Of what earthly value is the CIA? If the CIA was defunded the fiscal cliff would be a fiscal hill.

Republicans have no shame. They are not at all interested in governing the nation. They only wish to play politics to gain power. They will not win this battle, the President of the United States will put them in their place. The Republicans are so weak, they have nothing else to do with their time except to play politics, especially in the United States Senate. All they want to do is say No to the President. This fight is demonstrating to the American people who shallow Senator John McCain is and how ill he has become. You are seeing a man's brain and integrity disintegrate before your eyes.

John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Kelly Ayotte are traitors to America. I think they would be much happier in Russia or China, where politicians can make up charges against another politician and use those false charges as a basis for killing him. Honestly, I think McCain, Graham, and Ayotte really should consider giving up their American citizenship. I mean, they don't like our constitution, they don't like our laws, they want to destroy America and turn it into a third world smoking cinder, they smile only when you mention the words "fascism," or "bribes." Come on, McCain, Graham, and Ayotte, what are you waiting for, there's two entire huge countries that are already run the way you wish America was run. Good golly, go to the post office, give up your American citizenship, and get your asses over there!

I think a large number of republicans are racists, but I don't think that is what this is about. It's political. It's about John Kerry's senate seat.

"fog of war"...how convenient...It was a convenient phrase for Robert McNamara in describing the war atrocities that the US committed in Vietnam as well. And despite all of the analysis and expose' documentaries of the Vietnam War as well as all the other wars....it didn't keep Americans from sending more of our sons and daughters back overseas to murder and be murdered in the name of some contrived fantasy. The fantasy that still keeps Americans falling for the folly of war every time.

So now, the Democrats are using the phrase "fog of war" as an apologetic for some political faux pas that the Republicans just will not let go of. More like "hog of war". The hogs are at the trough and will continue to feed on the tax dollars from those who can least afford to pay them...and the Republicans and Democrats will nit-pick each other in trying to defeat the other..but the real sleazy hogs are the kind that feed of the blood of the millions of people they are responsible for murdering....and they use the smoke and mirrors two party system to continue their greed. And they will not stop at a war overseas...they have waged war on Americans for some 30 years...an economic war...but eventually..it will turn into something a lot more visceral and vicious...and very soon.

Never under-estimate the competence of the RepCon attack-machine. This is no aberation by a few lose cannons, or crazy T-Baggers.

El Guapo...El Sloppo! Oink! Oink! The 3 Amigos are from the party that did 911....a real treasonous affair. Democrats should be even more aggressive in demanding that 911 be investigated with real unbiased experts, unlike the flunky useful idiots they used for the white washing 911 commission and haul Bush's A$$ (etal) in front of the investigative committee and make him/them confess to all he/they knew and was/were culpable for. THEY spent more of our tax dollars trying to impeach Clinton for his sex affair than they spent on a real unbiased investigation of the 911 treasonous affair. Because the 911 Commission was not unbiased..and some of the participants even admitted as much...admitting that their hands were tied. They ignored much of the evidence...the so-called evidence they used was handpicked and much was falsified by NIST and others. Many of the important eye-witnesses testimonies were not even heard or used.

You know, if the Democrats would spend more time yelling back at the Republicans and steadfastly holding their position on preserving social programs...not budging an inch...and insisting that the rich pay their fair share of a progressive tax system then most Americans would not be so worried about their very survival.... especially, those who are retired, unemployed, and have no way, other than begging in the streets, to survive.

Why do you suppose, aside from the claim that the Republicans want Kerry to leave the Massachusetts Senate seat, that they are making such noise right before big decisions are to be made about the so-called "Fiscal Cliff"? To divert our attention away from the fact that they intend to cut social programs? Hardly anything is being discussed, compared to cutting social programs and taxing the rich, about the wasteful Pentagon spending. Yes, I hear what some Democrats, including the President has said about social programs...but they sure don't sound too adamant and unbending. They sound rather meek.

No one truly believes that the US will pull out of the Middle East by 2014. They may pull out some military but they will still be wasting huge amounts of money on war criminal corporations like Haliburton and Xe (used to be Blackwater) who will be clinging to the US tax payer teats (and won't let go) for at least another 20 years. These are the things that THEY don't really want us to talk about...they'll use any "wag-the-dog" excuse to keep our attention focused away from the real vital issues.

I'd even venture to say that the Patraeus Sex Scandal was part of the "wag-the-dog" "smoke-and-mirrors" campaign to desensitize and deemphasize the humongous and horrendous wholesale heist of funds from social security and medicare and medicaid that are about to happen.

What else will happen just before the so-called "Fiscal Cliff" decisions to divert people's attention away from being vigilant in protecting their hard-earned social programs? Maybe Obama can do a Morsi and declare himself dictator. He's already got most of the powers of a dictator.. he can even decide what Americans he wants tortured and assassinated.

Republicans will continue to fight Obama until the bitter end. But I hope they do because they've learned nothing from this election. The more they run with the same thing that lost them the election I'm all for it. It will make for a very interesting midterm election.

I agree with the minimalists that it's dangerous to locate your self esteem outside your self. People put it into sport teams, political parties, individual politicians, religion, religious leaders, and it's a mistake.

I like the parry the one guy has for the question "What do you do?": talk about your passion instead of your job.

Now I know why I vote my proxies like I do. I read the candidate board member's history, and if he ever worked for a financial firm, I vote against him. I realize my measly 100 shares have no influence, but it feels good.

Goldman Sachs was already in control in 2008

How Goldman Sachs took over the world

Whether it's a credit crunch to fix or an Olympics to plan, the list ofGoldman Sachs alumni is sure to have a candidate

By Stephen Foley

Tuesday, 22 July 2008

If there's something weird in the financial world, who you gonna call? Goldman Sachs.

The US government, involved in a firefight against the conflagration in the credit markets, is calling in another crisis-buster from the illustrious investment bank, this time Goldman's most senior banker to finance industry clients, Ken Wilson.

And so with this appointment, the Goldman Sachs diaspora grows a little bit more influential. It is an old-boy network that has created a revolving door between the firm and public office, greased by the mountains of money the company is generating even today, as its peers buckle and fall.

Almost whatever the country, you can find Goldman Sachs veterans in positions of pivotal power.

The 61-year-old Mr Wilson has already proved influential in deals to recapitalise and reorganise some of America's listing banks. At the Treasury he will advise on what the federal government must to do help the process, but he will face scrutiny from those concerned about the tentacles wrapping lightly around government from Wall Street's mightiest bank. For the time being, bailing out Wall Street looks to be the same as bailing out the economy, but if those diverge there could be more questions asked about the influence of Goldman Sachs alumni on public policy.

George Bush picked up the phone this month, partly at the instigation of another Goldman Sachs alumnus, his Treasury secretary, Hank Paulson. Together with Mr Bush's chief of staff, Joshua Bolten, there will be three Goldman Sachs old boys in major positions of influence in the White House – but the US government is hardly alone in finding the bank's executives to be attractive hirees.

They are well-credentialed, partly by design. From its beginning when the German immigrant Marcus Goldman began discounting IOUs among the diamond merchants of New York in the 1870s, Goldman Sachs has always known about the power of the network of influence. Goldman hires former politicians and civil servants, as readily as it supplies them.

And then there is simply the intellectual quality of the employees, many hired as much youngster men via a gruelling interview process, and then forged in the fire of 17-hour work days.

With Goldman Sachs at the heart of Wall Street, and Wall Street at the heart of the US economy, few expects its power to wane. Indeed, The New York Times columnist David Brooks noted that Goldman Sachs employees have given more money to Barack Obama's campaign for president than workers of any other employer in the US. "Over the past few years, people from Goldman Sachs have assumed control over large parts of the federal government," Brooks noted grimly. "Over the next few they might just take over the whole darn thing."

John Thornton

From his post as professor and director of global leadership at Tsinghua University in Beijing, the former Goldman Sachs co-chief operating officer John Thornton has become a highly-influential figure in the developing business and poltical inter-relations between the US and China. He was Goldman's boss in Asia in the mid-Nineties and remains well connected in the East and the West.

Duncan Niederauer

Wall Streeters joked about a Goldman Sachs "takeover" of the New York Stock Exchange. Hank Paulson, the Goldman boss on the NYSE board, moved to oust the chairman, Dick Grasso, and recommended the then chief operating officer of Goldman, John Thain, as Mr Grasso's replacement. Mr Thain modernised the exchange as demanded by Goldman, and Mr Thain's old Goldman deputy, Duncan Niederauer, is in charge.

Jon Corzine

The former co-chief executive of Goldman went into full-time politics in 1999, having lost the internal power struggle that preceded the company's stock-market flotation in 1999. He has been governor of New Jersey since 2006, having spent the previous six years in the US Senate. His 2000 Senate election campaign was then the most expensive ever in the US, and Corzine spent $62m of his own money.

Joshua Bolten

For five years until 1999, Mr Bolten served as director of legal affairs for Goldman based in London, effectively making him the bank's chief lobbyist to the EU. The Republican lawyer aided George Bush's 2000 election campaign, helped co-ordinate policy in the White House and has been the President's chief of staff since 2006.

Paul Deighton

The man heading London's planning for the 2012 Olympic Games, Paul Deighton amassed a fortune estimated at over £100m during his two decades at Goldman Sachs, where he had been one of its most powerful investment bankers.

Robert Rubin

A US Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton, Mr Rubin could once again emerge as a powerful figure in Washington if Barack Obama wins the presidency, since he has maintained his influence on Democrat politics. Mr Rubin reached the second-highest rung at Goldman, becoming co-chief operating officer before joining the US government in 1993.

Gavyn Davies

The ex-chairman of the BBC still has the ear of Gordon Brown, to whom he has been a good friend and informal adviser. He is married to the Prime Minister's aide Sue Nye. Mr Davies spent 15 years as an economist at Goldman. He was commissioned to report on the future funding of the BBC by Mr Brown in 1999. Two years later, he was poached to chair it.

Jim Cramer

This former Goldman trader is, without question, the most influential stock pundit in the US. Hectoring and shouting his investment advice nightly on his CNBC show, Mad Money, he routinely moves share prices. His primal scream against the Federal Reserve ("They know nothing") was a YouTube sensation last year, as the central bank refused to lower interest rates to ease the pain of the credit crisis on Wall Street.

Robert Zoellick

Goldman provided a lucrative home to Robert Zoellick, the neo-conservative Republican, between the time he quit as Condoleezza Rice's deputy at the State Department in 2006 (having not secured the job he coveted as Treasury Secretary, when it went to Hank Paulson) and his appointment last year as head of the World Bank. At Goldman he had acted as head of international affairs, a kind of global ambassador and networker-in-chief.

Mario Draghi

The head of the Italian central bank is another example of the revolving door between Goldman and public service. Mr Draghi had been an academic economist, an executive at the World Bank and a director-general of the Italian treasury before joining Goldman as a partner in 2002. He is becoming a significant figure in the response to the credit crisis, chairing the financial stability forum of central banks, finance ministries and regulators.

Malcolm Turnbull

Treasurer for the opposition Liberal Party, Mr Turnbull is one of the fastest-rising politicians in Australia. He was the aggressive advocate who took on and beat the British Government in the Spycatcher trial of the former MI5 agent Peter Walker, but he then pursued a career in business and ran Goldman Australia from 1997 to 2001, before jumping in to politics to serve as environment minister under John Howard.

Hank Paulson

Cometh the hour, cometh the man. President George Bush must be delighted he lured a reluctant Hank Paulson away from his $38m-a-year job as Goldman Sachs chief executive in 2006, just in time to deal with the Wall Street crisis that has engulfed the entire US economy. The bird-watching enthusiast had been a surprising choice as Treasury secretary, since his environmentalism was at odds with much of Bush's policy.

The current sturm und strang by Republican Senators McCain, Lindsey and Ayotte regarding Susan Rice's post 9/11/12 Sunday TV appearances is a puzzlement. In an Oct. 9th opinion piece in the Washington Post, Dana Milbank noted cuts in funding for embassy security proposed by the House Republicans. The cuts included 300 diplomatic security positions back in 2009, cuts of $128 million in embassy security in fiscal 2011 and $331 million in fiscal 2012. Could the phrase 'put your money where your mouth is' apply here?