Author's posts
Jun 04 2012
Wisconsin Recall: Vote Tomorrow
The vote to recall Wisconsin’s Republican Tea Party Governor Scott Walker is tomorrow. The latest Public Policy Polling results has his challenger Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett with a slight lead over Walker:
PPP’s final poll on the Wisconsin recall finds Scott Walker ahead, but also a race that’s tightening. Walker leads Tom Barrett 50-47. That’s down from 50-45 on a PPP poll conducted three weeks ago and it’s also down from a 52-45 lead that Walker posted in a Marquette Law poll released last week.
Barrett is actually winning independent voters by a 48-46 margin. The reason he continues to trail overall is that Republicans are more excited about voting in Tuesday’s election than Democrats are. Our projected electorate voted for Barack Obama by only 7 points, even though he took the state by 14 in 2008. If the folks who turn out on Tuesday actually matched the 2008 electorate, Barrett would be ahead of Walker by a 50-49 margin. It’s cliche but this is a race that really is going to completely come down to turnout.
This week’s Up with Chris Hayes devoted its first segments to what is at stake for not only Wisconsin but the rest of the country.
Up with Chris Hayes panelists Michael Steele, former chairman of the Republican National Committee; Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers; Michelle Bernard, founder, president and CEO of The Bernard Center for Women, Politics and Public Policy; and Bob Herbert, former New York Times columnist and now a distinguished senior fellow at the progressive think tank Demos, discuss the ferocious recall election in Wisconsin, and its implications for national politics.
John Nichols, Washington correspondent for The Nation, joins thepanel to talk about the tidal wave of dark money flowing in from special interests in the Wisconsin recall election.
Jun 04 2012
Punting the Pundits
“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt
Paul Krugman: This Republican Economy
What should be done about the economy? Republicans claim to have the answer: slash spending and cut taxes. What they hope voters won’t notice is that that’s precisely the policy we’ve been following the past couple of years. Never mind the Democrat in the White House; for all practical purposes, this is already the economic policy of Republican dreams.
So the Republican electoral strategy is, in effect, a gigantic con game: it depends on convincing voters that the bad economy is the result of big-spending policies that President Obama hasn’t followed (in large part because the G.O.P. wouldn’t let him), and that our woes can be cured by pursuing more of the same policies that have already failed.
For some reason, however, neither the press nor Mr. Obama’s political team has done a very good job of exposing the con.
(emphasis mine)
New York Times Editorial: Whose Welfare?
Every week the campaign dollars pile up, by the tens of millions, by the hundreds of millions, to a level never before seen in American political life. Outside groups now say they plan to spend $1 billion on behalf of Republicans in the November election, which will probably be twice the level raised by groups supporting Democrats. Even the slush-funders of the Watergate era would have been slack-jawed at the number of seven- and eight-figure checks pouring into groups with names like Crossroads and Americans for Prosperity.
The reason for these staggering numbers – and for the growing imbalance between the parties – is that the vast financial power of the business world has been loosed as a political tool by the federal courts. In pursuit of lower taxes and less regulation, businesses, led by the United States Chamber of Commerce, are determined to remove President Obama from office and return full control of Congress to the Republican Party. Executives and companies are the principal source of the unlimited checks that are fueling the rise of these outside groups.
What might a reasonable, constructive presidential campaign look like?
To ask the question invites immediate dissent because we probably can’t even agree across philosophical or political lines what “reasonable” and “constructive” mean.
But let’s try an experiment: Can we at least reach consensus on the sort of debate between now and November that could help us solve some of our problems? I’ll let you in on the outcome in advance: Ideology quickly gets in the way of even this modest effort.
Will Hutton: The Facts Are Clear: This Cruel Austerity Experiment Has Failed
While the human cost of economic stupidity is all too visible, the world’s leaders are paralyzed by their dogma
Last week was an awesome warning of where go-it-alone austerity can lead. It produced some brutal evidence of where we end up when we place finance above economy and society. The markets are now betting not just on the break-up of the euro but on the arrival of a new economic dark age. The world economy is edging nearer to the abyss, and policymakers, none more than in Britain, are paralyzed by the stupidities of their home-spun economics. Yanis Varoufakis, ex-speechwriter for former Greek prime minister George Papandreou and now an economics professor in the US, said last week: “There is precisely zero chance of austerity working. It is the same as thinking you can escape from gravity by waving your arms up and down.”
It could hardly be more sobering. Money has flooded out of Spain, Greece and the peripheral European economies. Signs of the crisis range from Athen’s soup kitchens to Spain’s crowds of indignados protesting in the streets against austerity and a broken capitalism. Youth unemployment is sky-high. Less visible is the avalanche of money flowing into hoped-for safe havens in the US, Germany and even Britain. The last time the British government could sell government bonds at interest rates as low as today’s was in the early 1700s.
Charles M. Blow: Darkness in the Sunshine State
Florida ought to know better. And must do better, particularly on the issue of voting and discrimination.
But, then again, we are talking about Florida, the state of Bush v. Gore infamy and the one that will celebrate the birthday of Jefferson Davis, the only president of the Confederacy, with a statewide holiday on Sunday.
What am I getting at? This: Few states in the union have done more in recent years to restrict and suppress voting – particularly by groups who lean Democratic, such as young people, the poor and minorities – than Florida.
John Nichols: Progressive Faith Renewed by Recall Vote
Last Saturday, when my mom and I drove into the valley where our ancestors settled more than a century and a half ago, we were greeted by a huge “Barrett — June 5” sign.
Hand-painted with care, in Wisconsin red and white, and displayed in front of a farmhouse on the turn that leads into Wyoming Valley, it was a powerful reminder that June 5’s Wisconsin gubernatorial recall election has its roots in the rural regions and small towns of the state.
That’s where the progressive movement of a century ago took shape. This was the movement for which my great-grandfather and his friend John Blaine campaigned in Boscobel and Blue River, in Lone Rock and Spring Green and across the farm country of Grant, Lafayette, Richland and Iowa counties.
Jun 04 2012
On This Day In History June 4
This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.
Find the past “On This Day in History” here.
Click on image to enlarge
June 4 is the 155th day of the year (156th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 210 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1919, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing women the right to vote, is passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification.
The Nineteenth Amendment‘s text was drafted by Susan B. Anthony with the assistance of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The proposed amendment was first introduced in the U.S. Senate colloquially as the “Anthony Amendment”, by Senator Aaron A. Sargent of California. Sargent, who had met and befriended Anthony on a train ride in 1872, was a dedicated women’s suffrage advocate. He had frequently attempted to insert women’s suffrage provisions into unrelated bills, but did not formally introduce a constitutional amendment until January 1878. Stanton and other women testified before the Senate in support of the amendment. The proposal sat in a committee until it was considered by the full Senate and rejected in a 16 to 34 vote in 1887.
A three-decade period known as “the doldrums” followed, during which the amendment was not considered by Congress and the women’s suffrage movement achieved few victories. During this period, the suffragists pressed for the right to vote in the laws of individual states and territories while retaining the goal of federal recognition. A flurry of activity began in 1910 and 1911 with surprise successes in Washington and California. Over the next few years, most western states passed legislation or voter referenda enacting full or partial suffrage for women. These successes were linked to the 1912 election, which saw the rise of the Progressive and Socialist parties, as well as the election of Democratic President Woodrow Wilson. Not until 1914 was the constitutional amendment again considered by the Senate, where it was again rejected.
On January 12, 1915, a proposal to amend the Constitution to provide for women’s suffrage was brought before the House of Representatives, but was defeated by a vote of 204 to 174. Another proposal was brought before the House on January 10, 1918. During the previous evening, President Wilson made a strong and widely published appeal to the House to pass the amendment. It was passed by the required two-thirds of the House, with only one vote to spare. The vote was then carried into the Senate. Wilson again made an appeal, but on September 30, 1918, the proposal fell two votes short of passage. On February 10, 1919, it was again voted upon and failed by only one vote.
There was considerable desire among politicians of both parties to have the proposal made part of the Constitution before the 1920 general elections, so the President called a special session of the Congress so the proposal would be brought before the House again. On May 21, 1919, it passed the House, 42 votes more than necessary being obtained. On June 4, 1919, it was brought before the Senate and, after a long discussion, it was passed with 56 ayes and 25 nays. Within a few days, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan ratified the amendment, their legislatures being in session. Other states followed suit at a regular pace, until the amendment had been ratified by 35 of the necessary 36 state legislatures. On August 18, 1920, Tennessee narrowly approved the Nineteenth Amendment, with 50 of 99 members of the Tennessee House of Representatives voting yes. This provided the final ratification necessary to enact the amendment.
Jun 03 2012
Rant of the Week: Stephen Colbert
The government takes out Al Qaeda’s “number two,” and Barack Obama finds an alternative to shutting down Guantanamo Bay.
Obama has carried out more than five times the number of covert drone strikes as George Bush.
So what’s behind Obama’s righteous drone strikes? Could it be he is just gunning for another Novel Peace Prize?
Rather than sending prisoners to GITMO, he is taking the high road by sending them to their maker. As the New York Times, puts it Mr, Obama has avoided the complications of detention by deciding to take no prisoners alive.
It’s brilliant. He doesn’t have to worry about habeas corpus because after a drone strike sometimes you can’t even fond the corpus
That brings us to:
The Obama administration reasons that anyone in a strike zone is likely Al Qaeda, so no one has to feel guilty about civilian casualties.
Jun 03 2012
On This Day In History June 3
This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.
Find the past “On This Day in History” here.
Click on image to enlarge
June 3 is the 154th day of the year (155th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 211 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1916, United States President Woodrow Wilson signs into law the National Defense Act, which expanded the size and scope of the National Guard, the network of states’ militias that had been developing steadily since colonial times, and guaranteed its status as the nation’s permanent reserve force.
The National Defense Act of 1916 provided for an expanded army during peace and wartime, fourfold expansion of the National Guard, the creation of an Officers’ and an Enlisted Reserve Corps, plus the creation of a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps in colleges and universities. The President was also given authority, in case of war or national emergency, to mobilize the National Guard for the duration of the emergency.
The act was passed amidst the “preparedness controversy”, a brief frenzy of great public concern over the state of preparation of the United States armed forces, and shortly after Pancho Villa’s cross-border raid on Columbus, New Mexico. Its chief proponent was James Hay of Virginia, the chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs.
Sponsored by Rep. Julius Kahn (R) of California and drafted by the House Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs Rep. James Hay (D) of Virginia, it authorized an army of 175,000 men, a National Guard of 450,000 men. It created the modern Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) and empowered the President to place obligatory orders with manufacturers capable of producing war materials.
Langley Field in Virginia was built as part of the act. Now U.S. Air Force Command HQ as Langley Air Force Base, this “aerodrome” was named after air pioneer Samuel Pierpont Langley (died 1904). The President also requested the National Academy of Sciences to establish the National Research Council to conduct research into the potential of mathematical, biological, and physical science applications for defense. It allocated over $17 million to the Army to build 375 new aeroplanes.
Perhaps most important, it established the right of the President to “Federalize” the National Guard in times of emergency, with individual States’ militias reverting to their control upon the end of the declared emergency. With the Defense Act, Congress was also concerned with ensuring the supply of nitrates (used to make munitions), and it authorized the construction of two nitrate-manufacturing plants and a dam for hydropower as a national defense measure. President Wilson chose Muscle Shoals, Alabama as the site of the dam. The dam was later named for him, and the two Nitrate plants built in Muscle Shoals were later rolled into the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1933.
Developments after September 11, 2001
Prior to the attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001, the National Guard’s general policy regarding mobilization was that Guardsmen would be required to serve no more than one year cumulative on active duty (with no more than six months overseas) for each five years of regular drill. Due to strains placed on active duty units following the attacks, the possible mobilization time was increased to 18 months (with no more than one year overseas). Additional strains placed on military units as a result of the invasion of Iraq further increased the amount of time a Guardsman could be mobilized to 24 months. Current Department of Defense policy is that no Guardsman will be involuntarily activated for more than 24 months (cumulative) in one six year enlistment period.
Traditionally, most National Guard personnel serve “One weekend a month, two weeks a year”, although personnel in highly operational or high demand units serve far more frequently. Typical examples are pilots, navigators and aircrewmen in active flying assignments, primarily in the Air National Guard and to a lesser extent in the Army National Guard. A significant number also serve in a full-time capacity in roles such as Active Guard and Reserve (AGR) or Air Reserve Technician or Army Reserve Technician (ART).
The “One weekend a month, two weeks a year” slogan has lost most of its relevance since the Iraq War, when nearly 28% of total US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan at the end of 2007 consisted of mobilized personnel of the National Guard and other Reserve components.
Jun 03 2012
What About Syria?
Up with Chris Hayes panelists Colonel Jack Jacobs, MSNBC military analyst; Karam Nachar, an activist who has been working with opposition leaders in Syria; Jeremy Scahill of The Nation magazine; and Josh Treviño of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, discuss the international community’s inability to reach a consensus on how to stop President Bashar Al-Assad’s crackdown on protests in Syria.
In the second segment, the panel discusses whether civil war is inevitable in Syria, and whether there’s anything the United States and the world can do to stop it.
Syria’s President Bashar Assad, who took over power from is father in 2000, denied that government forces took part in last week’s gruesome Houla massacre and is accusing outsiders for fueling terrorists and extremist in the unrest that started 14 months ago.
In his hourlong address, Mr. Assad offered no specific response to Mr. Annan’s plea for bold steps to end the conflict.
Instead he repeated many of his earlier pledges to maintain a crackdown on opponents he described as terrorists added by interfering foreign governments and he again offered to sit down with opposition figures who have avoided armed conflict or outside backing. [..]
Last month’s massacre in Houla of 108 people, mostly women and children, triggered global outrage and warnings that Syria’s relentless bloodshed – undimmed by Mr. Annan’s April 12 cease-fire deal – could engulf the Middle East.
Western powers have accused Syrian forces and pro-Assad militia of responsibility for the May 25 Houla killing, a charge Damascus has denied.
On Saturday, fighting killed 89 people, including 57 soldiers
The casualties also included 29 civilians and three army defectors killed in various regions of the country in shelling by regime forces or in clashes or gunfire, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Asked about the high number of troops killed in recent days, the Observatory’s Rami Abdel-Rahman told AFP: “This relates to the sharp increase in clashes across the country. Troops are vulnerable to heavy losses because they are not trained for street battles and are therefore exposed to attacks.”
France has stated that it will not intervene in military action unless it is sanctioned by the United Nations:
French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told an Asian security summit Sunday that the international community should increase sanctions and pressure in an effort to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad. An anti-government uprising has raged for more than a year in Syria.
The conflict is now spreading cross boarder into Lebanon with some heavy fighting in Lebanon:
Bloody clashes between pro- and anti-Syrian regime fighters raged on early Sunday in Tripoli, Lebanon, a day after the deadliest outburst of violence there in recent weeks indicated Syria’s turmoil continues spilling across borders.
Twelve people were killed and about 50 were wounded in fighting on Saturday, the state-run National News Agency reported. [..]
Clashes in both nations pit Sunnis, who make up the majority of the Syrian opposition and population, against Alawites and other Shiites, who are dominant in Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government.
There is no easy solution.
Jun 03 2012
Punting the Pundits: Sunday Preview Edition
“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt
The Sunday Talking Heads:
Up with Chris Hayes:On Sunday morning Chris welcomes Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein, authors of It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism, for their long-awaited first time discussing the controversial book on a national Sunday news program.
Chris’ Sunday panel guests are Michael Steele (@Steele_Michael), MSNBC analyst and former Republican National Committee chairman; Michelle Bernard (@MichelleBernard), MSNBC political analyst and president of the Bernard Center for Women, Politics & Public Policy; Ari Berman (@ariberman), political correspondent for The Nation; Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten), president of the American Federation of Teachers; Bob Herbert (@BobHerbert), distinguished senior fellow at Demos.org; John Nichols (@nicholsuprising), Washington D.C. correspondent for The Nation; and Judith Browne-Dianis (@jbrownedianis), co-director of The Advancement Project.
The Melissa Harris-Perry Show: The website did not list Sunday’s guests.
This Week with George Stephanopolis: Coming up this Sunday, Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter faces off with Romney campaign senior advisor Eric Fehrnstrom on the “This Week” powerhouse roundtable, with ABC News’ George Will, Democratic strategist and ABC News contributor Donna Brazile, and Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, author of the new book “End This Depression Now!”
Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: This Sunday Mr. Schieffer’a guests are President Obama’s campaign advisor David Axelrod and RNC Chairman Rience Priebus; the panel guests are Gov. Ed Rendell (D-PA), and author of “A Nation of Wusses,” Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), The Washington Post‘s Michael Gerson and The Week’s Bob Shrum
David Sanger, author of “Confront and Conceal,” and Daniel Klaidman, author of “Kill and Capture,” join Bob to discuss President Obama’s evolving foreign policy strategy
The Chris Matthews Show: The week’s guests are Katty Kay
BBC Washington Correspondent; Andrew Sullivan The Daily Beast Editor, The Dish; Andrea Mitchell NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent; and John Heilemann New York Magazine National Political Correspondent
Meet the Press with David Gregory: Sunday’s guests are Obama backer Gov. Deval Patrick (D-MA) and governor of the important battleground state Ohio and Romney backer, John Kasich (R).
The political roundtable will weigh in on the latest campaign positioning: Romney Senior Adviser Kevin Madden, Former McCain ’08 Senior Strategist Steve Schmidt, President of the Center for American Progress Neera Tanden, and Atlanta’s Mayor Kasim Reed (D).
State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Ms. Crowley’s guests are Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett; Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia; Senators Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Mark Warner (D-VA); the Washington Post‘s Dan Balz, the Wall Street Journal‘s Stephen Moore and Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics.
Jun 02 2012
The Drone Wars: Obama’s “Kill List”
On Up with Chris Hayes, Chris and his guests exam the drone war and President Barack Obama’s ‘kill list’ that was revealed in a much read and discussed article in the New York Times. In the following three segments Chris along with Colonel Jack Jacobs, MSNBC military analyst; Hina Shamsi from the ACLU’s National Security Project; Jeremy Scahill of The Nation magazine; and Josh Treviño of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, discuss new revelations about the Obama administration’s drone program, including a reported “kill list” overseen directly by President Obama. They also examine the possibility that the Obama administration has been classifying civilian casualties as combatant deaths, as well as, the Obama administration’s contention that its targeted killing program is constitutional, and asks whether Congress is failing to hold the president accountable.
Jun 02 2012
Health and Fitness News
Welcome to the Stars Hollow Health and Fitness News weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.
Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.
You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.
Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt
Roasting brings a rich dimension to all sorts of vegetables. I’d never thought of roasting broccoli, for instance, but now I’ll be roasting that vegetable as often as I steam it, for sure. [..]
You can get ahead on lasagna by making up big batches of marinara sauce and freezing it, or in a pinch use a good commercial brand. The noodles are no-boil, which really makes these lasagnas easy to assemble. They make great one-dish meals, and I think they’re very kid-friendly. They can be made ahead and reheated (I’m pulling the leftovers of this week’s recipe tests out of my refrigerator and feeding them to a group of hungry teenagers after a school concert tonight), or frozen.
~Martha Rose Schulman~
This is adapted from a much richer Italian vegetable lasagna recipe. Roasting the zucchini adds a welcome layer of flavor.
Lasagna With Spicy Roasted Cauliflower
Now that I’ve discovered how delicious roasted cauliflower is and how easy it is to do it, that’s the only way I want to cook it. It might be difficult to abstain from eating the cauliflower before you’ve gotten it into your lasagna.
Lasagna With Roasted Eggplant, Mushrooms and Carrots
This is like a combination of eggplant Parmesan and lasagna, with the added texture and flavor provided by savory mushrooms and sweet roasted carrots.
The broccoli part of this recipe is adapted from Molly Stevens’ Blasted Broccoli in her wonderful book “All About Roasting.”
Lasagna With Roasted Beets and Herb Béchamel
I also call this “pink lasagna,” as the beets will bleed into the béchamel and onto the pasta when it bakes. Roast the beets ahead so that they will be cool enough to handle easily when you’re ready to assemble the lasagna.
Jun 02 2012
Punting the Pundits
“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt
Marcy Wheeler: The “Kill List” Is a Shiny Object
I recognize the term “Kill List” has some political advantages. It’s a concise way to convey the cold brutality of our use of drones. Launching a petition for a Do Not Kill list-on the White House’s own website!-is a clever use of social media.
That’s because it propagates the myth that everyone we’re killing is a known terrorist. It propagates the myth that the outdated vetting process John Brennan wants to publicize to convince the American public we use a very deliberative process before killing people with drones covers all drone killings. It propagates the myth that the government plans out each and every drone strike so thoroughly as to have the President sign off on it.
Mr. Obama is the liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq war and torture, and then insisted on approving every new name on an expanding “kill list,” poring over terrorist suspects’ biographies on what one official calls the macabre “baseball cards” of an unconventional war.
It propagates the myth that the only innocents killed in drone strikes – 19 year old Yemeni farmer Nasser Salim killed in the Fahd al-Quso drone strike, the girl Baitullah Mehsud had just married, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki had the poor judgment to stand next to one of the named people on one of America’s Kill Lists.
The reference to and focus on a Kill List hides precisely the most controversial use of drones outside of Afghanistan: the targeting of patterns, not people.
But the “Kill List” is a shiny object.
Gabor Rona and Daphne Eviatar: Kill the ‘Kill List’: Obama’s Assassination Program is Illegal and Immoral
The Obama administration is grossly misreading international law when it comes to targeting terrorists.
Earlier this week, the New York Times published a stunning front-page article by Jo Becker and Scott Shane that portrays U.S. President Barack Obama as so genuinely concerned about the ethics of U.S. warfare that he’s taken to personally reviewing the government’s “kill list” to make the ultimate moral calculation of who gets to live or die, based on secret U.S. intelligence. The Times described the president as poring over terrorist suspects’ biographies — their “baseball cards,” as one unnamed official put it — and making the final determination of whether and when a suspected terrorist leader, and sometimes his family, will be killed.
But if the president’s personal involvement is laudable, the killings themselves are no less controversial. And, if the Times’s reporting is accurate, the program itself is illegal.
Becker and Shane confirm what we could only guess from remarks made by Obama’s advisors in the past: that the United States is targeting to kill individuals overseas who do not pose an imminent threat to the United States and who are not directly participating in hostilities against Americans. That’s a violation of international law.
The White House must be telling itself there are still five months between now and Election Day, so the jobs picture could brighten. After all, we went through a similar mid-year slump in 2011 but came out fine.
But however you look at today’s jobs report, it’s a stunning reminder of how anemic the recovery has been – and how perilously close the nation is to falling into another recession. [..]
Republicans will have a field day with today’s jobs report, taking it as a sign that Obama’s economic policies have failed and we need instead their brand of fiscal austerity combined with more tax cuts for the wealthy.
But that’s precisely the reverse of what’s needed.
Robert Alverez: Nuclear Tuna and NPR’s Trivialization
NPR shouldn’t trivialize the risk of radioactive tuna from the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Yesterday, National Public Radio (NPR) ran a story asserting that cesium-137 from the Fukushima nuclear accident found in Bluefish tuna on the west coast of the U.S. is harmless.
It’s not harmless. The Fukushima nuclear accident released about as much cesium-137 as a thermonuclear weapon with the explosive force of 11 million tons of TNT. In the spring of 1954, after the United States exploded nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands, the Japanese government had to confiscate about 4 million pounds of contaminated fish.
Radiation from Fukushima spread far and wide. Like American hydrogen bomb testing, the Fukushima nuclear accident deposited cesium-137 over 600,000 square-miles of the Pacific, as well as the Northern Hemisphere and Europe. With a half-life of 30 years, cesium-137 is taken up in the meat of the tuna as if it were potassium, indicating that the metabolism holds on to it.
Jessica Valenti: What Would George Tiller Do?
The late doctor trusted women. It was his philosophy and practice.
Today is the third anniversary of Dr. George Tiller’s assassination. On May 31, 2009, Tiller was shot and killed by Scott Roeder while he served as an usher in his Wichita church. Tiller was one of the only abortion providers in the country to provide late-term abortions. He often wore a button that said “Trust Women.”
I wonder, if Dr. Tiller were alive today, what he would think about the unwavering attack against women’s reproductive freedom and bodily integrity-if he could ever of imagined that American women would still not just be fighting for the right to abortion but for birth control. Or that there would be a national debate on whether or not it’s appropriate to call a woman who wants contraception coverage a “prostitute.” I imagine that even for a man who had seen a lot of misogyny in his life, the current climate against women would be shocking.
Since Tiller’s murder, the legislative agenda against reproductive justice-and common-sense decency-has been staggering.
Robert Weissman: The Transparently Secretive Chamber of Commerce
Well, the Big Business guys are transparent about one thing: They can’t stand the idea of the public holding them to account for their attempts to buy elections and influence policy, or even that they be prevented from corrupting the government contracting process through campaign spending.
The latest: They are so terrified of having their political spending disclosed that they are pushing in Congress legislation that would prohibit the government from requiring contractors to disclose their campaign-related spending.
Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine, is carrying their water, with the Orwellian “Keeping Politics Out of Federal Contracting Act,” a bill that recently passed the Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs and may well become law unless the public demands otherwise. To take action to stop this abomination, go here.
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