Jan 07 2011

Let’s Pretend It Doesn’t Exist

(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Over the last week or so a trend has emerged to rewrite, or radically edit, parts of historical documents because some would like to revise history, pretend it never happened, because it is uncomfortable or embarrassing. Two cases stand out more than any others. First, there was the “rewriting” of Mark Twain‘s classic novel of childhood in the South, Huckleberry Finn which was edited to remove the “N” word. The other was the new Republican controlled House of Representatives reading their version of the US Constitution. I didn’t know there was another one, silly me.

I’ll start with the Washington Post’s columnist, Dana Milbank. Yes, Dana, who rarely says anything I can agree with but he managed to surprise me with this from his Op-Ed, A Sanitized Constitution

Reading the document aloud failed to re-affirm lawmakers’ fealty to the framers.

It was a straightforward proposition: The new House Republican majority would lead the chamber in reading the Constitution. But nothing in Congress is straightforward, and the moment the lawmakers began the exercise Thursday morning, they bogged down in a dispute.

They couldn’t agree on which version to read.

Now most Americans are of the impression that there isn’t, say, a King James version of the Constitution and a New International version of the Constitution. There is only one version. But our leaders had other views. . . . .

In fact, there is only one version of the Constitution – and it wasn’t what the lawmakers read aloud. What the Republican majority decided to read was a sanitized Constitution – an excerpted version of the founding document conjuring a fanciful land that never counted a black person as three-fifths of a white person, never denied women the right to vote, never allowed slavery and never banned liquor.

The idea of reading the Constitution aloud was generated by the Tea Party as a way to re-affirm lawmakers’ fealty to the framers, but in practice it did the opposite. In deciding to omit objectionable passages that were later altered by amendment, the new majority jettisoned “originalist” and “constructionist” beliefs and created – dare it be said? – a “living Constitution” pruned of the founders’ missteps. Nobody’s proud of the three-fifths compromise, but how can we learn from our founding if we aren’t honest about it?

What can I say? But that the revisionist Republicans would like you to believe that the US is a “perfect” union. Well, not quite yet but despite them, some of us are still striving.

Now there is the sanitizing of “Huckleberry Finn” by Alan Gribben, a professor of English,  because the use of the “N” word  throughout the book that may have

resulted in the novel falling off reading lists, and that he thought his edition would be welcomed by schoolteachers and university instructors who wanted to spare “the reader from a racial slur that never seems to lose its vitriol.” Never mind that today nigger is used by many rappers, who have reclaimed the word from its ugly past. Never mind that attaching the epithet slave to the character Jim – who has run away in a bid for freedom – effectively labels him as property, as the very thing he is trying to escape.

Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t encouraging students to think and exposing them to facts part of teaching? Since when does taking offense words out of books, or for that matter entire books out of a curriculum, foster understanding? It is and it doesn’t. We need to know history to understand it. We need to read the facts and words that make us uncomfortable in our own “skin”.

New York Times book reviewer, Michiko Kakutani, writes:

Controversies over “Huckleberry Finn” occur with predictable regularity. In 2009, just before Barack Obama’s inauguration, a high school teacher named John Foley wrote a guest column in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer in which he asserted that “Huckleberry Finn,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Of Mice and Men,” don’t belong on the curriculum anymore. “The time has arrived to update the literature we use in high school classrooms,” he wrote. “Barack Obama is president-elect of the United States, and novels that use the ‘N-word’ repeatedly need to go.”

Haven’t we learned by now that removing books from the curriculum just deprives children of exposure to classic works of literature? Worse, it relieves teachers of the fundamental responsibility of putting such books in context – of helping students understand that “Huckleberry Finn” actually stands as a powerful indictment of slavery (with Nigger Jim its most noble character), of using its contested language as an opportunity to explore the painful complexities of race relations in this country. To censor or redact books on school reading lists is a form of denial: shutting the door on harsh historical realities – whitewashing them or pretending they do not exist.

(emphasis mine)

As Adam Sewer observed comparing the Republican “edition” of the Constitution and the edited version of Twain’s classic, “This kind of political correctness offers no justice to the descendants of slaves — it merely papers over a terrible ugliness that is an essential part of American history.”

I’ll leave the final thought to Jamelle Bouie, who said it best:

But erasing “nigger” from Huckleberry Finn-or ignoring our failures-doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t provide racial enlightenment, or justice, and it won’t shield anyone from the legacy of slavery and racial discrimination. All it does is feed the American aversion to history and reflection. Which is a shame. If there’s anything great about this country, it’s in our ability to account for and overcome our mistakes. Peddling whitewashed ignorance diminishes America as much as it does our intellect.

(emphasis mine)

Jan 07 2011

What NEVER to do

NEVER be unfaithful to your mate.

You will hate yourself later, so just do not do it.

Warmest regards,

Doc

Jan 07 2011

Do No Harm

I recently found a pretty cool website.

Do No Harm is a non-profit web site that promotes just what it says.

from their main page:

We seem to be living in a world that is getting less hospitable every day. Look closely at any endeavor our species has engaged in and it appears we are unaware of the harm we do, we ignore the harm we do, we intentionally do harm for our own gain, or sadly in some cases we do harm for our own pleasure and enjoyment.

Has no one taught us to do no harm?

If we haven’t been taught to do no harm, we see no harm in doing harm. We cause harm and shrug it off. We cause harm and laugh about it. We cause harm and brag about it.

Sadder still, our children bear witness to our actions and never learn to do no harm themselves. Above all else we must teach our children, by example and instruction, this basic moral principle of life.

We must begin to make better choices and treat each other, the other creatures who share this planet with us, and this planet we call home with greater respect and compassion.

We believe that the first and most basic moral law is, “Do no harm.” Because we can feel pain and suffering, we can imagine the pain and suffering of others, and we can act accordingly to minimize the harm we cause.

What does “do no harm” mean? Ultimately it means to give thoughtful consideration to our actions. “Do no harm” simply means to consider how our actions may affect the world we all share, to be compassionate in our dealings with all creatures, and not to thoughtlessly despoil our planet.

Doctors are asked to “first do no harm,” why not lawyers, businessmen, religious leaders and politicians? Why not us? Why not now?

It sounds like a simple idea because it is a simple idea, but it may be effective over the long run. Will “do no harm” solve all the problems in our world? Perhaps not, but this is an effort to decrease the suffering in the world and to increase the kindness.

We hope that “do no harm” becomes that little voice that guides our actions.

And we hope you will join us and spread the message “Do no harm.”

Show everyone you care and use “Do no harm” to sign-off in your correspondence in place of “Best Wishes”, “Yours” or “Regards.”

If you have a web site, be proud of your support and add the words “Do No Harm” to the top of your home page where everyone will see it.

Be bold and creative in thinking of ways to expose as many as possible to the “Do No Harm” message, but please, do no harm in doing so.

It is not necessary to mention the source of the message. This is certainly a case where the message is far more important than the messengers. All we ask is that you practice do no harm and take every opportunity to share the words “do no harm” with others.

If you wish to include this essay or link to the “Do No Harm” web page, please do; or if you wish to change the wording or write your own, that’s equally OK with us. If we are to change our world for the better, we simply must share the “Do No Harm” message with family and friends, with neighbors and our community.

(my emphasis)

this is an idea that i completely believe in.

this is something i try to live every day (not always succeeding)

then i saw their rules:

DO NO HARM is a non-profit non-organization.

If you think you’re a member,

You’re a member.

If you think you’re not a member,

You’re an honorary member.

There are no dues or fees.

There are no donations.

There is no official language or terminology.

There are no approved or disapproved concepts.

There is nothing special that you must believe.

There is nothing special that you must do or not do.

But . . . do no harm.

p.s:  Although not required, a sense of humor is helpful.

Great Rules huh?

i have written to the Do No Harm people to add firefly-dreaming to their links page & to add my name as co-author on their front page. (quoted above) You too can be a co-author by sending your first & last name, city, state & country to: [email protected]

I also asked to be a distributor of their free promotional material: bumper stickers, window decals & wristbands.

you can get your own batch of free stuff to put on your bumper & distribute to your friends. all you have to do is write to: [email protected]  & give them your name & address.

i’ve made a “badge” & added it to my blog & also added them in my links list.

i encourage you to do the same  

I’m hoping you will all join me in promoting

Jan 07 2011

Prime Time

That was quick.

I have to admit another guilty pleasure. Leonardo DiCaprio’s first movie, The Quick and the Dead.  In fairness it also has Sharon Stone, Russell Crowe, and Gene Hackman.

All I hear from you, you spineless cowards, is how poor you are; how you can’t afford my taxes. Yet somehow, you managed to find the money to hire a gunfighter to kill me. If ya got so much money, I’m just gonna have to take some more. Because clearly some of you haven’t got the message! This is my town! I run everything! If you live to see the dawn, it’s because I allow it! I decide who lives and who dies!

Later-

Dave hosts Seth Rogen, Beau Garrett, and The Walkmen.  Jon has Patton Oswalt, Stephen Dr. Ronald Depinho.  Conan in repeats from 12/13.

Elaine, you’re a member of this crew. Can you face some unpleasant facts?

No.

I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.

Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings

Jan 07 2011

Evening Edition

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Ivory Coast rival urges raid to snatch Gbagbo

by Evelyne Aka, AFP

1 hr 37 mins ago

ABIDJAN (AFP) – Ivory Coast’s internationally recognised president called Thursday for a bloodless raid by west African special forces to snatch defiant strongman Laurent Gbagbo and “take him elsewhere” amid fears of civil war.

Alassane Ouattara’s call came after regional bloc ECOWAS said it was prepared to use military force as a last resort to oust Gbagbo who retains control of the army and continues to defy international calls to step down.

“If he persists, it’s up to ECOWAS to take the necessary measures and those measures can include legitimate force,” Ouattara told journalists at the Abidjan hotel where he has for weeks been besieged by Gbagbo forces.

2 I.Coast’s Gbagbo has ‘blood on his hands’ says rival

AFP

Thu Jan 6, 9:32 am ET

ABIDJAN (AFP) – Ivory Coast’s internationally recognised president has accused incumbent Laurent Gbagbo of masterminding a campaign of rape and murder of his supporters as the deadly stand-off’s toll rose further.

Alassane Ouattara, besieged by Gbagbo troops since the world said he won a November presidential run-off, told Europe 1 radio that violence allegedly carried out by Liberian mercenaries on his rival’s behalf left Gbagbo with blood on his hands.

“Many Ivorians have been killed by the mercenaries and militia of Laurent Gbagbo,” Ouattara said in the interview with the French radio station recorded Wednesday from his blockaded hotel headquarters in Abidjan.

3 Egypt Copts mark Christmas under tight security

by Samer al-Atrush, AFP

38 mins ago

CAIRO (AFP) – Coptic Christians in Egypt gathered for Christmas Eve services on Thursday, protected by a cordon of steel put up by security forces after a New Year church bombing killed 21 people in Alexandria.

Security officials said at least 70,000 officers and conscripts were deployed across the country to secure churches as Copts attended Christmas Eve mass.

Police said one primitive explosive device — a tin can filled with fire crackers, nails and bolts, but with no detonator — was found in a church in the southern city of Minya.

4 Egypt Copts to mark Christmas under tight security

by Samer al-Atrush, AFP

Thu Jan 6, 8:08 am ET

CAIRO (AFP) – Egyptian security forces began throwing up a cordon of steel on Thursday as Coptic Christians prepared to mark Christmas after a New Year’s Day church bombing killed 21 people in Alexandria.

As police released a sketch of the suspected bomber, security officials said at least 70,000 officers and conscripts would fan out across the country to secure churches as Copts attend Christmas Eve mass.

Drivers would be banned from parking their cars in front of churches, which would be tightly monitored by explosive detection teams and police officers, the official said.

5 All ‘on track’ for south Sudan vote: UN

by Peter Martell, AFP

32 mins ago

JUBA, Sudan (AFP) – Preparations for south Sudan’s independence referendum are “on track” with just three days to go before the historic vote, the head of United Nations peacekeepers in the south said on Thursday.

“Everything appears to be on track for the region’s 2,638 polling centres, which are scheduled to open at 8 am (0500 GMT) on January 9,” said David Gressly, head of the United Nations Mission to Sudan in the south.

“The many sceptics who never thought southern Sudan would be ready to hold its referendum by next Sunday were proven wrong,” he told reporters in the regional capital Juba.

6 France fears ‘economic war’ after Renault spy scandal

by Djallal Malti, AFP

1 hr 57 mins ago

PARIS (AFP) – France said Thursday it was the target of “economic war” after an industrial espionage scandal at Renault involving electric car technology, the auto industry’s big hope for the future.

Renault and its Japanese partner Nissan have staked their future on electric vehicles and plan to launch several models by 2014 to meet the rapidly rising demand for more environmentally-friendly methods of transport.

They forecast that electric cars will make up 10 percent of the market by 2020 and are pumping 200 million euros a year in their electric programmes, while other major carmakers are also investing heavily in the sector.

7 Obama challenges Republicans on US debt

by Olivier Knox, AFP

1 hr 27 mins ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US President Barack Obama picked a new top White House aide Thursday and challenged newly empowered Republicans to raise the US debt limit, as his foes vowed again to repeal his health care overhaul.

Obama chose William Daley, commerce secretary under Bill Clinton, as his new chief of staff, pursuing a staff shake-up that signals a potential change in course in response to his Democrats’ November 2 elections rout.

Daley, 62, is seen as a centrist powerbroker and has strong ties to the US business community, with which the president has had a rocky relationship, and has strongly backed efforts to expand international trade.

8 VW, Daimler to sign $5bn Chinese contracts: source

AFP

2 hrs 20 mins ago

BERLIN (AFP) – German car giants Daimler and Volkswagen will ink multi-billion-dollar contracts with Chinese partners Friday during a visit by a top Chinese official, a government source in Berlin said.

“The contracts with Daimler and VW will be more than five billion dollars,” the source told AFP on Thursday.

Germany’s foreign ministry had said earlier that contracts would be signed after a meeting between Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang and Deputy Chancellor Guido Westerwelle, without giving more details.

9 China to buy 6.0 bn euros of Spanish debt: report

AFP

2 hrs 24 mins ago

MADRID (AFP) – Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang has said Beijing is willing to buy about 6.0 billion euros worth of Spanish public debt, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported on Thursday, citing government sources.

Li told Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero during a meeting in Madrid on Wednesday that China “was willing to buy as much Spanish debt as its Greek and Portuguese debt holdings combined, that is some six billion euros ($7.9 billion),” it said.

The newspaper could not confirm the figure with Li but spoke to China’ Vice Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng who said that any transaction would be determined according to the date and size of any public debt issue.

10 Autism-vaccine study was ‘fraud,’ journal says

AFP

Wed Jan 5, 6:49 pm ET

PARIS (AFP) – A 1998 study that unleashed a major health scare by linking childhood autism to a triple vaccine was “an elaborate fraud,” the British Medical Journal (BMJ) charged Thursday.

Blamed for a disastrous boycott of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine in Britain, the study was retracted by The Lancet last year and its senior author disgraced, after the country’s longest-running hearing, for conflict of interest and unethical treatment of patients.

But the BMJ, taking the affair further, on Thursday branded the paper a crafted attempt to deceive, among the gravest of charges in medical research.

11 Pakistan PM reverses petrol hike under pressure

by Sajjad Tarakzai, AFP

Thu Jan 6, 10:55 am ET

ISLAMABAD (AFP) – Pakistan’s beleaguered prime minister on Thursday caved into political pressure and reversed controversial fuel price hikes, in a move designed to prevent his fragile government from collapsing.

“In respect of the national political leadership, and this house, and the whole nation, I restore the old petroleum prices,” Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) premier Yousuf Raza Gilani told the lower house of parliament.

“There was a consensus among the entire political leadership and parliamentary leaders that petroleum prices of December 31 should be restored.”

12 Chaos at hearing of alleged Pakistan assassin

by Khurram Shahzad, AFP

Thu Jan 6, 10:18 am ET

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (AFP) – Chaos engulfed a court hearing for the alleged assassin of a liberal Pakistani politician on Thursday as Islamist protestors forced police to backtrack on plans to relocate the session.

The grinning policeman, who confessed to murdering Salman Taseer for his progressive views, has been hailed a hero by the powerful religious right, highlighting how deep the conservative grip on the nuclear-armed country.

Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri was showered with rose petals for a second day as he arrived at an anti-terror court in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, more than seven hours after media first gathered in anticipation of the event.

13 Obama foes target office expenses for cuts

by Olivier Knox, AFP

Thu Jan 6, 7:12 am ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US Republicans, the new rulers in the House of Representatives, move Thursday to make good on a campaign vow to slash spending with a mostly symbolic vote to cut lawmakers’ office budgets.

President Barack Obama’s Democrats were expected to join Republicans to pass a bill to slice five percent from House expenses, a 35-million-dollar drop in the roughly 3.6-trillion-dollar bucket of annual US government outlays.

Republicans also planned to read aloud from the US Constitution — but omit sections later amended, such as the original language defining black slaves as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of apportioning congressional seats.

14 Geithner presses Republicans to lift U.S. debt limit

By David Lawder and Glenn Somerville, Reuters

2 hrs 28 mins ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Thursday stepped up pressure on Republican lawmakers to raise the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt limit, warning failure to act would lead to an economic catastrophe.

Geithner said the federal government may hit by March 31 the ceiling on the amount of debt it is legally allowed to issue, and urged Congress to raise it by then to avoid pushing the United States into default.

“Even a short-term or limited default would have catastrophic economic consequences that would last for decades,” Geithner said in a letter to U.S. Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat.

15 Jobless claims up, underlying trend still down

By Lucia Mutikani, Reuters

Thu Jan 6, 11:46 am ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – New claims for jobless benefits moved higher last week, but a decline in the four-week average to a nearly 2-1/2-year low suggested the labor market continues to improve.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 18,000 to a seasonally adjusted 409,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday, above economists’ expectations for 400,000.

The data falls outside the survey period for the government’s closely watched employment report for December, which on Friday is expected to show nonfarm payrolls jumped 175,000 after November’s surprisingly small 39,000 gain.

16 Obama names JPMorgan’s Daley as top aide

By Steve Holland, Reuters

56 mins ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Thursday named JPMorgan Chase executive William Daley as his chief of staff, bringing a politically seasoned businessman into the White House to help trigger job growth as he grapples with resurgent Republicans.

Obama said he hoped Daley would help energize the economy. Reducing America’s 9.8 percent jobless rate is Obama’s biggest challenge ahead of his 2012 re-election bid.

“He possesses a deep understanding of how jobs are created and how to grow our economy,” Obama said at the White House.

17 Republican bid to scrap healthcare hits snag

By John Whitesides and Richard Cowan, Reuters

4 mins ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican efforts to scrap President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform took a hit on Thursday when budget analysts said repeal would add billions of dollars to the federal budget deficit.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated overturning the reform signed by Obama last year would add about $230 billion to the deficit by 2021 and result in 32 million fewer people having health insurance.

That was a blow to Republican campaign promises to slash the federal budget deficit.

18 U.S. to send 1,400 Marines to Afghanistan

By Phil Stewart, Reuters

2 hrs 10 mins ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States will temporarily send 1,400 more Marines to Afghanistan in an effort to hold onto fragile security gains, but overall U.S. troop levels will not surpass previously announced limits, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

The short-term deployments were ordered by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and come months before President Barack Obama plans to start withdrawing U.S. forces in July from the unpopular war against the Taliban.

“This will allow us to keep our momentum,” said Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell. The troops would mainly be deployed in southern Afghanistan, he said, where fighting is the fiercest.

19 Shopper angst, discounts hurt December retailer sales

By Phil Wahba, Reuters

Thu Jan 6, 1:08 pm ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Many top U.S. retailers reported disappointing December sales as consumers who shopped right after Thanksgiving would only spend again on big bargains and were set to stay frugal in 2011.

A post-Christmas blizzard made things worse for some retailers, and companies ranging from department store operator Macy’s Inc and discounter Target Corp to teen clothing store American Eagle Outfitters were among those whose results fell far short of Wall Street’s forecasts.

“The turbulence is here to stay,” said David Bassuk, a managing director at consulting firm AlixPartners. “The consumer is still very sensitive to even slight fluctuations in prices — the consumer is still looking for deals.”

Remember all those lies about how December was so great and ‘the consumer is back’?  Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

20 Record high food prices stoke fears for economy

By Neil Fullick and Peter Apps, Reuters

1 hr 28 mins ago

SINGAPORE/LONDON (Reuters) – Record high food prices are moving to the top of policymaker agendas, driven by fears it could stoke inflation, protectionism and unrest and dent consumer demand in key emerging economies.

The United Nations’ food agency (FAO) said on Wednesday that food prices hit a record high last month, above 2008 levels when riots broke out in countries as far afield as Egypt, Cameroon and Haiti.

In Asia, official data and analyst estimates both pointed to inflationary pressures. Chilli prices have increased fivefold in Thailand in the last year and Indonesia’s president called for households to plant food in their own gardens.

21 Obama’s press spokesman Robert Gibbs to leave

By Steve Holland, Reuters

Wed Jan 5, 5:51 pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, one of President Barack Obama’s closest aides, said on Wednesday he will resign and become an outside adviser for Obama’s re-election campaign in a major staff shake-up.

Gibbs, 39, a fierce defender of the president at White House news briefings, told reporters he will leave in early February.

A successor to Gibbs is expected to be named within the next couple of weeks. The short list includes Vice President Joe Biden’s top spokesman, Jay Carney, and two of Gibbs’ deputies, Bill Burton and Josh Earnest.

22 Republicans take over House, soften cuts

By Thomas Ferraro and Andy Sullivan, Reuters

Wed Jan 5, 4:22 pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republicans took power in the House of Representatives on Wednesday with promises of a leaner, more accountable government but softened a pledge of deep and immediate spending cuts that helped them win November’s election.

The Republican takeover sets up potentially fierce battles in the coming months with President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats on spending, debt and healthcare.

Republican John Boehner, from a working class Ohio family of 12 children, was elected House speaker in the new Congress and warned of “hard work and tough decisions” on the economy as the United States recovers slowly from its worst recession since the 1930s.

23 Egypt Christians mark mournful Christmas Eve Mass

By MAGGIE MICHAEL and HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press

3 mins ago

CAIRO – Egypt’s Christians packed churches Thursday for mournful Christmas Eve Masses, weeping and donning black in place of colorful holiday clothes, under a heavy security cordon by police out of fear of another attack like the New Year’s suicide bombing of a church that killed 21 people.

At church gates around the country, police and church staff checked the IDs of those entering the services – and their wrists, where many Egyptian Christians bear the tattoo of a cross.

Al-Qaida in Iraq had threatened Christians in Iraq and Egypt in the weeks leading up to the holidays and Saturday’s deadly bombing. Militant websites have even posted names and addresses of churches in Egypt to target, raising fears of a follow-up attack on celebrations of the Orthodox Christmas, which Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority marks on Friday.

24 Constitution reading provokes political tussling

By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press

10 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Republicans and Democrats took turns politely in a historic recitation of the Constitution from the House floor Thursday, but the decorum hardly meant they were in agreement.

In a nod to the tea partiers who put the Republicans in power, GOP lawmakers took time out from their campaign to change the way government works to read the document upon which the government was founded. Democrats went along but pointedly questioned the Republicans’ insistence on omitting sections that show how the Constitution has changed over time – such as one that classified a slave as three-fifths of a person.

Approved in 1787 and in operation since 1789, the Constitution has long been a subject of both reverence and wrangling. This was the first time it had been read in its entirety on the House floor, a gesture to the tea party activists who contend it has been ignored as Washington has stretched the limits of federal power.

25 Obama chooses William Daley as chief of staff

By BEN FELLER, AP White House Correspondent

7 mins ago

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama named veteran political manager William Daley to be his new chief of staff Thursday, selecting a centrist with Wall Street ties to help navigate a newly divided Congress and a looming re-election.

“Few Americans can boast the breadth of experience that Bill brings to this job,” Obama told reporters in the East Room as Daley, 62, stood at his side.

“But most of all, I know Bill to be somebody who cares deeply about this country, believes in its promise, and considers no calling higher and more important than serving the American people,” the president said.

26 Ivory Coast election winner wants rival ousted

By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, Associated Press

18 mins ago

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast – The internationally recognized winner of Ivory Coast’s presidential election is asking for special forces to launch a commando operation to remove the country’s sitting president who has refused to cede power five weeks after the results were announced.

Speaking at a hotel guarded by U.N. peacekeepers, Alassane Ouattara told The Associated Press on Thursday that Laurent Gbagbo would try to flee if the regional bloc of West African states, the Economic Community of West African States or ECOWAS, sent in troops to oust him.

“I know Mr. Gbagbo,” Ouattara said on the lawn of the lagoonside hotel. “If he sees that ECOWAS troops are coming to capture him, believe me he will start running away. I know him well. He does not have the courage to face those type of situations.”

27 Oil findings boost chance of corp. criminal charge

By HARRY R. WEBER and CURT ANDERSON, Associated Press

1 hr 2 mins ago

NEW ORLEANS – Months of investigation by a presidential commission and other panels reinforce the likelihood that companies involved in the Gulf oil spill will be slapped with criminal charges that could add tens of billions of dollars to the huge fines they already face, legal experts said Thursday.

The reports don’t blame a single person or group responsible for the series of mistakes. That means in the end no one may go to prison for the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

BP, Transocean and Halliburton should survive thanks to their financial arsenal, though charges would take another chink out of their armor.

28 Homeless man with velvety voice becomes star

By TOM WITHERS, AP Sports Writer

Thu Jan 6, 11:07 am ET

CLEVELAND – From the streets to the studios.

Ted Williams, whose deep, velvety radio voice and touching story prompted an outpouring of sympathy and job offers from across the country, has become an overnight sensation.

He’s America’s hottest – and most improbable – star.

29 9th Circuit upholds ex-Calif. sheriff’s conviction

By GILLIAN FLACCUS, Associated Press

1 hr 12 mins ago

SANTA ANA, Calif. – A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld former Orange County Sheriff Michael Carona’s conviction for witness tampering, bringing the former three-term lawman once dubbed “America’s sheriff” one step closer to prison.

Carona was indicted in 2008 on federal charges of conspiracy, mail fraud and witness tampering in a sweeping public corruption case that grabbed headlines and included sordid allegations of marital infidelity, pay-to-play schemes, cronyism and money laundering.

The veteran lawman was acquitted of all but one count of witness tampering in 2009 and sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison. During the sentencing hearing, the judge gave him a public tongue-lashing for holding a celebratory press conference outside the courthouse and declaring his innocence despite the conviction.

30 CBO: Health care repeal would increase deficit

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press

1 hr 14 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Repealing President Barack Obama’s landmark health care overhaul would add billions to government red ink and leave millions without coverage, Congress’ nonpartisan budget referees said Thursday ahead of a politically charged vote in the House.

House Speaker John Boehner brushed off the Congressional Budget Office analysis as emboldened Republicans, now in the majority, issued their own report arguing that Obama’s coverage expansion would cost jobs and increase budget deficits.

But Democrats seized on the CBO analysis, calling it a game changer in the battle for public opinion.

31 Govs use speeches to preach austerity, unity

By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press

1 hr 44 mins ago

NEW YORK – Words like “unity” and “shared sacrifice” are in. Dire predictions are leavened with a sense of optimism. And residents are called to live up to the legacy of their states’ heroes – like Connecticut’s Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin; the astronauts who blasted into space from Florida; and the pioneers who settled California.

Confronting high unemployment and record deficits, governors are using their inaugural speeches to pledge fiscal austerity, job creation and a broad effort to rebuild public trust in state government.

Thirty-seven governors – 23 Republicans, 13 Democrats and one independent – were elected or re-elected in November. Most are being sworn in in January and are using the high-profile platform of the inaugural address to describe the perilous fiscal environment they face.

32 Dems say GOP exempting $1 trillion from deficit

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent

2 hrs 34 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Democrats accused newly empowered House Republicans of exempting more than $1 trillion in proposed tax cuts and higher spending over the next 10 years from a promise to cut federal deficits.

The exemptions include a bill to repeal last year’s health care legislation as well as GOP-backed proposals extending a series of tax cuts for upper income filers that are due to expire in two years, according to a tally several Senate Democrats unveiled at a news conference Thursday.

Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan assailed House Republicans for scrapping a Democratic rule aimed at making it more difficult to cut taxes or increase spending with borrowed money.

33 ACLU questions Missouri’s supply of execution drug

By JIM SALTER, Associated Press

Thu Jan 6, 2:21 pm ET

ST. LOUIS – A civil rights group is raising concerns about Missouri’s supply of a drug crucial to the execution process as the state prepares to execute its first convict in nearly two years.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri announced Thursday that the Missouri Department of Corrections has a dwindling supply of sodium thiopental, and that what is on hand is nearing its expiration date. The ACLU uncovered that information through a freedom of information request.

Sodium thiopental is the first of three drugs used in executions, an anesthetic that renders the condemned inmate unconscious.

34 PROMISES, PROMISES: GOP drops some out of the gate

By ANDREW TAYLOR and CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press

Thu Jan 6, 2:06 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Republicans have already violated some of the vows they made in taking stewardship of the House.

Their pledge to cut $100 billion from the budget in one year won’t be kept.

The first spending cut measure to come to the floor – imposing a 5 percent spending cut on lawmakers’ budgets for office expenses and staff salaries – is hardly in keeping with the promise to return spending back to pre-Obama levels. Such costs have risen by 14 percent since that time.

35 Congress unlikely to extend hand to ailing states

By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press

Thu Jan 6, 12:17 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Cut spending, raise taxes and fees, and accept billions of dollars from Congress. That’s been the formula for states trying to survive the worst economy since the 1930s.

As Republicans prepare to take control of the House and exert more influence in the Senate, it’s clear that option No. 3 will soon wither. States will continue to face substantial deficits over the next few years, but they will have to get by with the end of stimulus spending and less financial help from the federal government. In recent interviews, top GOP lawmakers made clear it will be much less.

“We’ve got to put our fiscal house in order in Washington, D.C.,” said Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana. “It’s going to be essential that leaders at the state level roll their sleeves up, make the hard choices and put their fiscal health in order, as well.”

36 Troubled RI school hits bumps on road to reform

By ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press

Thu Jan 6, 9:19 am ET

CENTRAL FALLS, R.I. – The teachers at Central Falls High School struck a deal to get their jobs back last year after the entire staff was fired in a radical, last-ditch attempt to raise student performance. But if the administrators thought the teachers would be grateful for a second chance, they were wrong.

Many teachers aren’t showing up for work, often calling out sick. Several abruptly quit within the first few weeks of the school year. Administrators have had to scramble to find qualified substitutes and have withheld hundreds of student grades because of the teacher absences.

The progress that the city’s school board – and the Obama administration – had hoped for seems increasingly, and alarmingly, elusive.

37 GOP takes charge: New Speaker Boehner leads House

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent

Thu Jan 6, 12:05 am ET

WASHINGTON – Claiming power beneath the Capitol dome, resurgent Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives on Wednesday as the 112th Congress convened in an era of economic uncertainty. Dozens of tea party-backed lawmakers took office in both houses, eager to cut spending and reduce government’s reach.

“The people voted to end business as usual, and today we begin carrying out their instructions,” said newly elected House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, replacing Democrat Nancy Pelosi and transformed instantly into the nation’s most powerful Republican in a new era of divided government.

Both the House and the Senate convened at the constitutionally mandated hour of noon for a day of pageantry and bipartisan flourishes that contrasted sharply with the fierceness of the midterm elections that set the new roll of lawmakers.

38 Polygamist sect leader fires his new attorney

By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press

Wed Jan 5, 9:19 pm ET

SAN ANGELO, Texas – Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs fired his attorney Wednesday just hours after hiring him, prompting a West Texas judge to delay a trial on sexual assault charges after Jeffs said he would need more time to find a lawyer who “suits my needs.”

Gerry Morris, a prominent Austin-based lawyer, told district court Judge Barbara Walther during a morning pretrial hearing that he would represent Jeffs as long as a trial on sexual assault charges set to begin Jan. 21 was pushed back to give him time to prepare.

But in a subsequent late-afternoon hearing, Morris said Jeffs had “discharged” him. He did not elaborate and said after the hearing that he could not comment.

39 FBI director defends sting operations

By THOMAS WATKINS, Associated Press

Wed Jan 5, 9:16 pm ET

ORANGE, Calif. – FBI Director Robert Mueller on Wednesday defended his agency’s use of sting operations in snaring terrorism suspects, a technique some have complained amounts to entrapment.

The FBI has come under criticism over its repeated use of stings in which agents and informants walk a suspect through a carefully choreographed plot to carry out what they believe to be a real bomb attack, though the explosives are never real.

Nineteen-year-old Mohamed Osman Mohamud was arrested the day after Thanksgiving in Portland, Ore., after he allegedly tried to detonate a bomb. The bomb was not real and the whole plot had been created by the FBI.

40 Panel: Massive oil spill could happen again

By DINA CAPPIELLO and HARRY R. WEBER, Associated Press

Wed Jan 5, 7:22 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Decisions intended to save time and money created an unreasonable amount of risk that triggered the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history, a disaster that could happen again without significant reforms by industry and government, the presidential panel investigating the BP blowout concluded Wednesday.

The commission findings – the result of a probe requested by President Barack Obama after the April 20 rig explosion – described systemic problems within the offshore energy industry and government regulators who oversee it.

Poor decisions led to technical problems that the commission, and inquires by BP and Congress, have identified as contributing to the accident that killed 11 people and led to more than 200 million gallons of oil spewing from BP’s well a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico.

41 Boehner moved to tears as he moves to speakership

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press

Wed Jan 5, 6:58 pm ET

WASHINGTON – The chin started trembling partway down the center aisle as the applause rose to a roar. John Boehner, the emotional Ohioan about to become the House’s new speaker, took his time, shaking hands with colleagues and their children on his way to the rostrum. At its foot, the hankie came out.

“It’s still just me,” he told the House after departing Speaker Nancy Pelosi, dry-eyed, handed Boehner his outsized “gavel of choice.”

It is known to bug Boehner that he can’t keep it together at big moments, but apparently it runs in the family. At the moment Pelosi transferred power to her successor, at least six hankies had been deployed by Boehner’s proudly weeping family members watching from the gallery overhead.

42 AP Exclusive: Building a network to hit militants

By KIMBERLY DOZIER, AP Intelligence Writer

Wed Jan 5, 6:18 pm ET

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration has ramped up its secret war on terror groups with a new military targeting center to oversee the growing use of special operations strikes against suspected militants in hot spots around the world, according to current and former U.S. officials.

Run by the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command, the new center would be a significant step in streamlining targeting operations previously scattered among U.S. and battlefields abroad and giving elite military officials closer access to Washington decision-makers and counterterror experts, the officials said.

The center aims to speed the sharing of information and shorten the time between targeting and military action, said two current and two former U.S. officials briefed on the project. Those officials and others insisted on condition of anonymity to discuss the classified matters.

43 State lawmakers target automatic citizenship

By SUZANNE GAMBOA, Associated Press

Wed Jan 5, 5:58 pm ET

WASHINGTON – A group of Republican state lawmakers said Wednesday they hope to trigger a Supreme Court review of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment or force Congress to take action with legislation they’ve drafted targeting automatic citizenship granted to U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants.

The lawmakers said the legislative proposals they want states to adopt won’t lead to deportations. They unveiled their proposals during a National Press Club news conference that occasionally turned raucous when protesters in the audience shouted criticisms and supporters of the lawmakers tried to outshout and remove the protesters.

Pennsylvania state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe said the proposals are a “calculated, strategic step” to force the issue into the courts.

Jan 06 2011

Republican New Rulz Already Broken

(10 am – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Even before they were sworn in as the new overlords of the House of Representatives, the Republicans have already broken their own rules

Just hours after taking control of the House, Republicans passed a sweeping set of rules promising transparency and reform.

But the new majority is already showing these promises aren’t exactly set in stone.

After calling for bills to go through a regular committee process, the bill that would repeal the health care law will not go through a single committee. Despite promising a more open amendment process for bills, amendments for the health care repeal will be all but shut down. After calling for a strict committee attendance list to be posted online, Republicans backpedaled and ditched that from the rules. They promised constitutional citations for every bill but have yet to add that language to early bills.

Quel surprise!

I’m not a big supporter of the is law because of the lack of a public option or early buy in to Medicare and the gigantic give away to the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. I do recognize that repealing it would be a big mistake for the reason that it would add over $230 billion to the deficit that the Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats are screaming to cut on the backs of those who can least afford it.

Republicans kicked off the first day of congressional proceedings to overturn health reform with unwelcome news: a Congressional Budget Office estimate that repeal would increase the deficit by $230 billion by 2021.

The nonpartisan CBO’s preliminary analysis of the Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act, released Thursday morning, bolstered Democrats’ claims that overturning the health law would wreak havoc on the deficit. The CBO score on the Affordable Care Act has it decreasing the deficit by $143 billion over 10 years. But that figure is disputed by Republicans.

“CBO and JCT estimated that the March 2010 health care legislation would reduce budget deficits over the 2010-2019 period and in subsequent years; consequently, we expect that repealing that legislation would increase the budget deficit,” CBO Director Doug Elmendorf wrote in his analysis.

One of the Republican “New Rulz” prohibits passing any bill that adds to the deficit.

And remember the rule that the Democrats passed in 2007 that prohibited the passage of tax cuts by reconciliation? You know those deficit busting tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 that were just renewed for another 2 years. The only way Bush could get those cuts passed was to do it under reconciliation and in 2003, passed in the Senate by Dick Cheney’s tie breaking vote.

In 2007, just weeks after Republicans lost control of the House and Senate and six years after the first passel of Bush tax cuts were signed into law, Democrats made a key change to the budget rules to prevent that episode from repeating itself.

Republicans had used the budget reconciliation process — immune from a filibuster — to pass the cuts and explode the deficit: two things the reconciliation process was never meant to allow. To get away with it, Republicans were forced to include a 10-year sunset in package — planting the seeds for the tax cut fight we just saw on Capitol Hill. After Dems wrested control of Congress, they banned the reconciliation loopholes used by the GOP altogether.

That rule was rescinded in the House on Wednesday.

As Waldman at Daily Kos politely puts it

Rules, to Republicans, are largely pointless when they get in their way. And should Republicans in the Senate succeed in regaining the majority, they’ll surely attempt to make the same kind of change they’re setting their sights on in the House. In fact, there’s little reason to expect them to wait to win the majority before they try this one, though the odds of prevailing would surely be somewhat higher if they do.

Rulz for you but not for me.

Jan 06 2011

Atheists and Agnostics Need Not Apply

If you don’t believe in a “higher being” and you serve in the US Armed Forces, you may be determined to be “spiritually unfit” and forced to undergo “exercises that use religious imagery to “train” soldiers up to a satisfactory level of spirituality.” This program, Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF), was designed by, Martin Seligman, an American psychologist and author of self-help books and the director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Selgman came under heavy criticism for his involvement in the Navy’s SERE program in 2002 and his association with Notorious SERE/CIA interrogator-psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen who use Seligman’s theories of “learned helplessness” to interrogate detainees.

Since then, Seligman has managed to reinvent himself as “Dr. Happy” and devised a way using his untested “Learned Optimism” program to make a killing-$31 million in sole source funds.

From Jason Leopold who first reported this story on the Army’s “spiritual testing”

   Soldiers fill out an online survey made up of more than 100 questions, and if the results fall into a red area, they are required to participate in remedial courses in a classroom or online setting to strengthen their resilience in the disciplines in which they received low scores. The test is administered every two years. More than 800,000 Army soldiers have taken it thus far.But for the thousands of “Foxhole Atheists” like 27-year-old Sgt. Justin Griffith, the spiritual component of the test contains questions written predominantly for soldiers who believe in God or another deity, meaning nonbelievers are guaranteed to score poorly and will be forced to participate in exercises that use religious imagery to “train” soldiers up to a satisfactory level of spirituality.

Brig. Gen. Rhonda Cornum, the director of the CSF program, has said, “The spiritual strength domain is not related to religiosity, at least not in terms of how we measure it.”

“It measures a person’s core values and beliefs concerning their meaning and purpose in life,” she said. “It’s not religious, although a person’s religion can still affect those things. Spiritual training is entirely optional, unlike the other domains. Every time you say the S-P-I-R word you’re going to get sued. So that part is not mandatory. The assessment is mandatory though and junior soldiers will be required to take exercises to strengthen their other four domains.”

But despite the verbal gymnastics Cornum seems to engage in over the meaning of “spiritual” and “religious,” it has been established that the spiritual component of CSF is deeply rooted in religious doctrine.

A press release issued by Bowling Green State University (BGSU) in January 2010 said renowned “Psychology of Religion” expert Dr. Kenneth Pargament was tapped to develop the spiritual portion of the test in consultation with Army chaplains, BGSU ROTC cadets, graduate students and officials at West Point.

In examining this issue that bases a soldier’s fitness on his/her religious beliefs, Jeff Kaye, makes this observation and wonders what’s next?

The fact the Army is enforcing religious ideology upon soldiers is already outrageous enough, but the piquant irony by which the primary theorist of the program is also one of the primary theorists behind the use of certain techniques to break down and torture people, and whose theories were used by DoD/CIA psychologists to devise a diabolical torture program, well… one’s head could spin for days processing the internal contradictions. But that’s America today, a torturing country that uses huckster psychology to promote ersatz spirituality in soldiers sent to invade foreign countries for the purpose of selling arms and controlling oil and gas supplies.

What’s next? Will atheism be pronounced a new form of “material support to terrorism”? Will Elmer Gantry replace Robert Gates as next Secretary of Defense? Gates has been President Obama’s Secretary of Defense nearly as long now as he served as same in the administration of George W. Bush.

Truly, nothing can be considered strange anymore.

First they went after the gays . . . .

h/t to emptywheel at FDL

Jan 06 2011

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”.

Robert Reich The Shameful Attack on Public Employees

In 1968, 1,300 sanitation workers in Memphis went on strike. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to support them. That was where he lost his life. Eventually Memphis heard the grievances of its sanitation workers. And in subsequent years millions of public employees across the nation have benefited from the job protections they’ve earned.

But now the right is going after public employees.

Public servants are convenient scapegoats. Republicans would rather deflect attention from corporate executive pay that continues to rise as corporate profits soar, even as corporations refuse to hire more workers. They don’t want stories about Wall Street bonuses, now higher than before taxpayers bailed out the Street. And they’d like to avoid a spotlight on the billions raked in by hedge-fund and private-equity managers whose income is treated as capital gains and subject to only a 15 percent tax, due to a loophole in the tax laws designed specifically for them.

It’s far more convenient to go after people who are doing the public’s work — sanitation workers, police officers, fire fighters, teachers, social workers, federal employees — to call them “faceless bureaucrats” and portray them as hooligans who are making off with your money and crippling federal and state budgets. The story fits better with the Republican’s Big Lie that our problems are due to a government that’s too big.

Glenn Greenwald: Why Government Censorship of US Media is Unnecessary

In this week’s New Yorker, Peter Maass — who was in Iraq covering the war at the time — examines the iconic, manufactured toppling of the Saddam statue in Baghdad’s Firdos Square, an event the American media relentlessly exploited in April, 2003, to propagandize citizens into believing that Iraqis were gleeful over the U.S. invasion and that the war was a smashing success.  Acknowledging that the episode demonstrated that American troops had taken over the center of Baghdad, Maas nonetheless explains that “everything else the toppling was said to represent during repeated replays on television — victory for America, the end of the war, joy throughout Iraq — was a disservice to the truth.”

Working jointly with ProPublica on this investigation, Maass describes the hidden, indispensable role the U.S. military played in that event — which has long been known — though he convincingly argues that the primary culprit in this propaganda effort was the Americans media.  That is who did more than anyone to wildly distort this event.  As usual, the Watchdog Press not only happily ingests and trumpets pro-government propaganda, but does so even more enthusiastically and uncritically than government spokespeople themselves.

The reason there’s so little government censorship of the press in America is because it’s totally unnecessary; why would the government even want to censor a media this compliant and subservient?  Recall the derision heaped upon the media even by Bush’s own former Press Secretary, Scott McClellan, for being “too deferential” to administration propaganda.  As soon as an entity emerges that provides genuinely adversarial coverage of the U.S. Government — such as WikiLeaks, whistleblowers, or isolated articles exposing its malfeasance — the repressive measures come fast and furious.  But in general, it’s no more necessary for the U.S. Government to censor the American media than it would be for Barack Obama to try to silence Robert Gibbs.

Laura Flanders: Constitutional Lessons For the New Congress

Republican lawmakers who read the Constitution out loud as their very first act in the new Congress better bask in their Tea Party glow because they’re certainly not going to be feeling the love from Constitutional scholars.

It’s true, this nation’s founders were like most of those Congresspeople — mostly propertied, white and male; but their vision of government couldn’t be more different.

As scholar Lew Daly points out in Dissent, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams weren’t Hooverites. To the contrary, they pushed the idea that property and power should be widely distributed — even redistributed. In their day, “starve the beast” meant starve the elites, those monarchs and mega money men who’d concentrate power and undermine democracy.

Richard (RJ) Eskow the Inquisitor Goes to Hollywood

What’s the worst thing about Darrell Issa’s debut as Chairman of the House Oversight Committee? It could be his relentless, Gloria Swansonish, “I’m ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille” self promotion. It might be his manic insistence that he’ll conduct “hundreds” of investigations, or his letters to lobbyists offering to put his new powers at their disposal. Or maybe it’s his “hang ’em first and try ’em later” attitude toward the administration. It’s certainly ironic that his first act as head of the committee that investigates misuse of government funds seems to have been… to misuse government funds.

Sure, they’re all bad. But the worst of all may be this: Issa’s making it clear that he’ll use his position to cover up Wall Street’s role in destroying the economy, and that he’ll resist any attempts to rein in the corporate misbehavior that puts us all at risk. That’s a shame: Issa once seemed like a fair-minded, independent voice, and he could have made an important contribution in his new position. Instead he’s becoming a tinpot Torquemada bent on harassing and punishing anyone who tries to thwart corporate America’s will.

John Nichols: Robert Gibbs Is Out! Maybe Now This White House Will Learn to Communicate

Against competition from the likes of Ari Fleischer and Mike McCurry, it is tough to suggest that Robert Gibbs was the worst White House press secretary in modern times. Then again, the spokesman for an administration that admits it cannot seem to get its message across on even the most basic levels, would have to be in contention for the title.

Certainly, few press secretaries have ever done more harm to a president they could so easily have helped.

Gibbs, who announced today that he will exit his position in early February, following in the footsteps of much of the rest of the team that came to the White House from the 2008 campaign, was never a particularly good communicator. A bland and forgettable player during a long presidential run when the focus was almost exclusively on the candidate, Gibbs emerged shortly after the election as the face of the new administration. That proved to be politically disastrous for the president. Thin-skinned and prone to attacking friendly critics, he did more than anyone except former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to create and expand the progressive “enthusiasm gap” that so harmed Democrats in the 2010 election cycle.

Ari Berman: Rahm Redux: Top Banker for Obama Chief of Staff?

Rahm Emanuel is off running for mayor of Chicago, but his ghost may soon be making a return to the White House in the form of fellow Chicagoan Bill Daley, who President Obama is considering naming as Rahm’s replacement. The post is currently filled by low-key Obama aide Pete Rouse.  

Daley, brother of outgoing Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, was Commerce Secretary under Bill Clinton, the chief architect of NAFTA, chairman of Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign, a top adviser/fundraiser for the Obama campaign and, most recently, Midwest chairman of JP Morgan Chase. He shares the corporate centrism of Emanuel and, when it comes to economic issues, may be worse. AFL-CIO head John Sweeney once said that Daley stood “squarely on the opposite side of working families.”

Peter Rothberg: Stand Up to Boehner

In remarks to the National Right to Life Committee Annual Convention in Pittsburgh, PA last June, Rep. John Boehner argued that “when “life takes a backseat to other priorities – personal comfort, economics – freedom is diminished.”

Beyond this politicking, Boehner’s anti-choice record is long. He has cast 142 votes on abortion and other reproductive-rights issues. All 142 were anti-choice, including:

   Voting twice against the Family and Medical Leave Act.

   Voting eight times against clinic protection for women and doctors.

   Voting for the dangerous Stupak abortion-coverage ban in health reform.

   Voting twice to deny federal funding of abortion care to survivors of rape and incest.

Now, after taking his oath of office as the new Speaker of the House this morning, Boehner is the most powerful anti-choice politician in America, and is leading the effort to repeal the new health-care law and, eventually, eliminate abortion coverage for women.

Jim Hightower: Playing With Economic Dynamite

By gollies, America is still an exporting powerhouse. In fact, the good ol’ U.S.A. is No. 1 in the world in exports! Our corporate leaders, backed by Republicans and Democrats alike in Washington, are now routinely exporting America’s most precious goods — our jobs, factories, technologies and middle-class opportunities.

With unemployment and underemployment devastating millions of families in our country, perhaps you’ve assumed that U.S. corporations simply aren’t hiring these days. Nonsense. They added 1.4 million jobs last year alone — overseas.

For example, more than half of Caterpillar’s new hires in 2010 were in foreign countries. Many more of this giant’s jobs are headed offshore in the near future, for Caterpillar, which was once an iconic American brand, has recently invested in three new plants in China. It’ll not only manufacture tractors and bulldozers there, but it’ll also begin to ship its design work and technology development jobs to China.

Bradley Day: The climate movement is in desperate need of renewal

If a jury that received extensive education on climate change could not vindicate the Ratcliffe activists, then who will?

In the final weeks of 2010, 20 individuals – including myself – went on trial after being accused of conspiring to shut down the Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal power station. Today we received our sentences. The jury were presented with a wealth of evidence, not seeking to disprove the charge, but to justify it.

Despite hearing terrifying evidence from some of world’s leading climate change experts; learning of the millions of pounds spent in their local area as a result of extreme weather conditions; listening to gut-wrenching testimonies from flood victims across the globe; and observing senior politicians explain our crippling democratic deficit, the jury went on to deliver a unanimous guilty verdict.

Since the verdict, many messages of support have appeared on the trial’s campaign Facebook page. While these were uplifting, I felt a little unease at comments proclaiming the jury as “appalling”, “shameful”, “shortsighted”.

Jan 06 2011

On This Day in History January 6

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.

January 6 is the sixth day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 359 days remaining until the end of the year (360 in leap years).

On this day in 1838, Samuel Morse’s telegraph system is demonstrated for the first time at the Speedwell Iron Works in Morristown, New Jersey. The telegraph, a device which used electric impulses to transmit encoded messages over a wire, would eventually revolutionize long-distance communication, reaching the height of its popularity in the 1920s and 1930s.

Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born April 27, 1791, in Charlestown, Massachusetts. He attended Yale University, where he was interested in art, as well as electricity, still in its infancy at the time. After college, Morse became a painter. In 1832, while sailing home from Europe, he heard about the newly discovered electromagnet and came up with an idea for an electric telegraph. He had no idea that other inventors were already at work on the concept.

Morse spent the next several years developing a prototype and took on two partners, Leonard Gale and Alfred Vail, to help him. In 1838, he demonstrated his invention using Morse code, in which dots and dashes represented letters and numbers. In 1843, Morse finally convinced a skeptical Congress to fund the construction of the first telegraph line in the United States, from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore. In May 1844, Morse sent the first official telegram over the line, with the message: “What hath God wrought!”

 1066 – Harold Godwinson is crowned King of England.

1205 – Philip of Swabia becomes King of the Romans.

1449 – Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI is crowned at Mistra.

1540 – King Henry VIII of England marries Anne of Cleves.

1579 – The Union of Atrecht is signed.

1661 – English Restoration: The Fifth Monarchists unsuccessfully attempt to seize control of London.

1690 – Joseph, son of Emperor Leopold I, becomes King of the Romans.

1721 – The Committee of Inquiry on the South Sea Bubble publishes its findings.

1781 – In the Battle of Jersey, the British defeat the last attempt by France to invade Jersey.

1838 – Samuel Morse first successfully tests the electrical telegraph.

1839 – The most damaging storm in 300 years sweeps across Ireland, damaging or destroying more than 20% of the houses in Dublin.

1853 – President-elect of the United States Franklin Pierce and his family are involved in a train wreck near Andover, Massachusetts.

1870 – The inauguration of the Musikverein in Vienna.

1893 – The Washington National Cathedral is chartered by Congress. The charter is signed by President Benjamin Harrison.

1900 – Second Boer War: Having already sieged the fortress at Ladysmith, Boer forces attack it, but are driven back by British defenders.

1907 – Maria Montessori opens her first school and daycare center for working class children in Rome.

1909 – The Great White Fleet passes through the Suez Canal, the largest group of ships to pass through up to that time.

1912 – New Mexico is admitted as the 47th U.S. state.

1921 – Formation of the Iraqi Army.

1929 – King Alexander of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes suspends his country’s constitution (the January 6th Dictatorship).

1929 – Mother Teresa arrives in Calcutta to begin her work among India’s poorest and sick people.

1930 – The first diesel-engined automobile trip is completed, from Indianapolis, Indiana, to New York City.

1931 – Thomas Edison submits his last patent application.

1936 – The Supreme Court of the United States rules that the 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act is unconstitutional in the case United States v. Butler et al.

1941 – President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivers his Four Freedoms Speech in the State of the Union Address.

1942 – Pan American Airlines becomes the first commercial airline to schedule a flight around the world.

1950 – The United Kingdom recognizes the People’s Republic of China. The Republic of China severs diplomatic relations with the UK in response.

1953 – The first Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma.

1960 – National Airlines Flight 2511 is destroyed in mid-air by a bomb, while en route from New York City to Miami.

1967 – Vietnam War: United States Marine Corps and ARVN troops launch “Operation Deckhouse Five” in the Mekong River delta.

1974 – In response to the 1973 energy crisis, daylight saving time commences nearly four months early in the United States.

1978 – The Crown of St. Stephen (also known as the Holy Crown of Hungary) is returned to Hungary from the United States, where it was held after World War II.

1994 – Nancy Kerrigan is clubbed on the knee at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Detroit.

1995 – A chemical fire in an apartment complex in Manila, Philippines, leads to the discovery of plans for Project Bojinka, a mass-terrorist attack.

2005 – American Civil Rights Movement: Edgar Ray Killen is arrested as a suspect in the 1964 murders of three civil rights workers.

2010 – The Ady Gil, a ship owned by Sea Shepherd, is sunk during a skirmish with the Japanese Whaling Fleet’s Shonan Maru.

Holidays and observances

   Armed Forces Day (Iraq)

   Christian Feast Day:

       January 6 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)

Christmas (Armenian Apostolic Church)

   Epiphany (Western Christianity) or Theophany (Eastern Christianity), and its related observances:

       Befana Day (Italy)

   Little Christmas (Ireland)

   The beginning of the Carnival period, from Epiphany until Shrove Tuesday. (Roman Catholicism)

Jan 06 2011

Six In The Morning

Big Brother Meets McCarthyism  



Israeli parliament backs ‘McCarthyite’ investigation into human rights groups

A right-wing proposal to investigate some of Israel’s best-known human rights organisations for “delegitimising” its military was approved by the country’s parliament yesterday amid left-wing charges of McCarthyism.

After a highly charged and noisy debate, the Knesset approved by 41 votes to 16 the plan for a parliamentary panel of inquiry into the funding of a series of organisations which have criticised and documented human rights abuses by Israeli authorities, mainly in the occupied Palestinian territories. The vote is a political victory for the hard-line nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu Party led by the country’s controversial Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, one of whose Knesset members, Faina Kirshenbaum, introduced the proposal and is likely to chair the panel.

China And Its Sad Industrial Safety Record  

 

Battery factory poisons 24 children in China

Twenty-four children, aged between nine months and 16 years old, have been hospitalised for lead poisoning caused by battery factories in their east China village, state media said, marking the latest in a string of battery-related poisonings in recent years.

The official Xinhua News Agency said that local authorities had shut two battery factories in Anhui province’s Huaining county after tests found that at least 200 local children had elevated lead levels, with 24 of them requiring hospitalisation.

We Live In The Kingdom Of Fear: America  



Private memo exposes US fears over Wikileaks

The White House has instructed every US government department and agency to create “insider threat” programmes that will ferret out disgruntled or untrustworthy employees who might be tempted to leak the sort of state secrets recently made public by the website WikiLeaks.

A 13-page memo detailing the new policy urges senior civil servants to beef up cyber security and hire teams of psychiatrists and sociologists who can “detect behavioural changes”. They will then monitor the moods and attitudes of staff who are allowed to access classified information.

They Felt The Stupid Burn And Liked It    



US oil spill: ‘Bad management’ led to BP disaster



In a 48-page report the presidential commission wrote that the failures were “systemic” and likely to recur without industry and government reform.

But it said BP did not have adequate controls in place to ensure safety.

The April blast aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 people and caused one of the worst oil spills in history.

The Macondo well, about a mile under the sea’s surface, eventually leaked millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, damaging hundreds of miles of coastline before it was capped in July.

Working For Peace In A Difficult Region    

 

Psychiatrist in Gaza wins Palme prize for his dedication to peace

GAZA-BASED psychiatrist Eyad al-Sarraj has won Sweden’s Olof Palme prize for his dedication to reconciliation and peace between Palestinians and Israelis.

The Olof Palme memorial fund cited his “indefatigable struggle for common sense” as a key factor in its decision. In his work, he “stood on the side of the individual human being, regardless of nationality, gender or position”.

“He has brought into the light the destructive influence of repression on mental health. He has shown the connections arising between confinement, hopelessness, desperation and violence, and how this is neglected by both Palestinian and Israeli authorities.”

Like Too Many Rocky Sequels    



UN seeks more troops for Côte d’Ivoire

The West African country has been in turmoil since the November 28 poll that Western powers and African states say was won by Gbagbo’s rival, Alassane Ouattara, leading to a stand-off that has killed more than 170 people and raised fears of civil war.

UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy told Reuters the UN would formally request between 1 000 and 2 000 additional troops for Côte d’Ivoire from the 15-nation Security Council, and said he hoped they could be deployed within weeks.

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