The purge of the moderates continues
TPM reports that:
In a huge development in the NY-23 special election, Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava has announced that she is suspending her campaign, citing an inability to win in light of recent polls and a lack of money — leaving this race as a vote between Democrat Bill Owens and Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, and a strong message that the Republican Party can no longer nominate moderate candidates, or else face a right-wing revolt.
This day marks the 80th anniversary of Black Tuesday, the stock market crash that signaled the onset of the Great Depression.
Rachael Maddow and Glenn Greenwald expose here the corruption of Joe Lieberman (Asshole-CT) and Evan Bayh (D-IN):
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
When buzzards hide among the doves
It is a case that has to be made, and Michael Neumann makes it:
Antisemites have flocked to criticism of Israel precisely because criticism of Israel is so amply justified. Criticism of Israel isn't a great disguise because the critics are sleazebags. Quite the contrary: it's a great disguise because criticizing Israel is not only correct, it's the right thing to do. The more-than-overwhelming majority of those who criticize Israel are genuine humanitarians, genuine enemies of oppression and ethnic nationalism, genuine fighters for justice. The more obvious this has become, the more antisemites get on board.
The Teabaggers are having conniptions. In their minds the Countdown to Judgment Day has begun. Obama and the Democratic Party threaten the republic. They have usurped the power that rightfully belongs to, well, to the far rightwing of the Republican Party. The Teabaggers want their America back. They intend to get it back. Yet as Frank Schaeffer observes:
When the Tea Party folks say they want to "take back our country" who do they want to take it back from? It turns out it's going to be taken back from the democratic process itself. The effort here is to reverse the last election result.
In this scenario any time there is not a white, wealthy, far right Republican in the White House and any time Congress isn't controlled by the far (white) right of the Republican Party, then the country has been "stolen" from "us" "Real Americans."
Since the mechanisms of democracy, when in the hands of the American people, cannot be trusted to do what's right and Godly, the Teabaggers "…must now turn to 'other means'" to set things right. This, by the way, is one lesson the right can take from the 2000 presidential election. The means available to them are limited when they cannot be legal and democratic in character.
I find it odd, though, to read public declarations that express a willingness to engage in armed rebellion against a democratically authorized government. When did Congress or the Supreme Court abolish the Smith Act? Why does this law fail to apply to the Teabaggers? Who or what authorized an "armed insurrection exemption" for the far right? Must the country endure another Oklahoma City Bombing before public opinion turns decisively against the right?
The occasion: The health care reform debate. The victim: The citizens of the United States. The victimizer: Joe Lieberman, Asshole-CT. The Wall Street Journal reports:
The push by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for a public health-insurance option is creating fresh obstacles for health-care legislation in the Senate, despite new poll data suggesting a plurality of Americans support the idea.
Connecticut independent Sen. Joe Lieberman said Tuesday that he would vote to block passage of the Senate health-care bill in its current form, dealing an initial blow to Mr. Reid's effort to gather 60 votes. Mr. Lieberman usually sides with Democrats, but he said that unless the bill changes substantially, he would vote with Senate Republicans to keep it from moving to a final vote.
Lieberman worries that health care reform costs money, a concern which did not trouble him in the least when, for instance, he backed the Wall Street Bailout and the expansive military funding of the Bush era. While considering Lieberman's record, Robert Scheer was moved to ask: "Is there a more hypocritical figure in American politics than Joe Lieberman?" The question was rhetorical. Scheer surely believes Lieberman is a front-runner in that race to oblivion, for, as he notes as he nears the end of his article, "…it is not possible to feel anything but loathing for those like Lieberman who vote for every big government program, no matter how wasteful, in support of big business, but draw the line at a program designed to cut medical costs for the ordinary citizens they have been sworn to serve."
The Guardian warns that:
Ehud Olmert, Israeli prime minister during the Gaza war, would probably face arrest on war crimes charges if he visited Britain, according to a UK lawyer who is working to expand the application of "universal jurisdiction" for offences involving serious human rights abuses committed anywhere in the world.
Neither Olmert nor Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister during the Cast Lead offensive, and a member of Israel's war cabinet, would enjoy immunity from prosecution for alleged breaches of the Geneva conventions, predicted Daniel Machover, who is involved in intensifying legal work after the controversial Goldstone report on the three-week conflict. Neither are ministers any longer.
Prosecutions of Israeli political and military figures remain likely despite the failure to obtain an arrest warrant for Ehud Barak, the defence minister, when he visited the UK earlier this month, he said. In the Barak case a magistrate accepted advice from the Foreign Office that the minister enjoyed state immunity and rejected an application made on behalf of several residents of the Gaza Strip.
"This needs to be tested at the right time and in the right place," Machover said. "One day one of these people will make a mistake and go to the wrong country and face a criminal process — and then it'll be a matter for the courts of that country to give them a fair trial: that's what the Palestinian victims want."
One can only hope that Olmert, George Bush, Dick Cheney and others of their ilk will one day face the finite justice to be found in this world.
The pertinent deed happened in late September when Rep Alan Grayson (D-FL) called ex-Enron lobbyist and current Federal Reserve senior adviser Linda Robertson a "K Street whore." One can listen to the relevant interview here. But Grayson shows himself to be confused as to whom he wronged when he used the bad word, "whore," for he apologized to the wrong person, as may be seen in his statement:
"I offer my sincere apology to Linda Robertson, an adviser to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. I did not intend to use a term that is often, and correctly, seen as disrespectful of women.
"This characterization of Ms. Robertson, made during a radio interview last month in the context of the debate over whether the Federal Reserve should be independently audited, was inappropriate, and I apologize."
Grayson's apology should have gone to all women and to all sex-workers who deal with too much crap as it is. They were surely defamed by a comparison to an Enron lobbyist and Federal Reserve advisor, a taxonomic unit that is ambiguously related to the human species. They deserve the apology.
This is one to savor as the world plunges into the abyss
One may find this sentiment expressed in the Guardian:
One of the City's leading figures has suggested that inequality created by bankers' huge salaries is a price worth paying for greater prosperity.
In remarks that will fuel the row around excessive pay, Lord Griffiths, vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs International and a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, said banks should not be ashamed of rewarding their staff.
Speaking to an audience at St Paul's Cathedral in London about morality in the marketplace last night, Griffiths said the British public should "tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity for all".
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