RSN: 6 Ways to Celebrate Endangered Species Day, As Police Torture Victims Win $5.5M in Reparations, Could Chicago Be a Model for Police Abuses Nationwide?, Ukraine Appoints US Senator McCain Presidential Aide

It's Live on the HomePage Now:
Reader Supported News

I CAN'T SIT BY IDLY: I can't sit by idly, while your team produces daily journalistic excellence. Stay the course, keep on fighting and uncovering what's right and wrong! Just sent a small donation. / Dennis, RSN Reader-Supporter

Sure, I'll make a donation!

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Andy Borowitz | Bush Says Iraq Question Unimportant Since He Clearly Will Never Be President

Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
Borowitz writes: "After several days of controversy over whether he would have authorized an invasion of Iraq, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said on Thursday that the question was unimportant since it is now painfully clear that he will never be President."
READ MORE

As Police Torture Victims Win $5.5M in Reparations, Could Chicago Be a Model for Police Abuses Nationwide?
Democracy Now!
Excerpt: "Earlier this month, the Chicago City Council approved a $5.5 million reparations fund for victims of police torture. More than 200 people, most of them African-American, were tortured under the reign of Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge from 1972 to 1991."
READ MORE

18 Senators Call on Obama to Raise Minimum Wage to $15
18 US Senators
Excerpt: "My President, the stroke of your pen can have a transformative impact for millions of workers. As low-wage fast food, retail and federal contract workers continue to strike in growing numbers to 'fight for $15 and a Union,' we urge you to harness the power of the Presidency to help these workers achieve the American Dream."
READ MORE

Ukraine Appoints US Senator McCain Presidential Aide
Agence France-Presse
Excerpt: "Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has appointed John McCain, a hawkish US senator who has pressed Washington to send lethal weapons to war-torn Ukraine, as his advisor, his administration said."
READ MORE

NSA Reform Bill Doesn't Actually Suspend Phone Spying Program
Shane Harris, The Daily Beast
Harris writes: "It was supposed to be the declawing of America's biggest spy service. But 'what no one wants to say out loud is that this is a big win for the NSA,' one former top spook says."
READ MORE

Unexploded Bomb From Israel's Attack on Gaza Explodes, Injuring 50
TeleSUR
Excerpt: "Last year's 50-day attack on the Gaza strip left more than 2,100 people dead, most of whom were civilians."
READ MORE

6 Ways to Celebrate Endangered Species Day
Callie Spaide, TakePart
Excerpt: "While not as well known as Thanksgiving or Christmas (or even Flag Day), Endangered Species Day has a special place for all of us."
READ MORE

 

 

 

 

RSN: A Grateful Nation or Just BOHICA?

It's Live on the HomePage Now:
Reader Supported News

ONE POSITIVE MESSAGE AND THE DONATIONS STOPPED: We sent out a positive fundraising message this morning titled, “Yes There is a Bright Spot, Monthly Signups!” That was the end of the signups. This is what we are up against. Readership is good. Donations really still very bad overall. Looking forward to the day when positive messages work again. / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News

Okay, I'll make a donation.

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FOCUS: John Cory | A Grateful Nation or Just BOHICA?

John Cory, Reader Supported News
Cory writes: "The great media punditry and political pontificators are all aflutter over the VA fiasco from Phoenix and elsewhere. John McCain can’t run to the microphone fast enough to offer up his two cents while FOX, CNN and MSNBC are in full competitive outrage mode, each seeking to outdo the other with flashing chyrons of righteous fury. The circus is loud and shrill and full of sparkly shiny hollow indignation."
READ MORE

Boeing: Corporate Welfare At Its Best!

There's a good book, easily understandable, "The Great American Jobs Scam" by Greg LeRoy, about corporate tax dodging and the myth of job creation.

When you hear JOB CREATION and TAX BREAKS, run like hell because they don't work!
American taxpayers are left holding the bag while the already wealthy reap the benefits.....just like the phony Casino rhetoric.  

Boeing is just one egregious example:

Ralph Nader. (photo: unknown)

Letter to Boeing's Boss: Squeezing Workers for Corporate Welfare

By Ralph Nader, The Nader Page

29 December 13

Jim McNerney, CEO
The Boeing Company
100 North Riverside
Chicago, IL 60606

ear Mr. McNerney:

The squeeze that you and Boeing are putting on your machinist workers' pensions, pay scales and your stance on other labor issues regarding the assembling of the new 777X airliners is unseemly for several reasons.

 

First, consider your pay this year of $21.1 million, a 15 percent increase from the previous year, and much higher than your predecessors. That sum does not demonstrate a moral authority to require sacrifices from your workers at a time of rising Boeing sales and profits, dividend increases, cash hoard, and another notorious $10 billion stock buyback. I say notorious because stock buybacks per se do little for shareholder values and a lot for the enlarged stock options of top executives.

 

Second, you're holding an auction for your long-time workers jobs in other states, inciting a bidding war whereby states are giving away taxpayer assets to lure your 777X assembly factory with huge tax holidays and other subsidies. Washington state outdid itself with a new law, signed by Governor Jay Inslee with the largest state business tax break package for Boeing in history. The tax escape law "will give Boeing and its suppliers about $8.7 billion in tax breaks between now and 2040," according to the Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) calculations. CTJ adds that "Boeing has managed to avoid paying even a dime of state income taxes nationwide on $35 billion in pretax U.S. profits."

 

Boeing also received tax advantages from the federal government, including $1.8 billion in federal income tax rebates on its $35 billion in U.S. profits between 2003 and 2012.

 

Third, in 1997 the Justice Department allowed Boeing to merge with McDonnell Douglas, making Boeing the only manufacturer of commercial jet planes in the United States - a domestic monopoly, justified by the only other foreign competitor - Airbus Industries in Europe. Another valuable gift by Uncle Sam brought about by your company's Washington lobbyists.

 

Fourth, recall Boeing's contract with the Department of Defense for the initial phase of Air Force's KC-46 aerial tanker program that provoked sharp criticism by Senator John McCain in July 2011 for the excessive burdens on American taxpayers from cost over-runs in a supposed "fixed price" contract. In a letter to Department of Defense Undersecretary Ashton B. Carter, Senator McCain wondered "why under a fixed-price, relatively low-risk contract, taxpayers may have to pay 60 percent of any overrun within that band - up to $600 million."

 

A book could be written about the Boeing company's strategy for externalization of a variety of its costs onto innocent, defensely people - whether workers or taxpayers. Boeing's systemic campaigns for corporate welfare are shameful. Your company is one of the major corporate welfare kings in America, running a close race with the champion - General Electric. As CTJ wrote: Boeing "employs an army of site location and tax consultants, whose job has been to blackmail states into giving Boeing lavish tax breaks." These include sales and property tax breaks which drain communities' ability to provide for school and other public facilities (http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/corporate-subsidy-watch/boeing).

 

Fifth, there is the gigantic subject of your outsourcing to foreign suppliers, in particular Japan where your technology transfers, damaging the longer term viability of U.S. competitiveness in the aerospace sector for short term gains favoring Boeing, merit thorough examination by the Congress.

 

As you know Boeing's foreign outsourcing brought your company considerable quality control and delay troubles with the Dreamliner.

 

You need to read the 2005 report by the Defense Science Board about the hollowing out of domestic capability in the electronics industry from this kind of overseas outsourcing migration by U.S. companies.

 

For starters read the current copy of The American Conservative magazine's cover story titled "Japan's Plan to Unmake Boeing," describing the full assistance of Boeing. No doubt, if your further cruel downward pressure on your machinists culminates in your destroying their union local and their jobs by leaving the state of Washington and going for example to the anti-union state of South Carolina, there will be further public inquiries. Such as how perverse incentives provided by your suppliers in Japan and elsewhere have furthered job losses here and accelerated your company's technology transfers perhaps beyond the tipping point against the U.S. national interest.

 

Sincerely yours,

Ralph Nader



The rest of RSN's thought-provoking articles:

Noam Chomsky: Governments are Power Systems, Trying to Sustain Power

Natasha Lennard, Salon
Excerpt: "Governments are power systems. They are trying to sustain their power and domination over their populations and they will use what means are available to do this."
READ MORE

Charles Pierce | Judge Rules on NSA From Under His Bed

Charles Pierce, Esquire
Pierce writes: "Let us congratulate U.S. District Judge William Pauley III. It cannot be easy issuing an important ruling while hiding under your bed."
READ MORE

Ezra Klein | Why Shouldn't You Just Pay the Individual Mandate?
Ezra Klein, The Washington Post
Klein writes: "Most people don't buy insurance because they expect to need it. They buy insurance in case they need it."
READ MORE

UN Hopes for South Sudan Reinforcements Within 48 hours
Louis Charbonneau and Michelle Nichols, Reuters
Excerpt: "[The United Nations] hopes to begin receiving within the next 48 hours critical reinforcements of military hardware and personnel for its overstretched peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, which is on the verge of civil war."
READ MORE

Philly's New Land Bank: Will It Give Blighted Communities a Boost?
Jake Blumgart, YES! Magazine
Blumgart writes: "The city is home to more than 40,000 vacant properties. Now neighborhoods are hoping a new public entity can help them bounce back from the post-industrial blues."
READ MORE

Ken Butigan | Conscientious Objectors Needed Now More Than Ever
Ken Butigan, Waging Nonviolence
Butigan writes: "In our time of permanent war, the Edward Snowdens and Chelsea Mannings are showing us how powerful conscientious objection still is."
READ MORE

6 Crimes Against Nature Perpetrated by the Factory Farms
Martha Rosenberg, AlterNet
Rosenberg writes: "While many procedures on factory farms are cruel, some practices ... are truly crimes against nature."
READ MORE

 

 

Robert Reich | Don't Succumb to Defeatism About the Affordable Care Act

Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
Reich writes: "Whatever happened to American can-do optimism? Even before the Affordable Care Act covers its first beneficiary, the nattering nabobs of negativism are out in full force."
READ MORE

John Nichols | Congress Chooses Austerity Over Job Creation and Economic Growth
John Nichols, The Nation
Nichols writes: "Most members of Congress were pleased with themselves Thursday. They agreed to agree - crossing lines of partisanship and ideology - on an austerity budget that, as Oregon Congressman Peter DeFazio has noted, 'won't create jobs, get the economy back on track, or meaningfully cut the deficit.' That's not the worst of it."
READ MORE

Benefits Ending for One Million Unemployed
Annie Lowrey, The New York Times
Lowrey reports: "An emergency federal program that acts as a lifeline for 1.3 million jobless workers will end on Saturday, drastically curtailing government support for the long-term unemployed and setting the stage for a major political fight in the new year."
READ MORE

Strange Bedfellows: Pat Buchanan and Putin
Harold Meyerson, The Washington Post
Meyerson writes: "While Buchanan's pugnacity in the culture wars has long since ceased to be news, his latest entry is jaw-dropping nonetheless. Writing last week on a right-wing Web site , he announced he'd found a new star in the paleoconservative firmament: Vladimir Putin."
READ MORE

Homeless Couple Gets a Home on Christmas Eve, Thanks to 'Occupy' Group
Scott Keyes, ThinkProgress
Keyes reports: "For many couples, the thought of living together in a 96-square-foot house sounds awful. But for Chris Derrick and Betty Ybarra, it's a Christmas miracle."
READ MORE

Global Warming Will Intensify Drought, Says New Study
John Abraham, Guardian UK
Abraham reports: " ... what matters most in our day-to-day lives is extreme weather. If human-caused climate change leads to more extreme weather, it would make taking action more prudent."
READ MORE

 

 

Huh? Hypocrisy much?

Think Progress

Americans should receive disaster aid based on their need, not what state they're from

Three Republicans Who Opposed Sandy Relief Now Demand Disaster Aid For Arizona

By Josh Israel on August 14, 2013

 

Arizona Republicans Sen. Jeff Flake, Sen. John McCain, and Rep. Paul Gosar all voted against emergency relief funding after SuperStorm Sandy ravaged much of the New Jersey and New York area earlier this year. Now, following an Arizona wildfire, the same trio is vocally complaining that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is not doing enough to aid their state.

In light of sequestration and budget tightening, FEMA has limited funding and cannot respond to every single flood, fire, and other issue that hits. Last week, the agency announced that it would not declare Yarnell, Arizona, a federal disaster area. A spokesman explained that while the agency had assisted firefighters during the deadly June blaze, “the damage to uninsured private residences from this event was not beyond the response and recovery capabilities of the state/local governments, and voluntary agencies.”

McCain and Flake, who had partnered to ask for a federal disaster declaration, issued a joint statement Monday, lamenting that it was “a shame that FEMA couldn’t find it within their mission to help rebuild their homes and lives.” A riled McCain added that in light of the 19 firefighter deaths and the 134 destroyed homes, “the damage that was done was very substantial and, I believe, qualified. So, we’re going to do everything we can to urge the president to change his mind. Including, I will be making some phone calls.”

Gosar, who had also requested an emergency designation, released a statement of his own, saying, “The people of Yarnell do not ask much from the federal government,” but that here it was “reasonable to expect FEMA to step in.”

In January, the Senate passed a long-delayed $50.5 billion Sandy relief package, but among the 36 Senators voting against the bill were Flake and McCain. McCain criticized provisions in the bill that might not be spent immediately as “questionable” and argued “we cannot justify this type of spending.”

When the House gave its approval to the supplemental spending package, Gosar was among 180 Representatives voting no. At that time, he explained, “I am more than willing to support the people and businesses impacted by Hurricane Sandy, but that would not take over $50 billion taxpayer dollars.” But Gosar even voted against a barebones $9 billion funding increase for FEMA for Sandy relief — one of just 67 members to do so.

Gosar, a climate change denier, has blamed “extreme environmental groups” for Arizona’s many wildfires.


http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/08/14/2467861/three-arizona-republicans-fema-hypocrisy/

 

 

 

 

Failing in the Middle East

U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East has a long and complex history that most ignore.
The U.S. has supported the tyrants, torturers and brutes and overthrown Democracy, as well as arming nations with chemical weapons to employ against each other.
 
Let's stop following in lock-step with the Neo-Cons who got us into Iraq and Afghanistan without an exit strategy, based on outrageous lies and misinformation.

When will we 'wage peace'?

Please add your name ----



Last week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 15-3 in favor of arming and training the Syrian rebels.

This is a misguided and dangerous idea.

I helped to train the Iraqi Army during my second tour, and their concern is that many of the anti-Assad forces are the same terrorists they've fought before and who continue to target them.

This is dangerous. As Senator Tom Udall noted, once we introduce weapons, we have zero control over them. The United States “could turn over the weapons we’re talking about and next day they end up in the hands of al-Qaida.”

Three Senators voted against the bill in committee, but we need you to send a strong message to the other 97 that you oppose intervention in Syria's civil war. You can do that here:

http://action.votevets.org/syrian-intervention

If you don’t think this is serious, consider that Senator John McCain made a secret trip to meet with the anti-Assad forces, this past weekend, as he continues his efforts to arm them.

Moreover, there is no winning scenario when we get involved in other nations' civil wars and proxy wars.

On this point, Senator Chris Murphy said it best: "We have failed over and over again in our attempts to pull the strings of Middle Eastern politics."

Let's not make the same mistake again.

Jon Soltz
@jonsoltz
Iraq War Veteran and Chairman
VoteVets.org

While we all have the utmost respect for Senator McCain and the ordeal he endure when he was tortured on Vietnam, Senator McCain carries a great deal of baggage [which makes one wonder why Gabriel Gomez sought his support]. Below is 'satire' - you know? Satire!

[When McCain failed to condemn torture, that did it for me, even ignoring his Gambling Addiction and other questionable actions.]

Thanks Borowitz!



May 28, 2013

Syrian Rebels Urge McCain to Get Over Losing to Obama

Posted by Andy Borowitz



SYRIA (The Borowitz Report)—During a meeting yesterday with Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona), Syrian rebels told the senator that he still seemed “really bitter” about losing the 2008 election to President Obama and advised him to “get over it.”

After meeting with the Arizona senator in the border region near Turkey, a spokesman for the Syrian rebels told reporters that while they appreciated Sen. McCain’s support, “We were kind of uncomfortable with the place it was coming from.”

“It was pretty obvious to me and the other rebels that everything McCain was doing was just to get back at Obama,” the rebel spokesman said. “And we were like, look, that election was five years ago. It’s time to move on.”

Sen. McCain denied that his support of the Syrian rebels had anything to do with a personal vendetta against President Obama, but according to the rebel, “Every time he said ‘Obama,’ a vein in his head kind of bulged out.”

“The man is a simmering cauldron of rage,” the Syrian rebel said. “He needs to turn his anger toward Obama into something more positive. You can’t carry all of that hate around with you forever—it’s not healthy.”

For his part, Sen. McCain said that he was “finished” with the Syrian rebels and would now focus on starting a war with North Korea.

Get the Borowitz Report delivered to your inbox.
Photograph by Allison Shelley/Getty.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/05/syrian-rebels-urge-mccain-to-get-over-losing-to-obama.html

 

The Republican Lunatic Fringe

38 Senate Republicans Use National Sovereignty as an Excuse to Discriminate Against the Disabled
By: Rmuse
December 5th, 2012

One of the cornerstones of social interconnection and humanism that is foundational to the highest principles in philosophy and society is compassion, and as a virtue of empathy for the suffering of others is a fundamental aspect of human love. Over the past four years a large segment of the population has demonstrated their lack of compassion for their fellow citizens who, through no fault of their own, find themselves vulnerable to the machinations of conservative selfishness and greed. It is unclear why, or how, Republicans have incited pure hatred for the poor, infirm, or minorities, but it seems to be an affliction associated with misconceptions and conspiracy theories that anyone not adhering to conservative’s vision of an America that never existed, is intent on destabilizing the nation and controlling the population.

The hard-right fringe of the Republican and tea party has warned Americans that one of the biggest threats to America is a United Nations plot to take over America, and that sentiment played out on Tuesday in the Senate when 38 Republican senators voted against ratifying a United Nations treaty on the rights of the disabled modeled after the Americans with Disabilities Act. The treaty states that all nations should attempt to ensure that disabled people enjoy the same rights and fundamental freedoms as every citizen, but the 38 Republicans warned the treaty poses a threat to America’s national sovereignty. Senator John Kerry explained that the treaty simply says “you can’t discriminate against the disabled. It says other countries have to do what we did 22 years ago when we set the example for the world and passed the Americans with Disabilities Act.” Kerry also stressed that the treaty requires no change in U.S. law, cannot change U.S. law, or serve as a basis for lawsuits in U.S. courts, and that by encouraging other countries to emulate the rights and facilities for the disabled existing in the United States, it would benefit disabled Americans, particularly veterans, who want to work, travel or study abroad.

Opposition to the treaty was led by Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) who said the nature of the treaty threatened American sovereignty that will lead the state, and not parents, to determine the best interest of disabled children in the area of home schooling, and because it gives equal rights to the disabled, would lead to abortions. Lee said, “Parents will raise the children with the constant looming threat of state interference.” The conservative Heritage Action for America warned senators that if they did not vote against the treaty, their votes would be recorded on their “conservative” scorecard and repeated the claim it “would erode the principle of American sovereignty and federalism.” Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe said “I do not support the cumbersome regulations and potentially overzealous international organizations with anti-American biases that infringe upon American society.”

Not all Republicans fell for the ridiculous notion the treaty was a U.N. plot to take over America, or to subvert parental rights to home school their children, or impose abortions on the disabled.

Prominent Republican veterans who supported the treaty were John McCain, and former Senator Bob Dole who both suffered disabling injuries in combat. Eight Republicans joined Democrats in voting to ratify the treaty, and President Obama, in a written tribute to Bob Dole said, “Disability rights should not stop at our nation’s shores.” Veterans groups and the disabilities community widely supported the treaty that was negotiated and completed by George W. Bush’s administration in 2006, and signed by President Obama in 2009.

Last month, former senator and evangelical fanatic Rick Santorum and Mike Lee announced they acquired signatures from 36 Republicans pledging to vote against the treaty that Santorum claimed had “darker and more troubling implications,” and suggested it would have meant the forced abortion of his daughter because she has a rare genetic disorder. Santorum wrote, “In the case of our 4-year-old daughter who has a condition medical literature says is ‘incompatible with life,’ would her ‘best interest’ be that she be allowed to die? Some would undoubtedly say so.” Conservative activist, confirmed conspiracy theorist, and raging lunatic Phyllis Schlafly wrote last month that the treaty’s proponents and “feminists are using this treaty as an opportunity to promote their abortion agenda.”  

[This defines irrational thinking!]

On the floor of the Senate, John McCain, who suffered disabilities while fighting in Viet Nam, insisted the treaty had no effect on American abortion laws and told his fellow Republicans that,
“With respect to abortion, this is a disabilities treaty and has nothing to do with abortion. Trying to turn this into an abortion debate is bad politics and just wrong.”

It is difficult to comprehend how, as a party, Republicans have become so completely unhinged that they conflate a treaty on rights of the disabled with a bizarre notion that there is a one-world plot to rob Americans of their liberties, force an abortion agenda on the disabled, or prohibit parents from home schooling or sending their children to private religious schools. It is tragic that in Republican circles, a conspiracy-theory is driving how they govern, and that their hatred of President Obama coupled with their biases and paranoia over a non-existent United Nations plot has erased any compassion normal human beings have for the least fortunate among us, or that it prevented them from supporting a treaty based on a prime example of American equality and compassion.

What is astounding is how so-called “conservative experts” like Santorum, Lee, and Schlafly were able to convince 38 United States senators that a U. N. Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities would erode U.S. sovereignty, skew the constitutional boundaries between state and federal government, and cede authority to the UN to promote more liberal abortion laws. As usual, the religious right had a hand in promoting the conspiracy theory that ratifying the treaty would “set the nation on a march towards socialism and promote rights the government would be required, by treaty, to provide to individuals, because signatories would be forced to embrace ‘economic, social, and cultural rights’ imposed on Americans by unelected UN officials who have too much leeway to promote an agenda unrelated to the purpose of the ratified treaty.” A representative of the Home School Legal Defense Association weighed in and said “turning authority over any aspect of U.S. life to foreign bureaucrats goes against the grain of most Americans,” and that “Americans should make the law for America.”

There are always going to be lunatic fringes comprised of conspiracy theorists and mentally deranged religious fanatics, but when they influence over a third of the United States Senate to block a treaty emulating what many would call “American exceptionalism” in guaranteeing the disabled have equal rights, it portends dark times for America. Perhaps the senators who voted against the treaty lack basic comprehension of the Constitution and its blueprint for governing this country, or they are mentally deranged and see blue-helmeted U.N forces invading and seizing control of the government, but whatever their dysfunction, they allowed it to override any sense of compassion that was once a source of pride for Americans. Now, the country that passed landmark legislation guaranteeing disabled Americans enjoy the same rights, protections, and access every other American relishes should mourn that instead of compassion and equality, America opted for conspiracy theory and fears the U.N. is coming for disabled children, home schools, and to force abortions on the disabled.

Apparently, Republicans cannot stand up against lunatics in the conservative movement because it is obvious that for the most part, lunatics are the conservative movement.

http://www.politicususa.com/38-senate-republicans-national-sovereignty-excuse-discriminate-disabled.html

Hmmm...when do we stop following dummies?

Too Informed To Vote Republican

mmc

Folks should do a little research aboutr John McCain's Gambling Addiction, his history in leaking testimony in the massive banking scandal when others went to prison.....and bunches of other stuff.

Benghazi-Gate

If you're dumb enough to believe what you hear on FAUX News, maybe you should consider the FACTS.

Fox News Abruptly Ends Interview After Guest Calls Out The Network For Hyping Benghazi Scandal

By Hamed Aleaziz and Hayes Brown on Nov 26, 2012

 

Tom Ricks, author and Pulitzer prize winner who has reported for the Washington Post, lambasted Fox News’s coverage of the Benghazi attacks in an interview with the conservative network on Monday. Ricks, who has written extensively on the American military, called the Fox an “operating as a wing of Republican Party” that “hyped” the Benghazi attack as a faux-scandal.

During the interview, which lasted only a minute and 45 seconds, Ricks responded to a loaded question with a remark that surprised the anchor:

JON SCOTT (HOST): Senator John McCain said in the past he would block any attempt to nominate Susan Rice to become U.N. — I’m sorry, Secretary of State. She’s currently the U.N. ambassador. He seems to be backing away from that. What do you make of it?

RICKS: I think that Benghazi generally was hyped, by this network especially, and that now that the campaign is over, I think he’s backing off a little bit. They’re not going to stop Susan Rice from being secretary of state.

After Ricks called Fox the “operating wing” of the GOP, Scott ended the interview. Watch it:





Ricks’ assessment of Fox’s role in what they themselves dubbed “Benghazi-gate” is accurate. Since the Sept. 11 attack that killed four U.S. citizens, Fox has pushed a constant stream of conspiracy theories and easily countered “facts” claiming that the Obama administration lied to the public in their response. Even Fox’s own personalities have had trouble accepting the push at times, but Ricks’ blunt statements caught the network off-guard.

The interview apparently didn’t sit well with Fox: a “news staffer” told Ricks that he was rude while he was on air. Ricks’ segment, according to an interview he gave with the New York Times, was about “half as long as planned.”

“I had told the producer before I went on that I thought the Benghazi story had been hyped. So it should have been no surprise when I said it and the anchor pushed back that I defended my view,” Ricks told Politico. Ricks also told the New York Times that he was going to discuss the “lack of combat readiness of some Army units” but he never got the opportunity,. “They seemed to lose interest in that,” he said.

http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/11/26/1237231/ricks-fox-news-benghazi/

Those Damn Liberals!

They just keep fact-checking Republican lies!
[And that's before we address some of the other disasters McCain has caused.]

From: Too Informed To Vote Republican

Incorrect...
mmc

Type any name to tag: Type any name

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John McCain: Hypocrit

We love to irritate hateful Republicans shared The Rachel Maddow Fan Page.'s photo.

From our good friends at The Rachel Maddow Fan Page.

Will the Media Call Out McCain for Missing the Benghazi Briefing?:

 

 http://www.politicususa.com/media-call-mccain-missing-benghazi-briefing.html


Republicans slashed the State Department budget.
 

Time to retire, Senator McCain!

If you weren't infuriated by Senator McCain's other escapades, his public position on TORTURE, his poor judgement in nominating Airhead Sarah Palin, maybe you need to watch more closely ---

From: Too Informed To Vote Republican

‎(video)
Yep, definitely time for McCain to retire. Seriously. Not supporting ANY nominee?

John McCain (R-AZ) has not hesitated to express his distaste towards U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice, who may be nominated to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. On Face the Nation Sunday morning, McCain went even further than simply opposing Rice’s nomination and said that, “until we find out all the information” on the Benghazi consulate attacks, he would not support any Secretary of State nominee.

At first he said it “might be a beginning” if Rice could come on the program to explain her position. But when pressed by host Bob Schieffer, McCain dug in and refused to support any nominee “under the present circumstances”:

SCHIEFFER: Until then, you will remain opposed to her nomination?

MCCAIN: Under the present circumstances, until we find out all the information as to what happened, I don’t think you would want to support any nominee right now. Because this is very very serious and it has even larger implications than the deaths of 4 Americans. It really goes to the heart of this whole light foot print policy that this administration is pursuing.

Facebook comment: But check out this list of attacks since 911, and not a peep about them from McCain and his cronies. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/12/1130950/-If-diplomatic-attacks-are-a-sign-of-weakness-Bush-was-the-weakest-of-all

John McCain: No Show!

The Republican tactics of telling lies about foreign policy, particularly Benghazi, reveals the Party for the extremists they are.

From: Ross Donald and 2 others shared The Republic of Letters's photo.

 

Sen. McCain(who is no longer qualified to hold that honorific) failed to show at the closed session hearing on Benghazi yesterday, confirming our suspicion that his attacks on Ambassador Rice were politically motivated. Not a search for answers as much as a search for an excuse to delegitimize the president. Now we know that former C.I.A. head David Petraeus confirms that the talking points that Ambassador Rice used on the Sunday talk shows awhile back were the same ones given to Sen. McCain at that time, so when he says he knew for a fact that she was lying, he is lying. I used to have respect for the man, in spite of his warmongering way, but the man just lost the last little bit of it. We were attacked, and during that attack Mitt Romney piled in on to the embassy under attack with his own nasty rhetoric. Now McCain continues that dishonorable, dishonest, politically motivated line of attack. He should be ashamed. AlTruism

The Fiasco of Deregulation

During the Presidential Campaign, there was a great deal of information available regarding the Keating Scandal, a costly bailout that was preventable and involved Senator McCain. The connection with that failure to regulate with current bank failures was highlighted by the Washington Post.

.
The Washington Post reported last month that OTS allowed thrifts to lend massively while reserves against future losses dwindled. Even as problems became apparent, the agency continued to prioritize deregulation. The latest findings underscore that OTS failed to enforce its own rules.
.
The regulator named in Thorson's letter, Darrel Dochow, was removed from his position yesterday as director of OTS's west division, which supervised Washington Mutual, Countrywide, IndyMac and Downey Savings and Loan, among other banks that have been seized or sold this year.
.
It is the second time Dochow has been removed from a position as a senior thrift regulator. He was demoted in the early 1990s after federal investigators found that he had delayed and impeded proper regulation of Charles Keating's failed Lincoln Savings and Loan. .

Securities experts said the filing could raise legal issues because it is a crime to knowingly make false statements in the financial records of a public company.
.
The new numbers also averted an intervention by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which could have acted to limit the eventual cost of IndyMac's failure. The FDIC now estimates the cost at about $8.9 billion. The agency is funded by the banking industry.
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Dochow's efforts to help IndyMac extended beyond his support for the bank's revised financial filings.
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At another point last spring, Dochow limited the scope of a review by OTS regulators of IndyMac's portfolio of loans and other assets, overruling the advice of others in the agency, according to a source with knowledge of the incident.
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The current episode echoes Dochow's involvement in the collapse of Lincoln Savings and Loan.
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In September 1987 Dochow halted an examination of Lincoln, which was meant to determine whether the bank had an adequate capital cushion, at the request of his then-boss, Federal Home Loan Bank Board Chairman M. Danny Wall, according to a congressional investigation. Attorneys for Lincoln and its chief executive, Keating, had threatened to sue the bank board, OTS's predecessor, if the exam went ahead.
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When the exam finally happened eight months later, it revealed that Lincoln was engaged in unsafe, unsound lending practices, booking inappropriate income and inappropriately sending money to its holding company. The company was placed in conservatorship soon thereafter and taxpayers eventually spent $2.7 billion bailing it out. Dochow was demoted and sent to a regional job.
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Does anyone listen to Rush Limbaugh?

NPR aired an interview with Bill Ayers -- worth the listen.

President-elect Obama has yet to take office, but is being blamed for the worsening economic conditions? Shouldn't we blame the failed fiscal policies of this Administration that has occupied the White House for 8 years? Does anyone still listen to Rush Limbaugh?

Bill Ayers and the Demons to Come

Leave it to Rush Limbaugh. We have just elected as our president an African-American, who would not have been able to vote in large parts of our country less than 50 years ago, and we have proved to ourselves and to the world that we remain a land of enormous opportunity. Yet, the country's best-known radio talk-show host wasted no time using our airwaves to attack the president-elect for preaching "racism" and "socialism," and for creating our current economic collapse by scaring off potential investors who fear higher taxes. "The Obama recession is in full swing, ladies and gentlemen," Limbaugh proclaimed only two days after the election. "Stocks are dying, which is a precursor of things to come. This is an Obama recession. Might turn into a depression."


But, as Rush Limbaugh and the stone-throwing Sarah Palin remind us, we are a long way from putting such divisive nonsense behind us.

Some Thoughts on the Election

I found the following comments filled with political insight not available elsewhere and thought them worthy of circulation, with the author's permission:

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Some Thoughts on the Election
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Here are some thoughts I've been having about the election and
what happens next. I know this is much too long. I'll be
honored if anyone reads it.
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1. Why did Obama win? Was the war an issue?
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There are lots of reasons why Obama won. As I've written before,
this was a Democratic year. The Bush administration was widely
seen to be a disaster, and I think any Democrat would have won.
But that doesn't stop the talking heads from coming up with all
sorts of "analyses". One that I've found particularly irritating
is the statement -- which I've seen in a number of places -- that
"it turns out that the economy, not the war, was the main issue."
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There were a number of main issues. The economy was certainly
one. And it would have been one even without the financial
meltdown of the last few months.
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But the war was another one. And it's easy to see this: McCain
tried to make an issue out of winning the war. It didn't work;
it was a complete flop. The fact is that the American people had
turned so massively against the war over the last few years that
it wasn't even worth speaking about all that much in this
campaign. But that doesn't meant that it wasn't a major factor
in how people looked at the Bush administration and the
Republican party and the Republican ticket.
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And this in turn is due in significant part to the patient and
protracted work that so many of us around this country have been
doing for years now standing publicly in opposition to the war --
to the lies that were used to justify it, to the shameful acts of
torture and human degradation that were part of it, to the
shredding of the Constitution and civil liberties engaged in by
the administration, and to the destabilizing and
counterproductive effects of the war, which turned Iraq from a
brutal dictatorship into a vast breeding ground for terrorism.
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2. The historical significance of the election.
It's big. It's very big. There are two things that strike me in
particular:
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a) As I see it, this is the first time that this country has come
to grips in a national and unequivocal way with the issue of
racism. Racism has been a blight on our country's history. The
unspeakable atrocity, cruelty and maliciousness of racism has
permeated our political process for centuries. And while there
was nothing magic about this election, and while racism is still
a potent force in many respects, we can now see that the forces
of decency and humanity in this country are more powerful than
many of us had thought. That over the last few generations a
real change has been taking place, even while many of us didn't
see it happening. And that the future is not compelled to repeat
the past.
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b) This election offered people a clear choice between the
politics of hope and the politics of fear. Fear has been pretty
successfully used by the Republicans in the past. But it didn't
work this time. And to me anyway, this feels like a tremendous
liberation.
.
The Republican party, which has been running on wedge issues for
a long time now, has seen many of those issues become
progressively less effective. And right now, it has reduced the
Republicans to a party of racism and homophobia, both of which
are fading, and neither of which are really winning issues anymore.
We have a tremendous opportunity. Topics which could not be
discussed are now open for discussion -- I want to write more
about this in a future post. But we should not discount this in
the slightest. There come times in a nation's history when
people are hungry for serious political discussion. This is such
a time. The old fear-mongering has lost its edge. Now is our
time, and we should seize it.
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I hope it won't sound too corny to mention that I wake up every
day now feeling a lot better about things than I have felt in
along, long time.
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3. What can we expect from the Obama administration?
Obama is very intelligent, and has many good instincts. He
really does want to address in a substantive way the economic
hardship that so many people face. He really does want to end
the war. And he's also in many ways pretty conservative. We
have seen recently how he voted for things like retroactive
immunity for warrantless wiretapping and increasing the powers of
the administration to spy on its own citizens -- things that many
of us found abhorrent. Let me just say something here about his
economic advisers, who are not the kind of people I would entrust
our nation's economic policy to.
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The person most often mentioned as the next Secretary of the
Treasury is Larry Summers. Recently a number of women's groups
have urged Obama not to appoint Summers to this position because
of his sexist remarks about how supposedly women were generally
incapable or unsuited for high achievement in science.
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Those remarks were indeed outrageous, and coming as they did from
the then president of Harvard University, they were even more
outrageous. But in fact, they are only the tip of the iceberg.
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In 1991, Summers was the chief economist for the World Bank, and
signed his name to a memo that gave an economic argument to
justify the dumping of toxic wastes by developed countries on
underdeveloped countries. (The argument was the kind of thing
you might expect: since people in underdeveloped countries get
paid less, the cost of someone dying there is less than that
here, say, and so it makes economic sense to export our
pollution.) This memo was made public and caused, as you might
imagine, an uproar. Summers then said it had really been
intended as sarcasm. I've read it. It doesn't sound like a
piece of sarcasm to me. Maybe it was just clumsy. If so, it was
very clumsy indeed, and irresponsibly so.
.
Larry Summers and Robert Rubin are the most prominent of Obama's
current set of economic advisers, and they have played prominent
roles in Democratic economic policy for many years now.
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They are both extremely quick and bright. They both share some
views that we would generally agree with -- for instance, they
will occasionally speak about the greatly increased income
inequality in this country as a bad thing. But their record has
not been good at all.
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Robert Rubin started out as a lawyer. He was hired by Goldman
Sachs in 1966 and worked in their risk arbitrage division. He
was so skillful in this that he eventually became a partner in
the firm.
.
He left to work in the Clinton White House from 1993-1995. In
1995 he became the Treasury Secretary. Larry Summers was an
undersecretary of the Treasury at the same time. They worked
very closely together, along with Alan Greenspan, then chair of
the Federal Reserve.
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Together, the three of them convinced Clinton to sign the repeal
of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 which had put into place many
regulations designed to prevent the kind of financial speculation
that had in part led to the Great Depression. (The act repealing
Glass-Steagall was the (Phil) Gramm-Leach- Bliley act.) They also
convinced Congress to permanently strip the Commodities Futures
Trading Commission of regulatory authority over derivatives. So
while we justifiably call Republicans -- McCain in particular --
to task for their role in destroying regulatory authority over
the financial system, Rubin and Summers also played key roles in
that process.
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Shortly before the Gramm-Leach- Bliley bill was enacted, Rubin
resigned as Treasury Secretary and went to work for Citigroup,
which then used its new powers to create mortgage-backed
securities and other financial instruments that were a major
component of the current economic collapse.
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Rubin was succeeded as Treasury Secretary by Summers.
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After the Clinton administration, Summers became president of
Harvard in 2001. One of his first acts was to pick a fight with
Cornell West, a University Professor and a member of the
African-American studies department's "dream team", whose work
spanned several fields, and who had been hired away from
Princeton. Summers treated West in such an insulting manner that
the African-American studies department was in danger of complete
collapse. As it was, both West and Anthony Appiah (a professor
of philosophy and another member of the "dream team") both left
Harvard for arguably better positions at Princeton, where they
are today, and where West is now a University Professor. When
Summers resigned under pressure, there was a lot of speculation
that West might return, but he evidently decided not to.
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These are the men giving Obama economic advice right now.
.
My point is not that Obama's economic policy will be terrible.
But on the other hand, I don't think we should be sitting back
passively waiting to see what happens. We have an obligation to
make our own views known, both to the president-elect and to the
nation at large.
.
This is not -- in spite of what some people posting on this list
may fear -- an antagonistic thing to do. Good political leaders
-- and I do think that Obama is a very good political leader --
like to know what people's real concerns are. I heard recently
about a meeting that some people had with Obama sometime in the
last year. He was being pressed on his position on marriage
equality. He said definitively that he could not support it.
Then he said, "But I hope you'll keep pressing me on it." That
to my mind is the mark of an honest and decent person and a
potentially great president.
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Just one other example of what I see as a problematic position:
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both in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National
Convention, and in his half-hour television message just before
the election, Obama said that he cared a lot about public
education, and wanted to improve it by "paying teachers more and
holding them accountable" . I don't know exactly what he means by
this. Maybe he doesn't either. But those words are generally
used as code words for a combination of merit pay and high-stakes
testing. They come from an outlook driven by ideology, not by
the day-in day-out experience of good teachers. I'm not saying
that Obama is a prisoner of that ideology. But I do think he
needs to hear some alternative points of view, and the sooner the
better.
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FDR started out as a basically conservative politician who was
nevertheless willing to listen to people and felt an urgency to
solve the real problems that he saw. The New Deal was
influenced, and in large part made possible, not by top-down
policy-making but by an incredible ferment of political, social,
and labor organizing that made it both necessary and possible for
the government to act in a progressive manner.
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We have an opportunity to engage in that kind of ferment now.
And we should do so.
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--Carl Offner

Bill Ayers and the Presidential Campaign

Bill Ayers remained silent during the Presidential Campaign on being used as a prop by the McCain/Palin ticket, but was recently interviewed on DemocracyNow, along with his wife, Bernardine Dohrn about his actions during the '60s. The interview is worth reading in its entirety, but the quote below stood out. Unless you lived through those turbulent times, it's difficult to imagine and doesn't lend itself to sound bytes. Having known one of the unarmed students killed at Kent State puts things in perspective. Wikipedia offers a brief recap. At the bottom is an article authored by Bill Ayers and an interview in Salon.

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And what’s interesting is that it was raised up in an attempt to replay the culture wars. You know, there was this wonderful moment on Stephen Colbert where the word for the night was “the ’60s." And he has a clip of Obama saying, “Can’t we just leave the ’60s behind?” And it comes back to Colbert, in full anger, saying, “No, Senator. We can’t leave it behind. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.”

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And frankly, I think the fact that this may be the last time that the ’60s is raised in that kind of cultural warrior-ish way is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, I think it is time to move on, and there’s a new generation. And a lot of the nostalgia for the ’60s, both the hatred of it and the love of it, is misplaced. I think it’s time to look forward. On the other hand, I think that it’s a sad thing that we’ve never really had a truth and reconciliation process about the war in Vietnam, about the black freedom movement and what happened. And that means, among other things, that we haven’t learned the lessons of invasion and occupation. We haven’t learned the lessons of what happens when people get involved in direction action and struggle, and both the advances that can be made and also the limits of those struggles. We haven’t learned the lessons that might make for a more peaceful, more just future.

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In These Times

Salon

Of the Presidential Election:

It was a moment when the American people overwhelmingly rejected the politics of fear, the politics of war and militarization, paranoia and the acceptance of the shredding of our constitutional rights. It was a sense of "let's move beyond that."