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Good Morning!
Longwood Gardens, photo by © joanneleon
It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor, and their property. And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man.
http://en.wikiquote.org/...
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt
News
h/t to mdmslle in the comments:
High Noon Thursday. Capitol Steps. Be There
MoveOn's DC Progressives Council is taking it to the streets.
Bruce Bartlett, who worked for both the Reagan and G.H.W. Bush administrations but now is a very vocal critic of many Republicans. I've excerpted a couple of paragraphs but you have to read his full analysis to fully understand the analogy he is making.
Barack Obama: The Democrats’ Richard Nixon?
There is no question that Barack Obama is one of our most enigmatic presidents. Despite having published two volumes of memoirs before being elected president, we really don’t know that much about what makes him tick. The ongoing debate over the deficit and the debt limit is clarifying what I think he is: a Democratic Richard Nixon.
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Liberals hoped that Obama would overturn conservative policies and launch a new era of government activism. Although Republicans routinely accuse him of being a socialist, an honest examination of his presidency must conclude that he has in fact been moderately conservative to exactly the same degree that Nixon was moderately liberal.
Boehner debt plan falters as Obama considers veto
The White House has warned that President Obama could veto a debt limit plan proposed by top House Republicans.
Meanwhile, Speaker John Boehner's plan to trim public spending and raise the limit met with resistance from rank-and-file members of his own party.
A House of Representatives vote on the plan was delayed from Wednesday after doubts arose over the cuts it proposed.
Boehner, Reid scramble to build support for rival debt-limit plans
At the height of the deluge, the Capitol was receiving 40,000 calls per hour — twice as many as normal. Some people encouraged lawmakers to stand firm, others demanded a resolution to the weeks-long stalemate that threatens to undermine the sputtering U.S. recovery and damage the nation’s global standing. Still others were simply worried that the impasse could prevent their Social Security checks from arriving on time.
'Wealth gap' continues to widen for blacks, Hispanics
Now she’s 50. “I lost my house, lost my job, lost my car,” said Reed while eating a free lunch Tuesday with hundreds of other needy people, predominantly black and Hispanic, at a community center in Kansas City, Kan.
Earlier in the day, new research showed that “wealth gaps” between white people and the nation’s two largest minority groups had expanded to their widest levels in at least a quarter-century. The collapse of the housing market, persistent joblessness and uneven recovery since 2005 may have wiped out decades of incremental gains for Hispanic and African-American households, according to the Pew Research Center.
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The wealth gap had been gradually narrowing since the 1980s, as more minorities acquired their own homes. But the busted economy of recent years has taken many of those homes — and millions of jobs — away. For minority households, median net worth shriveled by half over four years.
Senate inquiry finds big companies taking small business contracts
WASHINGTON — Federal contracts intended for small business are being awarded to large corporations, according to a Senate inquiry.
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Among the top 100 small business federal contractors last fiscal year, 61 were large firms — including major defense contractors such as Lockheed, Raytheon and General Electric — according to an analysis by the American Small Business League, a marketing group for small businesses around the country. The analysis is based on information from the Federal Procurement Data System.
Commentary: Perry's candidacy might be a boon for third-party candidates
But the most damaging news of the week for Perry might have been buried deep in a Rasmussen Reports poll.
If Perry were the Republican nominee against President Barack Obama, 10 percent of the voters phoned on July 6-7 said they would vote for a third-party candidate.
With 1 in 10 voters looking elsewhere, Perry would lose to Obama, 44 percent to 39 percent.
UK expels Gaddafi diplomats and recognises Libya rebels
William Hague has said the UK will recognise the Libyan rebel council as the "sole governmental authority", as Gaddafi-regime diplomats are expelled.
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It follows similar moves by the US and France. The UK previously said it recognised "countries not governments".
A Foreign Office spokesman said that had not changed and said it was a political, not legal recognition.
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The foreign secretary also outlined measures to unfreeze assets worth £91m belonging to an oil company now controlled by the NTC to help meet "basic needs" in Libya.
China fruit seller death sparks riot in Guizhou
Chinese police have quelled a mass riot sparked by rumours that a disabled fruit seller had been beaten to death by local officials.
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Similar rumours sparked days of rioting in Guangdong province in June.
The Guangdong riot snowballed into a wider protest about official corruption and discrimination against migrant workers.
In Anshun, the unrest appears to have been limited to anger over the street trader's death.
Caught gambling in the Washington casino
Attempts of Pakistan's ISI to influence US public policy have been revealed.
"God’s work," we used to call it, as I'm sure my successors still do. The phrase was employed by CIA operatives to describe their tasks with an intended sense of puckish irony, as many would no doubt be surprised, if not scandalized, at the notion that the skullduggery of a foreign intelligence service might be performed in service of the Deity. But behind such irony - indeed inseparable from it - was the sincere notion that the covert activities of the CIA could and should be a force for good. For if history had decreed that the US would play a great role on the world stage, surely its decisions should be informed by the best information available, including that which can only be had by spies.
History also tells us that the covert capabilities of the CIA, like those of the intelligence services of other powers, both great and small, have often been used to influence public opinion and events in sovereign foreign countries. The use of such means is usually extolled or excoriated according to one's appreciation of the ends to which, and the circumstances in which, they are exercised. The same observers who celebrate the role of the CIA in providing the money and support which permitted frail democratic parties in post-World War II Western Europe to prevail over better-organized and -funded communists, might take a different view of CIA's role in encouraging the public protests which swept the democratically-elected Prime Minister Mossadegh from power in 1953 Tehran.
In most countries, the idea of foreign attempts to influence public policy is anathema. But in Washington, a whole different set of rules apply. The world may not, thankfully, be close to genuine global governance, but in the interim, the US Congress - and not the UN - is the closest thing to it that we are likely to get for some time. So great is America's perceived weight on issues deemed of critical importance to foreign governments, on everything from trade policy, to military sales, to human rights, to the dictates of the World Bank and the IMF, that a sizeable industry has grown up around their efforts to influence it.