Obama, Romney, an interview

This video from the USA says about itself:

Feb 8, 2012

The Super PACs are doing their best to educate you about the presidential candidates. From Mitt to Newt, campaign cash is leading the way in our democracy. A Mark Fiore political animation.

British author and journalist Gary Younge, based in the USA, spoke to Willemijn Wilgenhof about Obama’s record and the mood among the US working class:

Tue 25 Sep 2012

Interview with Gary Younge on the US presidential elections

Four years ago there was lots of enthusiasm around the US presidential elections. People hoped for change from the Democrats’ Barack Obama. Has there been much change?

In 2008 there was a real joy at a black person winning the presidency. That shouldn’t be diminished, but it also shouldn’t be elevated to something of substance. It was symbolic.

There was also a real desire to move beyond war and racism to some new way of being in America. Obama’s skill was to personify that without really promising anything.

The 2008 election happened in the midst of an absolute meltdown of capitalism. There was talk of nationalising the banks. There was talk of bailing out huge numbers of homeowners who had negative equity.

At that time, when there was a real desire for something new, Obama looked new and acted new. But he hasn’t brought change. Black people are just as capable of operating capitalist, racist machinery as white people are.

Obama’s presidency signalled the acceptance of black America, with caveats, into the ruling class. Materially it hasn’t brought anything.

How do people see Obama now?

The degree to which people want to give Obama the benefit of the doubt shouldn’t be underestimated. But there is cynicism.

Obama understands there is a challenge to him from the left. So he’s helped the children of undocumented people to get the right to stay. And he’s voiced his support for gay marriage.

It would be wrong and lazy to say there is no difference today. Combat troops are out of Iraq. There’s an end date for the war in Afghanistan. There are two women on the Supreme Court, one of whom is a Latino. It’s just that the difference is insufficient and incremental.

In 2008 Obama changed who the electorate was. More people—young, black, Latino—came to the polls as they thought there was someone to vote for. Four years later they are less convinced.

Probably those most disappointed are Latinos. There’s now the largest rate of deportations of Latinos since the 1950s. A lot of young people voted for Obama. Now there are record increases in youth unemployment.

Both Republican candidate Mitt Romney and Obama try to appeal to the working class. Do they succeed?

Romney tries to portray himself as in touch with the needs of working people. Yet his personal wealth is twice the combined wealth of the last eight presidents.

George Bush was very capable of acting like an everyman. Romney doesn’t have it in him. His base is white working class men and he just can’t reach them.

Obama can say, “I’m less for rich people than Romney is.” He talks about things like his mother having to deal with health insurance claims while she was dying.

He went to an elite private school yet can lay claim to a connection with the working poor. Obama was a community organiser and worked among working class people. …

Basically the issue is the economy. Nothing else is likely to intrude, not least because nobody does well if it does intrude.

Republicans are trying to make Israel an issue. But they can’t really bring up Iraq or Afghanistan as these were their ideas and they failed. Obama can bring up Iraq with his base, but beyond that it’s a painful memory. And Afghanistan isn’t settled.

What do you think the chances are for the rise of a third party candidate?

Fairly slim. Obama was the best thing that American electoralism could produce. And that tells you a lot about American electoralism. The electoral system doesn’t work.

Given the amount of money involved in elections there’s no way for a third party to break through now—unless it has billions of dollars.

That doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t stand to get their agenda across. But American electoralism is very limited. It works according to the golden rule—that the people who have the gold make the rules.

What impact have movements from below had on the political landscape?

Prior to Occupy Wall Street the main people railing against bailouts were right wing populists and the Tea Party. Now even Republicans have said they don’t want to be seen as defenders of capitalism because to many it means defenders of Wall Street.

Occupy Wall Street shifted the conversation to saying inequality is the problem. There has been a surge in left wing activity and that is the best chance for change.

Interestingly, it has taken place almost without reference to Obama. In Occupy Wall Street his name barely came up. But it gave him a kind of limited narrative of fairness. …

In Chicago teachers have fought a Democratic mayor and a Democratic machine. Republicans have come out against the teachers. That brings into sharper focus the fact that, when it comes to workers’ rights, they don’t have a defender in the electoral sphere.

Romney Energy Plan: Hot Cow Manure on Planet’s Open Wounds: here.

When Dan Senor spoke up for Mitt Romney following the aftermath of the protests in Libya and Egypt, Paul Krugman wondered what it says about Romney that he is relying on the same group of people that botched Iraq; here.

The Obama administration’s Mideast foreign policy has not been as progressive as promised. The US progressive movement must reconcile positions on US foreign policy that often support US imperial projects abroad with its push for social justice at home: here.

Romney worried about non-existing country

This video from the USA is called Mitt Romney Flip Flops | Mitt Romney abortion | Mitt Romney global warming | Mitt Romney Obamacare.

From AMERICAblog:

Romney foreign policy concerned about country that doesn’t even exist

Romney‘s foreign policy expert on a call today expressed concerns about President Obama’s policies concerning Czechoslovakia. And he should be concerned, as Czechoslovakia ceased existing nearly 20 years ago.

Romney wants United States missiles in “Czechoslovakia”. Fortunately, a mass movement of the really existing citizens of the really existing Czech Republic managed to scrap earlier George W Bush plans for this.

Dial G For Gaffe: Romney Press Calls Take Messaging Off Track: here.

Adviser: “Voices of intolerance” led to gay Romney spokesman’s resignation: here.

Get-Rich-Quick Profiteers Love Mitt Romney, and He Loves Them Back: here.

As a student at Cranbrook in 1965, Mitt Romney led a group of classmates in an attack on another student who was held down while Romney clipped off his long blonde hair with scissors, the Washington post reported today, quoting other students who participated in the incident: here.

Romney the Bully: here.

Washington-Latin America rift on Cuba, Malvinas, drugs

This video is called Latin America v. Obama: U.S. Policy Under Fire at Colombian Summit.

By Bill Van Auken in the USA:

Americas Summit ends in fiasco for Obama

17 April 2012

The Americas Summit held in Cartagena, Colombia over the weekend limped to a close Sunday with the 30-some participating heads of state unable to reach agreement on a joint statement. Preventing any consensus were sharp disagreements between Washington and virtually all the countries to its south over Cuba, the Malvinas and the “war on drugs.”

For Obama, the two-day summit was an unmitigated fiasco, with the positions of his government opposed by every other participating nation outside of Canada, and news reports of the gathering in the United States overshadowed by a prostitution scandal at a Cartagena hotel involving 11 members of the US president’s Secret Service detail and five American military personnel.

This was the second Americas Summit to end with no closing statement for the participants to sign. Obama attended the last one, held in Trinidad in 2009, after barely three months in office, and Washington made a concerted attempt to present the young African-American president as a sea change from the policies of the Bush administration, which were wildly unpopular in the hemisphere.

For all Obama’s rhetoric about having come to Trinidad to inaugurate a new era of “mutual respect and equality,” three years later it has become abundantly clear that his Democratic administration has pursued a Latin American policy that is essentially unchanged from that of its predecessor. This has centered on a continuation of the half-century economic blockade against Cuba, the promotion of Free Trade Agreements crafted to further the interests of US-based banks and transnational corporations and the prosecution of a militarized “war on drugs” designed to further US military hegemony in the region.

Aspects of this policy came under direct attack at the Cartagena summit. Unlike the gathering three years ago, Washington was unable this time to prevent Cuba being placed on the agenda.

At the 2009 summit, Obama deflected criticism by announcing minimal changes to the US ban on travel and restrictions on remittances to Cuba, vowing a “new beginning” in US-Cuban relations. Since then, Washington has taken no steps to ease, much less end, the trade embargo against Cuba.

In Cartagena, Obama insisted that Cuba could not be allowed to attend the summits because it “has not yet moved to democracy.” Latin American critics of Washington’s policy have pointed to a wide range of dictatorships, from the Middle East to Central Asia, with which the US maintains the closest ties.

A meeting of foreign ministers held to draft a statement for the heads of state to sign voted 32 to two (the US and Canada) to end the exclusion of Cuba from the summits, a policy that dates back some 50 years, to when Washington dictated to the Organization of American States a quarantine policy against the Caribbean island nation in the wake of the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power. As the summit statements are based on consensus, this veto precluded the issuing of a closing document.

In response, a number of countries indicated that they would adopt the policy pursued by Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa, who this year refused to participate in a summit that excluded Cuba. The ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America) countries, which include Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela, as well as Cuba and four Caribbean nations, issued a statement vowing that they would not attend another summit without Cuba’s participation and demanding an end to the US economic and financial embargo against the island nation.

Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff expressed a similar view, declaring that the Cartagena summit “must be the last one without Cuba.”

On the issue of the Malvinas (Falklands) the countries of Latin America similarly took a unanimous position of support for Argentina’s claims to sovereignty over the islands and of opposition to British rule as a remnant of colonialism. The US, however, opposed any statement of support, insisting that it was neutral in the conflict.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez Kirchner took a car to the airport as soon as the group photograph was snapped, skipping the second day of the conference. This early departure spared her listening to Obama’s remarks spelling out US neutrality in which he referred to the South Atlantic islands as the “the Maldives [sic] or the Falklands, whatever your preferred term.”

On the issue of drugs, Obama also found himself largely isolated in his defense of the US-led strategy of a militarized war on drugs. Washington backed this strategy over the course of two decades through Plan Colombia, which saw billions of dollars in military aid, equipment and advisors sent to the South American country. It is now prosecuting a similar bloody struggle in Mexico through Plan Merida and is spreading it to Central America through the Central American Regional Initiative.

Though sidelined by the Secret Service scandal, last month’s Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, was an event of considerable significance. There are three major reasons: Cuba, the drug war, and the isolation of the United States: here.

Secret Service Agents Out Following Colombia Prostitution Scandal: here. And here.

Secret Service Prostitute Scandal: 12th Military Member Implicated: here.

US and Colombian unions fight Free Trade deal: here.

U.S.’s Post-Afghanistan Counterinsurgency War: Colombia: here.

The Organisation of American States has backed Argentina’s claim to the Falklands Islands and called on London and Buenos Aires to begin talks towards a peaceful resolution of the dispute: here.

US base fracas exposes Argentine vulnerability. The recently shelved deal over a military facility hints at the potential US manipulation of domestic politics: here.

Breivik planned to murder Obama

This video from Norway is called First Person: Utoya Survivor Recalls Massacre.

Like United States nazis and United States Tea Party-ists, Norwegian Islamophobe Breivik planned to murder United States President Obama.

From daily The Independent in Britain:

Breivik ‘planned to bomb Obama’

Monday 02 April 2012

Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik plotted to bomb President Barack Obama at the ceremony where he collected his Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, according to reports.

The far-right extremist told police that he planned to detonate a car full of explosives in the square next to Oslo City Hall, where Mr Obama accepted the prize in 2009, according to Norway’s Dagbladet newspaper.

Breivik reportedly said that the attack would be largely symbolic as security would have prevented him from getting close enough to hurt the US president.

Breivik, 33, has admitted carrying out attacks that left 77 people dead on 22 July last year. His trial is due to begin on 16 April.

Welcome to HOPE not hate’s report into the ‘Counter-Jihad’ movement. On this website, and in an accompanying printed publication, you will find the largest and most comprehensive survey of anti-Muslim and Islamophobic organisations to date: here.

Obama presidency, from hope to more war

This video is called 10-year anniversary highlights Obama’s Guantanamo failure.

At the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, the proceedings of the so-called “war court“ have resumed under the new management of the Obama administration: here.

Van Jones is an African-American environmental advocate, civil rights activist, and attorney. When the Obama presidency started, Jones got a government job on the environment. However, in September 2009, Jones was sacked under pressure of the extreme right.

By Van Jones, Yes! Magazine in the USA:

The Age of Obama: What Went Wrong (and How to Fix It)

Saturday, 31 March 2012 09:44

This article is adapted from Rebuild the Dream, Van Jones’ new book.

The 2008 campaign was a campfire around which millions gathered. But after the election, it was nobody’s job or role to tend that campfire. The White House was focused on the minutiae of passing legislation, not on the magic of leading a movement. Obama For America did the best that it could, but the mass gatherings, the idealism, the expanded notions of American identity, the growing sense of a new national community, all of that disappeared.

It goes without saying that clear thinking and imaginative problem solving are easier in hindsight, away from the battlefield. I was in the White House for six months of 2009, and I was outside of it afterward. I had some of the above insights at the time, but many did not come to me in the middle of the drama and action. Most are the product of deeper reflection, which I was able to do only from a distance.

Nonetheless, the exercise of trying to sort out what might have been and trying to understand why nobody was able to make those things happen in real time has informed this book and shaped my arguments going forward.

I say Obama relied on the people too little, and we tried to rely on him too much.

Let me speak personally: looking back, I do not think those of us who believed in the agenda of change had to get beaten as badly as we were, after Obama was sworn in. We did not have to leave millions of once-inspired people feeling lost, deceived, and abandoned. We did not have to let our movement die down to the level that it did.

The simple truth is this: we overestimated our achievement in 2008, and we underestimated our opponents in 2009.

We did not lose because the backlashers got so loud. We lost because the rest of us got so quiet. Too many of us treated Obama’s inauguration as some kind of finish line, when we should have seen it as just the starting line. Too many of us sat down at the very moment when we should have stood up.

Among those who stayed active, too many of us (myself included) were in the suites when we should have been in the streets. Many “repositioned” our grassroots organizations to be “at the table” in order to “work with the administration.” Some of us (like me) took roles in the government. For a while at least, many were so enthralled with the idea of being a part of history that we forgot the courage, sacrifices, and risks that are sometimes required to make history.

That is hard, scary, and thankless work. It requires a willingness to walk with a White House when possible—and to walk boldly ahead of that same White House, when necessary. A few leaders were willing to play that role from the very beginning, but many more were not. Too many activists reverted to acting like either die-hard or disappointed fans of the president, not fighters for the people.

The conventional wisdom is that Obama went too far to the left to accommodate his liberal base. In my view, the liberal base went too far to the center to accommodate Obama. The conventional wisdom says that Obama relied on Congress too much. I say Obama relied on the people too little, and we tried to rely on him too much. Once it became obvious that he was committed to bipartisanship at all costs, even if it meant chasing an opposition party that was moving further to the right every day, progressives needed to reassess our strategies, defend our own interests, and go our own way. It took us way too long to internalize this lesson— and act upon it.

The independent movement for hope and change, which had been growing since 2003, was a goose that was laying golden eggs. But the bird could not be bossed. Caging it killed it. It died around conference tables in Washington, DC, long before the Tea Party got big enough to kick its carcass down the street.

The administration was naïve and hubristic enough to try to absorb and even direct the popular movement that had helped to elect the president. That was part of the problem. But the main problem was that the movement itself was naïve and enamored enough that it wanted to be absorbed and directed. Instead of marching on Washington, many of us longed to get marching orders from Washington. We so much wanted to be a part of something beautiful that we forgot how ugly and difficult political change can be. Somewhere along the line, a bottom-up, largely decentralized phenomenon found itself trying to function as a subcomponent of a national party apparatus. Despite the best intentions of practically everyone involved, the whole process wound up sucking the soul out of the movement.

As a result, when the backlash came, the hope-and-changers had no independent ground on which to stand and fight back. Grassroots activists had little independent ability to challenge the White House when it was wrong and, therefore, a dwindling capacity to defend it when it was right.

We need a president who is willing to be pushed into doing the right thing, and we need independent leaders and movements that are willing to do the pushing.

The Obama administration had the wrong theory of the movement, and the movement had the wrong theory of the presidency. In America, change comes when we have two kinds of leaders, not just one. We need a president who is willing to be pushed into doing the right thing, and we need independent leaders and movements that are willing to do the pushing. For a few years, Obama’s supporters expected the president to act like a movement leader, rather than a head of state.

The confusion was understandable: As a candidate, Obama performed many of the functions of a movement leader. He gave inspiring speeches, held massive rallies, and stirred our hearts. But when he became president, he could no longer play that role.

The expectation that he would or could arose from a fundamental misreading of U.S. history. After all, as head of state, President Lyndon Johnson did not lead the civil rights movement. That was the job of independent movement leaders, such as Martin Luther King Jr., Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, and Fannie Lou Hamer. There were moments of conflict and cooperation between Johnson and leaders in the freedom struggle, but the alchemy of political power and people power is what resulted in the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

As head of state, Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not lead the labor movement. That was the job of independent union leaders. Again, the alchemy of political power and people power resulted in the New Deal. As head of state, Woodrow Wilson did not lead the fight to enfranchise women. That was the role of independent movement leaders, such as suffragettes Susan B. Anthony and Ida B. Wells. The alchemy of political power and people power resulted in women’s right to vote.

As head of state, Abraham Lincoln did not lead the abolitionists. That was the job of independent movement leaders Frederick Douglass, John Brown, and Harriet Tubman. The alchemy of political power and people power resulted in the emancipation of enslaved Africans. As head of state, Richard Nixon did not lead the environmental movement. That was the job of various environmental organizations, such as the Sierra Club, and other leaders, like those whom writer Rachel Carson inspired. Once again it was the alchemy of political power and people power that resulted in the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Debunking Van Jones’ Claim: here.

Gary Younge argues that the widening gap between rich and poor in the US is causing trouble for the Republicans—but that they could still unseat Obama, who has failed to deliver on the hope invested in him: here.

In a 12-hour hearing Saturday at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, the Pentagon resumed the long-delayed prosecution of five prisoners linked to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The proceeding became bogged down almost immediately in efforts by the military judge and prosecutor to block any airing of charges that the prisoners had been systematically tortured in US custody: here.

Obama ‘jobs speech’ no solution to crisis

This video from the USA is called The Audacity Of Weakness – Obama Jobs Speech Cave.

By Bill Van Auken in the USA:

Obama outlines right-wing program in “jobs” speech

9 September 2011

The speech delivered by President Barack Obama to a joint session of Congress Thursday night was billed as the presentation of a new government initiative to confront the worst unemployment crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Instead, it underscored yet again the unwillingness and inability of the US financial elite and its two major parties to implement a single meaningful measure to aid the 25 million Americans who are unable to find full time work.

The “American Jobs Act” trumpeted by Obama from the podium of the House of Representatives represents a laundry list of right-wing proposals, all of which he justified as having been supported by Republicans, sections of big business or the US Chamber of Commerce.

See also here.

US ‘job creation’ will come from Medicaid and Medicare cuts: here.

Obama gives in to pro-smog lobby

This video from the USA is called Protecting the Clean Air Act.

From the New York Times in the USA:

Washington — The Obama administration is abandoning its plan to immediately tighten air-quality rules nationwide to reduce emissions of smog-causing chemicals after an intense lobbying campaign by industry, which said the new rule would cost billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs, officials said Friday.

By Joseph Kishore in the USA:

Obama cancels smog regulation opposed by big business

3 September 2011

The Obama administration on Friday rejected a proposal from its own Environmental Protection Agency to tighten air standards for smog. The regulations, which scientists project would prevent thousands of premature deaths and health problems, were intensely opposed by energy corporations.

Obama’s decision is part of a campaign by the administration to remove restraints on corporate profits, using the jobs crisis in the United States as a pretext.

The EPA regulations would have revised standards set by the Bush administration for ground-level ozone, or smog. The EPA proposal was in line with the unanimous opinion of its panel of scientific advisers and followed statements from Obama in 2010 indicating support for tightening the standards.

The proposal was itself very conservative, phasing in a reduction of ground-level ozone over a period of two decades. Areas with heavy smog levels would have even more time to comply.

In rejecting the standards, Obama made clear that his principle consideration was the profit interests of the energy corporations. “I have continued to underscore the importance of reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to recover,” he said in a statement.

Cass Sunstein, Obama’s administrator of regulatory affairs, explained in a letter to EPA head Lisa Jackson that the president was pursuing deregulation throughout the government in order “to minimize regulatory costs and burdens… The president has instructed me to give careful scrutiny to all regulations that impose significant costs on the private sector…”

The standards would have required factories and energy corporations to cut emissions of nitrogen oxides and other chemicals that contribute to the formation of smog. At the same time, the EPA has estimated that the new regulations would reduce health care costs by as much as $100 billion.

According to the Clean Air Act, which covers the regulation of pollutants, the EPA is forbidden from considering costs as a factor in determining air quality standards. For this reason, the administration claimed that its decision to reject the new standards was based on the fact that there is ongoing scientific research, justifying a delay of new standards until 2013.

This is “a real dodge,” said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, in a phone interview. “Nobody, including the administration, is going to suggest that there is going to be new science tomorrow to say that these pollutants are not a danger to human health. It is a poor smokescreen for what is really going on. Obama is responding to industry pressure to the harm of the American public.”

A statement released by the CBD noted, “The National Association of Clean Air Agencies says that EPA’s own data shows that today’s delay will result in more than 8,500 premature deaths, more than 45,000 cases of aggravated asthma, at least 1.5 million missed work or school days, and more than 5 million cases where citizens will need to restrict their activities.”

The American Lung Association issued a statement Friday calling the decision “outrageous.”

See also here.

So Letting Businesses Pollute the Air and Water Is How the Administration Believes We’ll Create Jobs? Here.

US Awash in Oil and Lies, Report Charges. Stephen Leahy, Inter Press Service: “The country’s oil industry is primarily interested in who will pay the most on the global marketplace. They call that ‘energy security’ when it suits, but in reality it is ‘oil company security’ through maximising profits, say energy experts like Steve Kretzman of Oil Change International, an NGO that researches the links between oil, gas and coal companies and governments”: here.

Obama-Tea Party deal is unjust

From daily News Line in Britain:

Thursday, 4 August 2011

… THE National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare says the following about Obama’s debt deal that savages the poor and leaves the rich well alone.

‘For too long, middle-class Americans and their families have been held hostage while anti-tax crusaders threaten American default unless vital programmes, like Social Security and Medicare, are slashed.

‘Unfortunately under this debt deal, those programmes will still be under attack – this time by a newly-created ‘Super Committee’ of just 12 members of Congress tasked to cut programmes by $1.5 trillion dollars. This committee plan will be fast-tracked to force it through Congress with no amendments allowed and little time for debate.

‘Americans of all ages and political persuasions know that Social Security and Medicare have not caused this economic crisis and do not support cutting these programmes to pay down the debt. Yet, Washington continues to use these vital programmes, and the Americans they serve, as bargaining chips in a quest to balance the budget on the backs of working class Americans and their families.

‘Our work is clearly cut out for us. The House Speaker has said he will appoint only ‘Super Committee’ members opposed to revenue increases. Leaving the debate right where we started . . . 100% benefit cuts and 0% revenue . . . except this time, the proposal will bypass the normal Congressional process. That makes it even easier to force middle-class benefit cuts to pay for billionaire tax breaks and corporate loopholes. This is no way to run a country. And the over three million members and supporters of the National Committee will continue to deliver that message loud and clear . . .’

The verdict of international capital on the deal was a huge sell-off of shares, and yet another increase in the price of gold, now above $1,664 an ounce, as banks and other lenders trembled at the further weakening of the US dollar, and that its interpenetrating with the financial crisis of the eurozone, could only lead to a greater financial disaster and a worldwide slump.

The federal budget deal targets critical social programs that are already under duress at the state level: here.

Women are hurt most by debt deal cuts to Medicare, Social Security, tuition aid: here.

US job cuts hit 16-month high in July: here.

Also from News Line:

Thursday, 4 August 2011

US WORKERS TAKE ACTION

JUST one day before Democrats and Republicans were set to forge a trillion dollar debt deal that would impose savage cuts on the American working class, US workers took decisive strike action to defend their living standards.

Licensed deck and engineering officers and stewards represented by American Maritime Officers (AMO) walked off American Steamship Company (ASC) vessels on Monday.

The strike came after AMO’s contract with the company expired at midnight July 31.

‘This strike is the result of American Steamship’s Company refusal to negotiate in good faith, or even present a proposal that recognises the professionalism of the AMO officers and stewards and their value to a company that operates very profitably with AMO on board its ships,’ said AMO National President Tom Bethel.

America’s 4-D Economy: From Deficit Deals to Double Dip: here.

Interest rates were held at a record low of 0.5 per cent today amid growing fears that the world economy is heading back into recession: here.

USA: From Jesus’ socialism to capitalistic Christianity: here.

Morgan Freeman: Tea Party’s disdain for Obama rooted in racism: here.

Obama-Tea Party compromise is unjust

From the USA: Robert Reich, Robert Reich’s Blog: “Anyone who characterizes the deal between the President, Democratic, and Republican leaders as a victory for the American people over partisanship understands neither economics nor politics. The deal does not raise taxes on America’s wealthy and most fortunate – who are now taking home a larger share of total income and wealth, and whose tax rates are already lower than they have been, in eighty years”: here.

Forget Compromise: The Debt Ceiling Is Unconstitutional. Ellen Brown, Truthout: “The debt ceiling crisis can be averted by enforcing the 14th Amendment, which mandates the government to pay its debts already incurred, including pensions. That means Social Security, which IS an ‘entitlement,’ in the original sense of the word. We’re entitled to it because we’ve paid for it with taxes. The game of Russian roulette being played with the US federal debt has been called a ‘grotesque political carnival’ and political blackmail. The uproar stems from a statute that is unique to the United States and never did make much sense. First passed in 1917 and revised multiple times since, it imposes a dollar limit on the federal debt”: here.

President let right wingers take the American people hostage then gave in to hostage takers: here.

The President Surrenders, By PAUL KRUGMAN: here.

Dean Baker, Truthout: “As we get the final details of the debt ceiling deal between President Obama and Congress, we still have to wait for the verdict of the credit rating agencies. Will they give us the thumbs up or will they tell Congress that it has to take even more money from the poor, the sick and the elderly before the credit rating agencies reaffirm the top credit rating of the US government? The media have spent much of the last two weeks telling the public that the judgment of any deal by the big three credit rating agencies, Standard and Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch, will be the key to its success”: here.

Jack Rasmus, Truthout: “On Sunday evening, President Obama and Senate Majority and Minority Leaders, Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell, announced they had reached an agreement on cutting $1 trillion in spending in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. House Speaker John Boehner indicated he was also in agreement, subject to voting to take place in the House on Monday. This latest ‘deal’ is essentially the same that was reached by Harry Reid in the Senate on July 29 and Boehner in the House on July 27, with two major changes – one favored by the Republicans and another by Obama”: here.

Robert Borosage, Campaign for America’s Future: “The raw deal on the budget ceiling has been cut. The Tea Party terrorists – the extremist faction willing to hold the economy hostage to get their way – have won. The Republic, common sense and decency have been trampled. With the economy deeply depressed, 25 million people in need of full time work, the raw deal will impede any recovery. It precludes any serious action on jobs from the federal government. It will cost jobs as spending is cut. Instead of getting serious about a plan to revive this economy and put people back to work, Washington will remain fixated on what and how much to cut”: here.

National Nurses United (NNU): Nurses Call on Congress to Reject Flawed Debt Ceiling Deal: here.

Where are the jobs in the budget deal? Find out how this deal hurts working families: here.

Congressional Black Caucus Chair: Debt Deal is a “Satan Sandwich”: here.

Wall Street & Pentagon Emerge Victorious on Debt Deal: See Democracy Now! Report: here.

Sen. Lieberman: Cut Social Security to prevent cuts to defense budget: here.

Nancy A. Youssef, McClatchy Newspapers: “The last-minute deal that Congress is considering to raise the federal debt limit probably will mean trillions of dollars in government spending reductions for most agencies. But one department stands to gain: the Pentagon. Rather than cutting $400 billion in defense spending through 2023, as President Barack Obama had proposed in April, the current debt proposal trims $350 billion through 2024, effectively giving the Pentagon $50 billion more than it had been expecting over the next decade”: here.

Obama and the Democrats drive a stake into the heart of the welfare state: here.

The bipartisan deal accepted by the White House calls for nearly $3 trillion in spending cuts, the bulk of them in domestic social spending: here.

Austerity and the Destruction of Democracy: here.

Did Bush Leave Us Bankrupt, Corrupt, Ungovernable? Here.

Obama’s Middle East speech

Middle East Special: Live Analysis of Obama Speech as It is Delivered: see here.

See also here. And here.

Mark Landler and Steven Lee Meyers, The New York Times News Service: “In a speech on Thursday, President Obama for the first time on Thursday publicly called for a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would create a non-militarized Palestinian state on the basis of Israel’s borders before 1967. The speech was an attempt to articulate a cohesive American policy to an Arab Spring that took a dark turn as the euphoria of popular revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt gave way to violent crackdowns in Bahrain and Syria, a civil war in Libya and political stalemate in Yemen”: here.

This video from the USA says about itself:

In a major speech on the U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and on the Arab Spring, President Obama said a Palestinian state must be based on the 1967 borders, the first time a U.S. president has explicitly taken this position. The Israeli government immediately rejected Obama’s comments, calling the 1967 borders “indefensible.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in the United States today and will meet Obama at the White House. We host a roundtable with author Norman Finkelstein, Palestinian human rights lawyer Noura Erakat, and Jeremy Ben-Ami, head of the lobby group J Street. [includes rush transcript–partial]

In Absence of Congressional Approval by Friday, Obama Appears to Be Violating Law in Libyan Intervention. Read the article at The Washington Post here.