New Developments III

[Greg]

Dan Rather

...And in Other News

Remember the millions of dollars, hundreds of staff and hours of coverage spent on a wedding in London when crises around the globe and here at home festered. Remember the unseemly pas de deux between the press and a reality TV show huckster peddling racially-fraught falsehoods, as both interviewers and the interviewee seek a bump in ratings.

And then please take a moment to remember the eight American soldiers and one contractor killed by an Afghan soldier at the Kabul airport in a war too easily forgotten. Remember the hundreds likely being killed in Syria and Libya, not to mention the death and unrest plaguing countries like the Ivory Coast, which almost never earn more than a mention on our most-watched newscasts.

Remember those who have the least amongst us, struggling after more than a year of unemployment, a long commute they can no longer afford, or the diagnosis of a medical condition that could kill them and bankrupt their family.

The networks couldn't ignore the devastating storms that killed hundreds in the South, but you had the odd juxtaposition of that news being delivered by anchors sitting in front of Buckingham Palace.

There's always the question, is the audience chasing the news or the news chasing an audience? I have nothing against the royals or their wedding. It is a legitimate news story, a big event for one of America's most stalwart allies. We have had a lot of bad news lately, and if you are someone who finds this diversion interesting and exciting, then I think that's great.

What bothers me is the hypocrisy. The idea that we can't afford to throw resources at an important foreign story, but can afford to spend this kind of money on a story like the royal wedding is just plain wrong. The idea that we can't break into regularly-scheduled programming for an address by the president is wrong as well. When the topic was the "Birther Story" (better referred from here on out by the first letters of those two words), the networks jumped right in.

As a journalist, you like to be the one asking the questions. But it's time that some of our news executives gave some answers of their own.

Dan Rather is the managing editor and global correspondent for Dan Rather Reports, which airs Tuesdays on HDNet at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-rat....34.html



Edited By Greg on 1304018227

[Sonic Youth]

They ARE doctored. An image of a birth certificate is nothing. Has anyone handled the document yet? Is the wood pulp still damp?

"Getting this out of the way now" is pretty funny considering this has been going on and on and on and on and...

[OscarGuy]

Here's what I'm thinking. Obama did it to just shut everyone up once and for all. In addition, by giving Donald Trump something to crow about, it will make him want to jump into the race. The Republican Party will NOT nominate him for president, which means he may put up a 3rd Party bid. If that is the case, Obama will cruise to re-election. Even if Trump is Pube candidate, his extreme comments and positions, which will alienate independent voters, will likely lose larger than if they put someone like Mitt Romeny up against him.

Besides, the birthers are not going to shut up. They are going to continue by saying that what Obama presented were doctored, etc. etc.

And, getting it out of the way now will make it a non-news story in 7 months when the real campaigning begins...



Edited By OscarGuy on 1303918092

[Big Magilla]

This is so fucking ridiculous. Just gives idiot Trump something else to crow about.

When I went to the post office to have my picture taken and to submit the paperwork for my passport last year I went with the signed birth certificate (like the one Obama just produced) that I had always used in the past but the postal clerk wouldn't accpet it because it wasn't the computer generated version everyone else submits (like the one Obama originally released) so I had to order that one from the City of New York to pass muster with the post office and presumably the Dept. of State.

My situation was ridiculous, too, but nothing compared to all this badgering of the President and the White House giving in to such crazy demands.

Is this going to stop these rogue state legislatures from passing laws designed to keep his name off the ballot in their states?

[Sonic Youth]

Not that this decisively settles anything - where is the delivery room video? - but it proves that our next president Donald 'Our Hero' Trump can get things done. I'm definitely tuning in to The Apprentice this week!

White House releases President Obama's birth certificate

http://abcnews.go.com/Politic....3467977

White House lawyers passed out copies of the President's birth certificate to reporters this morning and President Obama planned to speak publicly about the controversy at 9:45 a.m. ET at the White House.

Among the documents distributed by White House Counsel Bob Bauer are the president's "long form" birth certificate and correspondence between Bauer and the state of Hawaii, where the president was born.

Conspiracy theorists have long questioned where the president was born and the rumor has been given voice most recently by Donald Trump as Trump considers running for the White House. A recent USA Today polls indicates that 38 percent of voters said they are not convinced President Obama was born in the United States.

White House spokesman Jay Carney says Obama felt the debate over his birthplace had become a "sideshow" that was bad for the country and political debate.

Trump, who arrived this morning in the early campaign state of New Hampshire, said, "Today, I'm very proud of myself because I've accomplished what nobody else" was able to do.

"Our president has finally released a birth certificate," he said. Trump said Obama "should have done it a long time ago. Why he didn't.... I don't know."

Trump said he wants to inspect the newly released document to determine "Is it real? Is it proper?"

"I'm really honored in playing such a big role," Trump said.

The release comes as the legal challenge over the president's birth certificate is scheduled to return to federal court in California on Monday.

The lawsuit, brought by a coalition of 40 American "birthers", including former Ambassador and presidential candidate Alan Keyes, contends Obama "has never provided proof of his legitimacy" to be president and that "ample evidence" exists to show he may be illegitimate.

U.S. District Court Judge David Carter dismissed the case in 2009, reasoning in part that courts are unable to "disregard the limits on its power put in place by the Constitution and to effectively overthrow a sitting president."

Attorney Orly Taitz, who represents the coalition, has said she believes the courts can and should examine the questions and the evidence to resolve them once and for all. Taitz did not immediately respond to ABC News request for comment on the release of the original Obama birth certificate.



Edited By Sonic Youth on 1303916868

[taki15]

Will He Or Won't He?

Josh Marshall | April 10, 2011, 11:08PM


I'd spent part of the weekend writing a post on why the White House has to decide now that it won't get into any more policy debates with hostage takers -- a point Matt Yglesias explains here. I hope to return to it. But first a different point: The White House is signaling that it will come off Friday's budget deal with a new and more aggressive plan to cut the deficit and 'reform' Medicare and Medicaid. Top White House advisor David Plouffe notes that the president's plan will use a "scalpel and not a machete."

Frankly, that strikes me as the sort of over-clever language political handlers come up with when they're in the midst of dealing themselves a losing political hand.

The political opposition to Medicare and Social Security is betting on the politics of obfuscation. It took Democrats a couple days after Rep. Ryan (R-WI) released his budget plan before they they got their wits about them enough to mention that Ryan's plan actually abolished Medicare outright. You'd think with a program as popular as Medicare, one their party is deeply associated with, they'd be quicker on their feet. The fact that they weren't is telling. And it should worry anyone who opposes doing away with this program.

As quickly as possible, the president needs to find a pivot and a political and policy footing (actually, they're one and the same) from which he can go on the offensive. It's as simple as that. Otherwise his posture and role in the unfolding debate is rearguard and reactive, energizing his enemies and demoralizing his supporters.

And what a pity since that pivot and footing are staring him in the face.

Congressional Republicans are using fear of the national debt as an opportunity to push through a series of radical and far-reaching policy changes that have nothing to do with addressing the national debt. Run that through your mind a few times. It's the key understanding everything we're going to see this year. If nothing else you know the Ryan plan isn't focused on reducing the national debt since it actually includes a big new tax cut -- a cut in revenues. Indeed, Ryan's plan is the equivalent at the federal level of what his ally Gov. Walker ® did in Wisconsin -- use the short-term budgetary shortfall as an excuse to end collective bargaining rights. Similarly, Ryan's plan does nothing to rein in medical costs for seniors or even reduce the benefit levels of Medicare. It simply abolishes it outright.

As long as the president just focuses on dollars, he loses. He also helps misinform the public about what's actually happening. He deprives his supporters and the public at large of any real understanding of what if anything he and congressional Republicans even disagree about other than their wanting to cut a ton of spending on various programs and his wanting to cut 2/3 a ton of spending on various programs.

You'll know he's serious when he says he won't let Republicans abolish Medicare.

Unless, of course, he will. Which would sure be weird.

[Greg]

Here is something interesting I stumbled upon, the minimum wage in Australia is $15.00 an hour.

[OscarGuy]

I knew it was coming. I've seen a couple of articles on it.

The voters who disapproved of it said it was unfairly restrictive on real dog breeders. Yet, they didn't have to roll back all of the protections. My state has regressed significantly since the days of Truman. This state went with Clinton, but voted against Obama...and put a career Washington politician into the Senate instead the better candidate who had never been to Washington. When it suits the Tea Party, they'll support the Washington outsider or the insider with so much political baggage it would make your skin crawl. Welcome the duplicitous, lying, jackass Roy Blunt to the U.S. Senate.

[Sonic Youth]

I don't mean to depress Oscar Guy any further about his home state, but this is pretty horrifying:

State senate in Missouri rolls back voter-approved law against puppy mills; "Dog Torture Gets Second Chance"

Thank you, Andrew Breitbart.

[Big Magilla]

What is the Democratic strategy to counter this and reclaim America for the rest of us?

There isn't one.

[Sonic Youth]

The Republican Strategy
By Robert Reich
Readersupportednews.org


The Republican strategy is to split the vast middle and working class - pitting unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers against non-public, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social Security against younger workers who don't believe these programs will be there for them, and the poor against the working middle class.

By splitting working America along these lines, Republicans want Americans to believe that we can no longer afford to do what we need to do as a nation. They hope to deflect attention from the increasing share of total income and wealth going to the richest 1 percent while the jobs and wages of everyone else languish.

Republicans would rather no one notice their campaign to shrink the pie even further with additional tax cuts for the rich - making the Bush tax cuts permanent, further reducing the estate tax, and allowing the wealthy to shift ever more of their income into capital gains taxed at 15 percent.

The strategy has three parts.

The Battle Over the Federal Budget

The first is being played out in the budget battle in Washington. As they raise the alarm over deficit spending and simultaneously squeeze popular middle-class programs, Republicans want the majority of the American public to view it all as a giant zero-sum game among average Americans that some will have to lose.

The President has already fallen into the trap by calling for budget cuts in programs the poor and working class depend on - assistance with home heating, community services, college loans, and the like.

In the coming showdown over Medicare and Social Security, House budget chair Paul Ryan will push a voucher system for Medicare and a partly-privatized plan for Social Security - both designed to attract younger middle-class voters.

The Assault on Public Employees

The second part of the Republican strategy is being played out on the state level where public employees are being blamed for state budget crises. Unions didn't cause these budget crises - state revenues dropped because of the Great Recession - but Republicans view them as opportunities to gut public employee unions, starting with teachers.

Wisconsin's Republican governor Scott Walker and his GOP legislature are seeking to end almost all union rights for teachers. Ohio's Republican governor John Kasich is pushing a similar plan in Ohio through a Republican-dominated legislature. New Jersey's Republican governor Chris Christie is attempting the same, telling a conservative conference Wednesday, "I'm attacking the leadership of the union because they're greedy, and they're selfish and they're self-interested."

The demonizing of public employees is not only based on the lie that they've caused these budget crises, but it's also premised on a second lie: that public employees earn more than private-sector workers. They don't, when you take account of their education. In fact over the last fifteen years the pay of public-sector workers, including teachers, has dropped relative to private-sector employees with the same level of education - even including health and retirement benefits. Moreover, most public employees don't have generous pensions. After a career with annual pay averaging less than $45,000, the typical newly-retired public employee receives a pension of $19,000 a year.

Bargaining rights for public employees haven't caused state deficits to explode. Some states that deny their employees bargaining rights, such as Nevada, North Carolina, and Arizona, are running big deficits of over 30 percent of spending. Many states that give employees bargaining rights - Massachusetts, New Mexico, and Montana - have small deficits of less than 10 percent.

Republicans would rather go after teachers and other public employees than have us look at the pay of Wall Street traders, private-equity managers, and heads of hedge funds - many of whom wouldn't have their jobs today were it not for the giant taxpayer-supported bailout, and most of whose lending and investing practices were the proximate cause of the Great Depression to begin with.

Last year, America's top thirteen hedge-fund managers earned an average of $1 billion each. One of them took home $5 billion. Much of their income is taxed as capital gains - at 15 percent - due to a tax loophole that Republican members of Congress have steadfastly guarded.

If the earnings of those thirteen hedge-fund managers were taxed as ordinary income, the revenues generated would pay the salaries and benefits of 300,000 teachers. Who is more valuable to our society - thirteen hedge-fund managers or 300,000 teachers? Let's make the question even simpler. Who is more valuable: One hedge fund manager or one teacher?

The Distortion of the Constitution

The third part of the Republican strategy is being played out in the Supreme Court. It has politicized the Court more than at any time in recent memory.

Last year a majority of the justices determined that corporations have a right under the First Amendment to provide unlimited amounts of money to political candidates. Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission is among the most patently political and legally grotesque decisions of our highest court - ranking right up there with Bush vs. Gore and Dred Scott.

Among those who voted in the affirmative were Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia. Both have become active strategists in the Republican party.

A month ago, for example, Antonin Scalia met in a closed-door session with Michele Bachman's Tea Party caucus - something no justice concerned about maintaining the appearance of impartiality would ever have done.

Both Thomas and Scalia have participated in political retreats organized and hosted by multi-billionaire financier Charles Koch, a major contributor to the Tea Party and other conservative organizations, and a crusader for ending all limits on money in politics. (Not incidentally, Thomas's wife is the founder of Liberty Central, a Tea Party organization that has been receiving unlimited corporate contributions due to the Citizens United decision. On his obligatory financial disclosure filings, Thomas has repeatedly failed to list her sources of income over the last twenty years, nor even to include his own four-day retreats courtesy of Charles Koch.)

Some time this year or next, the Supreme Court will be asked to consider whether the nation's new healthcare law is constitutional. Watch your wallets.

The Strategy as a Whole

These three aspects of the Republican strategy - a federal budget battle to shrink government, focused on programs the vast middle class depends on; state efforts to undermine public employees, whom the middle class depends on; and a Supreme Court dedicated to bending the Constitution to enlarge and entrench the political power of the wealthy - fit perfectly together.

They pit average working Americans against one another, distract attention from the almost unprecedented concentration of wealth and power at the top, and conceal Republican plans to further enlarge and entrench that wealth and power.

What is the Democratic strategy to counter this and reclaim America for the rest of us?

[Sonic Youth]

Sing along, everybody!

[Sonic Youth]

Obama seeks longer PATRIOT Act extension than Republicans
By Stephen C. Webster
Rawstory.com


Faced with a looming vote on a planned one-year extension of special powers authorized in the USA PATRIOT Act, the Obama White House did not object or propose reforms, as the president vowed to do as a candidate.

The Obama administration instead asked Congress to grant those powers for an additional three years.

As a US Senator and candidate for the presidency, Barack Obama never actually argued for a repeal of the Bush administration's security initiatives. Instead, he's consistently argued for enhanced judicial oversight and a pullback on the most extreme elements of the bill, such as the use of National Security Letters to search people's personal records without a court-issued warrant.

While many in his own party opposed the PATRIOT Act outright, as president Obama has said repeatedly that the emergency measures remain a valuable tool for law enforcement engaged in national security prerogatives.

On Tuesday, ahead of a House vote to reauthorize the PATRIOT Act for another year, the White House did something unexpected: they asked for even more.

A prepared statement issued Tuesday afternoon said that President Obama "would strongly prefer enactment of reauthorizing legislation that would extend these authorities until December 2013."

The move was likely aimed at avoiding the potential conflation of national security legislation and an election year's hyper-partisan atmosphere.

The House voted last night 277 to 148 in favor of the single-year PATRIOT Act extension, falling 23 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass it. Some two dozen tea party-backed Republican freshmen ended up joining with a majority of Democrats in voting against it.

The power-shift caught Republican leadership off guard. Even after keeping the 15-minute vote open far longer than the rules permitted, they did not have a two-thirds majority.

Some suggested that the House's most liberal member, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), might have played a role in the sudden spurt of rebellion. He issued a challenge on Tuesday aimed at Tea Party Caucus members in the House, urging them to join him in standing up for civil liberties by resisting the PATRIOT Act's extension.

"I am hopeful that members of the Tea Party who came to Congress to defend the Constitution will join me in challenging the reauthorization," he wrote.

While the brief alliance might not be enough to stave off the extension, as the PATRIOT Act was expected to return after its unexpected defeat, it could be the first inklings of a political common ground between libertarian-leaning tea party Republicans and progressive Democrats, especially since both groups are largely seen as disillusioned with the two-party system and partisan gridlock.

The only significant proposal to reform the PATRIOT Act came from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who proposed last month that Congress add greater judicial oversight to the bill. Leahy's bill would have also extended the PATRIOT Act's powers until 2013, shifting the extension away from 2012's election season.

When the act was first signed into law, "sunset" provisions were employed to quiet the concerns of civil libertarians, who were largely ignored once Congress set about on their successive extensions of the emergency powers.

Unfortunately, the concerns of civil libertarians proved to be well founded, and a 2008 Justice Department report confirmed that the FBI regularly abused their ability to obtain personal records of Americans without a warrant.

The only real sign of strong opposition to the act was in 2005, when a Democratic threat to filibuster its first renewal was overcome by Senate Republicans.

[Sonic Youth]

Yes, the article mentions that it's only three provisions, and they were the three that were set to expire. For now, all the sections of the Patriot Act that came up for a vote have been rejected, at least for the moment.

A longer extension or nothing? I'm not sure I'm buying it.

[OscarGuy]

I read a different article over at CNN that said the reason Dems and the Republicans failed to re-authorize is that they were expecting a longer extension than the December extension the leadership was wanting...And it's only three provisions of the Patriot Act, not the entirety, I believe.