Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 UN claims possible genocide in DRCongo

by Hui Min, AFP

31 mins ago

First of all, here’s a great one paragraph description of the current state of the world economy-

Major advanced economies are still reeling from the effects of a burst housing bubble and the financial crisis that followed. Consumer spending is depressed, and firms see no point in expanding when they aren’t selling enough to use the capacity they have. The recession may be officially over, but unemployment is extremely high and shows no sign of returning to normal levels.

Here’s a prescription for at least partially addressing it, at least for the United States-

Taking On China

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: September 30, 2010

So what will the bill accomplish? It empowers U.S. officials to impose tariffs against Chinese exports subsidized by the artificially low renminbi, but it doesn’t require these officials to take action. And judging from past experience, U.S. officials will not, in fact, take action – they’ll continue to make excuses, to tout imaginary diplomatic progress, and, in general, to confirm China’s belief that they are paper tigers.

The Levin bill is, then, a signal at best – and it’s at least as much a shot across the bow of U.S. officials as it is a signal to the Chinese. But it’s a step in the right direction.

For the truth is that U.S. policy makers have been incredibly, infuriatingly passive in the face of China’s bad behavior – especially because taking on China is one of the few policy options for tackling unemployment available to the Obama administration, given Republican obstructionism on everything else. The Levin bill probably won’t change that passivity. But it will, at least, start to build a fire under policy makers, bringing us closer to the day when, at long last, they are ready to act.

Now it all seems a little Smoot Hawley to me but I’m really not equipped to judge, however the mere fact our “educated” elites are reduced to measures this drastic by the narrow mindedness of their thinking just flat out stuns me until I remember how inbred and ignorant they are.

I’m reminded of very serious solutions to problems like climate change where people are paying more and more attention to crackpot terraformers instead of simply inflating their tires and painting their roofs white, investing in Rail (diesel/electric is really efficient) and flying less, eating less meat (factory farming has an incredible carbon footprint) and other really common sense and easy to do things.

I’m not calling Krugman a crackpot terraformer, what I’m saying is that it’s a sorry state of affairs indeed that our only options are extreme.

A Full Night of Premiers!  Broadcast TV is so Huxtable.  Four games left.  Mets finish Sunday against the Nats.  They have to win out to have a .500 season.  The Bridges of Madison County is a good movie, but this is the 2700th time TV Guide has played it, they’re playing it twice, AND making their channel totally useless until 3 am for it’s intended use as a (DUH!) TV Guide.

Assholes.

Well, it’s not like there’s anything worth watching anyway.

• ABC Family– Where the Heart Is
• Comedy– Futurama marathon
• Disney– Phineas and Ferb (salute to The Wizard of Oz)
• ESPN– College Throwball, Texas A&M @ Oklahoma State
• Food– Double helping of Alton, Pad Thai and Chicken Dumplings
• FX– Two and a Half Men marathon, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and The League (premiers)
• Lifetime– Project Runway (last week’s and new)
• TBS– Men in Black
• Turner Classic– Wuthering Heights, The Heiress
• TLC– Sr. v. Jr. marathon (including premier)
• TNT– Failure to Launch
• Toon– Total Drama World Tour, Regular Show, MAD (repeats of this week’s premiers)
• USA– NCIS marathon

Later-

• Food– Chopped, Iron Chef America
• Style– Disclosure
• Turner Classic– The Lady Eve
• Adult Swim– Delocated, American Dad x 2

Dave hosts Tom Selleck, Janet Elder, and Tired Pony.  Jon has Justin Timberlake, Stephen Aaron Sorkin.  No Alton.  No Boondocks.

THESE are the hot sheets?

Best investigative reporting on the planet. But go ahead, read the New York Times if you want. They get lucky sometimes.

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Ireland reveals full horror of banking crisis

by Andrew Bushe and Roland Jackson, AFP

1 hr 21 mins ago

Soros, Lewis and Other Big Donors Abandon Democrats For Progressives and Weed

By: Jane Hamsher Thursday September 30, 2010 9:29 am

Privately, the closed wallets of Democratic billionaires like George Soros and Peter Lewis is all that the poobahs of the DC fundraising world have been talking about for weeks.  But now it’s hit the New York Times:

Many wealthy Democratic patrons, who in the past have played major roles financing outside groups to help elect the party’s candidates, are largely sitting out these crucial midterm elections. Democratic donors like George Soros, the bête noire of the right, and his fellow billionaire Peter B. Lewis, who each gave more than $20 million to Democratic-oriented groups in the 2004 election, appear to be holding back so far. “Mr. Soros believes that he can be most effective by funding groups that promote progressive policy outcomes in areas such as health care, the environment and foreign policy,” said an adviser, Michael Vachon. “So he has opted to fund those activities.”

…

Gay men, pro-choice women and environmentalists are probably the three biggest issue-based donor groups for the Democratic Party, and all three are absolutely ripshit at the way the Democrats have squandered their majorities.  They’re also furious at the veal pen outfits that collaborated with the Democrats and gave them cover for their actions and have cut them off, too. Guess that weekly invite to the Common Purpose meeting turned out not to be such a hot ticket after all.

..

The bigger problem for the Democrats, however,  is not that Lewis and Soros are sitting it out – it’s that Lewis and Soros are considered “lead donors.”  Where they go, other donors follow.  If they decide to sit it out, so will others.

The complaints that Soros and Lewis have are the same ones expressed by all those hippies that Robert Gibbs, Joe Biden, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have been punching.  It’s a malaise felt by the entire progressive base, who can’t be spurred into action by being told to “buck up.”

I’ll tell you one thing, though. As pissed off as people are, it’s going to be nothing compared to the rage that will be unleashed if the Catfood Commission’s recommendations to cut Social Security benefits gets passed – and Alice Rivlin says the “stars are aligned” for it to happen.   They could snap the spine of the Democratic party completely with that one.

Citing the same NYT piece-

Nobody Should Give Money to This Crowd

by Taylor Marsh, 30 September 2010 4:00 pm

Pres. Obama, Sen. Reid and Speaker Pelosi compromised on health care without a fight. They did deals in the dark with the insurance companies, not to mention the Catholic Church, then shoved a mandate on health care down the rest of the Democratic Party’s throat, as well as the American public, while movement progressives screamed to high heaven what it would cost them.

…

They passed stimulus with a big “D” on it that wasn’t what was needed, managing to get people furious about the spending, especially since it wasn’t enough to actually do the job. In other words, they failed to do their job, because they didn’t have the courage to do the stimulus that was actually needed and could have proved Democratic policies can work when they’re done the right way.

Pres. Obama, Sen. Reid and Speaker Pelosi decided that turning into the Bush era crimes of torture, intelligence tampering, as well as constitutional overreach, was not important for Democrats to take up, so not only did they let Bush-Cheney get away with what they did on the run up to the Iraq war, but the negligence of Democratic leadership, starting with Pres. Obama, has actually allowed for the rehabilitation of Bush-Cheney in some quarters.

…

The Catfood Commission is a prime example. The only reason this was set up is because Pres. Obama wanted it. We don’t need no stinking commission, because Congress is perfectly capable of taking care of Social Security, which means preserving it. However, like in all things, Pres. Obama wanted the cover of a commission so he could blame someone else on what he actually hopes to do: raise the retirement age; cut benefits; privatize elements of the plan. Pick one, or choose all. Why a Democrat would put in play a bipartisan commission on a signature Democratic Party issue that cemented the reputation of the party as working for financial security for all, specifically as Americans age, is something that few Democrats can stomach, myself included.

…

There is a cluelessness among Democratic leadership in Congress that has forgotten their job and has them siding with the Executive Branch, because Pres. Obama is one of their own, even if he is calling open season on one of the signature Democratic policies that long time Democratic voters believe in, have worked for all of their activist lives, but is also one of the policies that signifies the difference between Democrats and Republicans.

Pres. Obama has already sacrificed health care to insurance companies, putting forth a law that is disliked by the majority of the public, but also will be easy to dismantle by defunding its implementation. He’s mimicked George W. Bush on security issue after issue, while completely forgetting his promise to close Gitmo, with his promises on DADT weighing most gays and lesbians down in disbelief.

…

So why would anyone in their right mind give buckets of money to the Democrats right now? They shouldn’t and they aren’t, and small donations won’t cut it this time around, especially since they won’t be coming in like they used to. Something that will hit Pres. Obama over the head once re-election time begins.

emptywheel is spending a week in Scotland and is likely to be pretty soused most of the time.  She left behind some good stuff about the Obama Administration’s recent record on Civil Liberties.

You know, things he’s fucked up just in the last week or so.

Generally they fall into 5 categories-

• 5 on Assassination Authority
• 2 on Intelligence Transparency
• 2 on Indefinite Detention
• 1 on Electronic Surveillance
• 6 on FBI Surveillance of Peace Activists

I’ve published some digests below the fold along with a bonus piece by bmaz on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Assassination Authority

Obama Doesn’t Know Why the Fuck He’s Entitled to Kill Al-Awlaki, He Just Is, Damnit

By: emptywheel Saturday September 25, 2010 11:54 am

This is not a court filing. It’s a “choose your own adventure novel” for the judge:

1. Is AQAP part of al Qaeda? (if yes, then go to dead al-Awlaki)
2. Is AQAP an “organized associated force of al Qaeda”? (if yes, then go to dead al-Awlaki)
3. Do Presidents get to self-authorize going to war (if yes, then go to dead al-Awlakil; if no, go to “alternatives to the AUMF”)
4. What do you think of the “inherent right to self defense”? (if yes, then go to dead al-Awlaki)
5. To abide by the Constitution and other laws, the President can’t be bound by “generalized standards.” The End. (go to dead al-Awlaki)

And mind you, we’ve set off on this “choose your own adventure in tyranny novel” even before we’ve gotten to the government’s invocation of state secrets. Just in case you had any doubts about their claim to unlimited power…

Lots of broadcast premiers, none worth watching despite the paucity of programming elsewhere.  I suggest a nap or a good book or spending time with friends and family.  How about a nice game of Yahtzee?

• AMC– The Enforcer x 2, Sudden Impact (didn’t we do Dirty Harry like last week?)
• Bravo– Top Chef marathon (with premier)
• Discovery– Mythbusters marathon
• ESPN– Diamondbacks @ Giants
• FX– Meet the Spartans, Terriers (premier)
• Lifetime– Never Been Kissed x 2
• Oxygen– Just Friends x 2
• Turner Classic– Days of Heaven, The Sundowners
• Travel– Man v. Food marathon (thank goodness)
• TV Guide– Tin Cup x 2
• USA– NCIS marathon

Later-

• Turner Classic– The Southerner
• USA– National Treasure: Book of Secrets x 2

Dave hosts Bloomberg (you should really click) and Jesse Eisenberg.  Jon has Linda Polman, Stephen Steve Rattner.  No Alton.

Boondocks– Guess Hoe’s Coming to Dinner, also Harvey Birdman, Yabba Dabba Don.

Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Workers swarm Europe’s streets in anti-cuts protests

by Roddy Thomson, AFP

55 mins ago

Now that Peter Daou and Politico have thoughfully provided us with an Obama Administration ‘Enemies List’ and I have gotten over my embarrassment at not being famous and influential enough to be on it (yet), I thought I’d share one of its prominent members, John Aravosis’, reaction-

(E)ven when you say “the blogs helped cause the President’s problems” what does that mean?  The Obama administration and its apologists would have you believe that the liberal blogs have an almost svengali-like power to trick our readers, and Democratic voters generally, into being disappointed with the President and Congress.  I’m not convinced that our readers are so stupid that they’d believe “lies.”  We could only get away with lying once or twice before our stories simply wouldn’t pan out, our predictions wouldn’t end up happening, and our readers would realize that we had no clue what was really going on in Washington politics.  Except we ended up being right.

On gay rights, Joe and I have an almost perfect track record of predicting everything the Obama administration and Democratic Congress were going to do on DADT, DOMA and ENDA, and ultimately, in predicting just how much trouble our community would be in as a result of the Democrats’ disinterest in our issues.

But the gay community isn’t alone.  Glenn Greenwald and the ACLU surely haven’t been wrong about their early warnings regarding Obama’s civil liberties policies.  And were environmentalists wrong to question whether Team Obama would act forcefully and quickly on global warming?  Have Latinos been wrong to worry that Obama wouldn’t keep his promise to pass immigration reform last year, and now this year?  Then there’s health care reform – yes, the President and the Congress did something, but not nearly what they were capable of doing with the majorities and the public support we gave them.

Perhaps the reason the President’s voters-turned-critics have influence, and perhaps the reason the President and the party are increasingly less popular, isn’t because we’re consistently wrong – but rather because we’re right.

And nothing makes you more hated by fools and liars than being right.

I Trust It Is Now Clear Democrats Hate The Left

by Ian Welsh, September 29 2010

Now that virtually everyone of any importance, up to and including the President has told you that they hate you, that you are a bunch of unrealistic ingrates who need to be drug tested, I trust no one still thinks the White House doesn’t hate the left’s guts, and that it comes from the very top, from the President?

…

Not just that, but for whatever reason, these folks either don’t care about winning elections or are so incompetent they can’t see the obvious.  Everyone with any track record of being, y’know, right, told them the stimulus was too small and every political consultant knows the economy is the most important thing to reelection chances, yet they passed an inadequate stimulus anyway.  In a midterm election where they need the base to come out, they have spent the last six months insulting the base and engaging in policy after policy meant to enrage it.  They could have, for example, put off filing a brief arguing that government secrecy allows the president to assassinate any American he wants anytime until after the election, but they chose not to.

It is, for whatever reason, more important to Democrats to “hippie punch” than it is for them to win elections. It is more important for them to serve Wall Street, even if Wall Street gives more money to Republicans, than it is to win elections.  Further, they are  very happy to do very non-liberal things, like restrict abortion rights, forbid drug reimportation, gut net neutrality or try and cut social security.

…

This is your Democratic party.  These people are the problem. As long as they are around, the problem can never be solved.  If it could be, they would have done so.  This means, sorry folks, that the only hope for liberalism and for America to avoid a complete economic meltdown, is for Democrats to be swept out of power and for as many Dems who aren’t reliable progressives to lose their seats as possible.

Yes, the Republicans will do worse things, but that’s going to happen anyway.  And in some cases, as with Social Security, it is better to have Republicans in power, because it is easier to fight Republican efforts to gut SS than it is to fight Democratic efforts to do so.

Obama Scapegoats His Own Voters

By: Cenk Uygur Wednesday September 29, 2010 3:05 am

They think they’re going to lose and they’re setting up a scapegoat. It wasn’t that they ran a bad campaign or that they didn’t deliver on their promises – it was their ungrateful voters and the damned professional left. Actually, Washington reporters will love this. There is nothing they enjoy more than beating up on progressive activists and the Democratic base. This strategy is tailored made for the DC elite. They’re going to eat it up!

…

I think they still believe that the DC media is a good proxy for the mood of the country. That is a stunning and inexcusable error. But they’re so deep in, they can’t even see that losing the election and winning over the DC establishment is not a win or a wash, that’s a gigantic loss. Do you think making David Broder happy will win you the 2012 election?

…

Almost everyone in Washington is there because they succeeded in this broken, corrupt system. If you make them happy, you’ve probably done the exact opposite of what you were supposed to do.

What got you elected was the promise to throw those bums out on their asses not to cater to them. But if you like, you can take another cheap shot at the people trying to help you and see if that changes the polls. My guess is it won’t. And then when you blame us again, the only people happy will be the ones in DC who hate change.

Obama’s CYA 2010 Talking Points for Rolling Stone

by Taylor Marsh, 28 September 2010 4:18 pm

Barack Obama is never responsible. What’s worse is that it doesn’t even occur to the President to show humility in the face of compromises with Republicans that manifested policies that haven’t solved the problems he was sent to fix. I won’t take you through the litany of bipartisan mush Obama and his loyalists call “accomplishments,” most of which any Democratic president elected in 2008 could have gotten done with a Republican Congress, though we’ll never know what a could have done with a Democratic majority if Pres. Obama would have been bold instead of compromising with the minority at every turn.

The hubris of Pres. Obama to point the finger at voters at a time when it’s his responsibility and that of the Dem leadership to make the case for Democrats is choking.

Pres. Obama obviously thinks Democratic voters are his bitch and an abused one at that; the more you whip the stupid wench the more she’ll perform for you, no matter whether she gets anything for her trouble. After all, she’s got nowhere else to go, right?