The new blue, red and white-ribboned Distinguished Warfare Medal will be awarded to individuals for "extraordinary achievement" related to a military operation that occurred after Sept. 11, 2001. But unlike other combat medals, it does not require the recipient risk his or her life to get it.

Officials said the new medal will be the first combat-related award to be created since the Bronze Star in 1944.

A recognition of the evolving 21st Century warfare, the medal will be considered a bit higher in ranking than the Bronze Star, but is lower than the Silver Star, defense officials said.

The Bronze Star is the fourth highest combat decoration and rewards meritorious service in battle, while the Silver Star is the third highest combat award given for bravery. Several other awards, including the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, are also ranked higher, but are not awarded for combat.

Recent profiles of this event have called last night’s State of the Union the “anniversary” of the formation of the working group. But you can’t really have an anniversary of something that never existed in the first place. There never was a Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities working group, never a so-called task force dedicated to ferreting out Wall Street fraud — the deceptive origination of mortgage loans, sale of worthless mortgage-backed securities for huge sums, and subsequent unloading of toxic debt to unsuspecting buyers. The working group fails to exist as a tangible entity to this day. What does exist is the same years-old Financial Fraud Enforcement Group that serves as a conduit for press releases about investigative actions already in progress.

This is the key point. There are no offices, no phones and no staff dedicated to the non-task force. Two of the five co-chairs have left government. What “investigators” there are from the task force are nothing more than liaisons to the independent agencies doing their own independent investigations. In the rare event that these agencies file an actual lawsuit or enforcement action, the un-task force merely puts out a statement taking credit for it. Take a look at this in action at the website for the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, the federal umbrella group “investigating” financial fraud. It’s little more than a press release factory, and no indictment, conviction or settlement is too small. The site takes credit for cracking down on Ponzi schemes, insider trading, tax evasion, racketeering, violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act (!) and a host of other crimes that have precisely nothing to do with the financial crisis. To call this a publicity stunt is an insult to publicity stunts.

Consider the first of the few major cases to specifically come out under the aegis of the RMBS working group. New York A.G. Schneiderman brought a suit against JPMorgan Chase over Bear Stearns’ fraudulent misrepresentations of mortgage-backed securities to investors. The case, filed nine months from the start of the non-task force (but, strategically, one month before the presidential election), borrowed liberally from private litigation brought against Bear Stearns two years ago by the mortgage bond insurer Ambac. The lawyer who authored that case, Karla Sanchez, left Ambac’s law firm, Patterson Bellknap Webb and Tyler, and went to work as an executive deputy attorney general for one Eric Schneiderman. In other words, the big case from the vaunted “task force” was basically written two years earlier, by a lawyer working in Schneiderman’s office, with virtually no new information added to the claims. Schneiderman could have filed this case any day over the last two years, without a scintilla of outside participation. Subsequent cases also appear cribbed from either private litigation or existing investigations, and include little that’s new or noteworthy.

pacino wrote:want a medal ranked higher than a purple heart?:

The new blue, red and white-ribboned Distinguished Warfare Medal will be awarded to individuals for "extraordinary achievement" related to a military operation that occurred after Sept. 11, 2001. But unlike other combat medals, it does not require the recipient risk his or her life to get it.

Officials said the new medal will be the first combat-related award to be created since the Bronze Star in 1944.

A recognition of the evolving 21st Century warfare, the medal will be considered a bit higher in ranking than the Bronze Star, but is lower than the Silver Star, defense officials said.

The Bronze Star is the fourth highest combat decoration and rewards meritorious service in battle, while the Silver Star is the third highest combat award given for bravery. Several other awards, including the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, are also ranked higher, but are not awarded for combat.

when do the Starship Trooper-like ads to join the military begin?

pacino wrote:just noting it's technically ranked higher

pacino wrote:in the meantime, real questions were asked at Google Hangout by internet reporters (conservative ones, too!):

LEE DOREN, QUESTION: A lot of people are very concerned that your administration now believes it's legal to have drone strikes on American citizens, and whether or not that's specifically allowed with citizens within the United States. And if that's not true, what will you do to create a legal framework to make American citizens within the United States know that drone strikes cannot be used against American citizens?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well first of all -- I think, there has never been a drone used on an American citizen on American soil. And, you know, we respect and have a whole bunch of safeguards in terms of how we conduct counterterrorism operations outside of the United States.

The rules outside of the United States are going to be different than the rules inside the United States, in part because our capacity, for example, to capture a terrorist in the United States are very different than in the foothills or mountains of Afghanistan or Pakistan.

But, what I think is absolutely true is that it is not sufficient for citizens to just take my word for it that we're doing the right thing. I am the head of the executive branch. And what we've done so far is to try to work with Congress on oversight issues. But part of what I'm going to have to work with Congress on is to make sure that whatever it is that we're providing Congress, that we have mechanisms to also make sure that the public understands what's going on, what the constraints are, what the legal parameters are, and that's something that I take very seriously.

I am not somebody who believes that the President has the authority to do whatever he wants, or whatever she wants, whenever they want just under the guise of counterterrorism. There have to be legal checks and balances on it.

ehhh, show us the memos?

and, then let's check it?

jerseyhoya wrote:Republicans and Democrats don't just think differently, they actually use their brains differently

FTN alert

Just to be clear, the finding is that Democrats tend to use the insula, which is used in the monitoring of one's internal feelings, when assessing risk, while Republicans tend to use the amygdala, which is the brain's threat response center, for the same task.

Werthless wrote:

pacino wrote:in the meantime, real questions were asked at Google Hangout by internet reporters (conservative ones, too!):

LEE DOREN, QUESTION: A lot of people are very concerned that your administration now believes it's legal to have drone strikes on American citizens, and whether or not that's specifically allowed with citizens within the United States. And if that's not true, what will you do to create a legal framework to make American citizens within the United States know that drone strikes cannot be used against American citizens?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well first of all -- I think, there has never been a drone used on an American citizen on American soil. And, you know, we respect and have a whole bunch of safeguards in terms of how we conduct counterterrorism operations outside of the United States.

The rules outside of the United States are going to be different than the rules inside the United States, in part because our capacity, for example, to capture a terrorist in the United States are very different than in the foothills or mountains of Afghanistan or Pakistan.

But, what I think is absolutely true is that it is not sufficient for citizens to just take my word for it that we're doing the right thing. I am the head of the executive branch. And what we've done so far is to try to work with Congress on oversight issues. But part of what I'm going to have to work with Congress on is to make sure that whatever it is that we're providing Congress, that we have mechanisms to also make sure that the public understands what's going on, what the constraints are, what the legal parameters are, and that's something that I take very seriously.

I am not somebody who believes that the President has the authority to do whatever he wants, or whatever she wants, whenever they want just under the guise of counterterrorism. There have to be legal checks and balances on it.

ehhh, show us the memos?

and, then let's check it?

Trust him, this is something he takes very seriously. In his last year of office, he will definitely work with Congress to restrict the power of the executive branch. But right now, he's kind of busy.

td11 wrote:now trending on twitter: #liberaltips2avoidrape

On gun control Democrat Rep. Joe Salazar said:


It’s why we have call boxes, it’s why we have safe zones, it’s why we have the whistles. Because you just don’t know who you’re gonna be shooting at. And you don’t know if you feel like you’re gonna be raped, or if you feel like someone’s been following you around or if you feel like you’re in trouble when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop … pop around at somebody.

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:

Werthless wrote:

pacino wrote:in the meantime, real questions were asked at Google Hangout by internet reporters (conservative ones, too!):

LEE DOREN, QUESTION: A lot of people are very concerned that your administration now believes it's legal to have drone strikes on American citizens, and whether or not that's specifically allowed with citizens within the United States. And if that's not true, what will you do to create a legal framework to make American citizens within the United States know that drone strikes cannot be used against American citizens?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well first of all -- I think, there has never been a drone used on an American citizen on American soil. And, you know, we respect and have a whole bunch of safeguards in terms of how we conduct counterterrorism operations outside of the United States.

The rules outside of the United States are going to be different than the rules inside the United States, in part because our capacity, for example, to capture a terrorist in the United States are very different than in the foothills or mountains of Afghanistan or Pakistan.

But, what I think is absolutely true is that it is not sufficient for citizens to just take my word for it that we're doing the right thing. I am the head of the executive branch. And what we've done so far is to try to work with Congress on oversight issues. But part of what I'm going to have to work with Congress on is to make sure that whatever it is that we're providing Congress, that we have mechanisms to also make sure that the public understands what's going on, what the constraints are, what the legal parameters are, and that's something that I take very seriously.

I am not somebody who believes that the President has the authority to do whatever he wants, or whatever she wants, whenever they want just under the guise of counterterrorism. There have to be legal checks and balances on it.

ehhh, show us the memos?

and, then let's check it?

Trust him, this is something he takes very seriously. In his last year of office, he will definitely work with Congress to restrict the power of the executive branch. But right now, he's kind of busy.

No guys, don't worry. People told me that the legal framework in the memos couldn't be used to justify a strike inside the U.S. I think one of those people might have even read the white paper.

jerseyhoya wrote:

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:

Werthless wrote:

pacino wrote:in the meantime, real questions were asked at Google Hangout by internet reporters (conservative ones, too!):

LEE DOREN, QUESTION: A lot of people are very concerned that your administration now believes it's legal to have drone strikes on American citizens, and whether or not that's specifically allowed with citizens within the United States. And if that's not true, what will you do to create a legal framework to make American citizens within the United States know that drone strikes cannot be used against American citizens?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well first of all -- I think, there has never been a drone used on an American citizen on American soil. And, you know, we respect and have a whole bunch of safeguards in terms of how we conduct counterterrorism operations outside of the United States.

The rules outside of the United States are going to be different than the rules inside the United States, in part because our capacity, for example, to capture a terrorist in the United States are very different than in the foothills or mountains of Afghanistan or Pakistan.

But, what I think is absolutely true is that it is not sufficient for citizens to just take my word for it that we're doing the right thing. I am the head of the executive branch. And what we've done so far is to try to work with Congress on oversight issues. But part of what I'm going to have to work with Congress on is to make sure that whatever it is that we're providing Congress, that we have mechanisms to also make sure that the public understands what's going on, what the constraints are, what the legal parameters are, and that's something that I take very seriously.

I am not somebody who believes that the President has the authority to do whatever he wants, or whatever she wants, whenever they want just under the guise of counterterrorism. There have to be legal checks and balances on it.

ehhh, show us the memos?

and, then let's check it?

Trust him, this is something he takes very seriously. In his last year of office, he will definitely work with Congress to restrict the power of the executive branch. But right now, he's kind of busy.

No guys, don't worry. People told me that the legal framework in the memos couldn't be used to justify a strike inside the U.S. I think one of those people might have even read the white paper.

The first two paragraphs of his answer sum up why it isn't a big concern very succinctly.