The debate continues, weakness or all part of the plan?

Steely Dan – Godwhacker and Fountains of Wayne – Sky Full of Holes

Hasn’t America suffered enough under ambitious Texas governors who were cheerleaders and (probably) dressed up in jackboots? Didn’t this country pay our dues under the yoke of pretend cowboys who like executing people?

I could barely suppress a laugh when reading about Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan begging Tim Geithner to settle the foreclosure fraud issue so they can get out from under their liability. As Yves Smith points out, if Tim Geithner had the power to get Bank of America out of their mess, he surely would have done it by now, before their stock dipped 36% in the last three weeks. Geithner simply doesn’t have jurisdiction.

Rania Khalek, a blogger and independent journalist who writes for AlterNet, published two major WikiLeaks stories that garnered a lot of attention—”5 WikiLeaks Hits of 2011 That are Turning the World on Its Head—And That the Media are Ignoring” and “5 WikiLeaks Revelations Exposing the Rapidly Growing Corporatism Dominating American Diplomacy Abroad.” She’s recently been writing about the militarization of police and the ever-expanding surveillance state in America. [*Follow her on Twitter at @rania_ak.]

Godbotherer and probably Notre Dame football fan Joshua Mercer is unleashing a sigh of relief that Texas dick adjuster Rick Perry is apologizing for mandating that all girls in Texas become whores at age eleven or, I don’t know, move to Utah and get married or something.

We’ve heard a lot about labor disassociating itself from the national Democratic Party in a preference to wage battles in the states. Now we’re seeing one of the biggest examples of that. The 2012 Democratic National Convention will happen in Charlotte, North Carolina. There are no union hotels in that city, and North Carolina is a right-to-work state. For unions to participate in the DNC would represent the de facto crossing of a kind of picket line, in support of non-union hotels. The decision has come down – over a dozen unions will sit out the DNC.

Any analysis that ignores control fraud is certain to distract us from the reforms essential to prevent our recurrent, intensifying financial crises. Ignoring fraud led the authors to propose reforms that are criminogenic.

You know at some point people might get wise to the fact that Obama is the most powerful political figure in the world, and he does have options beyond being a corporate tool who lets his campaign manager rearrange the national lawn furniture.

There simply isn’t a facepalm on the planet big enough for this.