Angry president lashes out after Republicans walk away from talks on borrowing limit, raising the spectre of US default Talks to stave off a potentially catastrophic US default on debt payments were in crisis as Republicans and Democrats struggled to avert a disaster that could trigger a global economic crisis. Both sides agree that the US needs to pass legislation to raise its debt limit above its current level of $14.3 trillion (£8.7tn). But negotiations collapsed in acrimony late on Friday over details of a package of spending cuts and tax rises that would help to pay for such a move. A visibly angry President Barack Obama attacked the Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, for refusing to return his phone calls and then abandoning the negotiations. “I’ve been left at the altar now a couple of times and I think that one of the questions that the Republican party is going to have to ask itself is: can they say yes to anything?” If agreement is not reached, it could trigger what had once been unthinkable: a US default on its debt payments. If that happened, most experts predict, it would see a plunge in stock and bond markets worldwide that would threaten a new great recession. The deadline for agreement is just over a week away, on 2 August. Though most people still expect a deal of some kind before then, preparations for the worst are being made. Obama is being briefed by senior officials on the consequences of default on Wall Street, and major banks and institutions are laying the groundwork for survival investment strategies. “I still believe in the end we will avoid default, but we are playing with fire,” said Larry Haas, a former official in the Clinton White House. Others put it even more bluntly. “Members of Congress are juggling with hydrogen bombs,” said Professor John Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College in California. In order to thrash out a deal and get talks started again, Obama ordered top congressional leaders from both parties to meet him at the White House and explain how they were going to move forward. That demand showed the seriousness of the situation, but also raised the prospect that some sort of “fallback option” could emerge that would see a short-term rise in the debt ceiling. However, such a plan would only be likely to delay the problem until later in the year. The Republicans have shifted dramatically to the right on economic matters, especially taxation, in the wake of the rise of the Tea Party. The Republicans captured the House of Representatives last year with the help of a number of new members the Tea Party supported. Many Republicans have signed pledges never to agree to tax rises of any sort and fear a backlash from supporters if they agree to a debt deal that includes attempts to raise money from wealthy Americans and big corporations. Instead they want a settlement that focuses on slashing programmes such as social security and health spending on the poor and elderly, as well as defence and other parts of the government. So far Obama has sought to accommodate Republican demands and offered more than $1.6tn in government spending cuts, but only in return for tax rises on the rich. That has not yet been enough to bring Republicans on board. In a letter to Republicans in Congress, Boehner said: “The White House is simply not serious about ending the spending binge. A deal was never really close.” Obama is also coming under serious fire from Democrats, who accuse him of being a poor negotiator and too willing to meet Republican demands at the expense of the liberal wing of his own party. Many Democrats have been horrified at the concessions he has already made on cutting government spending on the poor, sick and elderly. They argue that the most vulnerable Americans would pay the bill for a crisis that began on Wall Street. Leading progressives have slammed Obama’s tactics and fear that he may agree to even harsher cuts. Progressive groups, like MoveOn, have sent out campaigning letters and urged phone call protests as a way of persuading Democrats not to back the cuts. “It is tragic what is happening right now,” said Robert Greenwald, a Hollywood director turned progressive documentary filmmaker. Greenwald said ordinary Democrats felt betrayed by Obama. “If he agrees a deal that has these cuts, then the president has done a disservice to millions of people who worked for him to get him elected; who believed in him and who fought for him.” A CNN poll last week backed Greenwald’s comments. The survey showed that Obama’s approval rating among liberals has dropped to 71%, the lowest level of his presidency. That, however, may not worry the White House as it focuses on the 2012 election. Some observers believe liberal voters will still turn out in force again to vote for Obama. “Obama has flexibility to move to the right, because he believes progressives will still vote for him. They have nowhere else to go,” said Pitney. But there are signs of growing anger and revolt in the party as Democrats scramble to protect America’s already shaky welfare programmes. A few voices are even whispering of searching for someone to lead a primary challenge against Obama. “Who knows? Maybe there will be a challenge from the left. If progressives are disgusted enough, I would not rule it out. It would send a message,” said Haas. US economy Economics US domestic policy United States Barack Obama John Boehner Paul Harris guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Why right-wing domestic terrorists are our big blind spot: Let’s start with the media
July 23, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Some of our readers have been wondering C&L, of all places, jumped on the speculative bandwagon that presumed early on yesterday that the terrorist attacks in Norway were the work of Islamic radicals — speculation that turned out, of course, to be dead wrong. After all, we have been warning for several years now that assuming that terrorism is the sole realm of brown-skinned Muslims is a recipe for disaster. But the reality is that we, like everyone else, only published “is it Islamists?” speculation because that was the only speculation available from the so-called “terrorism experts. (And for what it’s worth, we only posed it as a possibility with a question mark, and declined to speculate about the meaning of it in terms of Muslims.) And the reason for it is that everyone in the press acted like a mindless pack in broadcasting the first bit of “expert” information that came along — even though the “expert” in question was in fact completely wrong, and working from dubious information in the first place. Benjamin Doherty at Electronic Intifada has the complete story of “How a clueless ‘terrorism expert’ set media suspicion on Muslims after Oslo horror” , setting out the whole sequence of pack behavior: The New York Times originally reported: A terror group, Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami, or the Helpers of the Global Jihad, issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack, according to Will McCants, a terrorism analyst at C.N.A., a research institute that studies terrorism. In later editions , the story was revised to read: Initial reports focused on the possibility of Islamic militants, in particular Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami, or Helpers of the Global Jihad, cited by some analysts as claiming responsibility for the attacks. American officials said the group was previously unknown and might not even exist. The source is Will McCants, adjunct faculty at Johns Hopkins University. On his website he describes himself as formerly “Senior Adviser for Countering Violent Extremism at the U.S. Department of State, program manager of the Minerva Initiative at the Department of Defense, and fellow at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center.” This morning, he posted “Alleged Claim for Oslo Attacks” on his blog Jihadica : This was posted by Abu Sulayman al-Nasir to the Arabic jihadi forum, Shmukh, around 10:30am EST (thread 118187). Shmukh is the main forum for Arabic-speaking jihadis who support al-Qaeda. Since the thread is now inaccessible (either locked or taken down), I am posting it here. I don’t have time at the moment to translate the whole thing but I translated the most important bits on twitter. The Shmukh web site is not accessible to just anyone, so he is the primary source for this claim. McCants stated from the beginning that the claim had been removed or hidden, and on Twitter he even cast doubt on whether it was a claim of responsibility at all. enlarge … McCants later reported that the claim of responsibility was retracted by the author “Abu Sulayman al-Nasir.” Furthermore, according to McCants, the moderator of this forum declared that speculation about the attack would be prohibited because the contents of the forum were appearing in mainstream media. It does seem more than a little bit odd that genuine “jihadis” would post on a closed forum that a former US official and “counterterrorism expert” openly writes about infiltrating. The result was that the NYT’s bad reportage gave a green light to every other TV journalist and every so-called “terrorism expert” who only seemed to have information about Islamic terrorism to run wild speculating that this was a product of Muslim radicals. This was especially the case, of course, at Fox News, where Greg Burke quickly declared from his seat of expertise in Rome that “this looks like the work of Al Qaeda,” as well as Fox “terrorism expert” Peter Neumann, who agreed wholeheartedly (with an assist from the network’s chryon writer, too). Moreover, as Doherty observes, none of these folks will ever pay the price for being dead wrong. After all, Steve Emerson — who infamously led the American journalistic pack down the same dead end in 1995 by declaring the Oklahoma City bombing likely the work of Muslim radicals — is still peddling his snake oil: Disseminating false, unverifiable information should be a blemish on McCants’ credibility, but what is more likely is that his failure will harm other communities elsewhere before it harms his career. Moreover, you have to wonder when the media will wake up and realize that their operative paradigm for understanding terrorism is broken. As we observed this morning about the attacks : It’s also a sobering reminder that, while we’ve been obsessing nationally over the supposed threat of Islamist radicals — embodied by Peter King’s haplessly myopic hearings on domestic terrorism — the reality remains that right-wing extremist terrorism remains the most potent domestic-terrorism threat in America as well. Indeed, the number of violent domestic-terrorism incidents has been steadily rising for the past two years, but the threat has gone largely ignored. Indeed, the Obama administration has kowtowed to right-wing complaints by gutting our own government’s intelligence-gathering capacities in this area. Charles Pierce has a piece in this month’s Esquire describing how, indeed, “the truth is, the overwhelming majority of our terrorism has always been homegrown. And it is times like these — times of anger and disaffection — when we turn on ourselves, and kill” (and he gives our work a nice shout-out, too): At the beginning of this year, not long after they’d found the bomb on the bench in Spokane, a journalist named David Neiwert put together a list of nearly thirty acts of right-wing political violence that had taken place, or had been foiled, in the United States since the summer of 2008 — or roughly since Barack Obama’s presidency began to be seen as a genuine possibility. The list began with Jim David Adkisson, who killed two people in a Unitarian church in Tennessee because he was angry at how “liberals” were “destroying America.” It included two episodes in April 2009, one in Pittsburgh and one in Florida, in which men who were sure that Barack Obama’s government was coming for their guns opened fire on law-enforcement officers who had come to investigate them on other matters. Some of the crimes on the list were briefly sensational — Scott Roeder’s murder of Dr. George Tiller in Wichita, or Joseph Andrew Stack’s flying his small plane into a building in Austin in protest of the Internal Revenue Service, or the incoherent array of violent crimes committed by the “Sovereign Citizens Movement.” But most of them barely made the national radar at all. In December 2008, a woman in Belfast, Maine, named Amber Cummings shot to death her sleeping husband, James, who’d been savagely abusing her. Upon arriving at the Cummings home, investigators found Nazi paraphernalia and a stash of chemicals indicating that James Cummings was preparing to make a “dirty bomb” that he planned to detonate at Obama’s inauguration. Except in the local media, that aspect of the case disappeared completely. James Cummings and his bomb had nothing to do with Scott Roeder’s handgun or Joe Stack’s airplane. It is a fertile time for such things. The country elected a black president with an exotic name. The economy, wrecked by a rigged game at the highest levels, continued to grind through a jobless recovery. The national dialogue grows coarser and wilder, and does so at a pace accelerated by technology. People sense the fragmentation — things are falling apart — even while they take refuge in those fragments of life that seem safest and most familiar. Charlie is a great writer, so be sure to read the whole thing . Here is the whole list, and an interactive map with links to each of the stories we’ve assembled. (It’s actually in need of a brief update, which I hope to get to in the next few days.) Click on map to see interactive version. It might actually be a good idea if Peter King wants to hold hearings on domestic terrorism. But it needs to tackle the whole threat, and not just the one our xenophobic myopia readily identifies.
Continue reading …For weeks, Republican presidential candidates have been a running a gauntlet of ever-more draconian pledges put forth by party purists. Grover Norquist’s anti-tax oath , the Susan B. Anthony List anti-abortion manifesto , the ” Marriage Vow ” and the ” Cut, Cap and Balance ” pledge are just some of the multiplying litmus tests now demanded by social and economic conservatives alike. But as the 2012 primaries approach, another de facto requirement for GOP White House hopefuls is emerging. That is, candidates must not only (a) proclaim that they have been called on God to seek the presidency, but (b) declare that divine intervention is the cure for what ails America. Call it the Divine Right Pledge . And so far, it’s one most of the GOP field seems more than willing to take. Of course, the GOP has long been parodied as “God’s Own Party.” But now, the Party of Lincoln is rapidly turning Honest Abe’s mantra (“My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side.”) on its head. Texas Governor and possible instant GOP frontrunner Rick Perry provides a case in point, with check marks in both columns of the God Pledge. As he explained his likely White House run : “I’m not ready to tell you that I’m ready to announce that I’m in. But I’m getting more and more comfortable every day that this is what I’ve been called to do. This is what America needs.” If the Lord is calling on Rick Perry to lead the United States, Perry plans to call Him back when it’s time to actually run it. On August 6th in Houston, Governor Perry will tunnel under the wall separating church and state to lead The Response , an evangelical day of prayer and fasting seeking divine intervention for America. As Perry put it: “I sincerely hope you’ll join me in Houston on August 6th and take your place in Reliant Stadium with praying people asking God’s forgiveness, wisdom and provision for our state and nation. There is hope for America. It lies in heaven, and we will find it on our knees.” Perry, whose faith-based policy like the governors of Georgia and Oklahoma includes asking residents to pray for rain for their drought-stricken state, later explained that the solutions to America’s woes are above his pay grade : “I think it’s time for us to just hand it over to God and say, ‘God, You’re going to have to fix this.’ (That Perry may now skip the August 6 event in Houston may just be confirmation that God wants him in Washington DC instead.) Rep. Michele Bachmann may know much about history, but she does know that God is on her side. The self-proclaimed ” fool for Christ ,” who in 2006 warned that ” we are in the End of Days ” and counseled “wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands,” has been also called on by God. As it turns out, more than once . In 2006, Bachmann announced that “God then called me to run for the United States Congress.” But after explaining that she needed “inner assurance” from the Lord before taking the presidential plunge, Bachmann confirmed to Iowa Public Television that she had received it from Him. “Well, every decision that I make I pray about as does my husband and I can tell you, yes, I’ve had that calling.” And Bachmann, who asked “that the Lord will give us a special anointing on how to put our team together,” has in turn called on Him to smite her political opponents. In December 2009, Bachmann joined an evangelical “prayercast” asking God to stop health care reform . “We deserve Your wrath,” Bachmann prayed and asked, “but would You yet give our nation mercy?” And in 2010, Bachmann proclaimed her vengeful God would really get his wrath on if the United States did not support Likud policy in Israel : At a Republican Jewish Coalition event in Los Angeles last week, Rep. Michele Bachmann offered a candid view of her positions on Israel: Support for Israel is handed down by God and if the United States pulls back its support, America will cease to exist… “I am convinced in my heart and in my mind that if the United States fails to stand with Israel, that is the end of the United States…[W]e have to show that we are inextricably entwined, that as a nation we have been blessed because of our relationship with Israel, and if we reject Israel, then there is a curse that comes into play. And my husband and I are both Christians, and we believe very strongly the verse from Genesis [Genesis 12:3], we believe very strongly that nations also receive blessings as they bless Israel.” Of course, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann have a lot of company among the Republican contenders claiming that God is in their amen corner. Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum , who famously warned against the prospect of ” man-on-dog ” marriages, blamed liberal Boston for clergy sex abuse there and declared the American Left ” hates Christendom ,” explained that his 2012 presidential run is “about going on to the battlefield and defending God’s truth in the World.” He knows this, because God told him so : “It really boils down to God’s will. What is it that God wants? … We have prayed a lot about this decision, and we believe with all our hearts that this is what God wants.” Ditto for former pizza mogul Herman Cain . Cain, who would require special loyalty oaths for Muslim government officials and supports local bans on mosques , told a Tea Party event in April that the Lord wanted him to go from the pizza over into the fire: Cain told the crowd about his battle with cancer in 2006, saying he’s been “totally cancer free” for the past five years. “You want to know why? God said, ‘Not yet Herman,’” Cain told the crowd. “God said, ‘Not yet. I’ve got something else for you to do.’ And it might be to become the president of the United States of America.” While Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin have been no-shows for the 2012 race, they too pass the Divine Right Pledge twin tests with flying colors. While God apparently didn’t call Huckabee’s number for 2012, last time around the Arkansas Governor explained his early success by citing “the same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of 5,000 people and that’s the only way that our campaign could be doing what it’s doing.” As for the half-term Alaska Governor, Sarah Palin explained to the February 2010 Tea Party Convention that “it would be wise of us to start seeking some divine intervention again in this country, so that we can be safe and secure and prosperous again.” And Palin, who asked Alaskans to pray for a natural gas pipeline and declared that her selection as John McCain’s running mate was ” God’s plan ,” believed that despite grim polling numbers He would be with her on Election Day 2008 : “To me, it motivates us, makes us work that much harder. And it also strengthens my faith, because I’m going to know, at the end of the day, putting this in God’s hands, that the right thing for America will be done at the end of the day on Nov. 4. So I’m not discouraged at all.” God, it seems, wanted Barack Obama in the White House. God’s Pledge, however, is proving more problematic for others in the Republican field. Newt Gingrich became a Catholic only after personally demonstrating that marriage is an institution between one man and three women in rapid succession. (Gingrich nevertheless blamed his philandering on “how passionately I felt about this country.”) Fellow Mormons John Huntsman and Mitt Romney face an uphill task when even Fox News hosts conclude each is “obviously not…a Christian.” Romney, who famously ruled out Muslims from serving in his cabinet , has yet to credit God for either his frontrunner status or for ensuring America’s future success. But in his much-hyped 2007 “Faith in America” speech , Romney at least reached out to his party’s evangelical primary voters by suggesting atheists had no place in the American community: “Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.” Then there’s Tim Pawlenty . The supposed Sam’s Club Republican whose tax plan is a massive gift to the money-changers has deployed his wife to make the case that “knowing that you’re just going to rest in who God is, and he’s going to lead the way every day.” But while T-Paw is now following in the footsteps of George W. Bush by citing Jesus Christ as his political hero , three years ago Pawlenty compared himself to someone else: Later in the speech, Pawlenty compared himself to Ricky Bobby, the coarse, clumsy NASCAR driver played by Will Ferrell in the comedy “Talladega Nights.” In one scene, Bobby prays to God for Doritos and Taco Bell before thanking the Lord for his “red hot smoking wife.” “I’m like the Talladega guy,” said Pawlenty. “because I want to thank the Lord for my smoking-hot wife.” Of course, the belief in America’s providential role in the world is a common one and a recurring theme throughout U.S. history. But America’s greatness, as President Obama has repeatedly suggested , was “not inevitable… America prevailed because we chose to move forward as one nation, as one people.” And while politicians routinely express their faith in God, it is now becoming disturbingly common for them to claim God’s faith in them. (It does, as Michele Cottle suggested, provide a helpful cover for their naked ambition.) And that’s a sadly ironic turn of events for the Party of Lincoln , one whose namesake after all lamented near the end of the Civil War: “Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.” As Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain, Sarah Palin and other Republican White House wannabes claim God’s mantle for themselves and their nation, it’s worth remembering the words of that Dire Straits song: “Two men say they’re Jesus, one of them must be wrong.” (This piece also appears at Perrspectives .)
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Highlights of this day in history: Race rioting hits Detroit; Former President Ulysses S. Grant dies; Britain’s Prince Andrew marries ‘Fergie’; Vanessa Williams gives up Miss America crown; Golfer Tiger Woods wins career grand slam. (July 23)
Continue reading …Captain America: The First Avenger , starring Chris Evans, isn’t exactly deserving of 50 stars, but as far as superhero flicks go, it’s an enjoyable, if somewhat enhanced, period piece. Just don’t expect Dark Knight -quality stuff. “Captain America , like its unapologetically corny hero, is propelled by unpretentious and plucky ingenuity,…
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President engaged in talks with Republican leader to negotiate deal, which would mean $3tn cuts in federal spending Barack Obama has warned of drastic consequences if America does not reach a deal on the debt crisis facing the country, saying: “If we do not solve it, every American will suffer.” With only 10 days left until the deadline, Obama and the Republican leader in the House, John Boehner, have been engaged in behind-the-scenes talks trying to negotiate a compromise. But a deal is still in doubt, facing fierce resistance from diehard Republicans in Congress – elected last year with the help of the Tea Party movement – and from left-leaning Democrats. Speaking at a public meeting in Maryland on Friday, Obama said defaulting on its debt was not an option. “We have never defaulted on our debt and we are not going to do it now,” he said. A default would be a major embarrassment to the US, with some economists warning it could trigger a new worldwide recession. The US chamber of commerce expressed nervousness over the prospect of America’s credit rating being downgraded. A deal would see more than $3 trillion slashed from federal spending over the next decade, including farm subsidies, military spending, social security and basic medical insurance. Federal payments to state governments could also be hit. State governors are laying down emergency plans, with California, among others, looking for alternative sources of borrowing to tide it over. Banks and businesses are also working feverishly preparing for worst-case scenarios. The crisis is the biggest test of wills yet between Obama and hardline Republicans endorsed by the Tea Party movement. It dwarfs the stand-off earlier this year when the federal government faced shutdown. Republicans want huge spending cuts to reduce the country’s massive national debt but oppose any tax rises. Democrats have agreed to spending cuts but want to protect the poorest and to ensure that any package includes tax rises. The US is closer to the brink than the 2
Continue reading …The New McCarthyism: Oregon Tea Partiers invade quiet MoveOn picnic, break it up with threats — and boast about it
July 22, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Probably the most disturbing aspect of the multifarious effects of Fox News’ right-wing propaganda machine and its Tea Party offspring is the way it has utterly taken over the lives of so many senior citizens, who lap up every word as the gospel truth and have become increasingly radicalized by talking heads like Glenn Beck. Even as they project their own intentions onto the likes of the unions , the Fox acolytes and the Tea Partiers have effectively become a brownshirt corps of mean-spirited, vicious thugs. It’s deeply disturbing to watch people in our parents’ generation viciously attacking liberals with increasing venom and violence. The latest example took place last weekend in the quiet little retirement town of Roseburg, Oregon. It’s a pretty little burg on the I-5 corridor in western Oregon that is mostly populated with senior citizens of various stripes. Via Carla at Blue Oregon, we happened upon this story in the local paper : A small political gathering of about 18 liberal thinkers at River Forks Park Sunday afternoon erupted in conflict when about 35 members of the conservative tea party intruded upon the meeting, waving flags and holding signs accusing the rival group of being communists, Marxists and socialists. The liberal group — organized by MoveOn.org — decided to leave the park and move its potluck to a nearby home. Members of the conservative group followed, parking at the entrance of a private lane leading to the home to continue their protest. Roseburg Democrats Dean and Sara Byers said Monday they told tea party members who followed that they were not welcome to drive down the lane to their home. The Byerses said they got out of their car to stop vehicles from entering the driveway and one tea party member almost ran them over. Sara Byers said she was so shaken she called 911. She said a Douglas County deputy called about an hour and a half later and said he had been unable to respond because of other incidents. Byers said she was still considering filing a criminal complaint against members of the tea party for harassment. A leader of the tea party group, Rich Raynor of Roseburg, disputed the liberal group’s version of events. “They are liars,” said Raynor, director of Douglas County Americans for Prosperity. “That is what communists do.” The latter confrontations were not videotaped, but the Tea Partiers themselves proudly posted the video of their invasion of the MoveOn picnic. Moreover, it clearly documents how they effectively broke it up — by threatening the attendees with intimidating speech and making it clear they wanted the group to clear out. What it doesn’t show, of course, is that they followed these folks to someone’s private home and tried to invade the gathering on private property as well. Here’s the script the proud authors of the video provided: Self professed communist Van Jones teams up with MoveOn.org to promote the American Dream Project, aka I want what you have worked for. Promoted here by the Douglas County Democratic Central Committee members. Challenged by Americans who love freedom! I have an idea. Let’s end class warfare. If you want more, get up earlier and work harder. It works wonders for your self-respect. We had to disable comments. They were vile, vulgar, threatening…typical Chicago thuggery stuff. One thing that’s clear from both the script and from the video is that what has the Tea Partiers especially exercised about MoveOn is the fact that Van Jones is now working with them to promote his Rebuild the Dream project . The Tea Partiers kept repeating “Van Jones!” “Van Jones!” almost mantra-like, and then calling MoveOn a bunch of “communists.” This is the New McCartyhyism at work, thanks in no small part to the effective work of Glenn Beck during his misbegotten tenure at Fox News — the apotheosis of which was his successful attacks on Van Jones. We discussed this at length with Jones himself recently. And while he’s right that we can’t let these kinds of smears deflect or distract us from what we’re trying to achieve, there’s no doubt he also understands that they need to be knocked down fiercely and effectively. And the claim that Van Jones is a Communist is simply a baldfaced lie. Maybe every MoveOn member is now going to have to equip themselves with the words of Jones’ attorneys, in their letter to Fox News, on this matter: Mr. Jones is not a member of any Communist Party or Marxist organization whatsoever, and has not expressed any support for any form of Communist or Marxist ideology for many years. In the same 2005 article in which he Mr. Jones discussed having had such notions as a young man, he also talked about his growth away from those views. Mr. Jones has repeatedly clarified that his economic views are firmly pro-market, in numerous speeches, televised interviews and in the Huffington Post. In fact, Mr. Jones is known as a leading champion of free-market solutions to current environmental problems. His best-selling book, The Green Collar Economy (2009), advocates government policies to promote private-sector innovation. The World Economic Forum itself has repeatedly honored Mr. Jones’ work. He has been called the “Green” Jack Kemp, because he shares that GOP leader’s commitment to entrepreneurship as a cure for poverty. The allegations that Mr. Jones is an “unrepentant Communist,” “is a Communist,” “is a Communist guy,” and “is a revolutionary” are thus demonstrably and unequivocally false. Clearly these statements were calculated to, and do, injure Mr. Jones in his professional and community standing and lower him in the estimation of the American public. They are actionable as a matter of law. Liberal organizers have taken for granted far too long the toxic effects of these kinds of lies and smears — because they are exactly the kinds of smears that have always provided the bedrock of right-wing extremism and xenophobic scapegoating. And it’s especially remarkable that we’re seeing it happen with so many supposedly “conservative” mainstream and often elderly people lapping up the lies. This was clear from the report on the confrontation : Roseburg resident Lillen Fifield, 70, called the group’s actions an “act of domestic terrorism” and said she was appalled that a peaceful gathering — mostly of women older than 65 — was interrupted. “It is not OK to go around and intimidate and threaten people. That is not acceptable in a polite society,” Fifield said. Conservative organizers defended their actions and said they will continue to protest similar gatherings. “We were there to find out what they had to say and to bring a notice to the public that this kind of thing was going on. Quite honestly, if they have it again, then we are really going to make it well known,” Raynor said. Raynor said the group believes MoveOn.org is a communist front and said he would not stand for America becoming a fascist nation. It’s unsurprising that these Tea Partiers thus replicate Jonah Goldberg’s fraudulent scrambling of the meanings of “fascism” and “communism” , something that was avidly promoted on Fox by Beck and others as well. Likewise, it’s unsurprising that this obliteration-of-meaning-by-Newspeak would result in thuggish behavior remarkably like that deployed by brownshirts historically. The only strange thing was that it involved a bunch of senior citizens and middle-aged folks. It was obvious, for instance, that these people were hoping to provoke an angry response resulting in violence that they could then trot out as proof of liberal “thuggishness.” (That’s an old brownshirt tactic .) Fortunately, this particular gathering of progressives was smart enough to avoid that trap. As we see more of these attempts to provoke violence, though, I’m not so sure that’s going to continue happening. It’s all very disturbing. As Carla puts it : Clearly the fine details of what took place are in dispute. What isn’t, however, are the overt attempts at intimidation and bullying perpetuated by Raynor and the others that showed up to shut down a tiny, peaceful group who chose to meet to talk. Last I checked, that’s still allowed in the US. And while MoveOn is decidedly NOT communist, socialist or Marxist–it shouldn’t matter if they are. People in the United States are allowed to discuss and promote those ideas if that’s what they really believe. Why are Raynor and his ilk so desperately frightened? Are their own ideas and beliefs so weak that they can’t stand up to a miniscule group even having an opposition discussion about them?
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After some will they / won’t they drama , Nintendo snuck out its new Video app for the 3DS , giving owners of the handheld a little something to enjoy in 3D between gaming sessions. That said, we hope your Netflix queue is full because there are apparently only four selections available at any given time. At launch, those slots are filled with an intro video, two short films ( Sunday Jog and Dinosaur Office ) and a Captain America movie trailer. Users should expect a continuously updated carousel of content going forward, but for now if you’re not near your glasses-free 3D machine (or don’t own one at all) check out these shots provided by one of our tipsters. Otherwise check for the app in the eShop; though with only a four-pack to start, we’d suggest pacing yourself instead of diving in all at once. [Thanks, Xavier] Gallery: Nintendo Video for 3DS Nintendo Video app for the American 3DS appears with four videos in tow originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jul 2011 00:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Texas Governor Rick Perry is toying with a run for president. Perry is a skilled politician and has never lost an election, but he has taken an increasingly antiscience turn in his approach to governing. On global warming he now says that the leading source of “supposedly deadly carbon dioxide” is the mouth of Al Gore. On education he has appointed creationists to lead the Texas State Board of Education. And on the issue of sex ed in Texas, Perry has taken governing positions that affect millions of children based on his own personal opinions, even when those opinions are overwhelmingly contradicted by the evidence. Texas lawmakers cut sex ed from two six-month courses to a single unit of “abstinence only” education. But early indications showed that the program wasn’t working. In fact, teens in almost all high school grades were having more sex after undergoing the abstinence only program. By 2007, Texas had the highest teen birth rate in the nation. Nevertheless, the program continued. By 2009, 94 percent of Texas schools, which at the time were educating more than 3.7 million students, were giving no sex ed whatsoever beyond “abstinence only,” a curriculum that includes emphasizing that birth control doesn’t work. Instead of providing fact-based information, the programs use fear and Jesus — over-emphasizing the risks of sexually transmitted diseases leading to cervical cancer, radical hysterectomy and death, together with Christian morality. One Texas public school district’s sex ed handout is entitled “Things to Look for in a Mate:” I. How they relate to God A. Is Jesus their first love? B. Trying to impress people or serve God? Another public school district uses this: Question: “What does the Bible say about sex before marriage/premarital sex?” Answer: Along with all other kinds of sexual immorality, sex before marriage/premarital sex is repeatedly condemned in Scripture (Acts 15:20; Romans 1:29; 1 Corinthians 5:1; 6:13,18; 7:2; 10:8; 2 Corinthians 12:21; Galatians 5:19; Ephesians 5:3; Colossians 3:5; 1 Thessalonians 4:3; Jude 7). The results? Teen pregnancy in Texas went up — higher than before “abstinence only,” and more than 50 percent higher than the national average. Even more troubling was that repeat teen pregnancy went up — to the point that it, too, led the nation. It turns out that Texas kids thought that “if birth control doesn’t work, why use it?” It’s also extremely tough for teenagers to get contraceptives in Texas. “If you are a kid, even in college, if it’s state-funded you have to have parental consent,” said Susan Tortolero, director of the Prevention Research Center at the University of Texas in Houston. But none of this seems to matter to Gov. Rick Perry. When confronted with the dismal statistics during an October 15, 2010 televised interview with Texas Tribune reporter Evan Smith, Perry’s response was to reaffirm that “abstinence works.” The audience laughed and Smith pointed out the state’s abysmal teen pregnancy rate. “It works,” insisted Perry. “Maybe it’s the way it’s being taught, or the way it’s being applied out there, but the fact of the matter is it is the best form of — uh — to teach our children.” Smith asked for a statistic to suggest it works, and Perry replied that “I’m just going to tell you from my own personal life, abstinence works.” Perry could be a good leader. But the United States faces mounting challenges around science policy issues ranging from energy and climate change to ocean health to science education and American economic competitiveness. Perry’s willingness to base policies that affect millions of children on his personal opinions even when they are contradicted by overwhelming evidence suggests a governing style that would not be constructive for dealing in reality when tackling America’s complex problems. If Perry continues his campaign for president, he should renounce his past antiscience positions and pledge to make governing decisions based on the best available science. Shawn Lawrence Otto is author of Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America. Find him on Facebook.
Continue reading …Well, Cenk Uygur is out and Al Sharpton is in for the 6pm eastern time slot at MSNBC and Uygur explained on You Tube why he didn’t take the deal MSNBC offered him for a weekend time slot with twice the money he was being paid for his weekday show instead. Bottom line is that he felt some pressure not to be too hard on the Obama administration and they said they were having trouble booking guests because they thought he was being too aggressive with them and didn’t like the tone of some of his interviews. Cenk had nothing but praise for some of his fellow prime time hosts on MSNBC and expressed his gratitude for being given the opportunity to host during the time he had on the air there, and thanked his online viewers of his radio show for giving him that opportunity in the first place to even get a chance to host at MSNBC. That said, he didn’t want to take a diminished role at the network even if it did mean more money and remain silent about why they were unhappy with his show, despite the fact that it was doing pretty well in the demo they all claim to care about, which is the adults 25-54 demo. Personally, I’m sad to see Cenk leave MSNBC because I like him and have actually talked to him a few times when Video Cafe was first being added to the site here at C&L about featuring some of his Young Turks segments. He’s a friend of John’s and a very nice person and I’m sorry he’s going to be losing that spotlight on MSNBC just as I would be about any liberal or progressive voice we’ve got out there in the corporate media whether I agree with everything that they say or not. We don’t have nearly enough of them to counter all of the wingnut b.s. that makes up the majority of our “news” coverage. That said, I think the Rev. Al Sharpton will continue to do a very good job as a wingnut slayer in his place over at MSNBC. I think the sad thing is, Cenk was never really allowed to do his own show at MSNBC. If he had his druthers, I believe there’s no way in hell Michael Steele and Ed Rendell and a host of other guests he was probably forced to have on there would have been any regular contributors to his show. I think he described it pretty well when he said that commenters said he looked like a lion on his radio show and a lion at the zoo on MSNBC. He talked about saying he didn’t want to be constrained any more with how he responded to guests on his show and made a decision not to hold back with criticisms some time back, but that doesn’t account for the fact that he probably had zero editorial control over who his guests were in the first place as he does on his radio/Internet show, The Young Turks. I honestly think Cenk would be a better fit for Current TV and what Olbermann is trying to do with that network instead. I’ve read that Keith wants to turn them into a news network with more people hosting than himself and since that time, I’ve noticed MSNBC suddenly giving more liberals either guest spots or guest hosting spots or new contracts. We can add to that list Chris Hayes, who I read got a contract but have no idea what it entails, now Al Sharpton who’s going to get Cenk’s spot, and I’ve seen Ezra Klein filling in for Martin Bashir. It made me wonder if MSNBC was trying to get some potential liberal contributors on contract before Current TV has a chance to hire them. I would not be shocked to see either Cenk Uygur or David Shuster who’s already filled in for Keith Olbermann wind up with shows at Current TV and there’s a long list of others that, if I had my druthers, I’d love to see hired there as well if they decided to turn Current TV into a 24/7 news network actually hosted by all liberals who don’t have corporate America breathing down their neck and don’t feel constrained to do the usual false equivalencies and we’ve got to represent both sides even if one side is insane and lying with who they book as guests and constraining them with what they say if they have criticisms of anyone in government. UPDATE: Looks like Cenk is going to be one of Keith’s guests on Countdown tonight . Here’s part two of Cenk’s response on his decision to leave MSNBC rather than take the offer they made him.
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