Author's posts
Feb 08 2009
How Bad? Worse Than Bad.
The ongoing and rapid collapse of the US and Global economy, far from being an abstract series of events, is being brought home forcefully and concretely to millions of people on a personal level with the loss of their jobs and consequent drastic reduction in their ability to not only purchase things they want for themselves and their families but even to purchase the basic necessities of life and obtain things they need.
A cycle pushing us into a self reinforcing deflationary spiral in which less and less people are able to support the dwindling economy with their purchases which causes even more job loss and less economic activity, and so on, as we saw highlighted in very sharp focus in How Bad? This Bad with the graph from Swampland compiled using Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers that:
…compares the job loss so far in this recession to job losses in the 1990-1991 recession and the 2001 recession — showing how dramatic and unprecedented the job loss over the last 13 months has been. Over the last 13 months, our economy has lost a total of 3.6 million jobs – and continuing job losses in the next few months are predicted.
By comparison, we lost a total of 1.6 million jobs in the 1990-1991 recession, before the economy began turning around and jobs began increasing; and we lost a total of 2.7 million jobs in the 2001 recession, before the economy began turning around and jobs began increasing.
The response from the government so far, from the Bush administration and the Congress, and continuing through into the new Obama administration, has been attempts at bailouts of the very wealthy in the financial sector, through shoveling money at manufacturers such as the auto industry so they can continue producing products in the face of crippling reductions in sales revenues, effectively “stealing” money from their prospective customers who were already more and more unable to buy their products, to finally with the current administration to an ostensible “stimulus” bill supposedly aimed at “creating” jobs.
All of which has been and is being done by saddling taxpayers, the very people these attempts have been ostensibly aimed at “helping” with long-debunked “trickle down” economics, with enormous and growing crushing future debt and thus crippling their future as well as present ability to purchase products and services, and crippling future prospects for an economic recovery.
Feb 07 2009
Barack Obama is @#$% tired of this @#$%!
Note: The MP3 links will open in Windows Media Player, or your default MP3 player.
Barack Obama is @#$% tired of this @#$%!
Published Feb 05 2009, 04:16 PM by Mike Miliard at The Boston Phoenix
http://thephoenix.com/BLOGS/phlog/archive/2009/02/05/barack-obama-is-tired-of-this.aspx
(Or, a NSFW plan to ram the stimulus bill home, told via downloadable mp3 ring tones.)In his bestselling autobiography, Dreams From My Father, President Obama introduces us to his high school friend, “Ray,” who, like him, is bi-racial. Who, also like him, is casting about to find his place in the world. But, who, unlike him, has a potty mouth that would make a sailor blush.
Best of all? When reading the audiobook version of his bio, Obama does impressions of Ray’s manner of speech. Swear words and all. It’s fucking awesome. And it’s a way of talking we probably won’t be hearing from him now that he’s POTUS.
Or will we?
In case you haven’t heard, it’s becoming clearer by the day that Obama is losing the communication war, and ceding this stimulus battle to the GOP. (If that article doesn’t get the point across, read this one too.)
He’s starting to amp up the rhetoric. But it’s not enough.
It’s time to stop this mealy-mouthed stuff about bipartisanship altogether. It’s pointless. Those flat-earth neanderthals are just gonna throw it back in his face.
No, it’s time for Obama to lay it all out on the table.
Time to start talking tough.
What’s he got to be afraid of? Rush Limbaugh?
Fuck no! Say it loud!
“You know that guy ain’t shit. Sorry-ass motherfucker ain’t got nothing on me.” (MP3)
So let’s roll up our sleeves and cut to the chase.
Feb 07 2009
How Bad? This Bad.
If you are having trouble reading the fine print: The blue line shows job losses in the 1990 recession; the red line is 2001, and the green line is the path we are on now.
To clarify, these are not projections. This is actual job-loss data.
Feb 07 2009
Panetta: No Prosecution Of… CIA Interrogators
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration will not prosecute CIA officers who participated in harsh interrogations that critics say crossed the line into torture, CIA Director-nominee Leon Panetta said Friday.
Asked by The Associated Press if that was official policy, Panetta said, “That is the case.”
It was the clearest statement yet on what Panetta and other Democratic officials had only strongly suggested: CIA officers who acted on legal orders from the Bush administration would not be held responsible for those policies. On Thursday, he told senators that the Obama administration had no intention of seeking prosecutions for that reason.
Panetta, in an interview with the AP after a second day of confirmation hearings with the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that he arrived at that conclusion even before he began meeting with CIA officials.
“It was my opinion we just can’t operate if people feel even if they are following the legal opinions of the Justice Department” they could be in danger of prosecution, he said.
Panetta demurred on saying whether the Obama administration would take legal action against those who authorized or wrote the legal opinions that, for a time, set an extremely high legal bar for an action to constitute torture.
“I’ll leave that for others,” Panetta said
Why Panetta? Since when does Panetta make the call for DOJ? Where is confirmation from Holder?
Feb 06 2009
BREAKING: Obama OK’s ICC Arrests And War Crimes Prosecution
No, it isn’t what the title sounds like, and it’s dangerous to read things into it that may not be there, but what Obama did do on Thursday, February 05, 2009, according to a report in The Washington Times (yes, yes, I know…) was signal his support of the International Criminal Court indicting and arresting Sudanese President Omar Bashir for war crimes.
And an Obama national security spokesman used some very interesting language in the announcements.
“We support the ICC in its pursuit of those who’ve perpetrated war crimes. We see no reason to support deferral [of the indictment] at this time,” said Ben Chang, a spokesman for Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones.
The Obama administration has signaled awareness of potential blowback if a warrant is issued.
[snip…]
The Obama administration has a more favorable attitude toward the ICC [than the Bush administration did], although it is reviewing whether it should re-sign the treaty and seek Senate ratification.
“It is in our country’s interest that the most heinous of criminals, like the perpetrators of the genocide in Darfur, are held accountable,” said Mr. Chang, the National Security Council spokesman.
At the same time, he said, Mr. Obama, as commander in chief, “wants to make sure that [U.S.] troops have maximum protection” against politically motivated indictments.
The president “will consult thoroughly across the whole government, including with the military, and also examine the full track record of the court, before reaching a decision on how to move forward,” Mr. Chang said.
Dangerous to read into it of course… but a rose or a president committing war crimes by any other name is still a rose or a president committing war crimes, no?
*emphasis added…
Feb 05 2009
More than 39,000 people have signed this petition
Add your signature to it today, if you haven’t yet.
It was about 21,000 Wednesday morning.
Will prayers help?
Feb 04 2009
Iraq: Obama vs Petraeus? Or Good Cop, Bad Cop Kabuki?
After historian, national security policy analyst and investigative journalist Gareth Porter’s February 2 IPS article US-IRAQ: Generals Seek to Reverse Obama Withdrawal Decision, which TomP essayed about here Tuesday, Porter then was interviewed by The Real News about his story that the Pentagon and CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus, supported by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Commander of the Multi-National Force-Iraq General Ray Odierno, and retired Generals, have launched the beginnings of a media campaign to undermine President Barack Obama and his stated plans to withdraw all “combat troops” from Iraq within 16 months and his order to Petraeus and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, Gates, and the military leaders to come back quickly with a detailed 16-month plan for doing so.
Real News: February 3, 2009 – 7 minutes 55 seconds
Petraeus versus the President?
Gareth Porter: US military leaders are pressuring Obama to cancel his Iraq withdrawal promise
The base premise of Porter’s article and his Real News interview is that The Pentagon and the Generals, presumably backed by the foreign policy establishment, are creating a narrative of 18 months of “success” in Iraq and Obama blowing it and throwing away all the supposed “gains” made beginning with Bush’s “surge”, to pressure Obama into easing up on plans to withdraw from Iraq, and thus pitting Obama as the deliverer of “change” against the Bush policy of occupation of Iraq and domination of the Middle East in direct opposition to and counterbalancing the “threat” posed by Iran.
Obama the “anti-imperialist” vs hegemony and imperialism, in so many words.
But is this what is really happening, or are we witnessing a smoke and mirrors kabuki in which both sides are playing their roles perfectly? Is the whole play meant to fog the situation and enable Obama, who has said in the past that he will “listen” to his Generals, to appear to have done his best and eventually relent on his campaign promises in the face of “reality” and continue the occupation of Iraq for years to come?
Feb 04 2009
Eric Holder Sworn In As Attorney General Tuesday
You may find VP Joe Biden’s remarks interesting here….
“Welcome back to the Justice Department. As we gather here to day it’s worth remembering the mission statement that guides this great department.”
“To enforce the law and defend the interest of the United States according to the law. To ensure public safety against threats foreign and domestic. To provide federal leadership in preventing and controlling crime. To seek just punishment for those guilt of unlawful behavior, and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.”
“There’s no mention in that mission statement of politics. There’s no mention in that mission statement of ideology. And that’s how it should be, because there is no place for politics or ideology in this building.”
“With the appointment of Eric Holder as Attorney General, we’re going to be returning to a standard that has governed this great department at it’s greatest moments in my view. No politics. No ideology.“
Feb 03 2009
Who Is This New Attorney General, Eric Holder?
This is a merging of two prior essays about Eric Holder
 Eric Holder, Jr. Photo: George Washington University |
Barack Obama announced on December 1, 2008 his nomination of Eric H. Holder, Jr. to serve as Attorney General, to take over the running of The Department of Justice in Obama’s new administration from Bush appointee Michael Mukasey.
Eric Holder knows what Republican Senators Barrasso, Brownback, Burr, Coburn, Cochran, Cornyn, Crapo, Ensign, Kaybee, Hutchison, Inhofe, Johanns, McConnell, Risch, Shelby, Thune and Wicker, who voted against his confirmation by the Senate Monday, February 02, 2008, also know.
Eric Holder knows that Bush and Cheney deserve fair trials. Fair trials in courts of law, not crucifixion by media and bloggers.
One would hope that Mr. Holder will make a better and more honest Attorney General who will uphold the law than Michael Mukasey was, who like all representatives of Mr. Bush have done, has during his tenure waffled, spun, twisted in the wind, squirmed, sweated, excused, equivocated, and otherwise bullshitted America and the world as George Bush’s acolyte under hot lights and pointed interrogations from Congress over evidence of torture ordered at the highest levels of the Bush administration, the president and vice president, that the least informed people in the world all know is well defined, immoral, and illegal under international law, US law, and international treaties. (see addendum)
A war crime, in simpler terms. A war crime that Vice President Cheney has in recent days confessed publicly that the Bush administration intentionally engaged in.
Mr. Holder is the target of the Docudharma/Democrats.com sponsored Citizens Petition for a Special Prosecutor to Investigate Bush War Crimes. Don’t forget to sign the petition if you haven’t already.
Who is Eric Holder? What are his views and philosophy on the questions of torture, war crimes, secret prisons hidden away from the rule of law, and Bush’s “war on terror”?
What can we expect his reactions to be to the petition for a Special Prosecutor? We have only his own words and background to look to for clues.
Mr. Holder has been a partner with the law firm Covington & Burling LLP since 2001.
Feb 03 2009
Now We Will Find Out…
The United States Senate has confirmed Eric Holder, President Obama’s nominee for attorney general, by a vote of 75-21, making him the first African-American to hold the office.
His Republican opponents in the Senate said they felt Holder is hostile to the rights of gun owners and questioned his support of President Bush’s terror war.
Reportedly, among the no votes were Senators Barrasso, Brownback, Burr, Coburn, Cochran, Cornyn, Crapo, Ensign, Kaybee, Hutchison, Inhofe, Johanns, McConnell, Risch, Shelby, Thune and Wicker.
During the confirmation hearing, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) scolded Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) after several Republicans demanded Holder pledge he would not prosecute US interrogators who followed the Bush administration’s orders to torture prisoners.
“No one should be seeking to trade a vote for such a pledge,” said the Vermont Democrat.
“When Cornyn rose to announce his vote against Holder, he did not make such a demand,” reports the AP. “However, he accused the nominee of changing his once-supportive position – on the need to detain terrorism suspects without all the rights of the Geneva Convention – to one of harshly criticizing Bush administration’s counterterrorism policies.”
During the hearing, Holder stated directly, “Waterboarding is torture.”
Now that he has been confirmed, it is within his authority to reverse President Bush’s order granting his former advisers blanket immunity against testimony before Congress. Three of President Bush’s close advisers — Karl Rove, Harriet Miers and Josh Bolton — are facing congressional contempt citations.
“The confirmation of Eric Holder as our new Attorney General is a momentous day for the rule of law,” said Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI). “During his confirmation hearings, Eric Holder clearly and unequivocally stated that no one, including the president, is above the law. Those were welcome words after eight years of Bush Administration policies that undermined our Constitution and damaged the integrity of the Department of Justice.”
Will prayers help?
Jan 29 2009
Forget About Prosecuting Bush War Crimes?
Why don’t we just forget about prosecution of Bush, Cheney, et al, let them ride off into the fading sunset off the hook having tortured and killed their way to a nice comfortable retirement as long as they just go away, and instead just change things so there is no more torture and war crimes being committed by the President in future?
That is fundamentally the “move forward” argument. Is it a legitimate argument, or is it an excusing of war crimes? It’s not a legal question, it’s a political one.
On Tuesday we saw the first of a multipart video discussion between Progressive Democrats of America board member David Swanson and Yellow Dog Democrat and Chair of The National Congress of Black Women Dr. Fay Williams, talking with Paul Jay of The Real News on the question of whether or not to prosecute Bush and Cheney, and heard Dr. Williams state that if we want prosecution to happen people are going to have to make Obama and Holder do it. People have to move the window of political possibility far enough to make them do it, in other words.
The question has moved far beyond our Petition For A Special Prosecutor since we began it though more signatures can only help it to become reality, is now in the media to a degree that impeachment never came close to, and is becoming a national if not worldwide debate, and Republicans are obviously terrified that it might happen, as we saw highlighted so clearly Wednesday with the Kit Bond Republican comedy of lies and fiasco.
In this second part of the discussion between Swanson, Williams and Paul Jay their conversation continues as they address and debate directly whether the “move forward” argument is legitimate, and about many of the ramifications and complexities involved in the question, with Swanson arguing the pros and Williams arguing some of the cons.
Real News: January 28, 2009 – 12 min 55 sec
Should Obama prosecute Bush and Cheney?
Pt.2