates and a broader tax base. One important difference is that Romney proposes to keep the top tax rate on capital gains and dividends unchanged while Simpson-Bowles proposes raising those rates considerably. Furthermore, the Simpson-Bowles plan is an explicit tax increase–$80 billion a year more than even Obama has proposed–while Romney’s tax reform plan is revenue neutral.
Fallacies Behind the Democrats’ Attack
The core of the Democrats’ argument is that you can’t reduce income tax rates by 20 percent, as the Romney plan proposes, without raising taxes on the middle class. The analysis supporting this attack comes from a report by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center (TPC), purveyors of a proprietary tax model used to estimate the budgetary and distributional consequences of tax proposals. The TPC analysis concludes that there are not enough tax breaks (excluding tax preferences for savings and investment) for high-income earners to offset the cost of the lower rates. As a result, TPC estimates that the Romney plan would reduce the tax payments of high-income earners by $86 billion in 2015 and that revenue neutrality would then require an $86 billion tax increase on the middle class.
The core of the Democrats’ argument is that you can’t reduce income tax rates by 20 percent, as the Romney plan proposes, without raising taxes on the middle class.
The TPC model has an important limitation when it is used to consider the impact of such large reforms as Romney’s plan. It assumes that any tax reform would not help the economy. In this sense, the TPC model is consistent with the models used by the official revenue estimators at the U.S. Treasury Department and the Joint Committee on Taxation. But those models are intended primarily to analyze the impact of modest changes to the tax code, not fundamental tax reform. In fact, there is plentiful economic evidence that tax reform could result in measurable economic growth. Depending on the reform and the model used to analyze it, tax reform can increase the capital stock, encourage work and innovation, and improve the allocation of resources in the economy.
In addition to the modeling limitation, TPC also misconstrues analysis on the relationship between tax reform and economic growth. Not only does the TPC model assume zero economic growth, but the Center’s analysis (subsequently echoed by many other commentators) points to research I published with AEI colleague Alan Viard to argue that economic growth is not possible from revenue-neutral income tax reform. This conclusion is a false interpretation of our research.
An increase in labor supply is one means by which an economy can grow; as Viard and I pointed out, revenue-neutral tax reform is indeed unlik
Indefinite detention qualifies as torture. In civilized countries.
Indefinite detention is the accepted norm in military conflicts - you can be held until the conflict is over. So, I'm afriad you are quite wrong there. It is also used in many countries to keep very dangerous prisoners behind bars.
And to your other post, you stupid troll, I did not specify a country and you're cherrypicking. That is trolling.
We've already seen that Australia uses it, but so do Japan, UK, US, Sweden (and Sweden), Norway, and many other countries one generally considers part of the civilized world. Looks like you don't quite have this right.
In light of unprovoked invasion of these countries (instead of KSA),
The invasion of Afghanistan was greatly provoked - - 9/11 - perhaps you've heard of it? Afghanistan hosted Al Qaida even to the point of integrating it into the government. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had nothing to do with 9/'11 as a government. So, you don't have this right.
the evidence of double-tap attacks on reporters and civilians,
On innocent civilians or reporters? Not so much.
executions by drone and whatever they call "collateral damage" is all that is required to make that statement valid.
The attacks by drones are attacks, not executions. You've been wrong in the particulars, and in general.
You're THE idiot. . . . you stupid troll . . . you're cherrypicking. That is trolling. . . Last, but not least, FOAD.
I guess you aren't a fan of civil discourse.
FTFY
I take it you mean: Forged a Troll From Your post, as that's all your edit is.
Yeah, he did it with NDAA, I suppose. See Bradley Manning's treatment, which qualifies as a torture (not in the USA but in countries who have the notion of human rights and decency).
Actually it was an executive order.
Which countries? Austrialia?
Come on. What the USA does in Afghanistan and Iraq (but not limited to those places) is terrorist in nature, which with the help from Manning Wikileaks proved beyond a shadow of doubt.
Quite the reverse. Or did you find "evidence" of the US setting off truck bombs in civilian market places? I thought not.
And Assange does qualify for an "accident."
You misspelled "arrest" and left out deportation.
Al Qaida is not being treated as a government, in nature it is essentially like pirates - Hostis humani generis - enemies of all mankind.
Bin Laden wasn't a head of state but the military leader of a band of unlawful combatants and war criminals. Killing him was not a violation of US law, but a strike against an enemy military commander, no different than the planned ambush and killing of Admiral Yamamoto.
I have never seen any claim that the SEALs made Bin Laden kneel, but rather they shot him on sight. If you want to claim that the SEALs made him kneel and executed him - (serious) reference, please.
As to killing a US citizen, I assume you are referring to Al Awlaki, who was openly calling for the killing of Americans and acting as an Al Qaida trainer and planner for planned, attempted, and actual attacks against the United States. He was making war against the United States. Killing him was entirely appropriate, reasonable, and legal. There was no more need for charges and trial against him than there was against the many other Americans in a similar position, many of whom were shot down en mass by the US government without trial - and quite rightly so. (One interesting note - the men depicted there were not actual war criminals and unlawful combatants, unlike Al Qaida, so they had far more legal protection than Al Qaida is entitled to in terms of the Law of War.)
Assange faces essentially no risk of either torture or "torture" by the US government as President Obama banned enhanced interrogation techniques. Even if charged with espionage, the death penalty is more theoretical than actual as the US hasn't executed a spy for about 60 years - they have all been getting life in prison. This includes the disastrous John Walker who passed the Soviets the means to local US submarines at sea - a much more serious problem than the worst allegation against Assange. As to a missile for Assange - those are being shot at terrorists trying to kill people, or those directly supporting them. Assange just doesn't qualify.
I could go on, but you should be getting the drift by now.
Currently, the only thing keeping Mr Assange from torture and death is the public spotlight.
Torture and death from whom? It wouldn't be the US. Not that they were legally torture under US law as determined at the US Department of Justice, but the US only waterboarded three terrorists, the most recent in about 2003, (although it continues to routinely waterboard its own pilots and special forces members for training - thousands of them), and President Obama stopped enhanced interrogations, so no "torture" by the US. The US hasn't put a spy to death in the 60 years since the Rosenbergs, and that was over nuclear weapons secrets. (Even the disastrous John Walker only got life in prison, and he enabled the Soviets to break American codes, enabling them to know where American submarines were, among many other things.) Assange has been prolific, to be sure, but nowhere as dangerous as handing the power of nuclear weapons and the locations of American submarines to a sworn enemy. So, he faces no torture, and very unlikely death.
The biggest risk Assange faces with any real certainty is ennui in a Swedish prison, although he might yet end up facing charges in the UK after that for jumping bail and fleeing the law. If the rumored secret grand jury investigation in the US pans out, he might have more serious charges filed against him, but then it is a strictly legal matter, and they have to figure out how to get him legally, which may not be easy or possible. Even then, they still have to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt, and the worst he is likely to face is more prison time.
He's right. At one time, I "had a friend" that would have put a bullet through Assanges' head on "unofficial" orders.
Is that a fact? And your friend actually told you this*? Leaves me wondering what kind of a friend you have there, sharing what would obviously be highly classified information. . .if true. . . for you to spread around? Even more so, does he have friends . . . . or maybe a team (?) of his own preparing for action against Assange . . . . maybe with FBI support?
I would think that when it comes to Assange, even if the US government was inclined to direct action, they would be open to following Napoleons advice: Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. Assange has made plenty of them, and they seem to be continuing. Instead of going to Sweden to clear his name, he has managed to commit actual offenses in the UK (jumping bail and fleeing the law) and confine himself in a small apartment for an indefinite term. As things are going he could easily be there for years, ultimately be captured and sent to Sweden, be cleared in Sweden, and then returned to the UK to face charges for jumping bail and fleeing the law.
Besides, since the US only waterboarded three people, the most recent in about 2003 in pretty much the immediate aftermath of 9/11 to try to get some insight into Al Qaeda's next attack after having just suffered 3,000 dead, and there has been endless carping about it ever since, what do you think would happen if the US employed your "friend", or someone that is actually dangerous, to kill a "journalist" like Assange, and word got out -as it inevitably would? Somehow I just don't see that happening since Assange hasn't actually participated in direct warfare against the US, unlike Al Awlaki.
In any event, you can rest assured that Julian Assange takes strong evasive measures whenever possible - no catching him with his pants . . . down.
* So you fancy your friend as the ruthless sort then?
That is an awful lot of verbiage to say you agree with me. (See above: "in his success he is indebted to others")
So, once again we agree.
And now you are claiming something that isn't true. I didn't write that. The primary article that I quote doesn't state that, in fact it is the reverse. Quoting from above, "Let’s cheerfully and ungrudgingly give credit to Barack Obama for approving the military operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden." That contradicts your claim. You go pretty far off the mark in a very short distance.
Maybe you were confused by the post I responded to which stated, "Ask Osama about his experience in international affairs." I pointed out that the implied Raid on Bin Laden was a military and intelligence action, not diplomatic.
Well, since neither I nor the primary author I quote gives them sole credit, it doesn't immediately follow that they would deserve sole blame, does it? (Would you attribute any blame to President Obama if there was a failure? Even if it was the result of his not accepting a strong recommendation about not going under present conditions?) Besides, I doubt you are aware of how thoroughly the military goes through such failures, such as occurred at Desert One, and the years of hard questions that would follow from the media, military, and government. It was self-criticism over Desert One that led to the reforms that ultimately enabled the raid against Bin Laden to succeed.
So, after agreeing with me, then making a false claim about my position, you never get around to addressing the main point in the main piece I quote: "While we may not know all the details about and behind this operation, it’s fascinating to see how many of the things that made the success of this operation possible were not so long ago decried by many of the president’s fans and fellow partisans." President Obama was successful primarily because of not fulfilling his platform. I'm not surprised you won't touch that. That's a pity though, as it would have been a chance to demonstrate real insight, if you have any, rather than simple Republican bashing.
Ask Osama about his experience in international affairs.
Killing Bin Laden was indeed a military and intelligence coup, but in his success he is indebted to others. (He didn't build that, at least not alone.)
To Get Bin Laden, Obama Relied on Policies He Decried - By Michael Barone
The president deserves credit—but so does his predecessor.
Let’s cheerfully and ungrudgingly give credit to Barack Obama for approving the military operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. . . .
While we may not know all the details about and behind this operation, it’s fascinating to see how many of the things that made the success of this operation possible were not so long ago decried by many of the president’s fans and fellow partisans.
For one thing, it apparently would not have happened without those infamous enhanced interrogation techniques — “torture,” according to critics of the Bush administration.
The enhanced interrogation techniques reportedly led to identification of the courier who eventually led our forces to bin Laden’s hiding place. Critics of waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques assured us that “torture” could not produce reliable information.
They were probably right that sometimes such techniques yield false information. But the bin Laden operation shows that they can also produce actionable intelligence.
You may remember that many Democrats called for criminal prosecution of CIA interrogators who were acting under orders vetted by legal counsel. Attorney General Eric Holder actually considered bringing such prosecutions.
Fortunately, he decided not to do so — fortunately for the individuals involved but fortunately also for his own reputation. Who would want to be known for prosecuting the people who helped track down bin Laden?
It has also been reported that in hunting down bin Laden our forces relied on intercepted communications. I wonder if any of them included contacts between suspected terrorists abroad and persons in the United States.
This was the “domestic wiretapping” revealed to great acclaim by the New York Times and presented as an intolerable infringement of civil liberties. Given what we know now, it’s a good thing our folks were tuning in.
Obama deserves credit also for employing the Navy SEALs, who are part of the Joint Special Operations Command. It was fashionable a few years ago to call the JSOC “Dick Cheney’s death squad” and “Cheney’s assassination team.”
The assumption behind such criticism was that Bush administration officials were using what they termed the war against terrorism as a smokescreen for persecuting domestic dissidents. But there is not a scrap of evidence that either the Bush administration or the Obama administration was doing anything of the kind. They were too busy trying to protect us.
There was criticism as well of the idea of targeting particular individuals for assassination. But, in ordering the raid on bin Laden’s compound, Obama authorized the killing of bin Laden. And no Miranda warnings first.
Smart Diplomacy (a Danish View)
Obama Regretted His ‘Muted’ Early Stance on Iran - By Jim Geraghty - September 25, 2012
This morning, The New York Times offers a lengthy look at President Obama’s relationship with leaders in the Arab world, full of revealing detail. It never quite comes out and explicitly says the president’s approach has failed, but the overall picture is withe
There is a strong suspicion that the people at Fox aren't aware that they're writing satire.
Does the irony ever cease?
No, it's not.
And yet the Supreme Court says it is. Who to believe.....
The constitution does not permit them to delegate that power to the executive.
An AUMF is an authorization by the legislature for the executive to use military force, the same as a Declaration of War. You may not like that the magic incantation isn't used, but it isn't needed legally.
For a country that prides itself on freedom of speech - they like to tell people to shut up.
Assange provided secret military documents, including lists of informants, to enemies of the United States against whom there is a shooting war going on. I have little doubt General George Washington himself would have had Assange tried and shot for that.
If you can't figure out why Assange's actions might be a bad thing, there probably isn't much hope for you. Maybe a repeat of middle school would help?
The last time congress officially declared war was World War II
Exactly. Every war that the US has fought since then has been illegal.
-jcr
An Authorization for Use of Military Force by Congress is legally equivalent to a Declaration of War. The Supreme Court decided that long ago. "Declaration of War" is not a required magic incantation to make the use of force by the state legal.
The chances of a person being killed by a terrorist attack are by far lower than the chances of dying from a traffic accident or a heart attack. Actually they are far less than the chances of an innocent person to die accidentally shot by a police officer.
Tell that to the Iraqis, who suffer bombings and assassinations daily, and for whom truck bombings in market places was a regular hazard for years.
Or maybe you can tell it to the FBI for that matter. The make regular arrests and attain convictions for plot after plot after plot. I will show a few at the end of the post.
The only reason it is rare, is the United States takes active, effective measures against it, not because there aren't people trying to conduct attacks. Frankly, your post makes as much sense as saying that statistics show so few deaths from food poisoning that it obviously isn't a problem, so we should do away with refrigeration.
40 Americans Have Joined Al Qaeda Group
FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending January 27, 2012
FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending January 13, 2012
FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending December 9, 2011
FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending December 2, 2011
The US has tried and imprisoned a number of its soldiers for various war crimes, including murder. These aren't the only ones.
I hope I live to see those war criminals, Bush and Obama among them, hauled in front of the Hague and sentenced to spending the rest of their lives in jail.
Brace yourself for disappointment.
Tell me, do you have similar hopes for the planners of the 7/7 Bombings? The Madrid bombings? The Bali Bombing? The Mumbai attack? The 9/11 attack? Any of the countless other terrorist bombings and attacks? No? I thought not.
Although this guy is one of the more recent examples, the US government has been involved in this sort of thing before.
There are some mostly forgotten incidents in which the US government shot down large number of people who some would probably say were just out for a walk. Technically, they were in the same status as that first guy the government killed with a missile. The funny thing is, under the rules this falls under, no charges, judge, or jury is required.
Did Bush execute any US citizens without due process?
There is no question of due process involved. If you are fighting with the enemy, you are the enemy. Simple to understand. Example.
This isn't the first time this question has came up. There was a period when the US government shot down, en mass, large numbers of Americans without filing charges, trial, or any judicial due process. There is video depicting one of the more famous incidents.
Germany was initially only limited to their own immediate neighborhood in Europe back in World War 2, right? How did that work out last time?
Germany had been a world power into World War 1, and had regained much of their might by World War 2, including a blue water navy. China is still working their way there for the first time.
China has a huge population that needs more resources. And this being a small planet, your resources are eventually on the menu, whether you acknowledge that fact or not.
Do tell.
I assure you, other countries have noticed China's rise, and its aspirations to hegemony, and are taking action.
Moscow plays on fears of China in global quest for naval bases
Maybe some waterboarding?
Exclusive: Only Three Have Been Waterboarded by CIA
The last time was in 2003.
Do you think they might steal his organs?
He already is. (imprisoned indefinitely without trial)
There is a difference, an important one - any day Assange wants, he can surrender to the police from whom he fled after losing his court appeals, return to Sweden, answer the formal questions from prosecutors before charges are filed (as is the way in the Swedish legal system), and then face trail over the accusations of serial sex crimes. At present Assange is in a cell of his own choosing - he imprisons himself.
Or, you know, any military personnel that expresses support for Assange (according to TFA).The analyst in question wasn't charged, but it seems that he did lose his access to classified information.
And that is probably exactly as it should be. They didn't allow Communists in the military during the Cold War either.
Assange has made unredacted US military secret information available to anybody who wants it, including the Taliban and Al Qaida - the organizations engaged in a shooting war with the United States. The Taliban and Al Qaida have taken copies of those documents, studied them, and actively seek to kill people listed on them. (The question of their success in this is irrelevant.) That is aiding the enemy of the United States with intelligence information. Any soldier supporting Assange's actions should be suspect, and probably should not have access to classified information*. I'm not sure how this isn't clear to you, or why you would find it troubling. But as you say, why let facts get in your way?
* Would it trouble you to learn that members of the German American Bund might have faced limited prospects in the military in WW2?
Perhaps you should read more about that decision as there are two aspects of it, and most people stop paying attention after the first. The first part says the government can't stop publication of things like the Pentagon Papers. The second, neglected part, enables the government to attempt to prosecute the crimes associated with the publication, potentially including the publication itself. So far the government has generally declined prosecution after publication.
The real media ever touched this story. Wouldn't want to make any Democrat appear to ever have flaws.
Quite the opppsite.