Taking the report at its word, Foxconn has approximately 25,000 underage workers.

Good post. But I’d like to expand upon it a little. The view of the NCTC appears to be from the bottom up. It attempts to step up the ladder, and state, for example, that the FBI will have access to information in the vast data center under construction. I think we need to think top down. Consider:

1. The National Counter Terrorism Center reports to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).

2. ODNI has penultimate budget responsibility, next only to the President, for the “funding of all programs” which are part of the National Intelligence Program (NIP).

3. The NIP is comprised of the intelligence functions of the following agencies and departments: Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, Department of Energy (Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence), Department of Homeland Security (Office of Intelligence and Analysis), Department of State (Bureau of Intelligence and Research), Department of the Treasury (Office of Intelligence and Analysis), Drug Enforcement Administration (Office of National Security Intelligence), Federal Bureau of Investigation (National Security Branch), National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, National Security Agency/Central Security Service, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, US Air Force, US Army, US Coast Guard, US Marines, US Navy.

4. The ODNI is charged under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorist Prevention Act (IRTPA) of 2004 with the responsibility to “Oversee the development and implementation of a program management plan for acquisition of major systems, doing so jointly with the Secretary of Defense for DoD programs, that includes cost, schedule, and performance goals and program milestone criteria.”

This therefore is about executive branch information to any access collected about citizens, for use by any of the departments/agencies named in bullet #3 should the ODNI decide to share that information (plus the White House, of course).

There’s no end to his excuses, lies and BS. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/business/in-shift-federal-prosecutors-are-lenient-as-companies-break-the-law.html?pagewanted=all

I think the Occupy Wall Street event is reminding Democratic politicians that there are tens of millions of votes awaiting a progressive politician with the balls to call for income redistribution. We WILL demote the neo-liberals and corporate Democrats such as Obama, and return the Democratic party to the ideals of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. All it will take is one smart politician who wants to get ahead of the others, and a whole lot of people behind him.

I think it’s going to be very interesting to see what happens to the banks’ immunity situation in the wake of the loss of the Democratic congressional in Brooklyn/Queens last night. If it is interpreted as a referendum on Obama, given that he is the face of the banksters’ ownership of the neo-liberal wing of the party, we may see more Democrats putting up a fight against pro-bank executive actions and legislative proposals. There are tens of millions of votes awaiting a Democratic candidate who truly takes up the fight against the financial sector.

The size of the implementation is reminiscent of the too-small 2009 stimulus… just smaller.

Pre-election booty-call is what pops into my mind.

. The speech is consistent with President’s approach to dealing with congress to date — take Republican positions as the starting point. We know what that usually leads to.

. The Medicare reduction offer should alarm all Democrats.

If I were a Republican strategist, I’d advise the leaders to (1) publically accept this as a surrender from the President and completely cut him off at the knees with his liberal/progressive base, and (2) take a “Republicans will defend Medicare” stance and kill his support with seniors. All they have to do is say “Thank you, Mr. President for supporting Republican legislation. We accept. But we won’t cut Medicare.” Then the Harry Truman maxim kicks in on a far wider level than it did, even, in 2010: “If you give the people a choice between a Republican and a Democrat who is acting like a watered down Republican, they will pick the Republican every time.”

Mind you, I don’t think the Republican leadership has the smarts or the stomach to do that, but I’m sure some of their strategists will suggest this.

We Democrats, however, are clearly much, much dumber than the Republicans. This plan seems designed to fail in Congress, and may exist only to provide Obama loyalists with an excuse, i.e., “the President tried to do something but the mean Republicans stopped him.” The time to do something already passed.

If we Democrats don’t kick Obama out now, he’ll be kicked out in the 2012 election anyway, and all blame for the weak state of the U.S. economy will have been successfully shifted from the Republicans to the Democrats. We should be treating Obama as if he were a mole for the Republicans, because that is the net effect of his governance.

Ah, but… if the $15 included all the rotten fruit you could throw plus tar and feathers — wouldn’t it be worth it?

I think the mechanism built into the deal stating that in case congress rejects Catfood II, that “sequester would be divided equally between defense and non-defense program, and it would exempt Social Security, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, programs for low-income families, and civilian and military retirement” is the “tell” in this deal. There is no way on earth that a majority in congress would vote to cut defense spending by half. Republicans wouldn’t want to, and Democrats would be scared of being called weak on defense. That means that whatever Catfood II recommends will become law. Given the nature of the men that Obama appointed to Catfood I, I think it is almost certain that major cuts to Social Security and Medicare, beyond the 6% and 12% numbers floated recently, will become law. Just ask yourself — do you think Obama would appoint a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus to Catfood II? No, we’ll get a committee of supply siders.

I think at this point we need to start comparing the possible effects of the plans of Obama and his gang of six to the plans of Stalin and Mao who starved great numbers of their populations to death because they believed their economic systems were so important that they had to be imposed from above.

Here is a link to an OpEd News article detailing Grijalva’s appearance at the SpeakOut for Good Jobs tour in Miami this past Saturday. The People’s budget was discussed.

If this rumor turns out to be true, then we’ll need to call it what it is: mass murder.

Depressing. Neither Democrats nor Republicans help the economic life of the U.S. working and middle classes at all.

I hate to say it, but if this guy’s not a candidate to disappear, willingly or unwillingly, I don’t know who is.

For all the silliness from the extreme right about “tyranny” because they don’t want to take orders from a black guy, I’m concerned that maybe we’re becoming desensitized, and don’t see real tyranny when we see it. The dictionary defines tyranny as “a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator (not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition etc.).” Now… what is the story of Gulet Mohamed, or of other similar cases BUT tyranny?

It seems to me the most effective thing the left could do in the wake of this event that was so clearly incited by right wing fear mongering is to press Obama to restore the Fairness Doctrine. It would merely take an executive order, similar to the one by which Reagan abolished it in the 1980s. The rationale could be simply and clearly explained — the people talking about “second amendment remedies” are all far right, and it is time to present views of the left for peaceful change.