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Op-Ed Columnist: The Phantom Menace

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Nov. 23 (Opinion) - The scare stories from Wall Street seem to be intimidating Washington from doing more to rescue the economy.

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Scenes from Iowa's recession

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Des Moines Register - By Michael Bugeja - Nov. 23 (Special Report) - They arrive at Gray's Lake Park in the morning, basking on borrowed time of a mild mid-November, realizing the winter can arrive any day like layoffs without warning. They are the unemployed, strolling with friends, partners or retirees, or sometimes alone. Everyone has a story to tell. Everyone knows someone else out of work in what some call "The Second Depression." They are neighbors, acquaintances, family members, colleagues, friends. They may be you. They belong to "The New Poverty," people who followed the rules, paid bills and mortgages on time and whose lives were scuttled by Ponzi and subprime schemes happening far away.

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Fed under fire as public anger mounts

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Associated Press - By Tom Raum - Nov. 23 (News Analysis) - Suddenly the Federal Reserve is everybody's punching bag. Strip the Fed of its bank regulation powers, some in Congress are demanding. Get probing audits of its behind-the-scenes operations, others say. The chairman of the Federal Reserve Board is always fair game for criticism and second-guessing, usually over interest rate actions. But this year the criticism is much broader as Congress responds to widespread public anger that the Fed bailed out Wall Street but not ordinary Americans, and with unemployment in double digits.

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Lessons From the Japanese: Time to Stop Borrowing Money and Start Printing It

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

TruthOut - By Ellen Hodgson Brown - Nov. 23 (Opinion) - Miners used to keep canaries in coal mines as an early warning device. If the air was so bad that it killed the canary, the miners would soon be next. Japan may be the canary for the out-of-control deficit spending policies now being pursued in the United States and the United Kingdom.

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The Cost of Dying

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

CBS News - By Steve Kroft - Nov. 23 (Special Report) - Every medical study ever conducted has concluded that 100 percent of all Americans will eventually die. This comes as no great surprise, but the amount of money being spent at the very end of people's lives probably will. Last year, Medicare paid $50 billion just for doctor and hospital bills during the last two months of patients' lives - that's more than the budget of the Department of Homeland Security or the Department of Education. And it has been estimated that 20 to 30 percent of these medical expenditures may have had no meaningful impact. Most of the bills are paid for by the federal government with few or no questions asked. You might think this would be an obvious thing for Congress and the president to address as they try to reform health care. But what used to be a bipartisan issue has become a politically explosive one - a perfect example of the costs that threaten to bankrupt the country and how hard it's going to be to rein them in

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Dems 'In Deep Trouble' On Health Care, The Only Options Are A Bad Bill Or 2010 Losses

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Sam Stein - Nov. 23 (Interview) - One of the leading progressive champions of health care reform is pessimistic about the state of the debate in the Senate, saying he sees virtually no path to passing strong legislation and predicting potential congressional losses for Democrats as a consequence.

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Should We Laugh? Cry? Both?

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New Republic - By Jonathan Cohn - Nov. 23 (News Analysis) - The ritual is becoming familiar. Health care reform passes a major political hurdle. And progressives don?t know whether to laugh or cry. Last time, the occasion was a vote in the House of Representatives. Health care reform passed by the slimmest of margins, but not before conservative Democrats had extracted a major concession on abortion rights. This time, it was a vote in the Senate--not on whether to pass a bill, but whether to begin debating one. This measure, too, passed by the slimmest of margins, but not before conservative Democrats and one notorious independent made clear they were prepared to shut things down later if legislation includes a public insurance option. It?s no fun to watch this unfold. And yet this is the exactly the sort of drama you should expect for the next few weeks, as the Senate deliberations play out. The bill Majority Leader Harry Reid introduced last week is not everything it could be--not by a long shot. And progressives will try their ...

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Sarah Palin's Going Rogue going great guns at the tills

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Alison Flood - Nov. 23 (Other) - Former vice-presidential candidate?s memoir racks up 300,000 sales on its first day in shops Sarah Palin's memoir, Going Rogue, has become one of the bestselling non-fiction books in history after it sold 300,000 copies in its first day on sale. Palin's publisher HarperCollins told American press that Going Rogue has proved so popular it has been forced to print an extra 300,000 books after an initial print run of 1.5m, with about 300,000 sold on 17 November – its day of publication – alone. Going Rogue is currently sitting at the top of Amazon.com?s bestseller list, ahead of Stephenie Meyer, Dan Brown and Stephen King. Palin's first-day sales are behind Bill Clinton?s, whose 2004 memoir My Life sold 400,000 in its first 24 hours, but ahead of Hillary Clinton's, whose autobiography Living History broke records when it was published in 2003, selling 200,000 copies on publication day. The figures are nonetheless a long way behind fiction sales

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Rep. David Obey Warns President Obama of Afghanistan War Surtax

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

ABC News - By Jonathan Karl - Nov. 23 (Interview) - The powerful chairman of the House Appropriations Committee has a stark message for President Obama about Afghanistan -- sending more troops would be a mistake that could "wipe out every initiative we have to rebuild the economy."

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Weighing Jobs and Deficit

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Wall Street Journal - By Elizabeth Williamson - Nov. 23 (News Report) - The White House is lukewarm about proposals by congressional Democrats to introduce broad legislation to create jobs, instead favoring targeted measures that would be less likely to inflate the deficit, administration officials said. There is as yet no agreement within the White House or in Congress on how to try to curb the U.S. jobless rate. But the differences in opinion suggest that rifts could emerge among Democrats as they wrestle with how to beat back the highest unemployment rate in a generation.

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Iraq report: Secret papers reveal blunders and concealment

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Daily Telegraph - By Andrew Gilligan - Nov. 23 (News Report) - On the eve of the Chilcot inquiry into Britain’s involvement in the 2003 invasion and its aftermath, The Sunday Telegraph has obtained hundreds of pages of secret Government reports on “lessons learnt” which shed new light on “significant shortcomings” at all levels. They include full transcripts of extraordinarily frank classified interviews in which British Army commanders vent their frustration and anger with ministers and Whitehall officials.

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Advocacy Groups May Reshape Message During Holidays

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Katharine Q. Seeleye - Nov. 22 (News Analysis) - The Senate debate on health care, set to begin the week after Thanksgiving, is now on course to collide with the holiday season. One question for advocacy groups on all sides will be whether to keep up their barrage of pointed commercials, even as chestnuts roast and stockings are hung.

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Is There Such a Thing as Agro-Imperialism?

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Andrew Rice - Nov. 22 (Special Report) - Fearing food shortages, investors from wealthy countries are snapping up land in poor countries to grow food there. Is this development or exploitation?

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Hostility between British and American military leaders revealed

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Daily Telegraph - By Andrew Gilligan - Nov. 22 (News Report) - The deep hostility of Britain's senior military commanders in Iraq towards their American allies has been revealed in classified Government documents leaked to the Daily Telegraph. In the papers, the British chief of staff in Iraq, Colonel JKTanner, described his US military counterparts as “a group of Martians” for whom “dialogue is alien,” saying: “Despite our so-called ‘special relationship,’ I reckon we were treated no differently to the Portuguese.”

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POLITICO 44: GOP sens. write Napolitano

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Politico - By Kendra Marr - Nov. 22 (News Report) - Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and 11 of his Senate colleagues blasted Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Friday for supporting the legalization of undocumented immigrants.

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Dislocated in America

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

St. Louis Post-Dispatch - Nov. 21 (Editorial) - What may be occurring is a seismic shift in the American economy, one that could leave as many as one in four Americans permanently unemployed or so drastically underemployed that he or she can’t make ends meet. That’s the situation today. The greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression has resulted in the greatest social dislocation since the Great Depression.

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Nidal Hasan Emails Could Indicate Fort Hood Shooting Was A Terrorist Plot

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Associated Press - By Pamela Hess, Anne Gearan - Nov. 21 (Breaking News) - WASHINGTON – The government intercepted at least 18 e-mails between the alleged Fort Hood gunman and a radical Muslim cleric, and a key senator says there could be more communications that might have tipped off law enforcement or military officials.

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Obama Aims to Allay Auto Lobby Concern on Korea Trade

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Bloomberg - By Edwin Chen, Julianna Goldman - Nov. 21 (News Report) - President Barack Obama said he is committed to pushing through a free trade agreement with South Korea that has been stalled by the U.S. auto lobby and unions, who argue it doesn’t do enough to open up Korean markets. Obama’s joint press conference in Seoul today with South Korean counterpart Lee Myung Bak was a last chance on his four- nation Asia trip to show he opposes protectionism. The accord has been held up in Congress, where lawmakers are demanding wider access for Chrysler Group LLC, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. Lee said today he is willing to reopen talks on the auto industry.

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Depleted Uranium and the Medical Mismanagement of Gulf War Veterans

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

TruthOut - By Paul Zimmerman - Nov. 21 (Opinion) - The United States insists that weapons containing depleted uranium (DU) pose no health hazards to exposed populations. This charade persists because an artful propaganda matrix has infiltrated and corrupted certain aspects of the radiation and biological sciences.

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On the Hill: Legislative Pileup Looms in the Senate

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Carl Hulse - Nov. 21 (News Analysis) - While Republicans dispute that they are pure obstructionists, there is evidence to suggest that they are using their procedural power to slow even legislation and nominations that they know they have no chance of blocking. And in some cases, many Republicans do not truly expect to prevail.

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How Stimulating

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Monthly - By Steve Benen - Nov. 21 (Comment) - Republican critics of the economic recovery efforts, when they're not taking credit for the money that's benefiting their state/district, take it as a given that the stimulus "failed." For the right, it's a foregone conclusion, hardly worth discussing anymore. The New York Times reminds us today that "dispassionate analysts" agree that a fair look at the stimulus package shows that it may be "messy" but it's also "working."

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Republicans Hope For Just One Defection

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

National Public Radio - Nov. 21 (News Analysis) - No Republicans will vote Saturday night to advance the Senate's health care bill to open debate, Republican Whip Sen. John Kyl says. That leaves the fate of the vote in the hands of a few moderate Democrats, all of whom are needed to reach the 60 votes needed to push the bill forward. Host Scott Simon speaks with Kyl on his party's chances of defeating the bill.

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What to watch for in today's debate

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Politico - By Chris Frates - Nov. 21 (News Analysis) - Nancy Pelosi did it. Can Harry Reid? Two Saturdays ago, Pelosi passed health reform on a squeaker of a House vote. Today, Reid can’t spare a single Democrat as the Senate decides whether to start debate. If not, President Barack Obama’s reform hopes suffer immeasurable harm.

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Anticlimax in the Senate

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Real Clear Politics - By Jay Cost - Nov. 21 (Opinion) - The media is stirring up drama regarding tomorrow's vote - namely, they are speculating whether Landrieu and Lincoln will vote with Reid to start debate. Of course they will. Three big reasons:

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The real reason Obama is not making much progress

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Johann Hari - Nov. 20 (Opinion) - So far, Obama has tried to co-opt the corporations into his agenda by ensuring they will profit from any changes, but this inevitably waters down the proposals, often to the point of uselessness. The Cap and Trade legislation before Congress, for example, will barely limit carbon emissions at all because it has been gutted to please the polluters.

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