Bill and Barack will serve as the bookends for the worst eight-year disaster in American History.
This week, according to Bloomberg, the government cut food rations for farmers in order to stock up on supplies for its military. The Democratic Republic of Korea has been starving its own population in order to retain political control.
Zimbabwe for humanitarian reasons. But there can be no economic solution for the mess that Mr. Mugabe has created out of Zimbabwe. The recent attempts to attain a brokered political solution, such as power-sharing was laughable and doomed at the outset. The only solution for Zimbabwe is Mugabe's timely death.
Mugabe's tyranny has forced more than three million to flee into South Africa. Close to 500,000 are deported every year but the majority find their way back through illegal entry points. This scale of immigration has de-stabilized South Africa's fragile economy.
It was a populist epithet, carrying an implicit accusation that the people it described were insulated from all negative consequences of their programs intended to benefit the poor, and that the costs and consequences of such programs would be borne in the main by working class or lower middle class people who were not so poor as to be beneficiaries themselves.... criticized Lindsay for favoring unemployed blacks over working-class whites.I may be wrong, but it's always seemed to me to imply:
Progressives and Liberals should stand up for ACORN because ACORN stands up for democracy.
Be The Change - Minneapolis For ObamaI was feeling just a bit politically pissed off over the last couple of weeks, what with my retirement put off for a year or more (like maybe 25).
Here is a little ditty I wrote. It is as close as I can get to a Woody Guthrie state of mind.
I have never seen anything like this in my 60 years. I never thought we would see anything as bad again as the Nixon years, however this administration has proved me very wrong. I feel like we have been drop-kicked back to 1950, especially when I see the ghost of Joseph Raymond McCarthy alive and well in our own Congressperson Michelle Bachmann. I believe that a McCain Administration would be the continuation of this train wreck, and should Palin ascend to the Oval Office, then God help us all.
I wrote this piece for several reasons, primarily because I have two children, one son 25, and one daughter 19. I am good for another 20 years if I am lucky, but they will be here for another 60 or more, and I want them to at least know that I and others in my generation tried to do something and maybe collectively we will succeed in leaving a better place.
I had great trepidation in doing this song, because I don't want trouble, but everything in the song is public knowledge, McCain is a public figure. As Lenny Bruce said, “The truth is what is, not what should be. What should be is a dirty lie." I am tired of hearing "dirty lies" about Obama . I am tired of the deceit ,treachery, immorality, and inhumanity of this administration. I am tired of seeing Americans who have the courage to stand up to this Administration being denigrated as anti-American dissidents, rather than as the patriots they are.
My father who was a fighter pilot in WWII and Korea used to like to say " You either stand up for something, or you stand for nothing at all." I discounted that and a lot of the other things he said as a young man. In the ensuing years lots of things have become clearer to me. If ever there was a time to stand for something it is most certainly now.
This song was written by Larry Long and sung by Larry Long and Tonia Hughes.
I’d started thinking I’d have to start posting under a new screen name like “EmbarrassedinMinnesota”.Since then, I have re-upholstered the sofa. But the confidence I placed in your word has not being repaired. As a matter of fact, I recall being on the phone that very moment you were testifying to the world and I asked the person on the other end of the line,What you will see is an accumulation of facts and disturbing patterns of behavior .....
Saddam Hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction .....
My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence .....
The gravity of this moment is matched by the gravity of the threat that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction pose to the world .....
Because of your loyalty to Team Busheney, your legacy has been squandered. Today, you are no longer a game changer. You were, once or twice or more. But your opportunity has passed.I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.
..... What I am opposed to is the attempt by potential hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty state, a drop in the medium income—to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone thorough the worst month since the Great Depression. That’s what I am opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war, a war based not on reason, but on passion, not on principle, but on politics.
..... I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undermined cost, with undetermined consequence of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequence. I know that an invasion of Iraq without clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than the best, impulses of the Arab world and strengthen the recruitment arm of al Qaeda.
I'm sorry. I resign.
…. He fights for his state. He fights for his people ….. But at the same time, he has the best interest of the country at heart - always ….. There was never any suggestion that he would do anything that was improper … He was someone whose word you could rely on ….. as a guy who would tell me when I was off base ….. he would tell me when I had no clothes on-figuratively, that is-and would tell me when I was right and go for it. ….. As we say in the infantry, He's a guy who, as we said in the infantry, we would take on a long patrol.Very colorful.
Well, General, my conclusion is that loyalty is your stronger suit, clearly trumping your judgment of character. I don't think Senator Obama is in as much of a need for your endorsement as you are in need of being seen and found among his supporters.
Rosa Brooks writes in the
Then -- more fun -- some conservatives began to actually endorse Barack Obama. Wick Allison, a former publisher of the National Review, wrote that today's brand of conservatismhas produced financial mismanagement, the waste of human lives, the loss of moral authority, and the wreckage of our economy that McCain now threatens to make worse. ... Obama is almost the ideal candidate for this moment in American history.
Christopher Hitchens, who has spent the last five years deriding the Democratic position on Iraq as that of "the surrender faction," endorsed Obama too, concludingthe Republican Party has invited not just defeat but discredit this year, and ... both its nominees for the highest offices in the land should be decisively repudiated.Whee! Incredibly, the fun continued.
Christopher Buckley, National Review columnist and son of conservative icon William F. Buckley, also endorsed Obama:Obama has in him ... the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. ... And so, for the first time ... I'll be pulling the Democratic lever in November.For his pains, Buckley received hundreds of vituperative e-mails from former admirers on the right. Effectively, he said Tuesday, he's been "fatwaed by the conservative movement." He resigned from the National Review.
I think I'll be watching the one who doesn't wear a tie.Wait 'til next year!
STOCKHOLM (AP) - American Paul Krugman won the Nobel economics prize today for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity. Krugman has formulated a new theory to answer questions about free trade, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.What are the effects of free trade and globalization? What are the driving forces behind worldwide urbanization?All readers are well aware that Krugman, born in 1953, is a professor at Princeton University in New Jersey and a columnist for The New York Times. In his last column (yesterday's) written as a non-laureate, Krugman asks if the Brits have saved the world financial system. My excerpts:
Paul Krugman has formulated a new theory to answer these questions. He has thereby integrated the previously disparate research fields of international trade and economic geography.
Femafication? I wasn't awake, minutes ago, when I reached for my bookmarked on-line dictionary. Krugman, also an accomplished wordsmith, has coined a new word, the meaning of which is clear to any one starting his second cup of coffee.. . . . .What we do know, however, is that Mr. Brown and Alistair Darling, the chancellor of the Exchequer (equivalent to our Treasury secretary), have defined the character of the worldwide rescue effort, with other wealthy nations playing catch-up.
This is an unexpected turn of events. The British government is, after all, very much a junior partner when it comes to world economic affairs. It’s true that London is one of the world’s great financial centers, but the British economy is far smaller than the U.S. economy, and the Bank of England doesn’t have anything like the influence either of the Federal Reserve or of the European Central Bank. So you don’t expect to see Britain playing a leadership role.
. . . The Brown government has shown itself willing to think clearly about the financial crisis, and act quickly on its conclusions. And this combination of clarity and decisiveness hasn’t been matched by any other Western government, least of all our own.
. . . . . The natural thing to do, then — and the solution adopted in many previous financial crises — is to deal with the problem of inadequate financial capital by having governments provide financial institutions with more capital in return for a share of ownership.
This sort of temporary part-nationalization, which is often referred to as an “equity injection,” is the crisis solution advocated by many economists — and sources told The Times that it was also the solution privately favored by Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman.
But when Henry Paulson, the U.S. Treasury secretary, announced his plan for a $700 billion financial bailout, he rejected this obvious path, saying, “That’s what you do when you have failure.” Instead, he called for government purchases of toxic mortgage-backed securities, based on the theory that ... actually, it never was clear what his theory was.
Meanwhile, the British government went straight to the heart of the problem — and moved to address it with stunning speed. On Wednesday, Mr. Brown’s officials announced a plan for major equity injections into British banks, backed up by guarantees on bank debt that should get lending among banks, a crucial part of the financial mechanism, running again. And the first major commitment of funds will come on Monday — five days after the plan’s announcement.
At a special European summit meeting on Sunday, the major economies of continental Europe in effect declared themselves ready to follow Britain’s lead, injecting hundreds of billions of dollars into banks while guaranteeing their debts. And whaddya know, Mr. Paulson — after arguably wasting several precious weeks — has also reversed course, and now plans to buy equity stakes rather than bad mortgage securities (although he still seems to be moving with painful slowness).
. . . . policy is, finally, being driven by a clear view of what needs to be done. Which raises the question, why did that clear view have to come from London rather than Washington?
It’s hard to avoid the sense that Mr. Paulson’s initial response was distorted by ideology. Remember, he works for an administration whose philosophy of government can be summed up as “private good, public bad,” which must have made it hard to face up to the need for partial government ownership of the financial sector.
I also wonder how much the Femafication of government under President Bush contributed to Mr. Paulson’s fumble. All across the executive branch, knowledgeable professionals have been driven out; there may not have been anyone left at Treasury with the stature and background to tell Mr. Paulson that he wasn’t making sense. . . . .
MINNEAPOLIS (AP)- Republican presidential candidate John McCain will campaign in Minnesota again on Friday. McCain's Minnesota campaign manager says the senator from Arizona will hold a town hall meeting Friday afternoon in the Minneapolis suburb of Lakeville.
Nothing is more tiresome than hearing this superannuated candidate address all of us - individually - in his audience as 'my friend'. It's presumptuous. It comes across as grasping. He may be wanting to be my friend, but it's not a reciprocated feeling. I don't want to be friends with him. I don't want to have a beer with him. Not even a frosty-cold Corona on a hot & dusty afternoon.
We are looking for a very aggressive last 30 days, We are looking forward to turning a page on this financial crisis and getting back to discussing Mr. Obama's aggressively liberal record and how he will be too risky for Americans.That is why the sleazy old warmonger wants
LOS ANGELES (AFP) — An unemployed California man shot and killed his wife, three children and mother-in-law before taking his own life over his family's financial difficulties, police said Monday.Los Angeles Police Department deputy chief Michael Moore says the gunman Karthik Rajaram, 45, shot his wife, 39, her mother, 70, and three sons aged 19, 12 and seven
at their home in an up-market suburb of Los Angeles.This was something that was not a spur-of-the-moment type of event ..... We believe this individual had become despondent recently over his financial dealings and the financial situation of his household, and this murder-suicide event is a direct result of that ..... His narrative is one of talking about this tragedy befalling him and his contemplation of an available exit or solution ..... One is taking his own life and the other is taking the lives of his family and himself ..... He talked himself into the second strategy, believing that was in effect the honorable thing to do ..... this is a perfect American family behind me that has absolutely been destroyed, apparently because of a man who just got stuck in a rabbit hole, if you will, of absolute despair, somehow working his way into believing this to be an acceptable exit.If Americans elect a president who believes our greatest danger is the 21st Century's version of Willie Horton instead of economic implosion, then we are all entering a rabbit hole without an exit. Karthik Rajaram and his family are victims of the Busheney-McCain unregulated war economy. They will not be its last casualties. We are not stupid. It's the economy. Once again.
The original column and discussion can be found here. Reader comments have changed my thinking somewhat. I have had to qualify my earlier idealization of the original Lincoln-Douglas Debates. But I'm not the least bit swayed from talking up my No-Holds-Barred Debate Format (NHBDF) as an ideal basis for real debate. My ideas as presented below remain tentative. I welcome helpful suggestions and contributions from my readers.
Additionally, if one candidate is perceived to significantly outshine or outperform the other, a moderator may feel that he/she should step in, separate the candidates, introduce another soothing question or take some other compensatory measures to re-balance the playing field. This peace-keeping interference would only distract the public from discovering significant differences between the candidates.
Network pundits will inevitably score the debate, and designate 'winners' and 'losers'. And viewers will have inevitably selected their favorite scorekeepers by switching to their own preferred channel. Most viewers will sit passively in front of their teevee after the debate and absorb sound-bites the network program has selected for them. Too often, panels of post-debate pundits say the things that TV viewers then take away from the debate. You can't shut up the talking heads, of course. I would have preferred requiring audiences to choose their own post-debate pundits by switching channels after the debate to help communicate the idea that commentary is different and separate from the debate and debaters themselves. But it's clear that my C-SPAN only idea is a non-starter as it would exclude many interested viewers.accept what debates are about. It’s not a lecture hall; it’s a joust. It’s not how cerebral you are. It’s how visceral you are. You need memorable, sharp, forceful and witty lines.The NHBDF allows for a visceral debate.
I’m glad to get this chance to write a bit on the Al Franken-Norm Coleman senatorial race going on here in Minnesota, primarily because I feel bad I haven’t done more personally to help Franken’s campaign after he helped mine (and a bunch of other DFL candidates’ campaigns) so much back in 2006. And because I’d like to see Franken win for so many obvious reasons, including the bit of accountability it would signal for Norm Coleman’s disingenuous, sycophantic backing of Bush and the radical Republican Right Wing’s destructive agenda over the last 6 years.not only is it a brutal fight already, with each candidate wounded by tough criticism and a torrent of attack ads from each side on the air, but also noting that if Franken cannot pull off a victory then Democrats have very little chance of getting to the magical, filibuster-proof 60 seats they hope for.The negative ad war is probably a natural consequence of so much at stake. Coleman’s nauseating ads lack substance and are essentially nothing more than attacks on Franken’s style when he was a comedy/satire writer. Franken’s ads, on the other hand, are “negative” only in the sense that they attempt to hold Coleman to account for his terrible public record as an elected official.
Naturally, Coleman is running as far away from his record as he possibly can, as fast as he possibly can. Franken’s most recent ad, for example, is about Coleman’s utter failure as the uniquely powerful chair of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to hold even one single hearing on fraud, corruption and profiteering in the course of the Iraq War. Even Pollyanna herself would be hard pressed to make lemonade from that lemon. Not for nothing has Norm Coleman not once in any of his TV ads used the word “Republican” to describe himself.
