November 19, 2009 archive

The Massacre For Which Thanksgiving Is Named

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“In a little more than one hour, five or six hundred of these barbarians

were dismissed from a world that was burdened with them.”


“It may be demanded…Should not Christians have more mercy and

compassion? But…sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents…. We had sufficient light from the word of God for our proceedings.”


-Puritan divine Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana


John Conyers Rips President Obama

U.S. Congressman ripped into President Obama on the Bill Press Show today for his aimless, unprincipled performance over Health Care.

Rep. John Conyers took a broad swipe at President Obama and his chief of staff on Thursday, accusing them of “bowing down” to “nutty right-wing” health care proposals in a principle-less effort to get legislation passed.

Appearing on the Bill Press Show, the longtime Michigan Democrat said he was tired of the just-get-something-done attitude of Rahm Emanuel. “I’m getting tired of saving Obama’s can in the White House,” said Conyers.

Asked if the president had shown enough leadership in the health care debate, Conyers facetiously wondered why Press would ask the question.

“Of course not, of course not,” he said. “You know, holding hands out and beer on Friday nights in the White House and bowing down to every nutty right-wing proposal about health care, and saying on occasion that public options aren’t all that important is doing a disservice to the Barack Obama that I first met who was an ardent single-payer enthusiast himself.”

“That is essentially what Rahm Emanuel has said: Just give us anything and we will declare victory,” said Conyers. “Not only is it not a victory, but when it doesn’t work, guess who will come at him: the same guys that were saying let’s go along with anything… This is all my buddy Rahm Emanuel trying to get anything. But look the bill doesn’t go into effect for three years. Many of the people that we are trying to help will be dead by then.”

Link: Conyers rips Obama

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Investors expecting the worst

  Maybe you remember news stories like this from last December, when it seemed the entire world’s economic system was about to break down.

 Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) — Treasuries rose, pushing rates on the three-month bill negative for the first time, as investors gravitate toward the safety of U.S. government debt amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

 Negative yields essentially mean that you are paying the government to loan it money. It’s a flight to safety at any cost. Last December was the first time it had happened since the Great Depression.

Tell Obama: We need a strong climate bill

Recently, world leaders announced some deeply disturbing news: they gave up on reaching a binding climate deal at the upcoming Copenhagen conference. [1]

A major impediment was the refusal of President Obama and Congress to enact tough cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

We've got to turn that around. Immediately.

Tell Obama and Congress to commit to a 40% reduction in greenhouse gases below 1990 levels by 2020.

Right now, the most ambitious target that Obama has endorsed is a 3.5% reduction in emissions by 2020. [2]

That's pathetic, compared to the 25-40% reduction that we need to have a 50:50 chance of avoiding disastrous runaway global heating, according to the International Panel on Climate Change. [3]

The United States ought to lead by example. We can do it with strong emission reductions.

Tell Obama and your Members of Congress to commit to tough emissions reductions today.

Tell me how you really feel.

“I’m getting tired of saving Obama’s can in the White House,” said Conyers.

–snip–

Asked if the president had shown enough leadership in the health care debate, Conyers facetiously wondered why Press would ask the question.

“Of course not, of course not,” he said. “You know, holding hands out and beer on Friday nights in the White House and bowing down to every nutty right-wing proposal about health care, and saying on occasion that public options aren’t all that important is doing a disservice to the Barack Obama that I first met who was an ardent single-payer enthusiast himself.”

He led off the interview by declaring that he was tied of “trying to stop the war in Afghanistan from surging.” He also took several swipes at Emanuel, whom he called, with a slightly derogatory tone, his “buddy.”

“That is essentially what Rahm Emanuel has said: Just give us anything and we will declare victory,” said Conyers. “Not only is it not a victory, but when it doesn’t work, guess who will come at him: the same guys that were saying let’s go along with anything… This is all my buddy Rahm Emanuel trying to get anything. But look the bill doesn’t go into effect for three years. Many of the people that we are trying to help will be dead by then.”   link

What else is there to say?  Conyers will certainly get no argument from me, and I enjoyed hearing it immensely.    It’s too bad that Conyer’s didn’t say it before and vote no with Kucinich and Massa.  The reason Progressives have no power is because they have no balls.  They even run away from the word “liberal”.

I heard on Thom Hartmann’s radio show that CSPAN covered Geithner today vigorously attacking Friedmanomics big time.    Maybe we need Rahm dumped instead of Geithner.  Or, maybe we need them both dumped.  As bad as the Democrats are, the problem is that the Republicans are even worse.  A look at the headline stories on the political page of the Huffington Post makes me wonder whether to laugh or cry.  If this is the best and brightest this country has got, no wonder we’re dying.  

Afternoon Edition

Afternoon Edition is an Open Thread

Now with World and U.S. News.  61 Story Final.

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Karzai sworn in, vows to fight corruption

by Lynne O’Donnell, AFP

1 hr 5 mins ago

KABUL (AFP) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai was sworn in for a second term on Thursday and vowed to combat corruption, bring security and reach out to political rivals, under Western pressure to restore legitimacy.

Karzai took the oath of office as the US-led war stretches into a ninth year, leaving record numbers of soldiers and civilians dead and with Taliban control extending deeper into the country after an election mired in fraud.

In a wide-ranging speech, he promised action on the worst problems that preoccupy his Western backers, who are weary after pouring more than 100,000 troops and billions of dollars of aid into Afghanistan with little in return.

Open Wound…..per Kestrel’s request!

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Build Steel Interstates with $1/barrel and 1% of the Carbon Fee

crossposted from Agent Orange

The Steel Interstate concept (tagpage) is one that I have been discussing, off and on, in my Sunday Train series. The basic idea is to electrify the Department of Defense STrategic RAil Corridor NETwork, STRACNET (right), and establish 100mph Rapid Freight Rail paths, to allow an estimated (Millenium Institute pdf) half of long haul trucking to shift to electric freight rail at a saving of about 10% of our current oil imports.

This diary is about how to overcome the only thing standing in its way: Public Finance. And that is to impose a $1/barrel tax on imported petroleum and petroleum products, and allocate 1% of any Carbon Fee to financing construction.

Stimulate or Lose the 2010 Midterms

Thomas Ferguson is a political scientist and author who studies and writes on politics and economics, often within an historical perspective. He is a Political Science professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston, a contributing editor of The Nation, and is also the author of several books, the most recent of which is Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political System.

Back in April 2009 Ferguson was interviewed by Real News CEO Paul Jay, and at the time called the Obama/Geithner/Summers economic/stimulus plans a “recipe for disaster”.

Today, Ferguson again talks with Jay, and with the hindsight of the past 7 months now says that the stimulus program was far too small, a much larger one is still needed, and predicts that the Democrats must start a new jobs program to bring the economic growth to the bulk of the population or face losing badly in the 2010 mid-terms.



Real News Network – November 19, 2009

Jesus said it best

We’re spending how many billions to “rebuild” Iraq and Afghanistan?    We’re spending how many billions on enormous embassies in countries like Pakistan and Iraq, where the contractors hired to build them aren’t even Americans?

Meanwhile, at home:

This was Los Angeles, yesterday.

The Oakland Bay Bridge just broke.  

The I-35 Bridge in Minneapolis just broke, killing how many people?

Sometimes a single picture can indeed say more than 1,000 words.

Jesus said it best with that line about “You have to remove the beam from your own eye before you can remove the splinter from your neighbor’s”.  

Not that our lovely government is actually trying to help anyone with the equvalent of “removing a splinter” from anyone’s eye.  They’re just corrupt and realized that they can literally hand out millions and billions of dollars to their cronies by shipping the money overseas and into the waiting hands and duffel bags of “contractors”.

Meanwhile, America crumbles.  

Say What?, you freakin wallstreet crook

Morgan Stanley’s Mack: ‘We Cannot Control Ourselves’

Say What?? But you clowns are supposed to be the best of the best of the best……………………………………., which is supposedly the reason you get Extreme Compensation and ever growing Company Perks, writeoffs by the way, No One Else Can Do What You Do, or so the crap is stated and You Can’t Control Yourselves, say it ain’t so you freak!!!

The Feud That Wasn’t

Recent Obama Administration attacks against the Chamber of Commerce, and, more notably, Fox News have been greeted with perfunctory attention and notice by the major media outlets.  Though a few pundits and experts chimed in to state their case in the immediate aftermath of Team Obama’s war on bias, few were willing to really say what they believed.  Reaction from the chattering classes and the peanut gallery was largely negative and unfavorable of the decision but one got the feeling that many expressed heavily disingenuous views.  Invoking Nixonian tactics in a critique reveals more about current station than All the President’s Men and Women.  In an era where every network and news agency is under increased pressure to maintain advertising revenue and, let we forget, often running significant deficits due to competition with electronic sources of information, caution prevents a major ratings war or uppercut.  In another time, a direct challenge by the White House might have fueled a bare-knuckle brawl among the heavyweights, following its bold example, but at the moment the best one can expect is a holding pattern and resulting uneasy truce.  Peace might be explained away as journalistic ethics, but ethics often are disregarded if monetary advantage is an option.      

Low-octane, under the radar sniping that frequently resorts to passive-aggression is the most obvious sign of the friction between politicians and purveyors of content.  As a result, the major cable networks have largely resisted the temptation to go after each other.  Striking from a defensive posture, MSNBC recently ran effective ads that directly contradicted Fox News’ claim that the 9/12 Tea Party demonstrations in Washington, DC, were not sufficiently covered by other outlets.  MSNBC was, however, careful not to go for the jugular.  To cite another example, despite recent attempts to modernize its programming and its look, CNN still takes a frequently unsatisfying middle ground between centrism and more progressive reporting that frequently comes across as artificial and plebeian in all the worst ways possible.  Still, CNN runs self-serving promo ads on a regular basis that tout its status as number one cable news network, making particularly mention of those under its employ who have won numerous awards and accolades.  This may be so, but CNN in many ways is the proverbial sleeping giant and it will take more than a direct challenge or surprise attack to fully rouse it from its self-satisfied stupor.  CNN was the first on the scene and as a result its demographic is often older and beholden to brand loyalty, but if it continues to lose younger viewers, it will find itself hemorrhaging revenue.      

Returning to the President’s attack on Fox News, one would expect the network, despite its obvious disdain for labor unions, to be solid in its hatred for President Obama.  However, a chink in the armor appears to have developed.  One of its reporters has declined the opportunity to directly engage the President in hand-to-hand combat.  The question remains whether or not he is violating policy or merely exercising a liberty he has the right to embrace.  It is also possible that this decision is a coordinated attempt designed purely to make President Obama look like a child and make Fox News seem like the rational adult in the matter.          

Returning to the relative surface placidity of Fox News versus Barack H. Obama, et al,

Fox News Channel correspondent Major Garrett called himself a “conscientious objector” in his network’s fight with the White House after a brief interview with President Barack Obama Wednesday during which the topic never came up.

One wonders also if this is merely a shrewd tactical move or indicative of larger trends within Fox News.  Much exists behind the scenes that we simply aren’t privy to and whether the Obama Administration has struck a deal with Fox News is purely speculative because no one’s talking.  Naturally, at least one conservative pundit has taken the opportunity to take a condescending swipe at the President’s strategy and perceived lack of satisfying and successful victories in foreign policy.  It is the intention of many on the right to paint our President as little more than an empty suit.    

Tongue in cheek, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer said the interview “constitutes the most important truce in our history since the Korean armistice of 1953.”

“We are South Korea in this particular analogy,” he said.

To be completely honest, however, Fox News has never truly embraced an all out battle royal with the Obama Administration.  While it continues to be snidely dismissive of its policies and eager to run stories with a healthy dollop of right-wing distortion, it has never counter-attacked with any kind of ferocity.  When the immediate charges were levied against Fox News, namely that it was merely a propaganda wing of the Republican party, it became at most a two-day story, and notably reached no fevered pitch of nastiness.  Clearly, no one really wanted to run with the story for very long.  The truth is that the media had nothing to gain and quite a bit to lose if it pushed back too hard.  

Any means of information dispersal has to justify its own existence from time to time and anything that might cause some degree of doubt on behalf of viewers or readers is poisonous.  Opening up a major dialogue about the role of the media in daily life is the last thing any of the mainstream outlets wanted in this situation, which is unfortunate because I think it’s a long-overdue topic that the American people need to debate and then decide for themselves.  Fox News’ stated objective is noble enough, until one realizes that it is cynically manipulative at best.  We report, you decide?  I suppose it depends on what one means by “reporting.”  The easiest populist tactic in the toolbox of any politician is the act of criticizing the media for unfair and unbalanced treatment.  The irony, of course, is that the media, and by this I notably remove Fox News for the most part, is frequently criticized for fueling baseless fears as a means of pushing back against accurate, damning revelations.  It is notably not held accountable for its real limitations and real shortcomings.          

Snide commentary aside, one isn’t sure whether this revelation constitutes victory, stalemate, or submission.  The powers that be in this circumstance are shadow figures who always talk off the record and never wish to be identified.  Nothing could be less transparent than the motives at play or the ultimate decision.  Still, if conditions continue to deteriorate regarding the quality of content and a resulting shift towards partisan bias rather than impartiality, expect some major wars to break out that will not be assuaged by back-stage politics.  If, at some critical juncture in the near future it seems like there’s not enough money or enough oxygen to go round, one can be sure the gloves will be coming off and staying off.

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