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Good Morning!
Longwood Gardens, photo by © joanneleon
For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor — other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.
Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of government. The collapse of 1929 showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the people's mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt
News
Obama Finally Asks Americans to Organize, for Compromise and Austerity
He gives no other option to people – not even either of the two options on the table at this late stage of the debate! It’s just balance and compromise. There’s no ask to “let your Member of Congress know that you want them to raise the debt ceiling, period.” No call to action to “let your Member of Congress know that they should not play games with the full faith and credit of the United States.” This was community organizing for a cause that most of the people Obama wants to organize don’t believe in. Polls show they aren’t interested in real and painful benefit cuts to cherished safety net programs. They aren’t all that interested in slashing domestic spending “to the lowest level it’s been since Dwight Eisenhower was President.” They are interested in jobs, but Obama only used that word twice tonight – both times talking about the loss of jobs that can come from a default event or “growing debt.”
There was a very curious moment when Obama started talking about the debt ceiling. He said:
Now, what makes today’s stalemate so dangerous is that it has been tied to something known as the debt ceiling – a term that most people outside of Washington have probably never heard of before.
Note the passive voice there. The stalemate “has been tied.” Who tied it? House Republicans got the ball rolling, to be sure, but the President abandoned any call for a clean raising of the debt limit a long time ago. Like the House Republicans, he has wanted to tie a long-term deficit reduction plan to the debt limit. He thinks it would be good for the country to “put our fiscal house in order.” He thinks it would show the value of compromise and prove to the world that America can get “big things” done. He seems to believe that it would somehow kick-start our economy to cut trillions of dollars in aggregate demand, by providing confidence to the business community to invest. So the stalemate has not “been tied.” Obama tied it.
Obama takes debt case to American people
With just eight days left before a possible economic catastrophe, President Obama on Monday took his argument for a "balanced" debt limit agreement to the American people, arguing in a prime time address that voters should call their members of Congress in support of a deal that "asks everyone to give a little without requiring anyone to sacrifice too much."
Speaking from the White House, the president lambasted Republicans for what he cast as a refusal to compromise, arguing that the nation faces a possible "deep economic crisis- one caused almost entirely by Washington."
Reid Offers Rival Debt Plan
The plan would include $1 trillion in savings from winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It would include $100 billion in mandatory program savings, including $30 billion in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac changes, $40 billion in savings from eliminating waste and fraud, $15 billion from spectrum auction sales and telephone universal service changes and $10 billion to $15 billion in cuts in agriculture subsidies.
Interest savings from cutting projected spending would produce $400 billion. The proposal would create a bipartisan committee of 12 members to recommend future savings, with a guaranteed vote in Congress. The committee would produce recommendations to be voted on by Congress this year.
(Emphasis added.)
Et tu, Nancy Pelosi?
Pelosi Statement on Proposals to Reduce the Deficit, Avoid Default
“It is clear we must enter an era of austerity; to reduce the deficit through shared sacrifice.
“The President has called for a ‘grand bargain,’ which provides long-term deficit reduction based on shared values and sends a message of confidence to the markets.
“The latest proposal from the House Republicans is a short-term plan that burdens the middle class and seniors, and continues this debate about whether we will default in a few months from now.
“Senator Reid has put forward a responsible plan to reduce the deficit that protects the middle class, and Medicare, Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries. It also includes many proposals already supported by Republicans.
“We must come together for an agreement because our economy and middle class will suffer from a default.”
Hypocrisy reigns on all sides in debt ceiling showdown
WASHINGTON — In the battle to raise the debt ceiling, politics usually trumps principle.
How else to explain the 180-degree turns that lawmakers of both parties have made in congressional debt-ceiling votes since 2002?
[ ... ]
For years, the "Gephardt rule" — named for its author, former Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-Mo. — eliminated the need for a debt-ceiling vote in the House by simply deeming the debt limit increased once the budget resolution was adopted. House Republicans abolished the Gephardt rule, however, to get more leverage in the debt-ceiling debate.
Michelle Obama on the cover of AARP magazine
(CBS) First lady Michelle Obama appears on the cover of the September/October issue of AARP The Magazine. In it she talks about her future in politics, her reaction to Osama bin Laden's killing and what it's like to share President Barack Obama with the world.
A Vision for Economic Renewal -- An American Jobs Agenda
Leo Hindery, Jr., Chairman, U.S. Economy/Smart Globalization Initiative at the New America Foundation
America is facing a catastrophic jobs crisis. Not since the Great Depression has official unemployment hovered above nine percent -- where it is today -- for more than 20 months. Millions of American have given up looking for a job altogether. Even worse, real unemployment is more than 18%. Yet Washington overall has obviously yet to embrace a large-scale job creation agenda. Even if we reach consensus around the deficit -- the only economic issue even getting any attention these days -- it will do little to help the 29 million Americans who are unemployed in real terms. If we do not seriously tackle jobs, our country may never regain its competitive global edge.
[ ... ]
Washington is often a city of Chicken Littles, which makes ringing the alarm bell difficult. But once Washington wakes up from its deficit hangover, politicians will realize something that most Americans have known for months: The sky has already fallen.
Here's what we found we can and need to do:
Manufacturing
America's manufacturing sector must be a cornerstone of the nation's economy and thus one of the essential drivers of the recovery we are still searching for.[ ... ]
On its 150th, time to reflect on the Civil War
Fact: This year kicks off the Civil War sesquicentennial, the 150th anniversary of the conflagration that recast the United States. At the least, it's an excuse to revisit some great adventures: the lost orders of Antietam, Gen. Pickett's doomed charge across open ground. The sesquicentennial, too, is a time to reflect — on how the war came to be and what it wrought. Inevitably, it's a time when unresolved racial and political conflicts rebound.
Gawker Sues Chris Christie Over Records of Contacts With Fox’s Roger Ailes
Gawker Entertainment LLC sued New Jersey Governor Chris Christie over his refusal to release records of communications between him and Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes.
Christie’s office invoked executive privilege in denying a request by the New York-based blog. The governor had declined to release any correspondence, call log or schedule entries and written messages reflecting contacts between the men, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, which represents Gawker. Today, Christie’s office confirmed a dinner meeting between the governor and Ailes.
[ ... ]
Cook sought the information under New Jersey’s Open Public Records Act after New York magazine reported that Ailes, a former Republican strategist, had encouraged Christie, 48, to join the U.S. presidential race. The magazine reported Ailes, 71, who is also chief executive officer of Fox, hosted Christie, a first-term Republican, at a 2010 dinner.
Mystery "creation" particle evades scientists: CERN
(Reuters) - The mysterious "creation" particle believed to have turned flying debris into stars and planets at the dawn of the universe has evaded capture in a year of hot pursuit, physicists said Monday.
Rolf Heuer, director-general of the CERN research center near Geneva, said he was now looking to 2012 to turn up traces of the particle, the Higgs Boson, and signs of other concepts that were once the preserve of science fiction.
Confirming that intensive scrutiny of the results of more than 70 million particle collisions in CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) had not yet identified the Higgs, Heuer said: "I hope the big discoveries will come next year."
US takes on Iraq pullout 'one bite at a time'
CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE SPEICHER, Iraq — From flyers warning troops the post office will shut soon to disused housing units waiting to be dispatched to their new destination, the signs are everywhere: US forces are packing up to leave Iraq more than eight years after they first arrived.
The scale of the operation is unprecedented in the army's history -- preparing to transfer dozens of bases to the Iraqis, and handing over, disposing of or shipping out thousands of vehicles, generators, air conditioners and other materiel.
Under the terms of a bilateral security pact with Iraq, the 47,000 US soldiers currently in the country must leave by the end of the year.
U.N. envoy heads to Tripoli as Western line softens
* U.N. envoy heads for Tripoli after talks with rebels
* Envoy seeking political deal to end civil war
* Gaddafi's fate in hands of Libyans, say Britain and France
* Despite denials, West seen changing line