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Latest Articles: Opinions/Editorials
Why senators are avoiding the Tea Party Caucus
Post Date: 2011-01-30 20:59:51 by Ferret Mike
7 Comments
Some tea party favorites stayed away from the Thursday's meeting of the new Senate Tea Party Caucus, as newly elected Republicans try to define themselves in Washington. Atlanta The reluctance of tea party favorites like Sen. Marco Rubio (R) of Florida and Sen. Ron Johnson (R) of Wisconsin to join a new Senate Tea Party Caucus points to the difficulty some incoming Republicans face in adjusting to the political realities of the Beltway while retaining the tea party bona fides they earned on the campaign trail. Last year's House Tea Party Caucus had 50 members – this year's rolls haven't been released yet – but only four senators appeared before a throng of tea ...
The Neocons Have Lost It
Post Date: 2011-01-30 13:29:05 by Brian S
3 Comments
Since I triumphantly declared that at last, the neocon Hitler-Stalin pact moment had arrived, the neocons have rushed headlong into insisting that the global democratic revolution lives. Each example is just such a spectacle to behold in itself that they must be listed one by one: Max Boot: “We’re all neocons now.” One is left speechless. Is the idea that a Straussian divination of the speeches of Hassan al-Banna shows his secret purpose to have been to promulgate the wit and wisdom of Partisan Review? Michael Ledeen makes a convoluted argument for a completely nonsensical premise – that we must re-engineer the Green Revolution in Iran, and then all will be ...
Fear Extreme Islamists in the Arab World? Blame Washington
Post Date: 2011-01-29 19:26:48 by Brian S
5 Comments
In the last year of his life, Martin Luther King Jr. questioned US military interventions against progressive movements in the Third World by invoking a JFK quote: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Were he alive to witness the last three decades of US foreign policy, King might update that quote by noting: "Those who make secular revolution impossible will make extreme Islamist revolution inevitable."For decades beginning during the Cold War, US policy in the Islamic world has been aimed at suppressing secular reformist and leftist movements. Beginning with the CIA-engineered coup against a secular democratic ...
Are We Witnessing the Start of a Global Revolution?
Post Date: 2011-01-27 13:35:05 by Brian S
17 Comments
North Africa and the Global Political Awakening, Part 1 Global Research, January 27, 2011 For the first time in human history almost all of humanity is politically activated, politically conscious and politically interactive... The resulting global political activism is generating a surge in the quest for personal dignity, cultural respect and economic opportunity in a world painfully scarred by memories of centuries-long alien colonial or imperial domination... The worldwide yearning for human dignity is the central challenge inherent in the phenomenon of global political awakening... That awakening is socially massive and politically radicalizing... The nearly universal access to radio, ...
Exclusive: US Empire Will Fall Due To Lack Of Faith, Not Finances Or War, Author Warns [Full Thread]
Post Date: 2011-01-27 12:55:52 by Brian S
176 Comments
As many in the American empire longingly talk of "recovery" from the most devastating economic condition since the Great Depression, others have begun thinking in a very different direction, urging fellow citizens to prepare for the worst. Dmitry Orlov, author of "Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects," is one of the latter. Soon, he told Raw Story in an exclusive interview, Americans will "stop expecting anything of Washington," turning the US into more of a "banana republic" than a super power. Orlov, who witnessed the Soviet Union's collapse from within, lamented that the American empire's condition is so severe ...
CBO Forecast: Frightening Fodder For Both Parties
Post Date: 2011-01-26 15:11:40 by Brian S
0 Comments
The big headline number from Wednesday’s Congressional Budget Office report is a jolting shot of bad news: a budget deficit this fiscal year of close to $1.5 trillion, or 9.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). That’s nearly as big as 2009’s shortfall, which was the highest in nearly 65 years. The $1.5 trillion deficit would be a nominal record, but not quite as big as the 2009 deficit when measured as a percentage of the economy. Story: CBO: U.S. budget deficit to hit $1.5 trillion More bad news: CBO’s forecasters don’t see employment returning to anything like normal before 2016. Look inside the 190-page report and you’ll find facts, figures ...
Is America Rubberstamping Apartheid In Palestine?
Post Date: 2011-01-26 12:35:33 by Brian S
1 Comments
“More and more, Americans from all walks of life are talking about Israel’s influence in Washington, looking for someone to blame. Americans are angry, feeling powerless, victimized by their own government. Some of that blame takes the form of Antisemitism, again rearing its ugly head, but most of it is expressed in healthy skepticism, skepticism of a government showing signs of having been bought. “Bought” is a harsh word but no other word applies, not anymore. There is no other explanation, not for the policies we are seeing, policies steeped in bias, policies based on support of apartheid, of continual violations of human rights, of ...
Next To Republicans, Obama Is Presidential
Post Date: 2011-01-26 12:25:59 by Brian S
1 Comments
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Democrats sat with Republicans for President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, but a wide gulf still separates the two parties. Despite the superficial one-night show of unity by politicians, the nation is not united. America is facing its greatest crisis of confidence in decades, and Washington isn’t helping. The two political parties fundamentally disagree about America’s problems, and what Washington should do to solve them. Democrats continue to believe that government has a strong part to play in promoting the general welfare and helping to make America more competitive. Republicans continue to insist that ...
Americans Won't Buy The Tea Party's Free Market Snake Oil
Post Date: 2011-01-26 12:23:53 by Brian S
1 Comments
In the topsy-turvy, Alice-in-Wonderland alternative universe of the tea party and its Republican toadies, small-government and free-market economic policy will save the nation from disaster. In fact, as thinking Americans know full well, the current economic crisis is largely due to the unmitigated greed of Wall Street banks and American homeowners, abetted for years by the "free market" nonsense that Reps. Paul Ryan and Michelle Bachmann continue to foist on the public. When the history of this era is written, it will be clear that the Obama administration's aggressive action saved the nation from a fate far worse than the current recession.
Obama Calls Deficit Hawks’ Bluff
Post Date: 2011-01-26 11:56:00 by Brian S
0 Comments
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – In a skillful speech that aggressively promoted his own agenda while disarming Republican opposition, President Obama called the deficit hawks’ bluff in his State of the Union speech. He left not one, but two Republican responders flailing helplessly about an issue Main Street has trouble grasping – our supposedly overwhelming mountain of debt. Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the official responder, sat in a dark and lonely hearing room talking a mile a minute about a “fiscal crisis” that no one else can detect. Ryan bewailed “the crushing burden of debt” that is not visibly crushing anyone with high interest rates, runaway inflation ...
The Politics of Evasion (Ignoring the debt)
Post Date: 2011-01-26 11:12:50 by go65
0 Comments
If you were a visitor from Mars, watching tonight’s State of the Union address and Paul Ryan’s Republican response, you would have no reason to think that the looming insolvency of our entitlement system lies at the heart of the economic challenges facing the United States over the next two decades. From President Obama, we heard a reasonably eloquent case for center-left technocracy and industrial policy, punctuated by a few bipartisan flourishes, in which the entitlement issue felt like an afterthought: He took note of the problem, thanked his own fiscal commission for their work without endorsing any of their recommendations, made general, detail-free pledges to keep Medicare ...
Obama’s Speech Puts GOP In A Corner
Post Date: 2011-01-26 10:57:27 by go65
0 Comments
President Obama put Republicans in something of a box last night. He oozed optimism, telling Americans in the last moments of his speech that, “From the earliest days of our founding, America has been the story of ordinary people who dare to dream. That’s how we win the future.” http://abcn.ws/ffIYcE On the other hand, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., who gave the Republican response and Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., who delivered what was billed as the Tea Party rebuttal, both focused on the negative -- crushing deficit, the debt crisis, the ballooning size of government. “No economy can sustain such high levels of debt and taxation. The next generation will inherit a ...
A Tribute to Olbermann: Why He Is Different From the Pundits at Fox News
Post Date: 2011-01-24 12:08:44 by Ferret Mike
24 Comments
Black and white is easy; nuance is hard. Which is why it's much easier to just lump media outlets and personalities into simple boxes: left v. right, or partisan v. objective, for example. So if you want to play that game, it's easy to dismiss Keith Olbermann, who broadcast his final episode of Countdown on MSNBC Friday. It's simple to dash off a hack piece (like this one in the Daily Beast, which revealed its simple-minded bona fides by invoking the right's favorite jab at Olbermann: he used to work in -- gasp! -- sports) that lumps Olbermann in with Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, as if they all do the same thing just because they are all loud and aggressive. I know nuance ...
Seven Reasons Why The GOP Faces An Uphill Battle To Defeat Obama
Post Date: 2011-01-23 18:09:10 by Brian S
2 Comments
President Obama’s chances of winning a second term have significantly improved over the past couple of months. The election is a long way off, but the strategy sessions for Obama’s reelection are already under way. Some of the president’s senior aides, including David Axelrod, will soon be leaving Washington for Chicago to focus on one thing: making Obama a two-term president. Obama’s poll numbers have been on the rise since Republicans won 63 seats in the House and six in the Senate last November. Perhaps more importantly, Obama’s moves to distance himself from the liberal wing of his party come as 2012 Republican presidential hopefuls are moving to the right ...
Poverty and Recovery
Post Date: 2011-01-23 10:56:59 by go65
4 Comments
In 2008, the first year of the Great Recession, the number of Americans living in poverty rose by 1.7 million to nearly 47.5 million. While hugely painful, that rise wasn’t surprising given the unraveling economy. What is surprising is that recent census data show that those poverty numbers held steady in 2009, even though job loss worsened significantly that year. Clearly, the sheer scale of poverty — 15.7 percent of the country’s population — is unacceptable. But to keep millions more Americans from falling into poverty during a deep recession is a genuine accomplishment that holds a vital lesson: the safety net, fortified by stimulus, staved off an even more damaging ...
I'm declaring February a Palin-free month. Join me!
Post Date: 2011-01-21 23:34:10 by Ferret Mike
8 Comments
Though it is embarrassing to admit this in public, I can no longer hide the truth. I have a Sarah Palin problem. I have written about her in 42 columns since Sen. John McCain picked her as his vice-presidential running mate in 2008. I've mentioned her in dozens more blog posts, Web chats, and TV and radio appearances. I feel powerless to control my obsession, even though it cheapens and demeans me. But today is the first day of the rest of my life. And so, I hereby pledge that, beginning on Feb. 1, 2011, I will not mention Sarah Palin -- in print, online or on television -- for one month. Furthermore, I call on others in the news media to join me in this pledge of a Palin-free ...
Wave Goodbye To Confederate Flag's Influence On Virginia's Identity?
Post Date: 2011-01-21 12:37:50 by Brian S
1 Comments
If the Sons of Confederate Veterans were looking to do prominent Virginia Republicans a favor, they couldn't have done much better than slam them in as public a forum as possible. Which they did: The Sons held a D.C. news conference Tuesday - one day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day - to attack Gov. Robert F. McDonnell and former senator George Allen for their insufficient fealty to Virginia's Confederate heritage. Their version of it, anyway. McDonnell and Allen, said Michael Rose, the group's top official in the commonwealth, "have ignored, denied and even insulted our Virginia history and heritage." It was "Undoubtedly, A Welcomed Criticism," as Too ...
GOP Wants Palin To “Sit Down And Shut Up”
Post Date: 2011-01-20 14:47:11 by Brian S
2 Comments
On Tuesday, a remarkable thing happened among the possible contenders for the Republican presidential nomination: Newt Gingrich warned Sarah Palin to be more careful about her incendiary rhetoric. Yep, you read that right. Newt Gingrich, the king of incendiary rhetoric, champion of rhetorical fireballs, the emperor of verbal excess, cautioned Palin about watching her words. Watch him, interviewed by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos: That’s just one more sign of how worried Republican leaders are about the prospect of a Palin presidential run. Her negatives are climbing; a recent poll gives her an unfavorable rating of 53 percent, the highest disapproval she has scored since John ...
Petty Woman
Post Date: 2011-01-19 13:32:18 by go65
1 Comments
The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10cPetty Woman www.thedailyshow.comDaily Show Full EpisodesPolitical Humor & Satire BlogThe Daily Show on Facebook
The Myth Of 'American Exceptionalism' Implodes
Post Date: 2011-01-18 19:42:27 by Brian S
0 Comments
Until the 1970s, US capitalism shared its spoils with American workers. But since 2008, it has made them pay for its failures Richard Wolff guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 18 January 2011 13.00 GMT larger | smaller Article history A homeless encampment known as Tent City, in Sacramento, California, in 2009. Since the 1970s, real wages stopped growing and the gap between rich and poor expanded as the US economy slowed down after decades of growth. Photograph: Rich Pedroncelli/AP One aspect of "American exceptionalism" was always economic. US workers, so the story went, enjoyed a rising level of real wages that afforded their families a rising ...
President Barak Obama: Toward a 21st-Century Regulatory System
Post Date: 2011-01-18 11:37:25 by Brian S
3 Comments
For two centuries, America's free market has not only been the source of dazzling ideas and path-breaking products, it has also been the greatest force for prosperity the world has ever known. That vibrant entrepreneurialism is the key to our continued global leadership and the success of our people. But throughout our history, one of the reasons the free market has worked is that we have sought the proper balance. We have preserved freedom of commerce while applying those rules and regulations necessary to protect the public against threats to our health and safety and to safeguard people and businesses from abuse. From child labor laws to the Clean Air Act to our most recent ...
Palin's egocentric umbrage
Post Date: 2011-01-18 09:17:00 by go65
2 Comments
In the spirit of civil discourse, I'd like to humbly suggest that Sarah Palin please consider being quiet for a while. Perhaps a great while. At the risk of being bold, I might observe that her faux-presidential address about the Tucson massacre seemed to fall somewhat flat, drawing comparisons to the least attractive public moments of such figures as Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. I could go so far as to observe that Palin almost seemed to portray herself as a collateral victim. Surely a former governor of Alaska - who served the better part of an entire term - would never seek to give the impression that she views any conceivable event, no matter how distant or tragic, as being All ...
The Class War Launched by America's Wealthiest Is Getting More Savage
Post Date: 2011-01-17 17:55:46 by Brian S
17 Comments
It’s the corporations and the very wealthiest against all the rest of us. We’re losing.In 1962 the wealthiest 1 percent of American households had 125 times the wealth of the median household. Now it’s 190 times as much. Is that a case of a rising tide lifting all boats, just a few of them a little bit higher? No.From 1950 to 1965, median family income rose from $24,000 a year to $38,000 a year. That’s close to 4 percent a year, close to 60 percent over 15 years. That’s a rising tide.In 1964 there was a big tax cut. That’s when things started to slow down for average people. By the mid-'70s the rise of the middle class stalled. From 1975 to 2010 median ...
The War on Logic
Post Date: 2011-01-17 12:39:48 by go65
20 Comments
My wife and I were thinking of going out for an inexpensive dinner tonight. But John Boehner, the speaker of the House, says that no matter how cheap the meal may seem, it will cost thousands of dollars once you take our monthly mortgage payments into account. Wait a minute, you may say. How can our mortgage payments be a cost of going out to eat, when we’ll have to make the same payments even if we stay home? But Mr. Boehner is adamant: our mortgage is part of the cost of our meal, and to say otherwise is just a budget gimmick. O.K., the speaker hasn’t actually weighed in on our plans for the evening. But he and his G.O.P. colleagues have lately been making exactly the ...
Palin’s Other, Much Bigger ‘Jewish Problem’
Post Date: 2011-01-16 19:16:24 by Brian S
7 Comments
I facetiously noted yesterday that Sarah Palin probably wasn’t to blame for her use of the expression “blood libel” — a term associated with anti-semitism since the Middle Ages — because she had probably just picked it up from an editorial in the Wall Street Journal. As politicians like to say, I’m now “re-thinking” what I wrote because it looks like Palin has a bigger “Jewish problem” than just parroting an old expression. This morning, when I read an in-depth piece in Huffington Post, written by Jordan Zakarin, it reminded me of Palin’s long association with Wasilla Bible Church, and her stated religious views which, to this writer, ...
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