Tuesday Reads
Posted: April 12, 2011 Filed under: morning reads 44 Comments
Good Morning! There is lots of news out there, none of it good.
We just have one more day to go until President Obama gives the country the bad news that the poor folks and the working and middle classes are going to have to “share the sacrifice” so that billionaires like Jamie Dimon can continue to live in the style to which they’ve become accustomed.
John Amato had a terrific post up yesterday afternoon about Obama’s upcoming speech in which he’ll outline his plan to destroy the Democratic party by throwing out the legacies of FDR, JFK, and LBJ. I highly recommend it. Read it and you’ll get the background on the final sellout along with some other useful opinions from around the blogosphere.
I’ll just tell you who is behind the destruction of the safety net: Timmy Geithner and his Treasury gang, along with “economic adviser” Gene Sperling and his deputy Jason Furman. God forbid Obama should get economic advice from real economists! That would be wrong.
I know you’ll all be very happy to know that John Boehner says his relationship with President Obama has improved after the recent budget negotiations. Well I should think so. After all, Boehner got everything he wanted and more! From The Hill:
“Clearly, we understand each other better,” Boehner said during an interview on Fox News, his first after Republicans and Democrats reached a deal late Friday to fund the government through September. “I think we have developed a process that may allow the debate to move forward.”
The Speaker’s comments reveal a contrast between the nature of the negotaitions that went on behind closed doors and the public jousting between both parties that went on until the 11th hour before the government was set to shut down.
That strengthened relationship could come in handy over the next several months — Congress is set to debate whether to raise the nation’s debt limit, as well as a 2012 budget proposal.
I’m so happy for the Speaker and the President!
There’s another storm brewing in Wisconsin. It appears that Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus, who suddenly *found* just the right number of votes to push her former boss David Prosser over the top in his close election fight for a seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, may have lied when she claimed a Democratic colleague could back up her claims about *finding* that magically appropriate number of votes on her hard drive.
The Waukesha County Democratic Party released a statement Monday ascribed to Ramona Kitzinger, 80, a member of the canvassing board since 2004.
In the statement, Kitzinger said that even during the canvass of Brookfield’s votes during the day Thursday, no mention was made of the big mistake, something in retrospect she called “shocking and somewhat appalling.”
Meanwhile, in Madison, the state’s top election official referred to “apparent negligence” by Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus. At a news conference Monday, Kevin Kennedy, executive director of the Government Accountability Board, said she needs to change her practices to bolster public confidence.
The state agency will not certify the election results until it finishes its review of what happened in Waukesha County, spokesman Reid Magney said.
Here is Kitzinger’s statement. Those Republicans sure do know how to fix election results. Back in the day, Democrats could do that kind of thing, but no more. Democrats are nothing but doormats these days.
Oh dear, Cornell West sounds kind of mad at President Obama.
In an interview last week, he suggested that Obama has sold out and become “a puppet” of powerful interests, merely promising change and not delivering. West warned that this would trust the U.S. into a “democratic awakening” the likes of which the nation had not seen in decades.
Appearing on an MSNBC panel recently, West remained outspoken.
Amid a very heated discussion of whether President Obama is doing enough for black people in America, he called the president “another black mascot” of “Wall Street oligarchs.”
Here’s the video.
Of course, technically Obama didn’t sell out. He was always Wall Street’s puppet.
There’s a lengthy article on the effects of the BP oil spill in The New York Times: Gulf’s Complexity and Resilience Seen in Studies of Oil Spill. It’s too extensive to summarize. Go read it if you’re interested.
The TSA is still on the job, this time groping and drug testing a six-year-old girl.
Doesn’t that just inspire pride in being an American?
What’s the deal with Long Island and serial killers?
Some towns and counties have cancer clusters. Others have high rates of traffic fatalities or foreclosures. In New York, Long Island has been grappling with its own disturbing demographic: Three serial killers who targeted the same type of victims have operated in the same tidy suburbs in the span of 22 years.
Since 1989, when the first victim was killed, the three have been active in Long Island’s two counties — Suffolk and Nassau — in apparently unrelated cases. Joel Rifkin, a 34-year-old unemployed landscaper from East Meadow, confessed to killing 17 women he said were prostitutes following his arrest in 1993. Robert Shulman, a 42-year-old postal worker from Hicksville, was convicted of killing five prostitutes after he was arrested in 1996. The third killer has yet to be apprehended, but the police know that he or she exists: the bodies of eight people — at least four of them female prostitutes — have been found in the thick brush near a Suffolk County beach since December.
More bones were found today along the Long Island beaches and have been sent to the medical examiner’s office to determine whether they are from one or two people. One of the remains is just a skull.
Authorities involved in the painstaking probe along the popular stretch of public beach now involves more than 125 state, federal investigators and local investigators from two neighboring counties.
Investigators have said they believe that a serial killer was responsible for the murders….But probers now says [sic] that they cannot rule out the likelihood that more than one killer will be linked to the bodies which total seven sets of adult human remains, a toddler’s remains and the bones found today that may be from one or two people….
According to authorities, any differences in the method of murder, disposal, burial, and any DNA evidence will be among the elements of a rigorous forensic examination. The probe will include the assistance of state police and FBI agents including evidence collection experts, behavior science investigators and profiling gurus.
We live in a very sick culture.
That’s all I’ve got, and I wish I could have found some good news but no luck. What are you reading and blogging about today?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Six-month spending bill, what’s cut and what’s not–The Hill
I have no avenue of escape!
Watching my Red Sox as an antidote to the “victory” claimed by both sides of the evil spectrum is no longer an option for finding peace of mind.
They too “stink” along with the current administration and the Right Wing insufferables who are leading us down the pathway to privatization and deregulation.
I may have to resort to playing a game of “jacks” to alleviate my own private hell.
Just knowing that Obama and Boehner are now each other’s BFFs you know they have “pinky sworn” to have each others backs in future negotiations.
Unbelievable.
I know. I was very hopeful about the game last night after the Sox beat the Yankees twice. But it didn’t turn out the way I had hoped–to put it mildly!
WaPo says Obama plans to endorse the Catfood Commission findings in his speech on the deficit tomorrow.
Surprise, surprise!
Voting present:
Watching the Ed video about the class wars being the new civil rights, and hearing Al
Sharpton, just reminds me of Obama’s voting present. And when he mentioned that Barbara was the only black to vote against the Iraq War, I damn well remember who put Hillary UP AGAINST THE WALL because of her vote on the war. And look who’s responsible for the up and coming new war.
This frigging notion that the Pres. is doing
everybody’s job is just another way to put
black people up against the wall. Al’s not growing wise, he’s growing old.
If anyone is awol from the working poor and unemployed poor, it’s Obama. Don’t expect him to be supportive, because he doesn’t really know which way he’s turning, but he’s PRESENT.
I know, I have a post going up later that touches on this article. Ugh…depressed and disgusted.
For those of us who predicted as much, he has always shown a lack of passion. Some were “blown away” by his “cool style” but I always saw it more as a studied indifference. Could not care less.
I remember Nancy Pelosi remarking during the Healthcare debacle that it would be helpful for the Dems to understand just where the president stood on the issue. Says a lot about him right there.
He has abandoned whatever core constituency he enjoyed in 2008 but the truth of the matter remains that even then he had no hardcore issues that he was ever willing to defend.
I never liked him but I am beginning to slowly despise this man as much as I came to despise Bush. He does not care about people, issues, policies, legislation or even leading.
Content with a place in history as the first black man to break the racial barrier he just manages to float along without seeming to break a sweat while the Radical Right imposes its crap on the nation without fuss.
Amazing but not at all surprising to those of us who saw through it when it mattered.
well said. …there is nothing new here if one took just 20 mins. in ’08 to google the part of Obama’s record that was available, only the vast scale is new. But this is just what he has done to his “constitutes” though out his career . Party harty with their slumlords as they freeze ….how any one is surprised is amazing to me. The only surprise is how it grows in shamelessness weekly while being called “a principled stand ” and “courageous .”
So it’s now courageous to comfort the super comfortable and ruin the afflicted.
Obama will enjoy wagging his finger as he steals bread from children’s mouths and pushs gramps to the curb.
BB you and the other front pagers are brave people to do new round ups!
Thanks!
There no end to their demands and after Obama’s in the bag 2nd term , I can’t see much left. We are talking about at least 5 more years of weekly historic theft and pillaging . It use to be a bailout or massive tax break would satisfy them for a few weeks. No more. Now the next day the media drum beat begins for their next hit . This is like having the family’s decisions made by a crack head in heat.
Any event on the Hill is a cause for Dems to wet their pants, cave and Obama running to the side of his true party : Wall Street.
Obama to propose cuts in Medicare, Medicaid
http://tinyurl.com/3zd6k8e
….The biggest cuts, $12.5 billion in all, will come from programs at the departments of Labor, Education and Health and Human Services, many of which were already targeted for termination in Obama’s budget for the 2012 fiscal year.
There will be a $1 billion across-the-board cut in nonmilitary agencies, and $8 billion in cuts from foreign aid and the State Department.
The balance of the cuts, about $18 billion, will come not from discretionary social spending, as originally proposed by the Republican-controlled House, but from one-time cuts in mandatory programs or from accounts with unspent money.
Democrats sought to present these as “victimless” cuts, but the reductions are real, if indirect. For instance, funds are cut from the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) that had been set aside to subsidize states that expanded coverage under the program. Given the enormity of the states’ budget crises, no states expanded CHIP coverage this year, so the funds would have been rolled over to the following year. Now they are eliminated.
The next stage in the austerity drive comes over Republican demands for a pledge of large-scale spending reductions as the price of passage of legislation increasing the federal debt ceiling, now set at $14.3 trillion………
These cuts are going to be followed very closely by a full-on depression.
….. which they will tell us calls for more cuts.
of course, technically Obama didn’t sell out. He was always Wall Street’s puppet.
It’s brave for West to say anything…but in order to say anything he has to draw the curtain on the whole truth: Obama was indeed always Wall St’s puppet.” You weren’t fooled, he has turned!” But no. Obama would not have ever gotten out of Chicago if he was anything but a puppet. People keep expcting someone who has done nothing, to somehow do something. He moves only when the strings do
How I love Brother Cornell West … he’s one of the few folks;left standing that has been a tireless warrior for poor and working people and he speaks consistently and with strength to those issues.
So-it will be interesting to see what demographics goes to vote. I think his strategy is to get the middle thinking the left has nobody else to vote for.
The tragedy is that the Republicans have no credible alternative now. I have no confidence in terms of Obama doing the right thing. He has his own little war to support and the public be dammed.
I get a bit of satisfaction to see Cornell West trying to find words of support for Obama. What is Opra saying these days. How is Obama working for her.
I can vote for the oppoiton no matter what if basic programs are eviserated.
word’s out that she’s quietly supporting him but not publicly because her cable channel is struggling. Publicly, her folks says she’s too busy right now to make any commitments to anything.
She’s pathetic. Her ridiculous cable channel is struggling because it’s 10 years out of date and full of her “discoveries” like Dr. Phil…who needed a place to go because no one else wants them…OWN is a serious retrenchment for the Oprah brand , not an advance. I’m guess the WH doesn’t want her out there for them either…they certainly no longer need her.
John Smart had an interesting interview last night with a man by the name of Brian Crowell, who spoke to what appears to be overwhelming support in the AA community–75-80% in some polls. African American himself, Crowell says the support is weak at best, that Cornell West is speaking what many in the black community feel–a gigantic and growing disappointment.
West is out front, saying it publicly but in Black Churches, according to Crowell, and around dinner tables, many AA families are expressing the same thing.
As things get worse for the unemployed and disenfranchised, for all those on the lower rungs of the economy, we’ll see basic need outstrip any residual ethnic or racial allegiance. A growling stomach will do that. Worse. When your kids go hungry, patience runs very thin.
And if the Republicans have their way, the safety nets that have kept large numbers of people from standing in soup lines and/or living in Hoovervilles will be totally shredded. There’s something grossly immoral about a society when it can turn its back on its weakest members, when it can accept 44 million Americans living off food stamps [many of them children], turn away or minimize the huge umemployment numbers [the real ones not the faux 8.9%], and/or pretend that the fiscal crisis was caused by this same group rather than those who have committed and continue to commit financial terrorism.
I wish there was good news, too. But the truth is we’re on a crippled Ship-of-State and Obama and his witless minions and the so-called ‘free-market’ Republicans are steering us right into a giant Iceberg. And calling it good.
We needed an FDR. What we got was a weak and lame Hoover clone.
NY Democrats criticize Obama’s budget compromise, with Rep. Rangel calling it ‘immoral’
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2011/04/12/2011-04-12_ny_democrats_criticize_obamas_budget_compromise_with_rep_rangel_calling_it_immor.html#ixzz1JK1GEQNc
The true test is, will they publicaly oppose him with negative votes. If you think about it, Obama has nowhere to go if the left and middle drop him. I wonder if the Tea Party will publically fight pork?
They will vote against it, but it will still pass. I can’t imagine Anthony Weiner voting for this.
So much for high speed rail, and the cuts to clean drinking water priorities will help so much now that we have Fukushima radiation getting into our drinking water and milk.
Hope! Change! Yes we can!!
The K brothers and the media put away or reconstituted the tea party as needed. Have we ever seen the Lipton crowd protest obscene tax cuts for the rich? No. But school lunches : yes
$3.5 billion in unused children’s health insurance funds
Oh yeah, I can’t think of a better place for that money besides funding the wealth’s
endsless taxs breaks….Just the phrase
unused children’s health insurance funds….
boggle the mind
chris hedges is great today, as usual.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/why_the_united_states_is_destroying_her_education_system_20110410/
It has to do with preparing every one for serfdom. That’s what Jindal is doing down here. He says we graduate too many university students and need more in vocational training to do jobs like on the oil rigs.
Just went over there. Yup, the word serfdom is prominently used. It’s so obvious you think folks would notice, wouldn’t you?
This New Orleans Life:
Here’s a free download of a song “Rumba,Mambo, Cha Cha Cha” from Putumayo if you’re fond of Mambo King stuff ala the 50s and 60s
Also, I’ve figured out why I keep seeing peregrine falcons around
Guess we have a thriving feral chicken population. Hola!!!
Now that’s devolution. How long before nature takes over our cities as we rot from within?
Maybe the chickens will do a better job than our current “leaders.”
I, for one, welcome our pulchitrudinous poultry President.
All hail Chicken Caesar!
I, for one, welcome our pulchitrudinous poultry President.All hail Chicken Caesar!
They would certainly be more useful! lol!
Guess we have a thriving feral chicken population.
don’t knock it…I love to have dinner on the claw running about lol! You are lucky!
I knew Obama would not be a good president, so I voted for HRC in the primary and no one in the general, but I honestly did not think he would be THIS bad. I am both angry and sad about the news that he’ll endorse the catfood commission’s report. How did I slip into this parallel universe??
He’s a lot worse than I expected too, and I thought he would be horrendous.
Ditto!
name me one Democratic politician–other than BO–that considers Ronnie Raygun a role model.
Have you seen this:
House liberal DeFazio says Obama should start acting like Democrat – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room
Similar. Hillary in the primary, protest for McCain in the general, but did not begin to imagine just how bad Obama would be. Oh, I knew he was a homophobe, knew he liked Reagan, knew he had no experience–but damn, there’s a line between incompetent and deliberately, programmatically destructive. And Obama is deliberately, programmatically destructive.
More examples of exactly how GLBT-friendly the Obama administration really is:
White House bars gay groups from military families event
I have had this feeling that the whole discontinuation of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is only temporary and as soon as they can they’ll go back to how it was before Clinton made that the law of the land. Hope my feelings are wrong on this. Obama and the Repukes rolling back every advance our society has made the last 111 years.
Reading through the thread and the comments leads me to believe that there is only 1 person who could successfully primary Obama but he has an up and down history of gaffe’s, etc.
Jesse Jackson is the person I would vote for in a heartbeat. He is an old school democrat who would never, ever, ever in a million years compromise away doing right by the citizens of the U.S. He’d be my second choice to Hillary but she isn’t going to run and Al Gore seems to bring out the worst in a lot of fruitcakes.
Jackson could actually win. The AA community would support him. Real Dems would support him. Heck, independents would support him.
If Jesse Jackson was to win the Democratic nomination in ’12, I would move to Papal New Guinea…
Hillary 2012
Thanks for the Cornell West video and I see that Al Sharpton is busy making way for President Obama to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid by saying that George Bush was in there doing the same. 😯 So, Obama is a DINO and they KNOW IT, KNEW IT????