I can’t believe this ran on Faux News. I don’t really disagree with anything in this except I would substitute Dennis Kucinich for Ron Paul. Or even Buddy Roemer.
Judge Napolitano
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Tag Archives: politics
President as Piñata – New York Times
OP-ED COLUMNIST
President as Piñata
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: November 26, 2011
A YEAR before President Obama faces re-election, take a look at what has happened to other Western leaders confronting voters in this economic vortex.
Damon Winter/The New York Times
Nicholas D. Kristof
Spain’s Socialist government was defeated in a crushing landslide vote a week ago, leaving the party with its fewest members of Parliament since democratic elections were introduced in 1977. That’s the pattern for incumbents from Ireland to Finland, Portugal to Denmark: Spain’s was theeighth government to topple in Europe in two years.
In this economic crisis, Obama will face the same headwinds. That should provide a bracing warning to grumbling Democrats: If you don’t like the way things are going right now, just wait. Continue reading
Clarence Thomas has a conflict of interest. Will he do the right thing?
At the very least, Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from hearing this case. I’m betting he won’t because the right wing wants to win this so badly. From the Maddow Blog.
Supreme Court to hear health reform case
The U.S. Supreme Court has announced that it will take on the question of whether President Obama’s health reform law is constitutional, with arguments by March 2012 and a decision in June. This note, from an earlier case, still matters:
There was no indication, on the other hand, that Justice Clarence Thomas had disqualified himself from the case involving the health care law. His wife, Virginia Thomas, has been affiliated with a group that opposes the law and has not disclosed its contributors.
Virginia Thomas has stepped back from that group, Liberty Central, which she founded, and the group has toned down some of its advocacy against health reform, but she is very much on record as working against it. Her husband, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, initially filed financial disclosure forms that did not reveal the money she earned from political work on behalf a case the court will now hear. And so the old question becomes the new question again: Will Justice Clarence Thomas recuse himself from the case?
Can I vote for Alan Grayson for president?
While on Real Time with Bill Maher former congressman, and future 2012 House candidate, Alan Grayson explained to the panel the 1% what Occupy Wall Street is all about.
Here is the video:
The latest edition of Real Time featured one of Bill Maher’s patented balance things out with three Republicans and a Democrat panels, but the Democrat was Alan Grayson. While P.J. fellow panelist P.J. O’Rourke broke out his bathing and hippie jokes, former Rep. Grayson schooled him on Occupy Wall Street.
O’Rourke claimed that the Occupy Wall Street people flunked econ, and Grayson said, “No, listen Bill, I have no trouble understanding what they are talking about.” O’Rourke asked Grayson, “You passed econ?” Grayson answered, “I was an economist for more than three years, so I think so…Now let me tell you about what they’re talking about. They’re complaining that Wall Street wrecked the economy three years ago and nobody’s held responsible for that. Not a single person’s been indicted or convicted for destroying twenty percent of our national net worth accumulated over two centuries. They’re upset about the fact that Wall Street has iron control over the economic policies of this country, and that one party is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street, and the other party caters to them as well.”
O’Rourke joked that Occupy Wall Street has found their spokesman, then Grayson continued, “Listen, if I am spokesman for all the people who think that we should not have 24 million people in this country who can’t find a full time job, that we should not have 50 million people in this country who can’t see a doctor when they’re sick, that we shouldn’t have 47 million people in this country who need government help to feed themselves, and we shouldn’t have 15 million families who owe more on their mortgage than the value of their home, okay, I’ll be that spokesman.”
Alan Grayson demonstrated why all the media complaint’s about the unclear message behind Occupy Wall Street is nonsense. It took former Rep. Grayson 37 seconds to explain what Occupy Wall Street is about. He almost delivered the perfect 30 second sound bite, but he ran a tiny bit over. It isn’t that the one percent and the Republicans who support them can’t understand Occupy Wall Street. It’s that they don’t want to. The message isn’t complicated.
The right has been trying to play on the fears of some who support Occupy Wall Street by claiming that the left is hijacking the movement, but the support and media sophistication of people like Alan Grayson and Bernie Sanders can only help these protests grow. Grayson demonstrated the value of having someone speak on the movement’s behalf that understands and is comfortable with television.
The right and many in the media will continue to make jokes and play dumb, but while they are laughing it up, a movement is growing. They may intentionally not understand the message of Occupy Wall Street, but millions of Americans do, and these people want their democracy back.
I found this on Politicsusa.com.
The Spill, The Scandal and the President
This is an excellent piece of reporting in Rolling Stone. It’s very long, and I find it hard to read long articles on the site, so I created a PDF file of the plain text. The link is below.
The inside story of how Obama failed to crack down on the corruption of the Bush years – and let the world’s most dangerous oil company get away with murder
By Tim Dickinson
Jun 08, 2010 4:30 PM EDT
This article originally appeared in RS 1107 from June 24, 2010.
On May 27th, more than a month into the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, Barack Obama strode to the podium in the East Room of the White House. For weeks, the administration had been insisting that BP alone was to blame for the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf – and the ongoing failure to stop the massive leak. “They have the technical expertise to plug the hole,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs had said only six days earlier. “It is their responsibility.” The president, Gibbs added, lacked the authority to play anything more than a supervisory role – a curious line of argument from an administration that has reserved the right to assassinate American citizens abroad and has nationalized much of the auto industry. “If BP is not accomplishing the task, can you just federalize it?” a reporter asked. “No,” Gibbs replied.
The Spill pdf file
Click here to see the piece in Rolling Stone.
Where the hippies hung out in Prospect Park
Here’s an interesting story from a site called Ephemeral New York. It’s full of great New York City stories.
May 22, 2010 by wildnewyork
Back in the late 1960s, long-haired, Dylan-loving Brooklyn kids gathered at a place they called Hippie Hill, described as “a long grassy knoll just up from the Totem Poles,” in a 2008 Daily News column by Denis Hamill.
The “Totem Poles,” below, are Stanford White-designed Grecian columns marking the entrance to the park near the 15th Street subway station.
“On some summer nights in the late ’60s, the crowds would exceed a thousand, young wanna-be troubadours strumming guitars and singing Dylan tunes, which was an instant hippie chick magnet,” writes Hamill.
“Eight-track tape decks boiled with angry Dylan songs. Even returning Vietnam veterans joined the scene, love beads dangling with their dog tags on Hippie Hill, where Dylan provided the soundtrack for our war-torn generation.”
I found this on Ephemeral New York.