8.29.2010
8.24.2010
Getting Fox News right
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
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8.23.2010
The Obama recovery and the crisis of crisis management
The permanent crisis?
Mike Whitney observes:
Policymakers at the Fed, the Treasury, the White House and the Congress now look on as the foundations of the so-called recovery crack before their very eyes. Many of their careers will undoubtedly follow the economy down the drain. As the stimulus runs out, unemployment will rise, deleveraging and debt liquidation will gain momentum, and the economy will succumb to a second vicious contraction. Digging out will not be easy.
Obama and his people cannot say they had not been warned about the likely effects of their stimulus. Forewarned or not, will the return of the Great Recession trigger the end of DLC-style foolishness? Let us hope so.
8.10.2010
Quote of the day
This one issued from the keyboard of David Frum:
More proof of my longtime thesis, Repub pols fear the GOP base; Dem pols hate the Dem base.
Frum's judgment was a response to Presidential Press Secretary Robert Gibbs' recent hissy fit. A few quotes that represent Gibb's perfervid mind:
"I hear these people saying he's like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested," Gibbs said. "I mean, it's crazy."
And:
"They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we've eliminated the Pentagon. That's not reality."
…
"They wouldn't be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president."
It is so sad that Obama's magnanimity and courage have yet to be recognized by the Democratic Party left. How crude of these unrealistic leftists to demand effective action from a President they helped put into power. The partisan left, according to crackpot realist Gibbs, is ungrateful and unappreciative. It dreams impossible dreams; it refuse to accept the world for what it is. Look at what these wretches have done to poor Blanche Lincoln, who is so devoted to progressive ends that she chose to fall on her sword for her Party, the party devoted to progress and justice. So sad to be compelled to manage these ungrateful leftist bastards…
Glenn Greenwald's take on Gibb's fit:
The Democrats have been concerned about a lack of enthusiasm on the part of their base headed into the midterm elections. These sorts of rabid, caricatured, Fox-News-copying attacks on the Left will undoubtedly help generate more enthusiasm — more loud clapping — for the Democrats. I know I'm eager to go canvass and clap for Democrats after reading Gibbs' noble, inspiring vision. If it were Gibbs' goal to be as petulant and self-pitying as possible, what could he have done differently?
Crackpot Realist Gibbs works to control the damage he caused here. Why would he humble himself like this? As it turns out, his President needs the work and enthusiasm of the Democratic Party base and, alas, that base sits a bit to the left of Obama's failed administration.
8.07.2010
On this day
In 1794, President George Washington invoked the Militia Acts of 1792 to put down the Whiskey Rebellion in Western Pennsylvania. The Whiskey Rebellion sprung from local resistance to the Hamiltonian Whiskey Tax.
In 1941, the Bengali writer, activist and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore died in Kolkata or Calcutta, West Bengal, India.
In 1960, the Côte d'Ivoire or Ivory Coast achieved independence from France.
In 1964, the United States Congress passed the so-called Gulf of Tonkin Resolution or the Southeast Asia Resolution (P.L. 88-408).
In 1988, members of the New York City Police Department rioted in Manhattan's Tompkins Square Park. The Riot pitted the local NYPD against the "street people" who gathered or lived in the Park.
8.04.2010
Colbert v. Frank
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
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On this day
In 1693, the Benedictine monk Dom Pérignon was said to have invented champagne.
In 1792, Percy Bysshe Shelly, one of the world's great poets, was born in Field Place, Horsham, England.
In 1789, members of revolutionary France's Constituent Assembly took an oath pledging them to abolish Feudalism.
In 1901, jazz trumpeter and singer Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong was born in New Orleans, Louisiana.
In 1914, Germany invaded Belgium, which provoked Great Britain into declaring war on Germany and the United States into declaring its neutrality in the conflict.
In 1916, Liberia, once the destination of freed American slaves, declared war on Germany.
In 1920, the American journalist Helen Thomas was born in Winchester, Kentucky. A strong-willed questioner, Thomas made a path for other women to follow in her chosen profession.
In 1961, American President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii.
In 1964, three civil rights workers and voter registration activists were found dead in Mississippi. They had disappeared on June 21, 1964, abducted by a local police officer and subsequently murdered by a Ku Klux Klan death squad. Outrage over these murders contributed into the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub.L. 88-352, 78 Stat. 241, enacted July 2, 1964).
In 1964, North Vietnamese gunboats allegedly fired on an American destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin. Another incident in the Tonkin Gulf was supposed to have occurred on August 2, 1964. Together, these 'attacks" motivated the United States Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (Southeast Asia Resolution, P.L. 88-408). The Resolution was an enabling act which authorized President Lyndon Johnson to use American troops to contest Communist aggression in Southeast Asia. This troop usage did not require Congress to pass a Declaration of War. The American government's abuse of this delegated authority under Presidents Johnson and Nixon led to the passage of the War Powers Resolution of 1973 (50 U.S.C. 1541–1548).
In 1969, Henry Kissinger of the United States and Xuân Thuỷ of North Vietnam began their secret negotiations over the Vietnam War in Paris, France.
In 1987, the Federal Communications Commission rescinded the Fairness Doctrine that required radio and television stations to present controversial issues to the public and to make the presentation in a judicious manner. The doctrine was introduced in 1949.
In 2007, Raul Hilberg, the Austrian-born American political scientist and historian of the Holocaust, died in Williston, Vermont.
8.03.2010
I wish I was in the land of cotton…
The Hill reports that sentiment has grown among Republican Party hacks in support of defanging or eliminating altogether the Fourteenth Amendment:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told The Hill on Monday that Congress "ought to take a look at" changing the 14th Amendment, which gives the children of illegal immigrants a right to U.S. citizenship.
McConnell's statement signals growing support within the GOP for the controversial idea, which has also recently been touted by Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
Should the Senators succeed, their effort would reverse the Amendment's constitutional resolution of Dred Scott v. Sanford, as Big Tent Democrat points out. It would do so in order to deny citizenship rights to the sons and daughters of America's illegal immigrants.
This kind of 'thinking' leads to an obvious question: Might the liberty loving Republicans eventually move to revoke the Thirteenth Amendment too? This move is not at all far-fetched since America's massive private and personal debt along with the perverse distribution of wealth in the country and its secular economic decline will leave so many so many without work or savings.
This is one time when the onerous procedural steps set down in Article V of the Constitution work to safeguard social freedom from the dirty hands of party demagogues.
On this day
In 1913, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or Wobblies) allegedly fomented a riot in Wheatland, California. The rioters comprised local farm workers whose labor-burden was great, who were underpaid and living in inadequate conditions. The riot motivated California law-makers to pass legislation meant to regulate agricultural labor conditions. The incident is remembered as the Wheatland Hop Riot.
In 1914, Germany declared war against France.
In 1924, the Polish novelist Joseph Conrad died in Bishopsbourne, England.
In 1929, the sociologist and economist Thorstein Veblen died in Palo Alto, California.
In 1936, the African-American track star Jesse Owens won the 100-meter dash at the Berlin Olympics.
In 1948, Whittaker Chambers accused Alger Hiss of being a Communist agent.
In 1960, Niger became independent of France.
In 1977, the United States Senate began its hearings on the illegal Central Intelligence Agency program MKULTRA.
8.02.2010
On this day
In 1869, Meiji Restoration reforms abolished the Japan's class system.
In 1922, the inventor of the telephone Alexander Graham Bell died in Beinn Bhreagh, Nova Scotia.
In 1923, a Prime Minister and President of Israel Shimon Peres was born in Viszniewo, Poland.
In 1924, the American author and civil rights activist James Baldwin was born in Harlem, New York, New York.
In 1934, the German general and President Paul von Hindenburg died in Neudeck, East Prussia, Germany. Hindenburg's death provided Hitler and the Nazi Party with an occasion to consolidate their power.
In 1934, upon the death of President Paul von Hindenburg, Adolph Hitler became Germany's Führer or leader of the Nazi Party and, more importantly, of Germany. The Nazis had thus combined Hitler's Party and governmental functions into one superordinate group of individuals: Führer und Reichskanzler. Of course, Hitler was the only member of this group in Germany. And, the combination was a sign pointing to the fusion of the Nazi party with the German state.
In 1943, prisoners in Treblinka II rebelled, setting the camp ablaze. Some prisoners escaped while others perished. The upshot: The Germans closed Treblinka I (the Arbeitslager or labor camp) and II.
In 1945, the Potsdam Conference concluded.
In 1964, North Vietnamese gunboats were alleged to have fired on an American destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin. Another incident in the Tonkin Gulf was supposed to have occurred on August 4, 1964. Together, these 'attacks" motivated the United States Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (Southeast Asia Resolution, P.L. 88-408). The Resolution was an enabling act which authorized President Lyndon Johnson to use American troops to contest Communist aggression in Southeast Asia. This troop usage did not require Congress to pass a Declaration of War. The American government's abuse of this delegated authority under Presidents Johnson and Nixon led to the passage of the War Powers Resolution of 1973 (50 U.S.C. 1541–1548).
In 1976, the Austrian film director Fritz Lang died in Beverly Hills, California. Metropolis is often considered Lang's greatest film.
In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. The invasion led to the Persian Gulf War between the UN forces (led by the United States and Great Britain) and Iraq.
In 1997, the writer and spoken word performer William S. Burroughs died in Lawrence, Kansas. Burroughs is best remembered for his novel Naked Lunch.
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