TODAY'S TOPICS: War Crimes, Drones, Prisons, Gang of Six, If McCain Won?, FDR, Revenue v. Spending
War Crimes and Waste
In case anyone still have any illusions regarding President Obama when it comes foreign policy (like perhaps we would be a little better than Bush) – don’t…he’s a war criminal too.
Sadly, in large part because he’s a democrat that probably won the Democratic nomination because of his opposition to the Iraq War (how much do you want to bet he would have voted for that war if he was actually in the Senate at the time? I’d bet everything I own), a lot of the anti-war movement energy has dissipated (if not disappeared completely), and been replaced by a desire to believe Obama is different, and not “help Republicans”.
Well, I think its long past time to ignite that anti-war anger again. Obviously, the economy, and our rapid descent into another recession (or depression) and near third world status is taking precedent right now.
Fine. Then let’s talk about costs and wasted resources. A recent, detailed study by the Eisenhower Research Project at Brown University revealed that the war on terror has cost the U.S. economy, so far, from $3.7 trillion (the most conservative estimate) to $4.4 trillion (the moderate estimate). Then there are interest payments on these costs— another $1 trillion. While this must bring delight of arms dealers, private contractors and international bankers, it means deep cuts in core public programs and investments here at home.
Consider this too: Since 1997 the US has TRIPLED spending on defense…yet we’re about to cut social security, Medicare, and Medicaid instead (I’ll get to the criminal Gang of Six proposal shortly)?
But here’s what all Obama dittoheads must also come to grips with: he’s INCREASED American lawlessness and mass murder around the world, not decreased it. In December, 2009, U.S. cruise missile carrying cluster bombs were dropped in Yemen, killing 41 people, including 14 women and 21 children.
Here’s another unreported truth about the US drone campaign in Pakistan's tribal region: far more civilians are being injured or dying than the Americans and Pakistanis admit. . . .in fact, for every 10 to 15 people killed, we get MAYBE one militant. Please tell me again who the terrorists really are? Even when the drones hit the right compound, the force of the blast is such that neighbors' houses, often made of baked mud, are also demolished, crushing those inside.
Last year, we spent $154 billion in appropriated funds on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is in addition to the $549 billion in appropriated funds for the Pentagon (and doesn’t count Homeland Security, CIA, NSA, etc.). And the non-appropriated cost of war was even higher – especially when you include the cost of care for the 15% of all the American troops in Iraq who come home with permanent brain abnormalities. According to Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, the war in Iraq alone is costing us $4 trillion and counting. That’s more than $13,000 for every one of us, and roughly 8% of our entire net worth as a nation.
Harper's Index for May, 2011
Minimum number of people killed by CIA drone attacks in Pakistan last year: 607
Number of those who appeared on a U.S. list of most-wanted terrorists: 2
But it gets worse. We have started wars in Yemen and Somalia too…and opened secret CIA prison sites where we torture detainees. So let’s all be REAL CLEAR…Obama is a stone cold war criminal that should be prosecuted…just like Bush and Cheney. Watch Jeremy Scahill explain what he has been uncovering.
Gang of Six and Obama’s Blacklisting of Progressives
I don’t want to go through another detailed breakdown of the austerity budgets being proposed by Congress and supported by this President again. But, as you hear the President come out in support of the Gang of Six proposal – the most right wing, life destroying budget (if enacted) in the history of our country – consider the fact that just 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined…and they would get a TAX CUT in this budget (as would corporations). Yet, also included, in a budget supported by a DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT, the big three programs that are the bedrock of this country, would be slashed.
That’s right, while the plan would reduce social security benefits by $1,300 per year, it would also enact a $1.5 trillion tax cut, and lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to between 23 and 29 percent.
Remember when I said that the Ryan plan was a decoy…used to move the debate so far right that a plan like this, the most conservative in our history if enacted, would then become “moderate”? Well, it’s all played out EXACTLY as I predicted it would. It's being hailed by the corporate press and too many Democrats as "bipartisan" and "balanced" and "centrist". What a crock of shit.
As economist Dean Baker noted, “it's "striking" that the Gang of Six chose to respond to the crisis created by the collapse of the housing bubble by developing a plan that will give even more money to top Wall Street executives and traders - by taking it from little old ladies' Social Security."
Paul Krugman couldn’t hide his disdain for our Manchurian Candidate President either, stating, “President Obama has made it clear that he's willing to sign Times's Nate Silver points out, the president has offered deals that are far to the right of what the average American voter prefers — in fact, if anything, they’re a bit to the right of what the average Republican voter prefers!”
Meanwhile, rather than simply appoint Elizabeth Warren as the Director of the CFPB as a recess appointment (so she can’t be blocked), the President nominates someone else instead, who STILL won’t get any GOP votes!!! So why not nominate Warren??? Answer: because he doesn’t even care about this critical agency…just like he intentionally eliminated the public option. We are up against a master “player” appointed by Wall Street to serve as a kinder, gentler corporate face than Bush…and that’s it.
What we are experiencing is the corporate takeover of government…Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine to the “T”…in fact, a lot of this “shock” is SELF CREATED by the phone debt ceiling debate so they can devastate public programs and transfer more wealth and power to the top. Klein writes, “Using trumped up crisis to raid the public purse and attack the basic rights and benefits is a very old trick - but rarely is the shock doctrine tactic wielded as brazenly as in the pseudo debate about the debt ceiling. This is naked class war, waged by the ultra rich against everyone else, and it's well past time for Americans to draw the line."
I’ve come to the conclusion that we’d (the left…and therefore the country) be better off, in the long run, if McCain had won the Presidency. I’m NOT saying that he’d be a better President (of course he’d be worse), or that I would ever vote for him. As you’ll see in my featured article today though, there are MANY reasons for why I’ve come to this understanding.
Certainly, the Democratic Party and the left would have mobilized and organized AGAINST the right wing agenda (rather than pursue a lot of it), the Democrats would have WON LARGER majorities in Congress in 2010 and again in 2012 because the GOP would be saddled with the disaster that is our economy, and a Democrat would be a LOCK to win in 2012…with a larger mandate and majorities, and an even more powerful case to be made AGAINST the Bush/McCain years.
Instead, we have a right wing Democrat President pursuing a GOP agenda (not as bad as McCain), a confused electorate, a horrible economy saddling the Democratic President, smaller Democrat majority in the Senate and a minority in the House, and so forth. Read the article…it makes the case VERY WELL.
GOP Losing PR Fight, Winning Policy Battle
Yes, I know that polls are showing the GOP stance is wrong, and Obama is largely in the “right”. In fact, a whopping 71 Percent of Americans Disapprove of GOP's Handling of Debt Ceiling Crisis. Yet, they are getting everything they want anyway.
So yes, the Republicans are characteristically overplaying their hand. A recent Gallup poll shows that only 20% of Americans want to see a deal with spending cuts only; more than double that figure want an equal mix of cuts and tax rises, mostly tax rises or only tax rises. True, twice as many would prefer their congressional representative to vote against raising the ceiling than for it. But that is still fewer than half, and more than a third say they don't know enough to say. On this issue, as with so many others, the nation is crying out for leadership, but, although Obama was elected to make a difference, instead he keeps on splitting the difference.
As Randy Shaw points out, "Obama’s fetish of bipartisanship and compromise – as an end in itself - would have been the elements of a very good President circa 1954, or maybe 1975. In 2011, with one party that has swore to never compromise on any principle ever again, it’s just a recipe for failure to hear this from the head of the other party. It guarantees bad outcomes. And with an economy in tatters and urgency (the fierce urgency of now, I would say) the order of the day, it has enormous consequences."
As Randy Shaw points out, "Obama’s fetish of bipartisanship and compromise – as an end in itself - would have been the elements of a very good President circa 1954, or maybe 1975. In 2011, with one party that has swore to never compromise on any principle ever again, it’s just a recipe for failure to hear this from the head of the other party. It guarantees bad outcomes. And with an economy in tatters and urgency (the fierce urgency of now, I would say) the order of the day, it has enormous consequences."
What’s crazy is the media keeps framing (lucky for Obama) this debate as between Obama wanting tax increases on the wealthy and less cuts and the GOP against all taxes and wanting deeper cuts. But what isn’t discussed is that Obama is actually proposing to reduce non-security domestic federal spending as a percentage of GDP to its lowest level in 50 years. That’s INSANE.
As David Dayen notes, “These are the limits in the media debate. The fact that the public would seem to prefer an entirely different type of budget deal is a non-factor. The fact that such plans exist--the People's Budget of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, for instance--is all but ignored by the corporate media. Senate Democrats have floated a similar plan. A competent press corps would cover these proposals, if only for the sake of telling citizens that such options are available--that reducing the long-term deficit is possible without slashing spending on programs that people support…Protecting Social Security benefits (average monthly check: $1,177) is just the same as protecting corporations from paying higher taxes. That makes sense only in The Sensible Center that the Beltway media have concocted.”
Don’t you just love how the media creates a false equivalency between GOP extremists that want to give tax cuts to billionaires while privatizing Medicare and progressives that want to protect public programs that SAVE LIVES and keep the economy from tanking while increasing taxes on those that have it all and have never paid so little?? How are these beliefs equivalent?
We KNOW what happens when trickle down economics are followed. Just look at the jobs/growth records of ALL recent presidents:
We KNOW what happens when trickle down economics are followed. Just look at the jobs/growth records of ALL recent presidents:
Of course, from the media coverage, you might think the financial crisis in the United States was a matter primarily concerning bankers. In fact, unemployment, bankruptcies, and foreclosures are on the rise, and localities around the country are reporting increased homelessness. The share of wealth held by the poorest 40% (or, for that matter, the poorest 90%) of Americans is shrinking rapidly.Remember too, the Great Recession is the source of much of the increase in our debt, less from the stimulus than from the automatic social supports that expand when the economy declines – unemployment insurance, food stamps, Medicaid, and other supports. These work to sustain families that have lost their jobs, while sustaining demand in the economy and limiting the downturn. Thus federal spending will automatically decline if the economy recovers and people get good-paying jobs. Which leads me to this…
1. Republican Leaders Agree U.S. Default Would Be a "Financial Disaster"
2. Ronald Reagan Tripled the National Debt
3. George W. Bush Doubled the National Debt
4. Republicans Voted Seven Times to Raise Debt Ceiling for President Bush
5. Federal Taxes Are Now at a 60 Year Low
6. Bush Tax Cuts Didn't Pay for Themselves or Spur "Job Creators"
7. Ryan Budget Delivers Another Tax Cut Windfall for Wealthy
8. Ryan Budget Will Require Raising Debt Ceiling - Repeatedly
9. Tax Cuts Drive the Next Decade of Debt
10. $3 Trillion Tab for Unfunded Wars Remains Unpaid
2. Ronald Reagan Tripled the National Debt
3. George W. Bush Doubled the National Debt
4. Republicans Voted Seven Times to Raise Debt Ceiling for President Bush
5. Federal Taxes Are Now at a 60 Year Low
6. Bush Tax Cuts Didn't Pay for Themselves or Spur "Job Creators"
7. Ryan Budget Delivers Another Tax Cut Windfall for Wealthy
8. Ryan Budget Will Require Raising Debt Ceiling - Repeatedly
9. Tax Cuts Drive the Next Decade of Debt
10. $3 Trillion Tab for Unfunded Wars Remains Unpaid
A Revenue, Not a Spending Problem
Last April, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities concluded, "Middle-income Americans are now paying federal taxes at or near historically low levels, according to the latest available data." As USA Today reported last May, the BEA data debunked yet another right-wing myth:
Federal, state and local taxes -- including income, property, sales and other taxes -- consumed 9.2% of all personal income in 2009, the lowest rate since 1950, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports. That rate is far below the historic average of 12% for the last half-century. The overall tax burden hit bottom in December at 8.8% of income before rising slightly in the first three months of 2010.Or as former Reagan Treasury official Bruce Bartlett explained it this week the New York Times: In short, by the broadest measure of the tax rate, the current level is unusually low and has been for some time. Revenues were 14.9 percent of G.D.P. in both 2009 and 2010.
Yet if one listens to Republicans, one would think that taxes have never been higher, that an excessive tax burden is the most important constraint holding back economic growth and that a big tax cut is exactly what the economy needs to get growing again. So just remember a few myth busting facts: We have a revenue problem NOT a spending problem. Employers aren’t being strangled by job-killing regulations…but my lack of CONSUMER DEMAND. And broad social service cuts won’t solve our deficit problem, and will make our economy worse (as it takes more demand out of the economy).
The problem then is revenue, and Dean Baker lays out the backwards approach being taken: "The Republicans are screaming bloody murder because President Obama wants to raise the top tax rate by 4.6 percentage points. Imagine that he proposed raising taxes on the wealthy by twice as much. That is effectively what he is proposing for people in their nineties who are entirely dependent on Social Security.
And he is proposing to impose this tax on seniors who had nothing to do with the crisis, while leaving Wall Street untouched. A modest tax on financial speculation could raise more than $150 billion a year or $1.5 trillion over the course of a decade.
It is striking that a financial speculation tax (FST) has not been mentioned in the debt discussions. The European Union has been actively debating the imposition of a FST ever since the crisis. The European Parliament voted for such a tax by a margin of more than 3 to 1. The United Kingdom has had an FST for decades. It raises the equivalent, relative to the size of its economy, of almost $40 billion a year just by taxing stock trades. Even the International Monetary Fund has come out in support of increased taxes on the financial sector.
And he is proposing to impose this tax on seniors who had nothing to do with the crisis, while leaving Wall Street untouched. A modest tax on financial speculation could raise more than $150 billion a year or $1.5 trillion over the course of a decade.
It is striking that a financial speculation tax (FST) has not been mentioned in the debt discussions. The European Union has been actively debating the imposition of a FST ever since the crisis. The European Parliament voted for such a tax by a margin of more than 3 to 1. The United Kingdom has had an FST for decades. It raises the equivalent, relative to the size of its economy, of almost $40 billion a year just by taxing stock trades. Even the International Monetary Fund has come out in support of increased taxes on the financial sector.
VIDEO SECTION
FDR - a REAL DEMOCRAT - mocking Republicans of his day...think how applicable this attack still is...
Bernie Sanders on the Senate Floor…
Moyers on Maddow to discuss Murdoch scandal!
Al Sharpton destroys another teabagger…but I think these people are too stupid to even know they're being schooled…
Jon Stewart on Fox News treatment (or lack thereof) of the News of the World/News Corporation scandal:
ARTICLE SECTION
Would We Be Better Off If John McCain Were President?, By Fred Branfman
A FEW CLIPS:
But McCain’s election would have produced a major political difference: It would have increased Democratic clout in the House and Senate. First off, there would have been no Tea Party, no “don’t raise the debt limit unless we gut the poor,” no “death panel” myth, no “Obama Youth” nonsense. Although there would have been plenty of criticism from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, the fact remains that McCain, a Republican war hero, would never have excited the Tea Party animus as did the “Secret-Muslim Kenyan-Born Big-Government Fascist White-Hating Antichrist” Obama. Glenn Beck would have remained a crazed nonentity and been dropped far sooner by Fox News than he was. And Vice President Sarah Palin, despised by both McCain and his tough White House staff, would have been deprived of any real power and likely tightly muzzled against criticizing McCain’s relatively centrist (compared to her positions) policies.
Voters would almost certainly have increased Democratic control of the House and Senate in 2010, since the Republicans would have been seen as responsible for the weak U.S. economy. Democrats might even have achieved the long-desired 60 percent majority needed to kill the filibuster in one or both houses.
Democratic control of the House and Senate fostered by disastrous Republican policies would have severely limited McCain’s ability (as occurred with George W. Bush) to weaken Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance and other programs that aid those most in need. (Yes, domestic spending might have been cut less if McCain had won.)
Voters would almost certainly have increased Democratic control of the House and Senate in 2010, since the Republicans would have been seen as responsible for the weak U.S. economy. Democrats might even have achieved the long-desired 60 percent majority needed to kill the filibuster in one or both houses.
Democratic control of the House and Senate fostered by disastrous Republican policies would have severely limited McCain’s ability (as occurred with George W. Bush) to weaken Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance and other programs that aid those most in need. (Yes, domestic spending might have been cut less if McCain had won.)
SNIP
Most significantly, if McCain had won, not only would Democrats be looking at a Democratic landslide in the 2012 presidential race, but the newly elected Democratic president in 2013 might enjoy both a 60 percent or higher majority in both houses and a clear public understanding that it was Republican policies that had sunk the economy. He or she might thus be far better positioned to enact substantive reforms than was Obama in 2008, or will Obama even if he is re-elected in 2012.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in March 1933 after a 42-month Depression blamed entirely on the Republicans. Although he had campaigned as a moderate, objective conditions both convinced him of the need for fundamental change—creating a safety net including Social Security, strict financial regulation, programs to create jobs, etc.—and gave him the congressional pluralities he needed to achieve them. A Democratic president taking office in 2013 after 12 years of disastrous Republican economic misrule might well have been likewise pushed and enabled by objective events to create substantive change.
Furious debate rages among Obama’s Democratic critics today on why he has largely governed on the big issues as John McCain would have done. Some believe he retains his principles but has been forced to compromise by political realities. Others are convinced he was a manipulative politico who lacked any real convictions in the first place.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in March 1933 after a 42-month Depression blamed entirely on the Republicans. Although he had campaigned as a moderate, objective conditions both convinced him of the need for fundamental change—creating a safety net including Social Security, strict financial regulation, programs to create jobs, etc.—and gave him the congressional pluralities he needed to achieve them. A Democratic president taking office in 2013 after 12 years of disastrous Republican economic misrule might well have been likewise pushed and enabled by objective events to create substantive change.
Furious debate rages among Obama’s Democratic critics today on why he has largely governed on the big issues as John McCain would have done. Some believe he retains his principles but has been forced to compromise by political realities. Others are convinced he was a manipulative politico who lacked any real convictions in the first place.
The War on Terror, now starring Yemen and Somalia, Glenn Greenwald
A FEW CLIPS:
In recent months, government officials have been insisting that the greatest Terrorist threat now resides in Yemen. Almost before the Al Qaeda leader's body hit the ocean floor, U.S. citizen Anwar Awlaki, in Yemen, assumed his (fabricated) role in American government and media depictions as The Next Osama bin Laden. The Obama administration has escalated the existing drone program and begun a new CIA drone campaign in Yemen (one that just killed numerous people over the weekend); it also, contrary to public denials, provided the arms to Saudi Arabia to attack a rebel group in Northern Yemen. Yemen is also the justification for Obama's attempt to institutionalize a due-process-free assassination program aimed at U.S. citizens. The administration just commenced a separate drone campaign in Somalia. And, as Jeremy Scahill revealed last week, the U.S. is relying upon interrogations conducted in a secret prison in Mogadishu, filled with people from that country and those rendered at the behest of the U.S. from other African nations. Just like The Communist was seamlessly replaced by the Terrorist when a new enemy was needed, the death of Osama bin Laden and the virtual non-existence of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan means that Yemen and Somalia are the New War on Terror Battlegrounds.
SNIP
American media reports such as the one appearing this weekend in the LA Times reflexively depict escalating American military attacks as a response to the growing Terrorist threat rather than as what they are: a leading cause of that threat. One might also take cognizance of the obvious connection between these escalating attacks under Obama and the plummeting of U.S. public standing in the Arab and Muslim world.
SNIP
Just behold how little has changed in political and media circles when it comes to the War on Terror. The propaganda and policy tactics are virtually identical; only the names and places change. So we have anonymous officials continuously hyping the New Terrorist threat and the New Terrorist Masterminds, reporters who do nothing but uncritically pass it all along, civilian slaughter and secret prisons and interrogations simply transferred to the new Battlegrounds, and all new pretexts for not only continuing, but escalating, the War on Terror under a new brand name. The War on Terror is the ultimate self-perpetuating industry: it endlessly spawns its own justification.
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