“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: Obama’s First Stand

The president says a Republican proposal to extend the Bush tax cuts to everyone for two years is a “basis for conversation.” I hope this doesn’t mean another Obama cave-in.

Yes, the president needs to acknowledge the Republican sweep on Election Day. But he can do that by offering his own version of a compromise that’s both economically sensible and politically smart. Instead of limiting the extension to $250,000 of income (the bottom 98 percent of Americans), he should offer to extend it to all incomes under $500,000 (essentially the bottom 99 percent), for two years.

Dan Fromkin: Ten Flash Points In The Fiscal Commission Chairmen’s Proposal

The two deficit-hawk extremists President Obama put in charge of his fiscal commission released their personal suggestions for cutting the federal budget deficit on Wednesday. And while it’s quite possible that not a one of them will make it into the commission’s official recommendations, which require the approval of 14 of the 18 commissioners (not just two), the document will inevitably be welcomed as a “serious” contribution to the debate – at least by Republicans and conservative Democrats.

But taken as a whole, the plan authored by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson would have devastating effects on the government and its ability to help the most vulnerable in our society, and it would put the squeeze on the middle class, veterans, the elderly and the sick – all in the name of an abstract goal that ultimately only a bond-trader could love.

Here are the top 10 flash points:

Joe Conason: Meet the leader of the Obama witch hunt

If past is prologue, Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa will aim low and cheap — by probing stimulus road signs!

How Darrell Issa will conduct the vital business of the House Oversight Committee when he takes over as chairman isn’t clear yet. When the California Republican describes his plans in the mainstream media, he strives to sound reasonable, bipartisan and public-spirited; but when speaking with media outlets and personalities, such as Rush Limbaugh, he sounds like a hard-line right-winger aiming to revive the paranoid partisan style of the Gingrich era — which would be more in keeping with the reputation he has already established. He displayed the fugue state that preoccupies him when he denounced President Obama on CNN as “the most corrupt” occupant of the Oval Office in modern times – and then withdrew that accusation with an apology.

Now Issa has announced that he expects the Oversight committee and its subcommittees to hold nearly three times as many investigative hearings over the next two years as Henry Waxman, an active and successful chairman, ran during the final years of the Bush administration. He may consider the federal government (and the White House) to be bottomless pits of waste, fraud and abuse, but are there really three times as many troubling issues for Issa and his colleagues to study now as there were in the Bush years?

Dean Baker The Wall Street TARP Gang Wants to Take Away Your Social Security

Just over two years ago, the Wall Streeters were running around Congress and the media saying that if they don’t immediately get $700 billion the world will end. Since they own large chunks of both, they quickly got their money.

Even more important than the hundreds of billions of loans issued through the TARP was the trillions of dollars of loans and guarantees from the Fed and the FDIC. This money came with virtually no strings attached. . . .

The thing about Wall Streeters is that no matter how much money you give them, they always want more. Now they are using their political power and control over the media to attack Social Security.

This effort is being led by billionaire investment banker Peter Peterson. Mr. Peterson has personally profited to the tune of tens of millions of dollars from the “fund managers’ tax subsidy,” an obscure provision of the tax code that allows billionaires to pay a lower tax rate than schoolteachers and firefighters. However, Peterson believes in giving back. He has committed $1 billion to an effort that is intended to take away the Social Security benefits that people have worked and paid for.

Jane Slaughter : Billionaire Launches Campaign to Slash Social Security

Why does a billionaire want to take away your Social Security benefits?

Peter Peterson is 84 years old. He’s old enough to relax and enjoy the fruits of the years he was well paid for managing other rich people’s money. Why is he spending his fortune to convince politicians they should ruin the average guy’s retirement?

Today Peterson announced the next facet in his long campaign to hack Social Security, including a joke Presidential candidate named Hugh Jidette (“huge debt”) and a website called Owe No. His aim is to convince Congress to raise the retirement age, cut Social Security’s cost-of-living increases-and raise the payroll taxes we pay for Social Security and Medicare.

It wouldn’t matter what one cranky octogenarian billionaire had to say if he weren’t putting $6 million into ads, funding “expert” commissions, and spreading lies designed to panic the populace.

Maybe Peterson figures offense is better than defense-he’s got a lot to defend. He made his fortune as a hedge fund manager-that is, moving money around-so he ought to be living in fear. Someone might get the idea he and his buddies would be good folks to tax. It’s like Willie Sutton, the famous bank robber, once said. Asked why he robbed banks, Sutton replied, “Because that’s where the money is.”

Peterson and pals are the ones George Bush gifted with big tax breaks that are set to expire December 31. Although he says his top priority is reducing the deficit, Peterson doesn’t want to cut that deficit by putting his own taxes back where they were in the 1990s.

Dana Milbank: Bill O’Reilly’s threats

On Thursday night, the Fox News host asked, as part of a show that would be seen by 5.5 million people: “Does sharia law say we can behead Dana Milbank?” He then added, “That was a joke.”

Hilarious! Decapitation jokes just slay me, and this one had all the more hilarity because the topic of journalist beheadings brings to mind my late friend and colleague Danny Pearl, who replaced me in the Wall Street Journal’s London bureau and later was murdered in Pakistan by people who thought sharia justified it. . . .

O’Reilly has every right to quarrel with my opinion or question my accuracy. But why resort to intimidation and violent imagery? I don’t believe O’Reilly really wants to sever my head, but if only one of his millions of viewers interprets his message otherwise, that’s still a problem for me. Already, Beck fans have been accused of a police killing, threatening to kill a senator and having a highway shootout en route to an alleged attack on liberal groups.

Let’s drop the thuggish tactics – before more people get hurt.

Robert Sheer: The Life and Times of Bush the Clueless

It takes a Harvard MBA to raze an economy. Perhaps that is too narrow a judgment given that a law degree from that institution or from Yale University seems to serve as well. But the Harvard MBA is the degree that George W. Bush and his last treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, had in common, and their shared ignorance as they presided over the collapse of the U.S. economy is on full display in the former president’s newly published memoir.

Bush makes clear that the economic crisis came late to his attention and that it was not until March of 2008, as the Wall Street investment firm Bear Stearns was tottering, that it dawned on him that something was seriously amiss:

I was surprised by the sudden crisis. My focus had been kitchen-table economic issues like jobs and inflation. I assumed any major credit troubles would have been flagged by the regulators or rating agencies.” He assumed that because he had signed off on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act “[i]n response to the Enron accounting fraud and other corporate scandals.

It is instructive that this is the only reference in the memoir to Enron, a company headed by his old friend Ken “Kenny Boy” Lay, who chaired Bush’s presidential campaign finance committee the year before Enron collapsed. The grief caused by Enron’s contrived electrical blackouts and the lost jobs and savings following its collapse did not make for one of the “Decision Points” worthy of examination by Bush in his book of that title. Had he done so he might have discovered that the primary problem with Enron was not its fraudulent accounting but rather the wild trading practices in derivatives and other suspect financial gimmicks that had brought the company to its knees and which the accounting trickery was designed to conceal.

Ira Glasser: Calling the Republican Bluff

The Republicans have increased their power by advocating for lowering the deficit, lowering taxes and, ostensibly, increasing jobs. But there is no way they can deliver all three. They can’t even deliver two of the three. . . .

Given what the Republicans say they want to do, they have no capacity to lead us out of this dilemma, no matter how many elections they win with their campaigns of disinformation. President Obama should not be reaching out to them, he should be charting a different path and articulating a different vision. If he will not lead us along a different path at this critical moment, and the Republicans can’t, then who will?

David Fiderer: The Bush Tax Cuts and the Republican Cult of Economic Failure

There’s no such thing as a free lunch, and there’s no such thing as an honest case for extending the Bush tax cuts. Ten years of hard data prove they were a complete failure. They did not work while Bush was in office and they did not work during the first two years of the Obama administration. No wonder the Congressional Budget Office says that the GOP’s proposed extension of tax cuts to the rich will reduce future economic growth.

Bush’s failure was masked by a sleazy accounting trick that Bill Clinton had tried to stop in 1999, when the government’s operations approached break-even.

The Social Security surplus is supposed to be invested in Treasuries, which generate compound interest to build up a nest egg for the day when baby boomers start retiring. Of course a real Treasury instrument is a legal promise to pay. So Bush took the cash paid out by you, me and our employers into the Social Security “Trust Fund” and used it to reduce his current operating deficits. Instead of exchanging the cash for real Treasuries, the Trust Fund bought “Special Treasuries,” which the government can change at will. USA Today said it best:

The Bush administration opposes including Social Security and Medicare in the audited deficit. Its reason: Congress can cancel or cut the retirement programs at any time, so they should not be considered a government liability for accounting purposes.

Scam artists like Mitch McConnell justify their talk about “reforming” Social Security by pointing to “unfunded liabilities.” This nonsense about unfunded obligations is one of the biggest frauds of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Social Security was funded by you, me and our employers. Bush took the surplus funds and used them to subsidize his failed tax policies. The Trust Fund’s liabilities are unfunded for one reason and one reason only: Bush, more than any other President, defunded them. Because Republican politicians can’t handle the truth, they cry out, “Class warfare!” But all their screaming cannot alter the immutable rules of simple arithmetic. Now they want to double down on their past failures.

In middle school I was a member of the Fencing Club.

Bank of America Allegedly Foreclosing Fraudulently in Kentucky

Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Many foreclosures show this process was not observed on a widespread basis: the notes were assigned (as in transferred) to the trust right before closing, a violation of the PSA, the New York trust statutes that govern virtually all mortgage securitization trusts, and IRS rules for these trusts (REMIC). When foreclosure defense attorneys started contesting these assignments, suddenly a new ruse started to show up: allonges, which are sheets of paper that contained the needed endorsements, would magically appear out of nowhere. The problem is that an allonge is supposed to be used only when there is no space left on the note for endorsements, including margins and the reverse side, and when it is used, it is supposed to be so firmly attached to the original as to be inseparable. But these “ta da” allonges were always somehow discovered at the custodian, quite separate from the note.

…

This means the odds are awfully high that Bank of America committed multiple frauds on the court, first on the state court in the foreclosures process, and now on the Federal bankruptcy court.

…

This sort of abuse is far more serious than robo signing. As much as the likely misconduct here and robo signing would both be considered frauds on the court, the robo signing is arguably cost cutting gone mad and riding roughshod over proper legal procedures. By contrast, this practice has all the appearances of multiple coverups of the fact that Countrywide trust did not have standing to foreclose on the house. The steps undertaken here look to be a deliberate, concerted effort for the bank to get its way, the law be damned. And this clearly took more parties and more thought than the robo signing abuses.

At a minimum, the attorneys at the law firm and the parties at the servicer had to be aware of this device. And if our reading of this document is correct, this is fraud, pure and simple. It’s high time we see some attorneys disbarred and some law firms go out of business as a result of foreclosure chicanery, as well as serious investigations of the people involved in foreclosure litigation at the servicers and the banks’ general counsel’s office.

(h/t lambert @ Corrente)

Also-

Alan Greenspan: “Fraud, fraud is a fact.” And the banksters are doubling down, with the help of the Obama administration

Thu, 11/11/2010 – 10:51am – lambert

UK Guardian Releases British Torture Tape

By: Jeff Kaye (valtin), Wednesday November 10, 2010 7:08 pm

The UK Guardian yesterday released a videotape of a 2007 interrogation of a suspected Iraqi insurgent, one of 1,253 tapes made by interrogators at a secret British military center near Basra, run by the Joint Forces Interrogation Team (JFIT). The release came only days before the U.S. Justice Department investigation into the CIA’s destruction of videotapes of the torture of three high-value detainees at secret black site prisons was closed, with no charges brought. The news about torture was not a complete surprise as revelations last month showed torture techniques were taught to British interrogators in secret training manuals.

The release of the British torture tapes was the result of a lawsuit brought before the British high court by 220 former Iraqi prisoners. The Guardian warns that the video embedded here “contains material that viewers may find disturbing.” Having watched it, I can vouch it is difficult material to watch. Amazingly, the U.S. press, and much of the British press, have totally ignored this material. The truth is going to be difficult to stomach, but this is a taste of what might have occurred had U.S. tapes found their way to public viewing.

…

Watch the video posted here, and then ponder what role we all play in this monstrous enterprise. If we do not speak out, if we do not demand that all torture stop, and that the entire secret archives be opened so we can know once and for all what has been and is going on, then we put our own futures into dire jeopardy, and will surely earn the scorn of future generations. The Wikileaks Iraqi war logs already have plenty of evidence of torture and war crimes by the United States. Where are the investigations? The prosecutions? The outcry?

So, just a single week after a sound electoral thumping because they pissed off their base (CBS Exit Polling, Independents, Unions, and Gays- More Exit Polls), the Very Serious Leaders of the Democratic Party shot themselves in the foot again yesterday, not once, not twice, but three times!

Genius.  I’ll start with the Korean Free Trade Agreement since that’s the one you’ve probably heard least about-

Korea Free Trade, Here We Come

By: Jane Hamsher Wednesday November 10, 2010 9:46 pm

According to pollsters, opposing NAFTA-style trade agreements and defending Social Security were the two strongest issues Democrats had in 2010. There were 220 television ads run by Democrats in competitive races in 2010 opposing the outsourcing of jobs and “free trade” agreements…

…

The trade deal is seen as a sop to Korea so the US can maintain a military presence in the region. … (O)nce again, more middle class jobs would be sacrificed for the sake of militarism and interventionism.

It would be a truly horrific blow to whatever is left of American manufacturing at a time when unemployment is rampant.  But from a political standpoint, fighting for another so-called “free trade” agreement right now has got to represent some kind of death wish for the Democratic party.  I don’t have any other way to explain it.

Then there is Obama’s cave on Tax Cuts for the Rich-

David Axelrod’s Quaint Idea of Middle Class "Security"

By: emptywheel Wednesday November 10, 2010 11:52 pm

Axe is defining “security for the middle class” as tax cuts. Not “jobs.” Not “access to health care, not just insurance.” Not “a guarantee a bankster can’t just foreclose on their house with a trumped up piece of paper.” Not “some basic safety net for retirement.” But “tax cuts.”

According to Axe, we have to shovel even more money on the already rich so as to ensure the “security” of the middle class by giving them a tax cut.

And while I agree that raising middle class tax cuts at this point would be bad for the economy, it’s not the worst thing that could happen to the economy.

In fact, the worst thing that could happen to this economy may well be passing legislation that continues to hollow out of the middle class and with it increasing the massive income inequality that continues to subject the American people to the craven demands of a few very rich people. That is, precisely what Axe and Obama have now agreed to do.

These men either don’t know or don’t give a damn about the security of the middle class.

And then there is Obama’s Cat Food Commission recommending drastic cuts to Social Security WHILE ALSO Cutting Taxes for the Rich and Corporations-

Cutting Social Security Would Prove Disastrous for Democrats at Polls

By: Jon Walker Wednesday November 10, 2010 6:56 pm

In this last election, Democrats performed terribly with senior citizen voters. National House exit polling shows only 38 percent of those over 65 voted for Democrats while 59 percent votes for Republicans. This is the worst showing for Democrats among seniors in decades and a big part of why Dems lost so many House seats.

…

The Republicans absolutely hammered Democrats with what the GOP labeled as a $500 billion cut in Medicare as part of the new health care law. The fairly misleading message clearly resonated with seniors who really don’t want their entitlements cut.

…

Cutting Social Security will be dramatically worse for Democrats

With that in mind, a Democratic plan to cut Social Security would likely be even more politically destructive to Democrats among senior citizens. Unlike with Medicare, there is no real waste or overpayments to private insurance companies in Social Security to trim. Any cost saving reforms to Social Security must actually be straight-up cuts in benefits.

…

Social Security is called the third rail of politics for a reason. If Obama touches it, he will destroy the Democratic party in 2012.

After looking at the senior vote in 2010, one can only conclude that any attempt by President Obama or Democrats to reduce Social Security benefits would be a political disaster. Polling indicates that a majority of Americans strong oppose (.pdf) raising the retirement age, and I can only assume the idea is even less popular among those about to retire.

Democrats attempted to simply reduce waste in Medicare as part of health care reform, and it caused voters over 65 to reject them en masse because it was framed by Republicans as a cut in Medicare benefits. If Democrats promote actually cutting people’s Social Security benefits, I have every reason to believe their losses among seniors citizens in 2012 will make their historically poor performance in 2010 look small in comparison.

What I will point out about these arguments is that they’re NOT based on some namby pamby kumbayah theory of Social Justice and Compassion-

They are based on hard nosed realpolitik facts about how to win elections.

Anyone who claims to care about “electoral victory” is a LIAR!

And anyone still buying into the “11 Dimensional Chess” Theory of Barack Hussein Obama and his Administration is a member of a cult of personality–

The Obama Movement

Posted on November 10, 2010 by myiq2xu, The Confluence

Remember those stories about the “Cult of Obama?” They started because of something called “Camp Obama.”

…

A summer camp for young adults where they sat around campfires sipping Kool-aid and chanting “Fired up! Ready to go!” and “O-bama! O-bama! O-bama!”

Okay, there were no campfires because the “camps” were held in office buildings and auditoriums, but the principle is the same. Read up on Camp Obama and you might notice a dearth of policy discussions.

It was all about the O

That “telling stories” stuff? The Christian fundamentalists call it “witnessing.”

…

Obama gets $99 million dollars in 2007 from Wall Street, health insurance executives and oil companies. He uses that money to organize Cult Camp Obama. He wins in the red states and caucus states but loses almost all of the big states and swing states.

…

Then once he’s in office he immediately starts dismantling the very organizations that helped him get there. and co-opts or “vertically integrates” all the left-wing activist groups within the Democratic party.

He even arranges for the Democratic party headquarters to be relocated to Chicago.

It sounds to me like he knew his followers were gonna be really disappointed and he didn’t want to leave them anywhere else to go. I guess it never occurred to him they might just stay home.

(h/t lambert @ Corrente)

This is primarily a political post about why this is bad politics.  I’ll explain why it’s bad policy later.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

November 11 is the 315th day of the year (316th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 50 days remaining until the end of the year.

World War I is commemorated on this day, commonly known as Remembrance Day. The ceasefire went into effect at 11:00am CET in 1918, the date of which (and sometimes the commemoration of) is known as Armistice Day. Veterans Day is an annual United States holiday honoring military veterans

On this day in 1918, the armistice between the Allies and Germany was signed in a railway carriage in Compiegne Forest.

Clairière de l’Armistice

In November 1918 the Engineer in charge of the North Region Railways: Arthur-Pierre Toubeau, was instructed to find a suitably discreet place which would accommodate two trains. By coincidence on the outskirts of Compiègne in the forest of Rethondes lay an artillery railway emplacement. Set deep within the wood and out of the view of the masses the location was ideal.

Early in the morning of the 8th November a train carrying Maréchal Ferdinand Foch, his staff and British officers arrived on the siding to the right, nearest the museum. The train formed a mobile headquarters for Foch, complete with a restaurant car and office.

At 0700 hours another train arrived on the left hand track. One of the carriages had been built for Napoleon III and still bore his coat of arms. Inside was a delegation from the German government seeking an armistice.

There were only a hundred metres between the two trains and the entire area was policed by gendarmes placed every 20 metres.

For three days the two parties discussed the terms of an armistice until at 0530 hours on the 11th November 1918, Matthias Erzberger the leader of the German delegation signed the Armistice document.

Within 6 hours the war would be over.

Initially the carriage (Wagon Lits Company car No. 2419D) used by Maréchal Foch was returned to its former duty as a restaurant car but was eventually placed in the courtyard of the Invalides in Paris.

An American: Arthur Fleming paid for its restoration, and the wagon was brought back to Rethondes on 8th April 1927 and placed in a purpose built shelter (Since destroyed).

Numerous artifacts were obtained from those who had been involved in 1918 and the car was refurbished to its condition at the time of the Armistice.

At the entrance to the avenue leading down to the memorial site is a monument raised by a public subscription organised by the newspaper Le Matin.

The monument is dedicated to Alsace Lorraine and consists of a bronze sculpture of a sword striking down the Imperial Eagle of Germany it is framed by sandstone from Alsace.

The Clairière was inaugurated on 11th November 1922 by President Millerand.

 308 – At Carnuntum, Emperor emeritus Diocletian confers with Galerius, Augustus of the East, and Maximianus, the recently returned former Augustus of the West, in an attempt to restore order to the Roman Empire.

1215 – The Fourth Lateran Council meets, defining the doctrine of transubstantiation, the process by which bread and wine are, by that doctrine, said to transform into the body and blood of Christ.

1500 – Treaty of Granada – Louis XII of France and Ferdinand II of Aragon agree to divide the Kingdom of Naples between them.

1620 – The Mayflower Compact is signed in what is now Provincetown Harbor near Cape Cod.

1634 – Following pressure from Anglican bishop John Atherton, the Irish House of Commons passes An Act for the Punishment for the Vice of Buggery  

1675 – Gottfried Leibniz demonstrates integral calculus for the first time to find the area under the graph of y = ƒ(x).

1724 – Joseph Blake, alias Blueskin, a highwayman known for attacking “Thief-Taker General” (and thief) Jonathan Wild at the Old Bailey, is hanged in London.

1778 – Cherry Valley Massacre: Loyalists and Seneca Indian forces attack a fort and village in eastern New York during the American Revolutionary War, killing more than forty civilians and soldiers.

1805 – Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Durenstein – 8000 French troops attempt to slow the retreat of a vastly superior Russian and Austrian force.

1813 – War of 1812: Battle of Crysler’s Farm – British and Canadian forces defeat a larger American force, causing the Americans to abandon their Saint Lawrence campaign.

1831 – In Jerusalem, Virginia, Nat Turner is hanged after inciting a violent slave uprising.

1839 – The Virginia Military Institute is founded in Lexington, Virginia.

1854 – The Ballarat Reform League Charter adopted “At a Meeting held on Bakery Hill in the presence of about ten thousand men”

1864 – American Civil War: Sherman’s March to the Sea – Union General William Tecumseh Sherman begins burning Atlanta, Georgia to the ground in preparation for his march south.

1869 – The Victorian Aboriginal Protection Act is enacted in Australia, giving the government control of indigenous people’s wages, their terms of employment, where they could live, and of their children, effectively leading to the Stolen Generations.

1880 – Australian bushranger Ned Kelly is hanged at Melbourne Gaol.

1887 – Anarchist Haymarket Martyrs August Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer and George Engel are executed.

1889 – Washington is admitted as the 42nd U.S. state.

1918 – World War I: Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiegne in France. The war officially ends at 11:00 (The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month) and this is annually honoured with a two-minute silence.

1918 – Jozef Pilsudski comes to Warsaw and assumes supreme military power in Poland. Poland regains its independence, celebrated each year on this day.

1918 – Emperor Charles I of Austria relinquishes power.

1919 – The Centralia Massacre in Centralia, Washington results the deaths of four members of the American Legion and the lynching of a local leader of the Industrial Workers of the World.

1921 – The Tomb of the Unknowns is dedicated by US President Warren G. Harding at Arlington National Cemetery.

1924 – Prime Minister Alexandros Papanastasiou proclaims the first recognized Greek Republic.

1926 – U.S. Route 66 is established.

1930 – Patent number US1781541 is awarded to Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard for their invention, the Einstein refrigerator.

1934 – The Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia is opened.

1942 – World War II: Nazi Germany completes its occupation of France.

1960 – A military coup against President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam is crushed.

1962 – Kuwait’s National Assembly ratifies the Constitution of Kuwait.

1965 – In Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe), the white-minority government of Ian Smith unilaterally declares independence.

1966 – NASA launches Gemini 12.

1967 – Vietnam War: In a propaganda ceremony in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, three American prisoners of war are released by the Viet Cong and turned over to “new left” antiwar activist Tom Hayden.

1968 – Vietnam War: Operation Commando Hunt initiated. The goal is to interdict men and supplies on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, through Laos into South Vietnam.

1975 – Independence of Angola

1981 – Antigua and Barbuda joins the United Nations.

1992 – The General Synod of the Church of England votes to allow women to become priests.

1993 – A sculpture honoring women who served in the Vietnam War was dedicated at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.

1999 – The House of Lords Act is given Royal Assent, restricting membership of the British House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage.

2000 – Kaprun disaster: 155 skiers and snowboarders die when a cable car catches fire in an alpine tunnel in Kaprun, Austria.

2001 – Journalists Pierre Billaud, Johanne Sutton and Volker Handloik are killed in Afghanistan during an attack on the convoy they are traveling in.

2004 – New Zealand Tomb of the Unknown Warrior is dedicated at the National War Memorial, Wellington.

2004 – The Palestine Liberation Organization confirms the death of Yasser Arafat from unidentified causes. Mahmoud Abbas is elected chairman of the PLO minutes later.

2006 – Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II unveils the New Zealand War Memorial in London, United Kingdom, commemorating the loss of soldiers from the New Zealand Army and the British Army.

2008 – The RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) sets sail on her final voyage to Dubai.

Sources: Pentagon group finds there is minimal risk to lifting gay ban during war



By Ed O’Keefe and Greg Jaffe

Washington Post Staff Writers  

A Pentagon study group has concluded that the military can lift the ban on gays serving openly in uniform with only minimal and isolated incidents of risk to the current war efforts, according to two people familiar with a draft of the report, which is due to President Obama on Dec. 1 More than 70 percent of respondents to a survey sent to active-duty and reserve troops over the summer said the effect of repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy would be positive, mixed or nonexistent, said two sources familiar with the document. The survey results led the report’s authors to conclude that objections to openly gay colleagues would drop once troops were able to live and serve alongside them.

From a mental ward to classical music’s new star

James Rhodes’s six-album deal completes a remarkable journey

By Rob Sharp Thursday, 11 November 2010

The classical pianist James Rhodes treats people who approach him in the street with a smile, a shrug, an excitable patter that exudes familiarity and warmth. Cab drivers inquire about future concerts, pensioners doff their caps, and baristas compliment him on his YouTube presence.

Four years ago this articulate musician was in a mental hospital, where he made suicide attempts after years of sexual and drug abuse. He had quit his job in the City and gone through a divorce.

Last March he became the first classical pianist to be signed by a major rock label. Next month, he will release the first of six albums made with Warner Bros Records.

USA

General Electric moves production from its lamp plant in Virginia to China

• GE is investing $2bn in China setting up joint ventures

• US has lost 40% of its manufacturing jobs since 1979

• US government hopes to create 800,000 green jobs by 2012

Edward Helmore in Winchester, Virginia

The Guardian, Thursday 11 November 2010

Nestled in the orchards of the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, Winchester has seen its share of economic changes. Last month, a confluence of clean energy regulation and high manufacturing costs forced the closure of General Electric’s Winchester lamp plant with the loss of 200 jobs.

The manufacturing group concluded US workers were too costly and lacked the necessary skills to make the new, curled energy-efficient bulbs. Production, like so much of the clean energy industry, is shifting abroad, notably to China where GE announced this week a $2bn (£1.24bn) investment to boost innovation and set up joint ventures.

Recession Shadows America’s Middle Class

The Nouveau Poor

By Marc Pitzke  

The crisis caught her unprepared. “It was horrible,” Pam Brown remembers. “Overnight I found myself on the wrong side of the fence. It never occurred to me that something like this could happen to me. I got very depressed.”

Brown sits in a cheap diner on West 14th Street in Manhattan, stirring her $1.35 coffee. That’s all she orders — it’s too late for breakfast and too early for lunch.

She also needs to save money. Until early 2009, Brown worked as an executive assistant on Wall Street, earning more than $80,000 a year, living in a six-bedroom house with her three sons. Today, she’s long-term unemployed and has to make do with a tiny one-bedroom in the Bronx. It’s only luck that she’s not homeless outright..

Europe

Our chef in Paris – a life entertaining the ambassadors

The British embassy cook is being awarded the Légion d’honneur. He tells John Lichfield about 40 years of catering for high society

Thursday, 11 November 2010

Presidents, prime ministers and ambassadors may come and go but for 40 years a small corner of Britain has had only one “chef”. Since June 1970 James Viaene has been “our chef in Paris”, the head of the kitchens of the British embassy residence in the French capital. Mr Viaene has cooked his way through 10 British ambassadors, five French presidents, 15 French premier ministres and seven British prime ministers. Most of them have eaten at his table.

Although he is French, he has become a cross-Channel ambassador for British cuisine and, quietly, one of the most influential French chefs of his generation. His “pupils” or “commis-chefs” can be found in key positions all over the world. They include, just down the street, Bernard Vaussion, the head chef at the Elysée Palace, the official residence of the French President..

Sarkozy Draws Ire Over Media Spying Claims

The President vs. the Press  

By Helene Zuber

Edwy Plenel has been a journalist for over 30 years. He was editor-in-chief of Le Monde , France’s leading daily, he uncovered many scandals during the presidency of François Mitterrand, and he was spied on by the Elysée Palace in the 1980s, but it was always relatively bearable. Plenel, a former Trotskyite, has never found it easy to be a journalist in France. But now he finds it intolerable.

“Our democracy is in serious danger,” says Plenel, who founded the independent news website Mediapart three years ago. “Our republic, its laws and its principles are disintegrating into a big ash heap right in front of our eyes.” Plenel is convinced that French freedom — and, most of all, the freedom of the press — is in serious jeopardy.

Middle East

Sun sets on US influence in Iraq as deal on new government loom



By Patrick Cockburn Thursday, 11 November 2010

The United States is facing a decisive political defeat in Iraq over the formation of a new government, as its influence in the country sinks lower than at any time since the invasion of 2003.

The increased power of Iran is expected to be underlined with a vote in parliament today in Baghdad to name the leadership after eight months of political stalemate during which political violence has continued throughout the country.

The US campaign to promote its favoured candidate, Iyad Allawi, as president appears to have failed spectacularly. Mr Allawi’s al-Iraqiya party, which won most seats in the election on 7 March, is breaking up as several of its factionsjoin the government..

U.S. to use more drones to hunt for al Qaeda in Yemen  

 

By Elise Labott, CNN Senior State Department Producer  

The Obama administration is expected to deploy more Predator drones in Yemen to hunt for and possible strike against, al Qaeda in the country, U.S. officials said.

Air attacks against operatives of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) have stopped over the past several months, because the United States lacks actionable intelligence about their whereabouts. After a series of attacks and operations by Yemeni forces earlier this year, the leaders of AQAP have gone underground.

Yemeni authorities are believed to have the best information about AQAP’s activities, and officials said the Yemenis have expressed interest in going after the operatives themselves. The United States hopes the addition of more drones will help locate them for target.

Asia

Tariffs and currency questions dominate China’s economic agenda

Chinese manufacturers will be watching developments at G20 summit anxiously as calls for appreciation of the yuan grow

Tania Branigan in Beijing

The Guardian, Thursday 11 November 2010

Huamei is hardly a household name in Britain, but its products may well be keeping you decent. As China’s largest sewing thread manufacturer, it produces 10,000 tonnes each year to be used in clothing from the Middle East and Africa to Europe and the US.

But while orders flood into its headquarters in eastern Zhejiang province, Zhou Xiaonan is in gloomy mood. Never mind 2008’s economic crisis; the deputy general manager says this is the toughest he haswitnessed in decades.

Philippines military waits in the wings  

 

By Al Labita  

MANILA – Philippine President Benigno Aquino is only four months into his six-year election mandate, but rumors are already swirling that a destabilization plot is in the works. From coffee shops to beer bars, Manila’s grapevine is abuzz about the so called “Solidarity for Sovereignty (S4S)”, a shadowy movement with links to previous administrations and rogue segments of the military.

The group is headed by Norberto Gonzalez, former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s national security adviser, and is now reportedly being closely watched by intelligence agencies. Gonzalez is the founding chairperson of the Philippine Democratic Socialist Party (PDSP), which he formed with Jesuit priest Romeo Intengan.

Africa

Top police face trial for DR Congo rights activist killing  



By Emmanuel Peuchot, Sapa-AFP  

The national police special investigations section chief, Colonel Daniel Mukalay, is charged along with three majors and other ranking police officers for the murder of Floribert Chebeya, a dissident who was found dead in his car in June, the clerk of Kinshasa’s Gombe military court told AFP.

The clerk said that three of the accused, two majors and a warrant officer, were on the run and would be tried in absentia.

The trial is due to begin on Friday, the clerk said.

Nigeria marks 15 years since execution of Saro-Wiwa



JOEL OLATUNDE AGOI | BANE, NIGERIA  

The anniversary comes at a tense time for Nigeria, one of the world’s largest oil exporters, ahead of elections early next year and with many of the issues his campaign highlighted far from resolved.

Ogoniland, the community in the Niger Delta region where Saro-Wiwa was from, remains impoverished and badly polluted, its creeks and rivers coated with oil sheen, the area criss-crossed by pipelines.

Kidnappings and violence have plagued the Niger Delta, the nation’s main oil-producing region, and armed gangs have flourished there in the years after Saro-Wiwa’s hanging by ex-dictator Sani Abacha’s military regime.

Latin America

Danger: the world is on its way

For Paraguay’s “uncontacted” tribe of Ayoreo Indians, a proposed expedition by the Natural History Museum risks their being exposed to outsiders – and, worse, to “white people’s diseases”.

By Iain Hollingshead

In an inter-connected world of global travel, trade and communication, it seems almost impossible that there are still pockets of people who have absolutely no contact with the outside world.

And yet yesterday an extraordinary storm erupted between the Natural History Museum, which is planning on sending a 60-strong expedition of scientists to Paraguay, and indigenous leaders who claim that contact with previously isolated tribes in the area will lead to “genocide”.

There are thought to be around 150 Ayoreo Indians in Paraguay – the only place in South America outside the Amazon populated by “uncontacted” Indians – living in six or seven isolated groups in the vast forest known as the Gran Chaco.

Ignoring Asia A Blog

Broadcast Premiers.  Country Music Awards.  A good night to nap.

• AMC– Red Planet
• Bravo– Top Chef (premier)
• Discovery– Track Me If You Can (Series Premier), Mythbusters, Storm Chasers (premiers)
• ESPN– Hoopies, Jazz @ Magic, Clippers @ Spurs
• ESPN2– College Throwball, Miami (Ohio) @ Bowling Green
• Food– Tailgate Warriors With Guy Fieri (premier)
• FX– What Happens in Vegas, Terriers x 3 (premier)
• History– WW II in HD (Air War premier)
• Lifetime– The Lake House
• Sci Fi– Hollywood Treasure x 2 (premiers)
• Turner Classic– The Immigrant (Chaplin), Yankee Doodle in Berlin (shhhhh)
• Travel– Man v. Food marathon (thank goodness, with premier)
• USA– Psych (premier)

Later-

• Oxygen– Bandidas
• Turner Classic– The Poor Little Rich Girl, The Coward (shhhhh)
• USA– Burn Notice x 2

Dave hosts Russell Crowe, Quincy Jones, and Snoop Dogg.  Jon has Mick Foley (could be fun), Stephen Martha Stewart (maybe she’ll make something).  Conan has Jon Hamm, Charlyne Yi, and Fistful of Mercy.

Boondocks– Or Die Trying.

Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Student protesters storm British PM’s party HQ

by Robin Millard, AFP

1 hr 27 mins ago

2 Haiti capital battles arrival of cholera

by Clarens Renois, AFP

Wed Nov 10, 11:41 am ET

3 Myanmar ‘preparing for Suu Kyi release’

AFP

Wed Nov 10, 11:33 am ET

4 US trade deficit eases but China tensions remain

by Andrew Beatty, AFP

15 mins ago

5 Baghdad Christians in firing line as deadly bombs sow panic

by Marwa Sabah, AFP

1 hr 57 mins ago

6 Baghdad bombs kill three minority Christians

by Sammy Ketz, AFP

Wed Nov 10, 5:56 am ET

7 Boeing halts test flights of delay-plagued 787 Dreamliner

by Delphine Touitou, AFP

19 mins ago

8 Boeing halts 787 test flights after fire aboard plane

by Delphine Touitou, AFP

2 hrs 42 mins ago

9 Unapologetic Bush defends legacy

by Olivier Knox, AFP

Tue Nov 9, 4:14 pm ET

10 Woods out to break 2010 drought at Aussie Golf Masters

by Robert Smith, AFP

Tue Nov 9, 4:38 pm ET

11 China orders banks to boost reserves

AFP

Wed Nov 10, 12:30 pm ET

12 Indonesia’s unity is an inspiration to world: Obama

by Stephen Collinson, AFP

Wed Nov 10, 10:12 am ET

13 British PM urges greater political freedom in China

by Katherine Haddon, AFP

Wed Nov 10, 7:04 am ET

14 Singapore Airlines grounds A380s after engine woes

by Philip Lim, AFP

Wed Nov 10, 7:02 am ET

SINGAPORE (AFP) – Singapore Airlines (SIA) on Wednesday grounded three of its A380 planes but said it would stick to its existing firm orders for the superjumbo in a major boost for Airbus.

Chief executive officer Chew Choon Seng said SIA retained its confidence in the world’s biggest passenger plane despite recent incidents involving the A380.

“There’s no cause for us not to take the remaining eight,” Chew told a media briefing.

14 G20 in war of words on trade as summit nears

by Judith Evans, AFP

Wed Nov 10, 6:52 am ET

15 Deficit panel targets Social Security and taxes

By Jeff Mason and Donna Smith, Reuters

1 hr 5 mins ago

16 Obama tells G20 dollar strength rests on U.S. economy

By Patricia Zengerle and Alister Bull, Reuters

56 mins ago

17 Obama seeks better ties with skeptical Muslim world

By Olivia Rondonuwu and Sunanda Creagh, Reuters

Wed Nov 10, 9:39 am ET

18 Boeing halts 787 flights, emergency landing probed

By John Crawley and Kyle Peterson, Reuters

Wed Nov 10, 1:31 pm ET

19 APEC seeks to build vast free trade area

By Yoko Kubota and Yoko Nishikawa, Reuters

Wed Nov 10, 7:36 am ET

20 GM posts $2 billion quarter profit, IPO next

By David Bailey, Reuters

Wed Nov 10, 11:07 am ET

21 Special Report: Can this committee save the world from bankers?

By Huw Jones, Reuters

Wed Nov 10, 7:45 am ET

22 UK’s Cameron urges China to move on exchange rate

By Keith Weir, Reuters

Wed Nov 10, 4:17 am ET

23 Company errors, complacency preceded oil spill: panel

By Ayesha Rascoe, Reuters

Tue Nov 9, 7:38 pm ET

24 Republicans eye reviving tax cut debate in 2012

By Kim Dixon, Reuters

Tue Nov 9, 5:19 pm ET

25 Nearly 59 million lack health insurance: CDC

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor, Reuters

Tue Nov 9, 9:08 pm ET

26 Analysis: Islam no bloc in Obama speeches to Muslims

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor, Reuters

Wed Nov 10, 12:02 pm ET

27 Guantanamo suspect duped by al Qaeda: defense

By Basil Katz, Reuters

Tue Nov 9, 6:21 pm ET

28 Deficit panel leaders’ plan curbs Social Security

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press

11 mins ago

29 AP-GfK Poll: Palin most polarizing of 2012 crowd

By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press

12 mins ago

30 Obama to world leaders: Must help on economy, too

By BEN FELLER, AP White House Correspondent

13 mins ago

31 Thousands of UK students protest tuition fees hike

By JILL LAWLESS and GILLIAN SMITH, Associated Press

14 mins ago

32 Steele may face challengers for GOP chairmanship

By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press

15 mins ago

33 Feds propose graphic cigarette warning labels

By MICHAEL FELBERBAUM, AP Tobacco Writer

16 mins ago

34 AP-GfK Poll: Low hopes for political compromise

By LIZ “Sprinkles” SIDOTI, AP National Political Writer Liz Sidoti, Ap National Political Writer – 1 hr 49 mins ago

35 GM reports $2B 3Q profit ahead of stock offering

By TOM KRISHER and DEE-ANN DURBIN, AP Auto Writers

Wed Nov 10, 1:04 pm ET

36 White House edits stain its reliance on science

By DINA CAPPIELLO, Associated Press

10 mins ago

37 Singapore Airlines pulls 3 A380s due to engines

By KRISTEN GELINEAU, Associated Press

Wed Nov 10, 8:08 am ET

38 Sarkozy signs the law: French retire at 62, not 60

By JAMEY KEATEN, Associated Press

Wed Nov 10, 1:18 pm ET

39 Doctors set up cholera centers in Haiti’s capital

By JONATHAN M. KATZ, Associated Press

Wed Nov 10, 6:37 am ET

40 House veterans to newcomers: Sweat the small stuff

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press

Wed Nov 10, 6:37 am ET

41 Colleague: Suu Kyi set to probe Myanmar vote fraud

Associated Press

Wed Nov 10, 12:38 pm ET

42 US approval of arms pact with Russia looking shaky

By DESMOND BUTLER, Associated Press

Wed Nov 10, 6:37 am ET

43 5 on trial in man’s shooting in Katrina aftermath

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, Associated Press

38 mins ago

44 Rifle squad honors vets with 57,000 goodbyes

By SHARON COHEN, AP National Writer

2 hrs 30 mins ago

45 Disabled veterans memorial has DC groundbreaking

By LISA ORKIN EMMANUEL, Associated Press

Wed Nov 10, 2:26 pm ET

46 Buick brings back Regal name

By ANN M. JOB, For The Associated Press

Wed Nov 10, 11:16 am ET

47 Scarcity of peyote means hard times for dealers

By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press

Wed Nov 10, 11:01 am ET

48 China shows space skills with satellite rendezvous

By DAN ELLIOTT, Associated Press

Wed Nov 10, 3:16 am ET

49 WHITE HOUSE NOTEBOOK: Indonesians proud of Obama

By SARAH DiLORENZO, Associated Press

Wed Nov 10, 12:52 am ET

50 Lawyer: Government lacks evidence in Afghan deaths

By GEORGE TIBBITS, Associated Press

Wed Nov 10, 12:15 am ET

51 Brunei prince’s suit vs. ex-attys is NYC sensation

By JENNIFER PELTZ, Associated Press Writer

Tue Nov 9, 11:45 pm ET

52 Ex-Marines arrested in Los Angeles weapons scheme

By THOMAS WATKINS, Associated Press Writer

Tue Nov 9, 11:23 pm ET

53 Holocaust survivor funds raided for $42 million

By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press Writer

Tue Nov 9, 8:44 pm ET

54 Obama nostalgic on return trip to Indonesia

By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press

Tue Nov 9, 7:38 pm ET

55 2 lawsuits challenge US Defense of Marriage Act

By LARRY NEUMEISTER and PAT EATON-ROBB, Associated Press

Tue Nov 9, 6:24 pm ET

(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

On Monday, Matt Lauer’s interview with George W. Bush aired on the “Today Show”, giving Mr. Bush free publicity for his new book, “Decision Point”. Since then segments of the interview have been aired on other NBC and MSNBC shows with little counter to Mr. Bush’s lies and deception about his presidency.

Michael Moore has offered to give NBC “Fahrenheit 9/11” for free to counter balance all the unchallenged publicity they have given the admitted war criminal, George W. Bush. There is no statute of limitations on war crimes. Can you hear us, Mr. Obama.

I would give them (NBC) “Fahrenheit 9/11”, for free, to run on NBC, as balance to all the publicity they’ve been giving him . . .

I hope we never forget what this man did.

“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”.

Joseph C. Wilson: George Bush’s Deception Points

Having read that people began lining up in front of bookstores before former President Bush’s memoir, Decision Points, was due to be released, I hurried off to purchase mine early on November 9, arriving about fifteen minutes after opening time. I have the distinction of being the first person to purchase Bush’s book in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

I have a special interest in understanding how the former president sees his decision to invade Iraq and his use of intelligence to justify the invasion. I have also been curious about what he might have to say about the betrayal of a CIA covert officer’s identity, my wife’s, by, among others, two senior members of his staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and Karl Rove. I had seen his interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer in which he volunteered that Scooter Libby was a “loyal” American who had been somehow caught up in the Valerie Plame affair. I was thunderstruck by his description of a man convicted of four counts of lying to federal officials, perjury, and obstruction of justice, the chief of staff to the Vice President who knowingly offered up Valerie Plame’s name to a New York Times reporter, and who was so obsessed with destroying my reputation that he kept a three-ring binder on me and an annotated copy of my book. My expectations for truthful revelation in Bush’s book, after his comment, were naturally low. I have not been disappointed. In fact, Deception Points might have been a more appropriate title.

Richard (RJ) Eskow: Sit! Stay! A New York Times Chew Toy for Blue Dogs

The conservative wing of the Democratic Party just drove it over a cliff, but you’d never know if from reading Matt Bai’s latest New York Times piece. It’s the latest in a series of Bai paeans to that odd mix of ideologies and opportunism that Washington types persist in calling “centrism,” despite its ever-increasing distance from the real center of American opinion.

How is a Blue Dog different from all other dogs? Apparently when you love a blue dog, you lick it.

Like so many other commentators these days, Bai’s so enmeshed in personalities and labels that he never gets around to the issues. In his piece the liberals are fighting with the centrists, Howard Dean’s supporters don’t like Rahm Emanuel, and it’s all a reporter can do just to keep score. Unfortunately he never pauses to consider the possibility that policies, not personalities, might have been the key to victory.

Richard Norton-Taylor: Waterboarding is no basis for truth

George Bush’s defence of torture relies on a belief in information that our intelligence agencies treat with deep scepticism

Bush cannot be allowed to get away with making these kind of claims about information based on torture, information that Britain’s security and intelligence agencies treat with deep scepticism and – as far as the supposed links between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq are concerned – incredulity

Rev. Jesse Jackson: Republicans About to Show True Colors

Voters delivered an understandable rebuke to Democrats — 30 million people looking for work, wages declining, millions of homes under water. The economy is a mess; it hasn’t be fixed. Democrats paid the price.

Republicans ran as wolves in sheep’s clothing. Sobered by Tea Party challenges in their primaries, Republican candidates suddenly became populist tribunes. They indicted Democrats for running up deficits to bail out the banks without doing anything about jobs, even as incoming House Speaker John Boehner gathered the bank lobbyists together to offer Republicans as their protectors.

Now voters will see the sheep garb discarded and the wolf come out. Remember the talk about deficits? Forget about it — the first Republican priority is to extend all the Bush tax cuts, adding a trillion to the deficit over 10 years to pay for the extra tax cuts provided those making over $250,000 a year. The second is to gut the estate tax that applies only to the wealthiest families in America. This is solemnly described as defending small businesses and small farms from tax increases in a recession. But we’re talking corporate lawyers and affluent doctors here, not mom-and-pop stores.

David Weigel: The Peterson Principle

Pete Peterson’s unserious campaign to get America to think seriously about the national debt.

You win, Pete Peterson. I’m writing about you. The $6 million you’re spending on your latest campaign will not be wasted. You are getting Media Attention. This piece can be printed out and put in a binder, which can then be used to gain further Media Attention.

I can’t ignore this campaign because it’s so obvious and pandering. It is called “OweNo,” with the “o” in “no” actually designed as red “no” symbol, as in “No smoking” or “No shirts, No shoes, No service.” It’s ostensibly a vehicle for the presidential campaign of Hugh Jidette, whose name is supposed to (but doesn’t quite) sound like “huge debt,” who promises to spend lots of money without raising taxes, and who launched his campaign to a cheering crowd of fellow actors who really needed the work.

And so it’s a ploy to promote the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, which is scheduled to release its recommendations for a long-term debt reduction plan by Dec. 1. We are at “a unique, historic moment in American politics,” Peterson said today. “I heard the voters say, enough is enough,” said Peterson. “Enough of the bluffing. Enough of the meaningless generalities that obscure more than they reveal.”

John Kaufman: What’s Wrong with Wisconsin?

Having elected its second millionaire to the U.S. Senate and sending its most courageous and progressive congressman home, having installed a Republican governor and Republican majorities to both houses of the state Legislature, Wisconsin has in the name of a “populist” uprising put into power a party totally opposed to the best interests of those most in need of real populism and government-led defense: rural and inner-city people. In a state with a prominent progressive tradition, what happened on Nov. 2 was a tragedy, but not a very surprising one

Sadly, the red tide of Republican victory across the state includes most of Wisconsin’s rural counties, as well as the expected wealthy suburbs. And while urban voters, according to exit polls, preferred Democrats by a large margin, statewide families making less than $50,000 voted for Republicans and Democrats in nearly equal numbers.

How did this happen?

Matthew Rothschild: Rand Paul’s Lack of Class

Kentucky’s newly minted Senator is not ready to play nice.

Appearing on “This Week” with Christiane Amanpour on Sunday, Paul boasted that the tea partiers have will not be coopted by the Republican Party but vice versa. “The tea party is coopting Washington,” he said. “We’re proud, we’re strong, we’re loud, and we’re going to coopt. And in fact, I think we’re already shaping the debate.”

He’s shaping it in such an ugly way, too.

David Smith-Ferri: Drones Cannot See What Afghan Civilians See

KABUL, Afghanistan – “We live in constant fear of suicide attacks,” said Laila, an Afghan woman who lives in Kandahar city and who visited with us yesterday. “When will the next one strike and where?”

“Twelve days ago,” she continued, “a good friend was walking home from the mosque. A four-minute walk. An IED was detonated, and my friend lost half his face. Another man lost his leg, and his son lost his leg, too. We live with that kind of uncertainty, when you don’t know what is going to happen from one moment to the next.”

Laila’s descriptions of living with fear and violence in Kandahar contradict the mild U.S. descriptions of the “security situation” there. “The Taliban do not control the city,” said Army General Stanley McChrystal, in a May 13, 2010 briefing concerning a “much-anticipated” military operation in Kandahar. “You can walk around the streets of Kandahar, and there is business going on. It is a functioning city.”

Compare McChrystal’s blithe comments with Laila’s experience. “In Kandahar city, you don’t know what’s going to happen, minute to minute. Every single minute that we live – if you can call it living – every single second there is the thought that this is going to be my last second.”