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Source: The Nation Author: Laura Flanders Posted on 12.16.10 by Steve Trinward “Julian Assange of WikiLeaks is out on bail — apparently headed for the 10-bedroom home of British former army officer Vaughan Smith, described by the Guardian as a rightwing libertarian. Assange’s lawyer joked that it would not be so much ‘house arrest as manor arrest’ while he fights extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges. There’s no manor for Bradey Manning. As Glenn Greenwald noted yesterday, the alleged leaker of much of the WikiLeaks information … has been sitting in solitary confinement for seven months under torture conditions.” (12/16/10) Link: http://www.thenation.com/blog/157175/forgetting-bradley-manning Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Orange County Register Author: Jay Ambrose Posted on 12.16.10 by Steve Trinward “It’s possible that Judge Henry Hudson has done something big to help save the day from a destructively overreaching government. Maybe, possibly, conceivably, the age’s new absolutism had a setback with a judge’s ruling. He saw the absurdity of thinking the Commerce Clause somehow lets the government tell you what private products you have to buy. Open that door and ‘unbridled police powers’ rush in. The judge is right, of course.” (12/16/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/36jvfe3 Filed under: CANDi Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Boston Globe Author: Joshua Green Posted on 12.16.10 by Steve Trinward “Use of the filibuster — debating indefinitely as a means of preventing a vote or other action — has skyrocketed, slowing business to a crawl. Were it not for the Democrats’ decisive majorities in both houses, it’s hard to see how anything would have been accomplished. That advantage will disappear when Republicans take over the House in January. A trio of young Democratic senators is hoping to limit this chronic power to obstruct by reforming Senate rules.” (12/16/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/2wq4u8l Filed under: CANDi Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Our Future Blog Author: Mary Bottari Posted on 12.16.10 by Steve Trinward “George Mahoney worked and saved and built his cozy, colonial-style home in Lynnfield, Massachusetts, in 1981. … For many years, the Mahoneys paid down their relatively small mortgage with their local bank — a division of Bank of America (BofA). In 2007, they took out a second mortgage to help a daughter start a small business…. About a year after getting the second mortgage, BofA started notifying George that his payments were late. Soon they jacked his credit card interest rates from 7 percent to 28 percent. Next, they ruined his credit record…. Then one day in the fall of 2009, BofA initiated foreclosure on the house he had built and owned for 28 years. The only problem? The Mahoneys had never missed a single payment on either their first or second mortgage.” (12/16/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/37ankry Filed under: LAND Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The American Prospect Author: Gershom Gorenberg Posted on 12.16.10 by Steve Trinward “Lt. Gen. Ashkenazi stood at a lectern last week wearing the kind of size XXL skullcap that is the social marker of Orthodox settlers, praising an army program that is the pride of Israel’s religious right. He looked slightly bashful. Ashkenazi, Israel’s military chief of staff, lives in a rather boring suburb of Tel Aviv, not a West Bank settlement. He’s not an Orthodox Jew, so he usually doesn’t wear a hat or skullcap, except for formal occasions when he puts on his military beret. As a military man, he’s officially not a politician. Then again, you don’t get appointed to head the Israel Defense Forces without a sharp sense of which way the political winds are blowing.” (12/16/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/2vozajj Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: In These Times Author: Robert Naiman Posted on 12.16.10 by Steve Trinward “When a member of Congress dies, sometimes other members name a bill after him or her that advances some cause with which he or she identified. So, for example, we had the ‘Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act’ — Kennedy was a champion of volunteer service. This tradition has multiple effects. Of course, it honors the departed. But, like the Spanish hero El Cid, whose companions suited him up and placed him on his horse to drive off their foes, it also gives the departed one last ride into battle.” (12/16/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/2vrxfjt Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Freedom's Phoenix Author: Stephen Lendman Posted on 12.16.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “AfPak increasingly looks like an unwinnable quagmire, draining America’s resources. Staying the course, committing larger force levels, applying more pressure, and escalating war aren’t solutions. They’ve made conditions worse, not better. ” (12/17/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/28uo5bb Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Slate Author: Dahlia Lithwick and Sonja West Posted on 12.16.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “When do Supreme Court justices need to just sit down and be quiet?” (12/14/10) Link: http://www.slate.com/id/2277915/ Filed under: PND Commentary | |
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Source: The Nation Author: Tom Hayden Posted on 12.15.10 by Steve Trinward “The feeling is growing among WikiLeaks watchers that ’someone is pushing Sweden,’ as one attorney says. … the original rape case against Assange was announced by a prosecutor in Stockholm in August, then immediately dropped by a higher Stockholm prosecutor, then reinstated in Gothenburg, after an enterprising lawyer apparently shopped for a friendlier jurisdiction. Bottom line: the Stockholm prosecutors, where the alleged sex offense occurred, have no apparent interest in the case. It would be as if a New York prosecutor declined a case in New York and the prosecutors sought a friendlier court in Mississippi.” (12/15/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/26b5g7c Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: San Francisco Chronicle Author: Mark Morford Posted on 12.15.10 by Steve Trinward “Wikileaks is one unprecedented, stunningly detailed explanation of just how the global diplomatic sausage gets made. And lo, it is vile sausage indeed. … What we’re learning is, this meat is more rancid, disrespectful, abusive, cruel, barbarian and childish than anyone wanted to imagine. No wonder world governments and whimpering doltbuckets like Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee want this Assange guy dead. It’s because Wikileaks is just terrifically embarrassing, humiliating to the bone …” (12/15/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/249olla Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: In These Times Author: David Moberg Posted on 12.15.10 by Steve Trinward “Budget deficit mania grips the nation’s political elite. Never mind that many people are more worried about finding a job, stagnant wages, home foreclosures and the state of the Main Street economy. Pundits and politicians from moderate centrists to the Tea Party right-wingers are frantically warning that if nothing changes, federal debt in 2050 will be three times the size of annual economic output — supposed proof that the end of America as we know it is at hand if we don’t make ‘tough choices.’” (12/15/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/28ggqj4 Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The American Prospect Author: Matthew Yglesias Posted on 12.15.10 by Steve Trinward “Richard Holbrooke, who died unexpectedly this week after suffering a tear in his aorta, was a celebrity diplomat whose name was known to everyone who followed politics and foreign policy. He was unique. … He was deeply involved with every Democratic president and in every presidential campaign since Jimmy Carter’s … his involvement in Barack Obama’s administration was taken as a given, the only question being the exact nature of the role. The line in Hillary Clinton’s official statement after his passing — that he was ‘one of a kind — a true statesman’ — has the distinct virtue of being true.” (12/15/10) Link: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_last_statesman Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute Author: Doug French Posted on 12.15.10 by R. Lee Wrights “Ten years ago, this article would have been amazing. Today it is a blip on the screen. But someone out there will read it and get curious. He or she will look for more and find Mises.org. Then the change happens — that most important change in the world: the mind begins to grasp the idea of liberty. Here is an event that is more important than anything in the physical world. Repeat that experience millions and billions of times and history will conform.” (12/15/10) Link: http://mises.org/daily/4914 Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Future of Freedom Foundation Author: Jacob G. Hornberger Posted on 12.15.10 by R. Lee Wrights “Referring to the estate tax, Madoff writes: ‘This tax, first enacted in 1916, was never intended to be simply a device for raising revenue. Rather, it was meant to address the phenomenon of a small number of Americans controlling large amounts of the country’s wealth — which was considered a national problem.’ Considered a national problem? By whom?” (12/15/10) Link: http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2010-12-15.asp Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Slate Author: David Weigel Posted on 12.15.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “There’s nothing new about hyping a potential crisis to get political allies to sign on to your agenda. It’s just happening more frequently now, and with higher stakes, for two big reasons. The first is that Americans are growing gloomier about the future. Polls on whether the country’s on the right or wrong track have leaned toward ‘wrong track’ for roughly five years. … The second reason is that liberals and conservatives believe that the other team is trying to provoke a crisis.” (12/14/10) Link: http://www.slate.com/id/2277970/ Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Salon Author: Glenn Greenwald Posted on 12.15.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old U.S. Army Private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, has never been convicted of that crime, nor of any other crime. Despite that, he has been detained at the U.S. Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia for five months — and for two months before that in a military jail in Kuwait — under conditions that constitute cruel and inhumane treatment and, by the standards of many nations, even torture.” (12/15/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/28qbxqz Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Missourian Author: Ken Paulson Posted on 12.15.10 by Mary Lou Seymour “It’s the holiday that got away. Wednesday is the 219th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights, a critical turning point in the history of this country and one that transformed this nation forever. Still, you won’t find any Bill of Rights greeting cards in local stores. It’s not that Americans are short on patriotism. In fact, we celebrate Veterans Day, Constitution Day, Flag Day, Memorial Day, Washington’s Birthday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Independence Day.” (12/14/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/25zdwj2 Filed under: 2AM Commentary and LAND Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Christian Science Monitor Author: John Hughes Posted on 12.14.10 by Steve Trinward “The WikiLeaks dump of US embassy cables last month was a reckless act. It is a far cry from the responsible reporting on foreign affairs with which I am familiar. When I was the State Department spokesman in the Reagan administration, Bernard Kalb, then diplomatic correspondent for NBC, called me about a tip that the bad guys in Beirut, Lebanon, had captured and were holding an American CIA officer. ‘Bernie,’ I said, ‘I’ll only talk off the record about that.’ ‘No way,’ Bernie replied, ‘If it’s off the record I can’t use it.’ ‘Well, that’s the deal,’ I said. ‘See what your network says.’ The network agreed to the deal.” (12/14/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/2wvafna Filed under: CANDi Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Our Future Blog Author: Bill Scher Posted on 12.14.10 by Steve Trinward “In the past year, conservative congresspeople have claimed to oppose nearly everything on the grounds that it would increase the deficit — even when legislation was formally estimated to either cut the deficit (health care reform), have no impact on the deficit (preventing teacher layoffs) or amount to a rounding error on the deficit (unemployment insurance). And while conservatives were in charge, they launched two wars, established a prescription drug benefit run by the drug companies and slashed taxes for millionaires — all without offsetting the costs. In other words, for conservatives, it’s never been about the deficit.” (12/14/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/2devehx Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: In These Times Author: Leonard C. Goodman Posted on 12.14.10 by Steve Trinward “Now in its tenth year, the war in Afghanistan is the longest in U.S. history. And as the war drags on, the situation goes from bad to worse: 2010 is the most violent year on record. The Taliban, who were largely defeated in December 2001, now control about 80 percent of the country. In the meantime, we are propping up a government in Kabul that is predatory and corrupt. We are spending about $100 billion a year to wage war in one of the poorest countries on earth. Yet our president, who assured us during the campaign that he was opposed to ‘dumb wars,’ has re-committed America to this fight for at least four more years.” (12/14/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/27wbqb2 Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: The American Prospect Author: Tim Fernholz Posted on 12.14.10 by Steve Trinward “Location is everything, especially in Chicago, where your neighborhood isn’t just where you live but who you are. Rahm Emanuel, running for mayor, can’t get any respect because he grew up in the suburbs. Barack Obama, Senate hopeful, won in part because he had liberal credibility from his home on the South Side and was able to raise money on the North Side. Politics and real estate can make an unsavory combination: More than one Chicago politician, including Obama, has found himself in hot water after accepting real-estate favors from politically interested friends.” (12/14/10) Link: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=too_small_to_save Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The Nation Blog Author: Robert Dreyfuss Posted on 12.14.10 by Steve Trinward “The abrupt firing of Foreign Minister Mottaki of Iran, ousted while traveling in Africa, probably doesn’t mean much for the just-resumed US-Iran talks, which restarted last week in Geneva and which are slated to resume in late January in Turkey. Mottaki was fired by President Ahmadinejad in an internal power struggle between Ahmadinejad, Iran’s parliament and various conservatives opposed to Ahmadinejad’s foreign policy, it appears. But in the ongoing nuclear talks, where Iran is represented by Saeed Jalili, the chief of Iran’s national security council, Mottaki wasn’t a big player. And Ahmadinejad, who agreed to last October’s deal to export most of Iran’s enriched uranium for processing into fuel rods, is a relative dove on this issue …” (12/13/10) Link: http://www.thenation.com/blog/157072/us-iran-nuclear-deal-works Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Boston Globe Author: James Carroll Posted on 12.14.10 by Steve Trinward “‘There’s no point in being Irish if you don’t know the world is going to break your heart eventually,’ Daniel Patrick Moynihan observed at the assassination of President Kennedy. He added, ‘I guess we thought we had a little more time.’ Moynihan’s remark might have seemed even then like an overindulgence of melancholy, yet it now captures the Irish mood as the island nation faces near-insolvency. How could we Irish ever have imagined that we were free of the doom of our fate-laden history? Loving our ride on the back of the Celtic Tiger, we just didn’t expect to be thrown off so soon.” (12/13/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/28s3gbn Filed under: CANDi Commentary and PND Commentary | |
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Source: Pro Libertate Author: Will Grigg Posted on 12.14.10 by Mary Lou Seymour “For months, Ada County Sheriff David Updyke had been investigating a secretive group of armed extremists living at the periphery of his southwest Idaho jurisdiction. When an informant provided him with a membership list of the armed band, Updyke wasted no time. He obtained arrest warrants, organized a large, heavily armed strike force, and made a beeline for the Payette River Valley. The warrants were a ruse. Updyke wasn’t planning a mass arrest; he was plotting a massacre.” (12/10/10) Link: http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2010/12/v-for-vigilante.html Filed under: LAND Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Spiked Author: Wendy Kaminer Posted on 12.14.10 by Mary Lou Seymour “Julian Assange is not Wikileaks; in other words, whether you regard him as a hero, villain, victim or egotistical malcontent, Wikileaks itself remains difficult to characterize. If it can be blamed for deterring diplomacy, derided for titillating us with diplomatic gossip, or dispensed with faint praise (by activist and writer Todd Gitlin) as the ‘Facebook of whistleblowing’, it can also be heralded for providing additional proof (if any were needed) of the gross hypocrisies and moral cowardice of the post-9/11 American security state.” (12/14/10) Link: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/10000/ Filed under: LAND Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Strike the Root Author: Cristian Gherasim Posted on 12.14.10 by Mary Lou Seymour “The increase in secrecy and the inability to compromise makes government act against the very national interest it has vowed to protect.” (12/13/10) Link: http://www.strike-the-root.com/does-governmental-secrecy-make-us-safer Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Salon Author: Glenn Greenwald Posted on 12.14.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “To criminalize what WikiLeaks is doing is, by definition, to criminalize the defining attribute of investigative journalism. That, to be sure, is a feature, not a bug, of the Obama administration’s efforts.” (12/14/10) Link: http://salon.com/a/sJSAfAA Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The New Republic Author: David Rieff Posted on 12.14.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “[T]he policy establishment is absolutely correct in worrying about Wikileaks — just not for the reasons that have usually been stated. For where Wikileaks poses a serious challenge is in its application of a technological mindset that up to now had seemed both the product of and inextricably linked to the clean, enlightened liberal capitalism of the Microsofts, Googles, Apples, and Intels of this world.” (12/14/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/32zc6wz Filed under: PND Commentary | |
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Source: Strike the Root Author: Paul Bonneau Posted on 12.13.10 by Mary Lou Seymour “The stereotypical political prisoner is not the conservative activist, rotting in a Cuban jail. It is a pot smoker, or the guy with a worn sear in his AK-47, rotting in an American jail. With 2.3 million people in jail, largely for mala prohibita, America has more political prisoners than any other place. Unfortunately, with our government, ‘political prisoner’ has become as American as apple pie.” (12/13/10) Link: http://www.strike-the-root.com/political-prisoners-in-america Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Christian Science Monitor Author: Walt Minnick Posted on 12.13.10 by Steve Trinward “Every business person, and anyone who has ever managed a checkbook, knows you can’t survive by borrowing 40 cents of every dollar you spend. Yet this is what our federal government is doing — with no real improvement projected even after the economy recovers. Tax cuts, trillion-dollar wars, deep recession, and the spending binge of the past 10 years have boosted our national debt to $13.8 trillion, over 90 percent of our total national output (GDP). This is two and a half times what it was 10 short years ago.” (12/13/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/27bh3sn Filed under: CANDi Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: In These Times Author: Jeremy Gantz Posted on 12.13.10 by Steve Trinward “September 24 began like any other Friday for Joe Iosbaker and Stephanie Weiner. Then, at 7 a.m., FBI agents knocked on the door of the Chicago couple’s house in the city’s North Side. Armed with a search warrant, more than 20 agents examined the couple’s home, photographing every room and combing through notebooks, family videos and books, even their children’s drawings. Some items were connected to their decades of anti-war and international solidarity activism, but others were not.” (12/13/10) Link: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/6745/terrorist_by_association Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Huffington Post Author: Dean Baker Posted on 12.13.10 by Steve Trinward “The proponents of the tax deal that President Obama and the Republicans negotiated last week have gotten out their TARP and Iraq War hysterics. All the important people are now telling us that if Congress doesn’t approve the package, it will be the end of the world! To be an important person in Washington these days requires a solid record of failure. That is why we have 25 million people unemployed, underemployed or out of the labor force altogether. And those who got us into this disaster are still overwhelmingly the ones calling the shots.” (12/13/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/2ddjng5 Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The Nation Author: DD Guttenplan Posted on 12.13.10 by Steve Trinward “Although a radical pariah for most of his career, towards the end of his life America’s greatest investigative journalist, I.F. Stone, had become a kind of liberal talisman — a cuddly curmudgeon whose coke bottle glasses and wrinkly venerability made him safe for mainstream admiration. Because I.F. Stone’s Weekly — the one-man, four-page newsletter he published himself, exposing White House lies and Pentagon prevarications — was run out of his Washington basement, nowadays Stone is often called ‘the first blogger.’” (12/13/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/22lsq66 Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Our Future Blog Author: Daniel Marans Posted on 12.13.10 by Steve Trinward “We already know the proposed $120 billion payroll tax cut in President Obama’s deal with the Republicans poses tremendous risks to Social Security. Now, an analysis done by Nancy Altman, Co-Director of Social Security Works, reveals that it is altogether bad policy. … State and local workers who are not covered by Social Security, including policemen and firefighters, would receive nothing from the plan. Americans seeking employment would also see nothing from the payroll tax cut.” [editor’s note: So the fact that this skips the govt workers (who have their own, much better, retirement plans?) and the out-of-work means … it’s a bad thing for poor working folks? Huh? - SAT] (12/13/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/2eoa6s7 Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Boston Globe Author: Heather Boushey Posted on 12.13.10 by Steve Trinward “‘Yes, we can.’ That was Barack Obama’s mantra as he took the helm of the nation nearly two years ago. Even though the economy looked scary, he — and we — had a sense of optimism that we could fix it. Not only would we avoid a second Great Depression, but we’d make things better. Since then, we’ve successfully pulled back from the precipice. Private employers have added jobs for 10 straight months. In September, the National Bureau of Economic Research declared that the recession ended in June 2009. And yet despite these improvements, we seem to have lost our can-do conviction that the economy can indeed improve, that we can again create good jobs for all who need them.” (12/13/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/28knomo Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The American Prospect Author: Jaclyn Friedman Posted on 12.13.10 by Steve Trinward “This week, as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was taken into custody by Interpol on charges of sexual assault, and pundits right, left, and center got busy painting the accusations as frivolous and the accusers as lying, scheming sluts, I joined a small but dedicated chorus of feminist voices calling for a serious inquiry into the charges. We didn’t do it because we support government secrecy or because we agree with the vicious international campaign to silence Assange. We didn’t do it because we’re masochists who like to get into fights on the Internet. We did it because once rape charges break into the news cycle, lives depend on what gets said about them.” (12/10/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/2e54h7q Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Spiked Author: Tim Black Posted on 12.13.10 by Mary Lou Seymour “What a fate Liu Xiaobo has suffered: outrageously imprisoned by the Chinese and cynically exploited by Westerners keen to bash Beijing.” (12/13/10) Link: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/9996/ Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: CounterPunch Author: Randall Amster Posted on 12.13.10 by Mary Lou Seymour “In an ideal world, the WikiLeaks revelations would have ended two wars. Documenting patterns of cavalier abuse and untold brutality in Iraq and Afghanistan might have sparked public outrage sufficient to undermine the capacity to continue these campaigns. Instead we’ve seen the war machine dig in even deeper, extending drawdown deadlines and expanding fronts to adjacent locales.” (12/13/10) Link: http://counterpunch.org/amster12132010.html Filed under: LAND Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Mother Jones Author: Nick Baumann Posted on 12.13.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Most of the time, renditions happen quietly; CIA operatives swoop in and out and no one’s the wiser. Then came the February 2003 kidnapping of a cleric named Abu Omar in Milan, Italy. The operation was bungled (the American operatives used unencrypted, trackable cell phones, for starters), and, in a major embarassment to the US, the 23 CIA agents involved were eventually tried by an Italian court. In 2009, they were convicted in absentia of violating Italian law.” (12/13/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/2enuubd Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The Libertarian Enterprise Author: L. Neil Smith Posted on 12.12.10 by Mary Lou Seymour “In a bizarre and historical twist of fate, conservatives today are finding themselves in a state of open rebellion against established authority, and it is becoming embarrassingly obvious that they don’t have the faintest glimmer of how to handle this conflict between their fundamental nature and what is necessary if the American culture is to survive. Nowhere is this clearer than in the case of Manning, Assange, and Wikileaks.” (12/12/10) Link: http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2010/tle599-20101212-02.html Filed under: LAND Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal Author: Vin Suprynowicz Posted on 12.12.10 by Mary Lou Seymour “It’s hard to believe anyone who’s allowed unsupervised use of a computer can think the dollar is worth as much as it was a century ago — or even 50 years ago, for that matter. You don’t have to be a degreed historian or a doddering geezer to know that gasoline cost about 25 cents a gallon in 1960, that a new Ford Mustang cost $2,500 to $4,500 when introduced in 1965. A Coca-Cola cost a nickel in 1910, but today it’s a dollar in a far less expensive disposable plastic bottle. (Yes, today’s ’single’ bottles hold more — though not that much more. Besides, shouldn’t the price have dropped after Uncle Sam made them take out the coca?)” (12/12/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/276a54p Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: AlterNet Author: Tana Ganeva Posted on 12.12.10 by Mary Lou Seymour “Giants like PayPal, Amazon.com, Visa and MasterCard almost instantly crumbled under government (and p.r.) pressure to drop WikiLeaks, depriving the site of vital funding sources and online platforms. But other companies, some of them small, independent start-ups, have decided to risk the wrath of Joe Lieberman, the State Department, and their European counterparts and help keep WikiLeaks afloat by providing funding sources (yeah, you can now donate to WikiLeaks even if you only have Visa or MasterCard) and hosting the site. Here’s a list of companies that have stood by WikiLeaks …” (12/10/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/249lvyn Filed under: LAND Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: NobelPrize.org Author: Liu Xiaobo Posted on 12.12.10 by Steve Trinward “In the course of my life, for more than half a century, June 1989 was the major turning point. … because I had returned from the U.S. to take part in the 1989 Movement, I was thrown into prison for ‘the crime of counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement.’ I also lost my beloved lectern and could no longer publish essays or give talks in China. Merely for publishing different political views and taking part in a peaceful democracy movement, a teacher lost his lectern, a writer lost his right to publish, and a public intellectual lost the opportunity to give talks publicly.” (12/10/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/2bnaqv4 Filed under: CANDi Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Christian Science Monitor Author: Robert Pape Posted on 12.12.10 by Steve Trinward “From the 9/11 hijackers to the double agent whose suicide attack in Afghanistan killed seven CIA employees last December, many people want to know what drives some Muslims — many of whom are middle class and well educated — to kill themselves in attacks on Americans and others in the West. After examining 2,200 suicide attacks around the world since 1980 … I’ve concluded that the answer is both simple and disturbing. What drives them is deep anger at the presence of Western combat forces in the Persian Gulf region and other predominately Muslim lands.” (12/11/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/37q4m2b Filed under: CANDi Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Boston Globe Author: Jeff Jacoby Posted on 12.12.10 by Steve Trinward “I realize, of course, that liberals were against the Bush tax cuts from the start. I know that Obama vowed time and again to let those tax cuts expire for households earning more than $250,000 a year. … But Obama swore to end plenty of other Bush policies that nevertheless remain intact. Why aren’t Democrats in a blind rage over the tens of thousands of US troops still deployed in Iraq? Or his extension of the Patriot Act? Or the ongoing rendition of terror suspects to third countries for interrogation?” [editor’s note: I’ve been asking these questions of my “progressive” friends for months now (if not years) - SAT] (12/12/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/2agbbho Filed under: CANDi Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: The Daily Bell Author: Tibor Machan Posted on 12.12.10 by Mary Lou Seymour “But the more serious and general issue is whether laws enacted in a kind of corrupted democracy such as the United States of America are actually morally binding on the citizenry.” (12/11/10) Link: http://www.thedailybell.com/1589/Tibor-Machan-Law-Our-Democracy.html Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Huffington Post Author: Jacob Heilbrunn Posted on 12.12.10 by Steve Trinward “There was something stirring about watching Bernie Sanders engage in his filibuster. Not the bogus filibusters that the GOP has relentlessly deployed over the past two years. No, Sanders offered the real thing. Real rhetoric, real passion, real indignation. Not artifice, not calculation, not capitulation. Instead, it was old school, just like the man himself. The contrast with President Obama could hardly have been starker. Yesterday Obama, fresh from having attacked his own base, wheeled out Bill Clinton, his former chief detractor, to help make the case for the tax-cut package, which, incidentally, Clinton truthfully labeled a stimulus bill.” (12/11/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/2bnlvc7 Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: TruthOut Author: Michael Deutsch Posted on 12.12.10 by Mary Lou Seymour “Under the new definition of ‘material support,’ the efforts of President Jimmy Carter to monitor the elections in Lebanon and coordinate with the political parties there, including the designated FTO Hezbollah, could well be prosecuted as a crime.” (12/11/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/35wojqu Filed under: LAND Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Our Future Blog Author: Dave Johnson Posted on 12.12.10 by Steve Trinward “Yesterday I wrote that the President may have sacrificed his long-term vision on trade and economic/industrial policy to day-to-day concerns and politics. The tax-cut deal is another indicator that a big-picture vision has been sacrificed. But however much smoke gets thrown up to mask the real problem it’s still all about the economic paradigm. There is still a lot of forward-thinking work to do on our economy. The big picture is, of course, jobs. It is balance of trade, a coherent and especially comprehensive economic/industrial policy, education, infrastructure. But even more than those, fixing the real economic mess is about finding a sustainable and equitable formula, and changing the equations of who gets what for what. It is a bigger picture.” (12/10/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/269o9qf Filed under: PND Commentary | |
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Source: The Nation Author: Christopher Hayes Posted on 12.12.10 by Steve Trinward “The Republicans have spent two years — an entire election cycle and post-election victory lap — repeating with Tourettic persistence dire warnings about the existential threat posed by large deficits and mounting government debt. And yet, amazingly, these same Republicans (and a few conservative Democrats), who love to offer lectures about the necessity of shared sacrifice, also spent the week demanding that all the Bush tax cuts be made permanent, a policy that would increase the debt over the next ten years by an astounding $3.3 trillion.” [eeditor’s note: Based on some theories at least; others say that a “permanent” cut would unleash untold funds, as investment in the future became once again a valid use of money! - SAT] (12/09/10) Link: http://www.thenation.com/article/157016/tax-cuts-forever Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: CounterPunch Author: Joe Bageant Posted on 12.12.10 by Mary Lou Seymour ‘If you hang out much with thinking people, conversation eventually turns to the serious political and cultural questions of our times. Such as: How can the Americans remain so consistently brain-fucked? Much of the world, including plenty of Americans, asks that question as they watch U.S. culture go down like a thrashing mastodon giving itself up to some Pleistocene tar pit.” (12/12/10) Link: http://counterpunch.org/bageant12102010.html Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Slate Author: David Weigel Posted on 12.12.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Why Ron Paul’s newfound power both pleases and worries libertarians.” (12/10/10) Link: http://www.slate.com/id/2277521/ Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Boston Globe Author: Eileen Boylen Posted on 12.09.10 by Steve Trinward “When Fox News reported the link between depression and chocolate consumption, I knew medical research had finally jumped the shark. Apparently, having more than 8.5 servings of chocolate a month indicates profound depression. Huh? By that definition, my husband and I should be on suicide watch. Color me psychic, but soon Cambridge will be wresting Kit Kats from vending machines and moving chocolate behind the pharmacy counter. Can a ballot question be far behind …? In recent years, Reservatrol has been labeled ‘the fountain of youth.’ And, according to Dr. Oz, you can get it from red wine. Wrong. Turns out wine hasn’t enough Reservatrol to matter, and I only look younger if my husband drinks it.” [editor’s note: This is not only well-written and -considered, but sorta Bombeck-funny as well - SAT] (12/09/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/23tvf8j Filed under: CANDi Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: In These Times Author: Susan J. Douglas Posted on 12.09.10 by Steve Trinward “[A]s a child of the ’60s who rejoiced when the Pentagon Papers saw the light of day in the Times, I tend to think that transparency, especially when it comes to our foreign policy, is an ideal crucial to democracy. Having said that (and writing when we still don’t know all the revelations), there is something odd and pathetic about this latest WikiDump.” [editor’s note: Ms. Douglas expresses some valid concerns here, as to the choices made on what to release and in what order; even if libertarians may not agree with them all, they are still worth contemplating - SAT] (12/09/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/2bwc6vd Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: San Francisco Chronicle Author: Kathleen Pender Posted on 12.09.10 by Steve Trinward “President Obama’s proposed tax plan will help wealthy Americans in more ways than one. The obvious way is by extending the Bush-era tax cuts on income, capital gains and dividends for everyone in 2011 and 2012. Previously, Obama wanted these tax cuts to expire for couples with more than $250,000 in income and individuals with more than $200,000. The plan introduced this week also calls for a more lenient estate tax than Obama’s previous proposal. But the plan also helps high earners in a more subtle way: by replacing the Making Work Pay credit — which had income limits — with a reduction in Social Security taxes that would be available to all workers. This substitution would leave some low-income workers worse off. High-income workers would be substantially better off.” (12/09/10) Link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/12/08/BUN91GNN32.DTl Filed under: CANDi Commentary and PND Commentary | |
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Source: The American Prospect Author: Scott Lemieux Posted on 12.09.10 by Steve Trinward “When John Paul Stevens was nominated by Gerald Ford to replace William O. Douglas, few could have predicted that the moderate Republican Stevens would in many respects fill Douglas’ role as the irascible liberal giant on the Court. Yet as his recent article about his opposition to the death penalty reminds us, during his long and often idiosyncratic career, Stevens emerged as the Court’s foremost critic of unequal treatment under the law. In particular, he became the Court’s strongest critic of the increasingly formalistic approach to race taken by a majority of his colleagues and was always more attentive to gender inequality than his country-club Republican pedigree would have suggested.” (12/09/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/246qgd8 Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The Nation Author: Michael Meeropol Posted on 12.09.10 by Steve Trinward “[O]n the grounds of fairness in our tax policy and good economics, the part of the deal that extends the Bush income tax cuts for the top 2 percent of the population, and cuts the estate tax permanently, is just plain bad. … However, Republicans had made clear that they were willing to let all tax cuts expire and refuse to do anything meaningful to help the unemployed unless millionaires got an extension of the Bush tax cuts. So the choice for the president was to let all the tax cuts expire and fail to get unemployment benefits extended, or to do something that would preserve some of what most economists believe the economy needs.” [editor’s note: As usual, I disagree with this fellow’s conclusions, but the analysis is spot-on - SAT] (12/08/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/24f3yd5 Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Christian Science Monitor Author: Greg Thielmann & Peter Crail Posted on 12.09.10 by Steve Trinward “Long before the mysterious Stuxnet computer virus struck an apparent blow at Iran’s nuclear program, Tehran’s nuclear effort was being delayed by a far more mundane problem: bad technology. … The most fundamental problem with Iran’s enrichment program appears to be its own centrifuge design. Called the P-1 after a Pakistani mock-up of a Dutch design pilfered in the 1970s, the centrifuge that Iran has been attempting to operate is known to be temperamental and fault-prone.” [editor’s note: This should be fairly obvious by now: Iran is NOT a threat, even for creating nuclear weapons - SAT] Link: http://tinyurl.com/23gqtvw Filed under: CANDi Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Mother Jones Author: Oliver Broudy Posted on 12.09.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Really probing inquiry, ultimately, is about as welcome to the government as an anarchist at a GOP presidential convention. We usually accept this just as we accept partisan gridlock and corporate lobbying: This is the way the system works. We take it for granted that very little can be done about it. Right up to the moment, that is, when someone plants himself, like the Tianamen Square tank man, squarely before the government juggernaut, and refuses to step aside. Then we’re treated to an amazing spectacle: This is what it looks like when power squirms.” (12/09/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/33mv7qf Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Reason Author: Jacob Sullum Posted on 12.08.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Unfortunately, balancing the federal budget won’t require radical change.” (12/08/10) Link: http://reason.com/archives/2010/12/08/a-leaner-leviathan Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The Libertarian Enterprise Author: Russell D. Longcore Posted on 12.08.10 by Mary Lou Seymour “The Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, is one of the classics of literature. This short story has been made into plays and motion pictures. God only knows how many people have either read Dickens’ own work or have seen the work performed onstage or on the screen. But someone needs to speak in defense of Ebenezer Scrooge. I guess that would be me.” (12/05/10) Link: http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2010/tle598-20101205-06.html Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Future of Freedom Foundation Author: Jacob G. Hornberger Posted on 12.08.10 by R. Lee Wrights “Last Sunday’s New York Times published an interesting article about U.S. military bases in Iraq that carries valuable lessons for America with respect to military spending, governmental dependency, and national bankruptcy. The article, entitled ‘As U.S. Leaves, Iraqis Suffer Economic Toll,’ explains the travails of Iraqis who are suffering economic losses due to the closing of U.S. military bases in Iraq.” (12/08/10) Link: http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2010-12-08.asp Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Liberty For All Author: Ed Lewis Posted on 12.08.10 by R. Lee Wrights “I don’t know who originally made this statement, or when it was made. Nor do I know the reason it was made. What I do know, though, is that the truth must prevail in our dealings with other people. A reader once asked what truth I referred to. To be blunt about it, I didn’t know there were different categories of truth. Truth is simply truth. It is not relative to the times; only what is interpreted as truth is. I.e., the interpretation could be wrong but the truth is a constant.” (12/08/10) Link: http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=5232 Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: EconLog Author: Arnold Kling Posted on 12.08.10 by Steve Trinward “The book is Why Liberty, compiled by Marc Guttman. The 54th chapter comes from Vince Miller, a Canadian, who writes, ‘My own experience suggests maybe an innate sense of justice is required. What makes some people take action when they see an act of injustice while others stand idly by and watch — seemingly disconnected?’ Sounds like what a progressive might say. In fact, my chapter in the book is entitled ‘From Far Left to Libertarian.’ Like a number of others in the book, I started on the left, and my chapter briefly explains my journey. … I think that the most common trait is a willingness to go one’s own way politically.” (12/08/10) Link: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2010/12/54_libertarians.html Filed under: CANDi Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: The Nation Author: Robert Scheer Posted on 12.08.10 by Steve Trinward “[US Senator Dianne] Feinstein represents precisely the government that Thomas Jefferson had in mind when he said, in defense of unfettered freedom of the press, ‘Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.’” [editor’s note: Once again, Mr. Scheer shows why I continue to look for his writings to include here - SAT] (12/08/10) Link: http://www.thenation.com/article/156909/jefferson-assange Filed under: LAND Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Christian Science Monitor Author: Raul A. Reyes Posted on 12.08.10 by Steve Trinward “Recently, the Pew Hispanic Center released the results of a nationwide bilingual survey of Latinos. Asked whom they considered the most important Latino leader today, 64 percent said they didn’t know; 10 percent said ‘no one.’ … Pew noted that Hispanics do not have a unifying figure comparable to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Susan B. Anthony, or Chavez in his heyday. This led many in the media to speculate that the nation’s largest and fastest-growing minority group is suffering from a lack of leadership. Nothing could be further from the truth.” [editor’s note: You mean people of Hispanic descent have not bought into a Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, telling them that only “one of their people” can “lift them from poverty?” Too busy starting their own businesses, I guess - SAT] (12/07/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/2a9pzqh Filed under: CANDi Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The American Prospect Author: Paul Waldman Posted on 12.08.10 by Steve Trinward “November 29, 2010, may be remembered as the moment when progressives stopped giving Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt. Some had long before, of course, whether because of compromises during the health-care reform debate, his continuation of Bush-era policies on civil liberties, or what some see as his obeisance toward Wall Street. But his announcement of a pay freeze on federal workers … feels like a tipping point.” (12/07/10) Link: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=losing_faith_in_obama Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: In These Times Author: Lisa Yun Lee Posted on 12.08.10 by Steve Trinward “Consider this uncanny photograph of the thriving urban farm located behind razor barbed wire at the Cook County Jail in Chicago. It demands and resists interpretation. The image calls to mind, in a perturbing manner, the histories of slavery, plantation life and sharecropping. The Caucasian chef in the background dressed in classic ‘chef’s whites’ and the two prisoners of color in the foreground are a visual representation and reminder of the appalling statistics that document the dramatic racial disparities between those people in the United States who are locked up and those who are not. Yet we celebrate and embrace the idea of the urban farm.” (12/08/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/2do2us8 Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: CounterPunch Author: Eric Walberg Posted on 12.08.10 by Mary Lou Seymour “The sides are lining up, much like Bush predicted in 2001 with his ‘You are with us or against us.’ A brave Aussie, a principled French judge, an American libertarian congressman, a youthful computer nerd — the enemies of empire come in all shapes and sizes.” (12/08/10) Link: http://counterpunch.org/walberg12082010.html Filed under: LAND Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Campaign For Liberty Author: Doug Bandow Posted on 12.08.10 by R. Lee Wrights “The WikiLeaks disclosure of U.S. diplomatic cables has stirred a storm of outrage in Washington, generating apparently serious calls to execute individual leakers and bomb media organizations. Yet despite the abundant egg over the faces of many American officials, there’s little evidence of significant harm to U.S. security. In fact, not much in the documents is new.” (12/08/10) Link: http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=1232 Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: CounterPunch Author: Chris Floyd Posted on 12.07.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “WikiLeaks will doubtless try to struggle on. And Assange says he has given the entire diplomatic trove to 100,000 people. By dribs and drabs, shards of truth will get out. But the world’s journalists — and those persons of conscience working in the world’s governments — have been given a hard, harsh, unmistakable lesson in the new realities of our degraded time. Tell a truth that discomforts power, that challenges its domination over our lives, our discourse, our very thoughts, and you will be destroyed.” [hat tip — Arthur Silber] (12/07/10) Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd12072010.html Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The American Prospect Author: Robert B. Reich Posted on 12.07.10 by Steve Trinward “Americans want to know what happened to the economy and how to fix it. At least Republicans have a story — the same one they’ve been flogging for 30 years. The bad economy is big government’s fault, and the solution is to shrink government. But what exactly is President Barack Obama’s story or the Democrats’? That Wall Street screwed up big time and the solution is to fix the Street? That Americans have lived beyond our means and now we have to tighten our belts? That our trade imbalance got too big and the Chinese have to spend more and we have to save more? That American companies have been outsourcing jobs abroad and must be deterred? Without a clear story, there’s no competition. Republicans win.” (12/07/10) Link: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=telling_tales Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: In These Times Author: Stephen R. Weissman Posted on 12.07.10 by Steve Trinward “While the results of the November election have curtailed President Barack Obama’s influence over domestic affairs, he can still control U.S. war policy in Afghanistan. But his power will prove mainly theoretical if he offers the same weak leadership during the administration’s planned December review of U.S. war policy as he did in last year’s strategy meetings, which culminated in the dispatch of an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan.” (12/07/10) Link: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/6725/our_follower_in_chief/ Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: San Francisco Chronicle Author: Michael Gerson Posted on 12.07.10 by Steve Trinward “The DREAM Act now before Congress … would create a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children. Applicants must have graduated from high school or gotten a GED. They would be given a conditional legal status for six years, in which they must complete two years of college or serve at least two years in the military. If they failed to meet the requirement — or committed a crime — they would lose their legal status and could be deported. If they succeeded, they would be granted a green card and could apply for citizenship.” (12/07/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/23nfevj Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Our Future Blog Author: Zach Carter Posted on 12.07.10 by Steve Trinward “The basic deal: One year of unemployment benefits, a $40 billion extension of an anti-poverty tax credit, a $120 billion tax cut for workers and some additional tax cuts for American businesses that are already sitting on $1 trillion in cash and refusing to hire new people. In exchange, we get the Bush tax cuts for billionaires, plus an estate tax even more regressive than the worst estate tax implemented by George W. Bush. A few billion for the poor, hundreds of billions for the rich, and nothing — nothing — that will alleviate epic unemployment. It may even fail to prevent the economy from deteriorating further.” (12/07/10) Link: http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010124907/tax-deal-fit-gilded-age Filed under: PND Commentary | |
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