Rise as an Army and Reelect the President
On Tuesday a friend asked if I intended to watch last night’s debate and I told him probably not. I’ve watched Romney and his privileged prep school routine for years. He wears a smirking upper class disdain for his inferiors (which covers just about everyone) like body armor or more self righteously, like temple underwear and you can read on his face the pompous knowledge that the rest of us are not similarly attired.
I knew going in that nothing would happen in this debate that would change my vote to reelect the president. I told my friend that I would read the transcript the morning after. Being a political junkie I cheated. I watched but switched to the ball game, to an old movie, to a book every ten minutes or so. Whenever the dismal droning of the misinformation and posturing of the “debate” began to grate on my nerves I was able to find respite in the remote.
Reading the transcript this morning I quickly learned that my expectations were borne out by the reality of this ratings circus. A circus that was carried by every network and financed by the same corporate money that fuels these interminable election campaigns. There was nothing to learn here, nothing was said that hasn’t been repeated over and over for the last two years of sound bites, mendacious political ads, and media fueled public backbiting that we have somehow come to accept as the democratic process. (more…)
Tripoli: Rebels Stand Ready to Welcome Advance
Rebels Advance, Surround Tripoli, as Qaddafi Totters
Rebels Advance, Surround Tripoli, as Qaddafi Totters
By Juan Cole / Informed Comment
The long slow slog of the Libyan struggle to throw off the rule of Muammar Qaddafi, accelerated this weekend, possibly decisively, with rebel forces making major advances. Tripoli was said to be ready to embrace the rebel youth when they came into the capital.
Free Libya forces made substantial advances over the weekend, coming up from Zintan to take much of Zawiya on the coast, with the help of the majority in the city that opposes dictator Muammar Qaddafi. Zawiya was the site of among the first and biggest anti-Qaddafi demonstrations, and was brutally repressed with tank and artillery fire on unarmed noncombatants by Qaddafi brigades. Since March it has been under secret police rule, but that was thrown off jointly by locals and by their allies from the Western Mountain region to the south.
Read more: Rebels Advance, Surround Tripoli, as Qaddafi Totters | Informed Comment.
Weekly Reading List From Common Dreams
You can’t go wrong with any of these:
- Tim DeChristopher: I Do Not Want Mercy, I Want You To Join Me
- Jeff Cohen: Obama is NOT “Caving” to Corporate Interests
- Paul Buchheit: The Question Conservatives Can’t Answer
- Paul Krugman: ‘Centrism’: The Cult That Is Destroying America
- Christopher Brauchli: The Tax Burden of the Very Rich
- Robert Reich: Why Washington is About to Make the Jobs Crisis Worse
- Robert Scheer: Debt Madness Was Always About Killing Social Security
- Holly Sklar: CEOs to Workers: More for Me, Less for You
- Glenn Greenwald: On Not Freaking Out With Fear: An Un-American Response to Oslo
- Tom Tresser: None Dare Call it Privatization
Republican Science: “Make Pi 3 and Round Planck’s Constant To 7 × 10-34 m2 kg / s”
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Max Planck: "Runden die Sache ab?"
Ian Squires has a nice piece of satire up and running at Huffington Post, titled “Conservative Pie: Republicans Introduce Legislation Redefining Pi as Exactly 3.”
Satire can be problematic when posted on the web, due, I suppose, to the rising gullibility level of the reading public or the willingness by many to latch on to the faintest wisps of conspiracy wafting on the breeze.
Writers on the web often label their work as “satire” or “humor” or “just kidding,” and when they do I usually find their stuff to be lame and generally ineffective. Good satire and humor draws you in, sets the hook and yanks you into the boat laughing. Advance written warnings and disclaimers serve only to scare the fish away.
Squire caught his limit this morning.
Some of the best satirical comedy of our time is being generated unintentionally by republican politicians and their tea party brethren and… sisteren.
Part of the beauty of his piece is that the right has worked so hard presenting nincompoop propositions for public consumption that as absurd as the idea of legislating the value of π may be, when told that it emanates from a republican source it takes on a certain verisimilitude.
If the scientific community is largely in agreement that anthropogenic climate change is at work and a real threat to our future, the view of the right, driven by those who find such an idea financially inconvenient, is to kill the concept with legislation, defunding, false advertising and positively Galilean smear campaigns.
If Boyle’s law, or Planck’s constant or the Pythagorean theorem is going to cost the Koch brothers some dough then it’s time to spread some money to introduce legislation against such subversive and expensive ideas.
If you need Fred Flintstone riding a brachiosaurus to square your belief in a six thousand year old universe with the fossil record, just make the claim and build a megamillion dollar museum. Present it as fact, the republican hoi polloi will pay admission.
A large part of the republican base will believe nearly anything, if it is presented as “common sense,” anti intellectual and based on conservative values.
It matters not that your moon rockets are now landing in Louisville, that was probably part of god’s plan anyway.
Corporate Personhood versus Democracy
[Editor’s note: The Supreme Court decision in Citizens United was the worst decision by the court since those of Dred Scott v. Sandford and Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, the latter of which established the ridiculous idea of corporate person-hood in US law. The origins of corporate person-hood are explored in the excellent essay linked below from William Myers. Bob Higgins]
The Santa Clara Blues: Corporate Personhood versus Democracy
By William Meyers
What Corporate Personhood Is
Corporate Personhood is a legal fiction. The choice of the word “person” arises from the way the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was worded and from earlier legal usage of the word person. A corporation is an artificial entity, created by the granting of a charter by a government that grants such charters. Corporation in this essay will be confined to businesses run for profit that have been granted corporate charters by the States of the United States. The Federal Government of the United States usually does not grant corporate charters to businesses (exceptions include the Post Office and Amtrak).
Corporations are artificial entities owned by stockholders, who may be humans or other corporations. They are required by law to have officers and a board of directors (in small corporations these may all be the same people). In effect the corporation is a collective of individuals with a special legal status and privileges not given to ordinary unincorporated businesses or groups of individuals.
Obviously a corporation is itself no more a person (though it is owned and staffed by persons) than a locomotive or a mob. So why, in the USA, is a corporation considered to be a person under law?
Corporate personhood is the idea (legal fiction, currently with force of law) that corporations have inalienable rights (sometimes called constitutional rights) just like real, natural, human persons.
That this idea has the force of law both resulted from the power and wealth of the class of people who owned corporations, and resulted in their even greater power and wealth. Corporate constitutional rights effectively invert the relationship between the government and the corporations. Recognized as persons, corporations lose much of their status as subjects of the government. Although artificial creations of their owners and the governments, as legal persons they have a degree of immunity to government supervision. Endowed with the court-recognized right to influence both elections and the law-making process, corporations now dominate not just the U. S. economy, but the government itself.
Read more The Santa Clara Blues: Corporate Personhood versus Democracy by William Meyers.
The More You Watch, the Worse You Feel / Marty Kaplan
By Marty Kaplan / Huffington Post
As if the triple whammy of the Japanese earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster weren’t enough to enthrall and terrify us, the war in Libya is now providing cable news viewers a fresh hell to follow 24/7.
But wait, as they say in the infomercials — there’s more. In Bahrain, Saudi tanks and troops are violently cracking down on pro-democracy activists; in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood is moving toward power; in Yemen, security forces, firing from the rooftops, have killed scores of demonstrators; in Syria, troops are shooting into crowds of protesting civilians; and last week’s news from Israel and the Palestinian territories was enough to make anyone rage and wail.
Feeling overwhelmed yet? In Madison, Wisc. and other state capitals, Republicans are demonizing public employees, stripping workers of their rights and using deficits as an excuse to transfer wealth from the middle to the top. In Washington, D.C., every Republican on the environment subcommittee says that climate change is a hoax, and every Republican on the financial institutions subcommittee says banks are the victims, not the perpetrators, of the recession. Who has enough spare neurons to cope with that, let alone the defunding of NPR and Planned Parenthood? Do you have some mindshare left for a campaign finance system that’s corrupting both political parties? For the obesity epidemic? For the worst youth unemployment in history?
Read more: Marty Kaplan/The More You Watch, the Worse You Feel. (more…)
Saturday Around The Web 3/19/11
The tsunami violently surges ashore in Natori, Japan. Kyodo / Xinhua Press-Corbis
“The Poor Are Poor Because They Have Nothing To Steal”
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The poor are poor because they have nothing to steal
Responding to an essay by Michael Moore a commenter at Huffington Post yesterday penned the single most asinine comment in my recent memory. Here in all its glory is a gem that I’m going to frame and hang over my hearth:
Michael Moore has spent too much time studying the social sciences and Karl Marx. He knows nothing about economics and very lille [sic] about anything else. Corporations exist for the benefit of their stockholders. They do provide jobs, pay taxes and produce products and services, however, they are not a social service organization. He thinks the rich get richer by stealing from the poor. The poor are poor because they have nothing to steal. The rich get richer because of basic physics. Bodies in motion tend to stay in motion, while bodies at rest tend to stay at rest. It’s due to momentum. The big MO! Here is the math: MO1 (money)+MO2 (momentum)=MO3 (MO Money).
Wow an equation and everything, 1+2=3, I expect to see this economic breakthrough featured on a Glen Beck blackboard in the near future.
My favorite part and the sweet, creamy icing on the rich, moist cake of wisdom of this gem is this:
The poor are poor because they have nothing to steal
What a keeper. That line needs to be shouted from the steps of every state capitol, placed on a JumboTron on the National Mall and delivered to all the capitols of the world.
The poor are poor because they have nothing to steal
This crucial bit of information may finally be the salvation of poverty stricken people everywhere. This could lead to the poor being left alone, no more predators stalking them to steal their labor, burden them with debt, push them off their native lands or steal the food and resources from the soil and oceans on which they depend.
Who knew that the poor had nothing to steal? Robin Hood, that’s who. That’s why Robin Hood stole from the rich, just like Willie Sutton Robin knew where the money was.
But the rich have preyed on the poor since time immemorial, economically, physically, emotionally if there was something that the rich thought could be gained from the poor, they took it, and because the rich held all the power, the poor had to …well, take it. Droit du seigneur indeed.
So tragic as it is that the poor are … poor, it’s a relief to know that now that they have nothing to steal and they’re finally out of danger?
Could A Small Nuclear War Reverse Global Warming?
Could A Small Nuclear War Reverse Global Warming?
From HuffingtonPost
“Nuclear war is a bad thing.
Right?
Scientists from NASA and a number of other institutions have recently been modeling the effects of a war involving a hundred Hiroshima-level bombs, or 0.03 percent of the world’s current nuclear arsenal, according to National Geographic. The research suggests five million metric tons of black carbon would be swept up into the lowest portion of the atmosphere.
The result, according to NASA climate models, could actually be global cooling.”
Lovely, all we need is a “small nuclear war” every two or three years and we can keep global warming at bay forever.
There would be no need to get off of fossil fuels, just burn oil and gas until they run out, then burn coal until there’s a layer of soot a fathom deep.
Another benefit I suppose, would be the job growth created by the need to bury corpses, my god, undertaking would be a major growth industry.
It’s warming to know that there are concerned people, smart people, doing all this contingency planning, thinking creatively, out side the bun and all.
Officials said that “The military will be in overall command of the limited nuclear wars but the devices will be deployed and detonated by drunken civilian contractors for purposes of deniability, the bar will be cash only because, you know, we have to get this deficit under control.”
How was this study paid for? A grant from the oil industry and the defense department.
Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Don’t Forget Bahrain
Bahrain Protests
While all eyes follow the news cycle from Tunis to Cairo to Benghazi the world and the US should not forget Bahrain.
While just a causeway removed from US ally Saudi Arabia and host to the US 5th Fleet, the blood of the people of Bahrain runs the same color and their thirst for freedom and dignity is equally strong.
As the Boston Globe points out in an editorial this morning the violence used against unarmed and peaceful protests is just as reprehensible when committed by our allies as by our foes.
Read more: No free pass for Bahrain – The Boston Globe.
Newt Gingrich Discusses Potential Obama Impeachment
Newt Gingrich Talks Obama Impeachment
Newt Gingrich is moaning the impeachment word again over what he calls Obama’s unacceptable action re DOMA.
Newt didn’t read all the way through: From: HuffingtonPost
“Attorney General Eric Holder said President Barack Obama has concluded that the administration cannot defend the federal law that defines marriage as only between a man and a woman. He noted that the congressional debate during passage of the Defense of Marriage Act “contains numerous expressions reflecting moral disapproval of gays and lesbians and their intimate and family relationships – precisely the kind of stereotype-based thinking and animus the (Constitution’s) Equal Protection Clause is designed to guard against.”
“Much of the legal landscape has changed in the 15 years since Congress passed” the Defense of Marriage Act, Holder said in a statement. He noted that the Supreme Court has ruled that laws criminalizing homosexual conduct are unconstitutional and that Congress has repealed the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.” Obama: DOMA Unconstitutional, DOJ Should Stop Defending In Court
The Pres and the AG are anticipating that the law will be stricken down by the courts for reasons quoted above. There is no point in defending a law so obviously flawed and spending millions trying to uphold it when any convictions will be overturned in the end.
Gee Newt, try and think of it as a common sense, cost cutting, budgetary coup.
America the Beautiful, Landfill of Lunacy
Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry fires a six shooter filled with blanks. Photo: Rodger Mallison / AP
In Texas where everything is supposedly bigger, including belly laughs, members of the state lege are tripping over themselves to gain passage of a bill that would allow college students the right to carry firearms on campus, to classes, and I guess, to mixers, rallies, keggers and raves.
The reasoning behind this forward looking pile of sausage is a bit hazy but it fits in well with the Texas board of Ed’s decision to get Tom Jefferson out of our textbooks in order to include more riveting tales of the adventures of John Calvin, a notable historical figure I suppose, but one who happened to die a couple of centuries before our republic was born.
Ahh Texans, gotta love ’em even if you gotta cage ’em.
“On Wisconsin,” Sarah Palin Calls for Sacrifice From Working People
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Sarah Palin, is calling for sacrifice on the part of the working people of Wisconsin.
That was my first laugh this morning, a derisive laugh but many days start that way for news junkies. So much of what I read and see over morning coffee drives a growing cynicism and an anger that smolders beneath the surface and slowly grows.
The issues driving the crowds of people in Cairo and Tunis, in Benghazi and Bahrain are the same as those smoldering and now threatening to rise in flames in Wisconsin.
The widening gulf between those who hold all the wealth in our various societies, those who manipulate the strings of power and the mass of people who produce that wealth with their sweat and labor, has widened to a point that has become intolerable even among the normally complaisant. (more…)
Determination and Sanity Rids Egypt of Mubarak
Egypt Free
After 30 years of dictatorial rule Mubarak is out.
The breaking news banner on MSNBC is telling me that Hosni Mubarak is stepping down after eighteen days of massive protest and demonstrations by the Egyptian People.
Who will step in is unclear but it’s doubtful that the people who sacrificed so much to rid themselves of Mubarak are likely to accept Assistant Torturer and (CIA asset) newly installed Vice President Omar Suleiman.
It’s likely that the interim government will be selected by the military which, unless profound changes are made in the corrupt military structure, in the end, leaves things in Egypt largely unchanged. The military has been in control for thirty years.
I don’t think that the people I’m watching on the streets of Cairo are likely to accept “meet the new dictator, just like the old dictator” as an answer to their weeks of passion and pain.
Something in the sound of the voices and sight of the faces of the Egyptian crowds makes me believe that this is for real and they will continue to hold out until they are assured that they will prevail in gaining democratic government, justice and the human rights.
I hope in the days ahead to confidently offer my personal congratulations and my thanks to the Egyptian people for teaching the world how to conduct a revolution with determination and sanity.
Read more at Huffington Post
Egypt: “When Will US Stand For Freedom?”
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Egyption People in the Streets to "Petiton for a Redress of Grievences"
President Obama delivered a very pretty salad of crowd pleasing palliatives in Cairo about 19 months ago which contained applause drawing words like “freedom and democracy” “justice and tolerance,” and the always popular
“human rights.”
The 6000 word address was similar to others he delivered during his 2008 campaign and since, to various audiences composed of disparate groups like labor and business, left and right, wall street and main street. The basic template of this address nearly always brings good reviews.
The intent and effects are the same; to calm the nerves of this or that group, to buy some time or a few points in the polls while hand to hand combat continues behind the scenes in the vaudeville of American politics. These speeches aren’t new, most presidents have hiked the same trail. The words that make up the applause lines are shifted and altered to suit an audience that changes like the antique backdrop of a silent movie. (more…)
Can Giuliani Beat Obama For GOP Nomination?
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GOP Favorite Unless Obama Moves To Right
In a recent poll, respondents report that if the republican front runners are suddenly raptured off the planet, Rudy Giuliani would be the only one left on the list who looks good in a little black dress and would become the favorite to win the nomination.
Rudy would be the favorite…that is, unless Barack Obama continues his inexorable creep to the right.
The President’s SOTU speech last night sounded as if he and his wordsmiths had just returned from a long sojourn in some fairyland where full employment and economic justice prevail.
What he offered in his address was more of the same hollow panaceas, noble sounding bromides, continued wars, more tax cuts for business and spending cuts for the rest of us.
His stomach for kowtowing to republicans and the economic power elite may have been the model for the new Starbucks size.
Given another two years of moving toward and through the center, I expect that Obama may win the CPAC straw poll and be elected as a Republican in 2012.
Full text of the State of the Union speech 2011
Barack Obama State of the Union 2011
Full Text as Delivered
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans:
Tonight I want to begin by congratulating the men and women of the 112th Congress, as well as your new Speaker, John Boehner.
And as we mark this occasion, we are also mindful of the empty chair in this Chamber, and pray for the health of our colleague – and our friend – Gabby Giffords.
It’s no secret that those of us here tonight have had our differences over the last two years. The debates have been contentious; we have fought fiercely for our beliefs. And that’s a good thing. That’s what a robust democracy demands. That’s what helps set us apart as a nation.
But there’s a reason the tragedy in Tucson gave us pause. Amid all the noise and passions and rancor of our public debate, Tucson reminded us that no matter who we are or where we come from, each of us is a part of something greater – something more consequential than party or political preference. (more…)
The State of the Union Is On, Pass the Remote
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Click on the Image for some of SOTU Greatest Hits
“Five Keys to the State of the Union Address,” reads one headline, “What Obama Should Say at State of the Union,” reads another. From cable channels, to the opinion pages and across the tubes of the internet, the dominant babble, today, yesterday and tomorrow is the SOTU.
Provided for in the constitution in article 2, the state of the union address is among our most treasured and enduring annual exercises in political theater and pointless blather.
Article II. Section 3.
He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.
In my reading of this section I fail to find the words “interminable and boring” but over the years those two terms have come to describe the event that has become a deeply entrenched tradition on the 3rd Wednesday in January.
Steeped in protocol, (the actual Latin word for bullshit) the President enters the great dome of our hallowed national chamber of public corruption, along the way receiving hugs, kisses, and handshakes from dozens of people who despise him. Every movement of all parties involved is meticulously scripted and choreographed as if the event were a royal wedding directed by the high priests of some obsessively constipated Druidic cult. (more…)
The Middle Way: Government and Business, Partners in Crime
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Incoming by Kevin Siers / Charlotte Observer
Barack Obama our “hope and change” guy, elected to return the reins of government to the people, has apparently seen the light. He has discovered that the best way to acquire the billion dollars or whatever he will need to gain a second term is to bring major business contributors into the White House and share office space with them.
Sitting on the opposite side of a giant partners desk just installed in the oval office will be Chief of Staff, former J.P. Morgan Chase executive William Daley and GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt who will be Chairman of the new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.
“It may be a bit crowded at first,” said a presidential spokesperson, “but if it becomes uncomfortably cramped the President has agreed to share Joe Biden’s office in the Executive Office Building.” (more…)
Republicans: “They Weren’t Taino, They Were Indians”
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Republican Health Care Plan... "Bring out your dead"
With health care ‘repealed,’ GOP turns to climate change is the title of an article By Renee Schoof at McClatchy yesterday, in which She reports:
“Now that the House of Representatives has voted to repeal the health care law, Republicans say they’re likely to move soon to another target — a rewrite of the Clean Air Act so that it can’t be used to fight climate change.”
This falls on the heels of their now stalled attempt to rescind the last congress’ progress on health care, and return to the old Republican, Tea Party and compassionate conservative favored “Bring out your dead” system. (more…)
Mafia Arrest List Switched With White House Guest List
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From: Boardwalk Empire by Martin Scorsese and Terence Winter
The two hundred plus guests at the White House for free chow and entertainment the other night included the heads of Boeing, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase or as they’re known around here, “the usual suspects.”
The fat cats lined up for a lavish spread, an open bar and a gala evening provided by the American taxpayer who was neither invited, welcome, nor I believe, much considered in the conversation. It was decent of us though to foot the bill for this formal introduction of the crème de la crime of our fading culture to our new landlord.
The theme for the evening was “quintessentially American,” with a menu that featured farm-fresh vegetables, poached Maine lobster, dry-aged rib-eye with buttermilk crisp onions, topped off by old-fashioned apple pie with ice cream. The entertainment, in the White House East Room, was the most quintessential of American music — a parade of jazz greats, including Herbie Hancock. Business Leaders Make Cut at State Dinner With Hu Huffington Post
That may be quintessentially American on Pennsylvania Avenue but down home we’re eating the quintessential bean soup.
Meanwhile the FBI, the NYPD and other assorted crime fighters were putting the final touches on a round up of more than a hundred Mafia members and criminal associates of New York’s five families and we’re not talking Astors and Vanderbilts we’re talking Gambino, Genovese, Lucchese, Bonanno and Colombo, guys with names like Vinny Carwash, Baby Fat Larry and Tony Bagels. (more…)
A Day Of Guns, A Day In America
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Edward Fleury and Christopher Bizilj 8 (AP)
Once again a country that experiences more violent gun deaths than any other country on Earth has been shocked by a maliciously motivated madman with a gun. The talk all week from the various electronic chatterboxes has been guns, their control, their abuse, the somehow sacred right to possess them…guns.
In a darkly funny piece written in the bleak light of the Arizona murders Elayne Boosler relates her experience with writing and speaking her views about guns, gun control and the NRA and includes a couple dozen responses to her essays and twitter posts on the subject.
Her columns and tweets were in favor of controlling guns, they were measured, reasonable and since she is a comedian with a flair for writing humor they were funny, and like the best humor, there was an element of tragedy or darkness woven into their fabric. (more…)
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