The planned burning of the Qurans to mark the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attack has sparked outrage around the world -- here in Canada, Peter MacKay has stood up and rightly denounced it noting that this may put Canadian troops in Afghanistan in further danger. Terry Jones of the laughably named Dove World Outreach Center has said he doesn't care who's against it and that includes General David Petreus the Commander of the Nato Afghanistan forces who has said it could endanger the troops. Right-wing blogger and CNN (fox-lite) contributor Erick Erickson has said that General Petreus has "folded like a cheap suit" to violent Islamists in being against this hateful act of extremism. And the cowardly leadership of the GOP has remained silent on the issue not wanting to alienate any of their racist voters one guesses. Here's Keith Olbermann on the fiasco:
This is one of those stories that I've been ignoring on my radio show until today. They're a relatively small group and I always like to explain the craziest of this stuff away by pointing out that these are extremists and out of the mainstream of current American politics... but they're really not that far out there compared to what is regularly broadcast nightly on fox and other MSM news outlets. Have a listen to some of the stuff as chronicled on Rachel Maddow's show:
I haven't had as much time for this blog as the Canadian one of late -- so it goes.
Getting right to the business of catching up on the media narratives, as most know Obama declared the end of "Operation Iraqi Freedom," Tuesday night and the beginning of "Operation New Dawn." It is exactly the kind of Orwellian hooey that it reads like. There are as noted everywhere even the MSM 50,000 combat ready troops being left behind, but not being reported as often are the bases that still remain occupied by American forces in the desert and the 7,000 independent contractors ( re: modern-day mercenaries) they are hiring to leave behind at five different bases . Here's a report from Democracy Now on those bases:
Seven years later there's still lots to say about this war of choice that devastated Iraq. The war killed untold numbers of civilians and made refugees out of millions and it's all being ignored except in small corners of the media and blogosphere. Some like Chris Mathews are trying to pretend they were against the war back in 2003 and that they weren't cheerleaders and enablers -- it's a bit nauseating. There are so many in the media that displayed a remarkable lack of courage that one hardly knows where to start but that link includes an interview with Jim Lehrer of PBS who as much as admits to the cowardice of the press which of course includes himself.
Glenzilla does a great job of taking apart the claims that "everyone" thought Iraq had WMD's here. Rachel expresses her anger over Obama's absolving of GWB jr. and his recklessness here. You can read the complete list of who the architects of the Iraq war were at ThinkP and please note that they are now out in the media trying to claim for themselves credit for the "success" of the Iraq war. Possibly the greatest blunder in US military history and the right-wing neo-cons who argued for this war want a victory parade with themselves in the lead float.
Just a whole bunch of unrelated stories instead of one long narrative, okay?
Beginning with the decline or crisis of the middle-class in the US. It's a story that all should pay close attention to, especially when going to vote. There are people actively doing what they can to shrink the middle-class and that term the hate-mongers on the right like to throw around as they talk about the left and their evil intent to redistribute... well it's already happened! Wealth has been redistributed from the middle-classes to the wealthy and is the cause of how we got into such a nasty recession in the first place.
A former Republican firebrand ousted by a tea party nutjob gets honest about his party's tactics - guess what? Apparently Republicans are intentionally playing into the racism, anger, and paranoia we see daily on the news.
That freak out over the Muslim community center being built near ground zero is a great example of right-wing demagoguery. Happily, the NYC Mayor, Michael Bloomberg was having none of it and eloquently defended their rights to worship how and whomever they please asking, "...should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion?"
From over at the NYT's, someone whose columns have given credence to those touting "climategate" comes an op-ed that notes while the climate bill in the US is paralyzed, the climate isn't (I predict everyone's going to get very brave on the subject of climate change soon - evidence pouring in from all directions will do that). Anyhow, he links to a fascinating interview conducted by Tom Yulsman, whom he calls an an old friend and journalism professor at the University of Colorado, with Jim White, a climate specialist there who just returned from Greenland.
He writes: In White’s view, it’s already too late to turn back the clock on climate change to save low-lying coastal cities like Miami. The ice cores that he and his colleagues drill from Greenland and Antarctica tell us that the last time greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere were as high as they are today, the world was even warmer than it is now, Greenland was largely deglaciated, and sea level was 10 to 15 feet higher.
In the interview, White barely mentioned reducing our emissions of greenhouse gases to mitigate climate change, although I know he thinks this would be a very good idea. Instead, he emphasized the need for societies to adapt to what he considers to be inevitable and very significant changes.
In a sane world that would be a very sobering statement - want a Xanax?
Obama has had to deal with massive republican obstructionism at every turn - even on issues they once supported. Rachel has the details:
So, anytime someone says to you, I like that Obama guy but I just wish he'd do more. Well, here's a list of what he's managed to get done amidst all that attempted gridlock and fear-mongering:
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
College Tuition Inflation Bill increasing the amount of federal Pell Grant awards and stripping banks privileges as intermediaries for student loan servicing
The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act
Health Care Reform
SCHIP health-care program
Public Lands bill
Credit card industry reform
Jobs bill
Government Transparency especially on lobbyist’s access to the White House
The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act
Extended benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees
Instructed HHS to allow hospital visitation rights to LGBT couples
Banning of job discrimination based on gender identity
Giving benefits for Same-Sex Domestic Partners of Foreign Service Employees
Ordered all federal agencies to undertake a study and make recommendations for ways to cut spending
Appointment of first Latina to the Supreme Court
Beginning the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq
No permanent bases in Iraq
Ended the previous stop-loss policy that kept soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan longer than their enlistment date
No torture policy
Ended media blackout on war casualties; reporting full information covering the return of fallen soldiers to Dover AFB
Housing rescue plan
US Auto industry rescue plan
Federal support for stem-cell research
Cash for clunkers program offers vouchers to trade in fuel inefficient, polluting old cars for new cars stimulating auto sales
Making more loans available to small businesses
Increased funding for the Violence Against Women Act
Expand the Nurse-Family Partnership to all low-income, first-time mothers
Increase minority access to capital
Establish a credit card bill of rights
Close the "doughnut hole" in Medicare prescription drug plan
Require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions
Expand eligibility for Medicaid
Increase funding to expand community based prevention programs
Signed the nuclear reduction Treaty with Moscow to reducing warheads by 30%.
Securing $20,000,000,000 from BP to help those that have been affected by the oil spill and to clean up the mess around the gulf.
The most profound restructuring of financial regulation since the Great Depression (Financial Reform Bill)
$90.9 billion Education Investment
$82.5 billion Aid to low income workers, unemployed and retirees
$80.9 billion in Infrastructure Investment
$61.3 billion investment in Energy Smart Grid, Energy Efficiency, and environmental clean-up
I Wanted to make sure anyone who dropped by had the details on the controversy manufactured by a right-wing creep with the help of the right-wing media that led to the firing of Shirley Sherrod. Rachel has the details below:
Now if you listened to the report you know the perpetrator of the defamation of Shirley Sherrod's character is Andrew Breitbart, a smear merchant whose credibility should be non-existent. That would be true in a world without Glenn beck Rush Limbaugh and Fox News - sadly those things all exist and he has a platform for his lies and fabrications. He was the man behind the lies about ACORN which, even though they proved to be false, helped to bring about that organization's demise.
Part of the reason for his success in taking on ACORN, aside from endless trumpeting of the so called scandal by the right-wing Wurlitzer, was that it took many weeks to completely debunk the story. By that time people had lost interest and moved on. One of the reasons we have hope that this will stick to Breitbart like s*** to a jackal's hide is that it all happened with a 24 hour news-cycle: The lie, the fake outrage, the realization that the video had been clipped and was out of all context, the firing, the apology, the media embarrassment, the walk-back and her vindication.
So people can witness and understand what happened in its entirety. David Frum spoke out against Breitbart and his ilk and tactics but he now represents a small minority in the conservative movement. Shirley herself laid the blame at the feet of Fox and Breitbart - but many will try to blame Obama and the administration who are not without blame but maybe could be excused for being overly sensitive to issues of race.
There is an entire segment of the population that doesn't want to deal with facts or science or anything they consider to be disagreeable, and they are called conservatives. In essence they have their own set of facts. In another era that would have gotten you institutionalized, today it gets you a job working for Fox News.
Below you can watch Rachel outline how much money BP has spent on spill response research in preparation of the kind of gusher we're witnessing in the Gulf of Mexico (hint: Nothing!).
Some info on BP's police force that are busy keeping the media at bay in Louisiana and what the ACLU is doing about it. An interview with Mac McClelland, a Mother Jones reporter who has been providing some of the nation's best on-the-scene coverage of the BP oil spill. And an interview with a survivor from the Exxon Valdez spill who discusses the toxic effects of being a part of the clean-up crew. Oh, and the first hurricane of the season is upon the Gulf.
Here's a pair of stories from one of my favourite and clearly one of the best writers in the blogosphere, Glenn Greenwald. Beginning with a story about the intense animosity (jealousy) the recent Michael Hastings' Rolling Stone article about General McChrystal caused. What he calls the "universality of war propaganda," and its' ready acceptance by the MSM.
Before you watch this clip courtesy of the always wonderful and incisive Rachel Maddow, you might want to get yourself a little bag you can heave your disgust into. There are few words that don't delve into the scatological to describe the people at BP as they try find the upside of ecocide.
Still, there were some good things in the speech. Not in specifics but the long term goals and the over-arching theme that it is time to get off oil dependence is a good start. Other than that though, the speech offered little reassurance to progressives who have been waiting action on AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming). But Obama doesn't directly address climate change or global warming in his speech because no one wants to hear about it. There are allusions, but that is all. No sticking his chin out and laying it on the line. Vague assurances that BP will pay and they'll never give up on the people of the Gulf coast. Is that the voice of a politician who believes he can sell his vision to his constituents?
Has a year-and-a-half of non-stop demagoguery by the right neutered the President to the point that he only speaks in vague platitudes for fear of the next day's backlash? Or is this the first step towards a clean energy bill and future? Maybe he's not trying to reach the choir with this speech. Maybe he just wants the average person who doesn't get embroiled in the day to day madness of partisan politics to understand something very serious is going on here and it will take time and effort and a change of direction to fix it.
I'm the first guy to cut Obama slack. I know it. I read the complaints of other liberals and progressives and worry that they're forgetting what the alternative is - and it was eight long years of murderous god-awful. The sad thing is that there has been a carryover. Not just of the debts and two unfinished wars, but some of the policies as well. He has not undone rendition or put an end to torture or Gitmo or a lot of the other things he said he's do - he has even defended the Bush administration's handling of the Mahar Arar case though it was clearly demonstrated Arar was guilty of no crimes. He was arrested and renditioned to Syria where he was tortured. No apology, no prosecutions for wrongful imprisonment, nothing! The NYT's calls it disgraceful, and they're right.
As for BP though, he seems to be making good on his promise to make them pay as today they agreed to the $20 billion dollar escrow account to meet the mounting claims that will be administered by a third party. So that's a victory, but it's not clear if it's the pressure Obama is bringing to bear, or if BP has finally come to their senses and are going to try and salvage what they can of their reputation so that next year they can still remain in business. Their credit rating was downgraded by six notches today to just above junk status.
News on the spill itself has the well gushing as much as 60,000 barrels per day into the ocean but there's hope that a second containment system may help to mitigate 90% of that by as early as next week. That's pretty much where the good news ends. There's talk over at The Oil Drum, a sounding board for petroleum geologists, that the gusher may be unstoppable and get far worse before the relief wells are dug. I've seen hints at this elsewhere, let's hope they're wrong.
As for wankery on the subject, well that continues at the regular rate. Palin lies about what Obama's said on the subject - this should come under the heading of water is wet. BP, in yet another winning move, hired mercenaries to keep people away from the despoiled beaches. And just yesterday, big oil executives were lobbying for tax breaks and subsidies. These are the most profitable corporations in the history of the world and they want welfare.
To close on a perfect note, the Sierra Club reports that clean beaches in New Jersey make more money than off-shore drilling will. The only god is the god of irony - do not trifle with him!
This is going to be a quick hitter (for me). Here's some video of Rachel Maddow making the point, in no uncertain terms, that oil companies (still) do not know how, nor do they have the technology to stop a spill 5,000 feet below the surface of the ocean. And a reminder that 21 years after the fact Exxon still has not paid the full amount of their fine for the Valdez spill. In fact before dime one was ever paid as compensation to victims of Valdez oil spill 8,000 of the potential recipients died.
There are very good reasons for Obama to force BP to set up a $20 billion dollar escrow account for the financial victims in the Gulf states. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out, especially with the Republicans most beholden to their big oil donors.
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