Tag: Joe Biden

Crossposted at Daily Kos

THE WEEK IN EDITORIAL CARTOONS

This weekly diary takes a look at the past week’s important news stories from the perspective of our leading editorial cartoonists (including a few foreign ones) with analysis and commentary added in by me.

When evaluating a cartoon, ask yourself these questions:

1. Does a cartoon add to my existing knowledge base and help crystallize my thinking about the issue depicted?

2. Does the cartoonist have any obvious biases that distort reality?

3. Is the cartoonist reflecting prevailing public opinion or trying to shape it?

The answers will help determine the effectiveness of the cartoonist’s message.

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David Fitzsimmons, Arizona Daily Star, Buy this cartoon

So just after 5 pm here on the Left Coast, I get this email:

Subject: We Want Our Money Back

From: “Vice President Joe Biden”

To:  (my name, aka “Sucker”)

Yesterday, President Obama announced our proposed Financial Crisis Responsibility

Fee on the country’s largest banks:

“My commitment is to recover every single dime the American people are owed. And my

determination to achieve this goal is only heightened when I see reports of massive

profits and obscene bonuses at some of the very firms who owe their continued

existence to the American people…  We want our money back, and we’re going to get

it.”

The fee would recover every penny loaned to Wall Street during the financial crisis

and stop the reckless abuses and excesses that nearly caused the collapse of our

financial system in the first place.

But the banking industry — among the most powerful lobbies in Washington — is

already launching attacks to stop Congress from enacting the proposal.

Barack and I aren’t backing down. But to win, we’ll need the American people to add

their voice right away.

Thankfully, OFA supporters are already signing on to a bold statement of support:

“We want our money back — and we stand with President Obama to make sure we get

it.” You can add your name by clicking here:

http://my.barackobama.com/Banks3

The proposal is expected to recoup billions from the big banks, most of it from the

ten largest. As the President said, “If these companies are in good enough shape to

afford massive bonuses, they are surely in good enough shape to afford paying back

every penny to taxpayers.”

There is much more work to do to reform the financial system and create a new era of

accountability. But the Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee is a crucial step. And

with the banks already working to tear it down, I hope that I can count on you to

speak out to show that Americans stand with us as we take them on.

Click here to add your name to the statement:

http://my.barackobama.com/Banks3

Change isn’t easy, but it’s certainly worth fighting for. I’m glad you’re in this

fight with us.

Thank you for making it possible,

Vice President Joe Biden

Please donate: https://donate.barackobama.com…

 

Quite possibly the best thing happening with Afghanistan right now is President Obama’s steady nerves and careful deliberation on what is the best and correct course of action for America to take.

Advocates of sending more troops to Afghanistan have been searching for a winning rationale to sell an escalation to the public. Despite public opinion polls saying support for the war is disappearing, more U.S. troops for Afghanistan seemed like a foregone conclusion.

Up until yesterday when five British troops were killed by an Afghan policeman, one of the more persuasive arguments has been that the West needs to train more Afghan soldiers so the Afghans can take charge of their country’s own security.

Now with five soldiers dead, The Guardian reports that commanders in Afghanistan fear Taliban infiltration as troops hunt for the assassin.

The Obama campaign has updated their flickr account with behind-the-scenes photographs of Barack and his family on election night. These are intimate photographs of the senator as he shares the moments before he becomes the president-elect.

As The Guardian reports these pictures show the Obama family as their lives are changed forever.

He and his family can be seen, tensely watching television from a hotel room as the results gradually come in.

For a man known for his deep-seated calmness, the beautiful behind the scenes images, taken by his official campaign photographer, David Katz, show the anxious moments before the results are declared.

Glenn Greenwald, writing for  Salon,  calls it “the single worst expression in American politics.”

You may have your own nominees for that distinction, but his is “Commander in Chief,” which is used these days as a substitute for President.

He quotes Joe Biden on the stump:

After next Tuesday, the very critics he has now and the rest of America will be calling him something else – they will be calling him the 44th president of the United States of America, our commander in chief Barack Obama!

Actually, I won’t be calling him that if he wins on Tuesday.  I got my discharge papers in 1970.  I’m not in the military any more.  And neither are most Americans.

Says Greenwald:

This is much more than a semantic irritant.  It’s a perversion of the Constitution, under which American civilians simply do not have a “commander in chief”; only those in the military — when it’s called into service — have one.

The President is Commander in Chief only of active duty military personnel — and only in wartime.  (Some, including George Bush and Dick Cheney, would argue that we are now permanently “at war” on terrorism.)

Amazing…msnbc vid is here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21…

Williams: Who is the elite?

Palin: I guess just people who think that they’re better than everyone else…anyone who thinks that they are better than anyone else, I guess that’s my definition of elitism.

Oh, and John McCain goes on to clarify that it’s also anyone living in Washingotn DC or New York City…Rudy, I think he means you.

Original article, by Patrick Martin and subheaded Biden’s chilling remarks at fundraiser, via World Socialist Web Site:

In remarks made over the weekend in Seattle, Democratic vice presidential candidate Joseph Biden warned that Barack Obama, if elected president, would be compelled to take deeply unpopular actions in both domestic and foreign policy within months of taking office.