The Progressive Report and News (PRN)

Sarah Palin, One of the Us? Not at All. Palin’s Speaking Demands Confirmed: $75K, SUVs, Deluxe Hotel Suites, Bendable Straws, And No Public Access

Jorge Barake — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 18:51:04 +0000

In April, two students at Cal State Stanislaus found a partial copy of a speaker’s contract for former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. The partial copy revealed that Palin, who was due to speak at the university in June, has “more demands than an opera diva when she hits the road,” as the New York Daily News put it. It revealed Palin requires a chauffeured black SUV to get her to and from the airport, first class airfare or a private jet, a pre-approved “deluxe hotel” suite, and two bottles of water placed next to the lectern with “bendable straws.”

Many doubted the authenticity of the contract, and Palin blasted the students for digging it up, accusing them of trying to “silence” her. But on Friday, a California judgeordered the release of the full contract under a freedom of information law, proving the partial copy is indeed authentic. The full contract confirms her “diva” demands, and provides new details, from her $75,000 price tag to other extravagances she requires:

– Jet: Not just any private plane will suffice: “The private aircraft MUST BE a Lear 60 or larger (as defined by interior cabin space) for West Coast Events; or, a Hawker 800 or Larger,” for East Coast events. But even if organizers arrange for a private jet, if Palin “changes her mind and opts to fly via commercial flights for US events, the Customer must be prepared to cover the cost of first class round trip airfare for two, and full, unrestricted round trip coach for two.”

– Visiting with heads of state: For international appearances, Palin “reserves the right to visit privately with the host government’s Head of State,” as well as “accept the invitation of [the] host government to overnight at an official residence.”

– Hotels: All hotels have to be “deluxe” and pre-approved by her representatives, with the room booked under an “alias.” Even non-overnight stays require hotel rooms, including a “holding suite” and “one or two single rooms.”

– Stage: The contract has very specific instructions about how the stage and lectern should be arranged. Lighting should be “comfortable, but at an appropriate production level for the Speaker,” and the lecterns should be made of wood — “no Plexiglass or thin lecterns.”

The contract also makes numerous demands to limit the public’s and the media’s access to Palin:

– Questions: All audience questions must be pre-approved, and can only be asked by a moderator or “designated representative,” who must be approved by Palin’s party.

– Media: “All requests for press or media coverage” of the event must be submitted far in advance for approval. “If media coverage is approved,” Palin’s Representatives need a complete list of “media outlets expected to attend” 10 days in advance.

– Recording: The media are only permitted to record the first three minutes of Palin’s speech, and then just for B-roll (no audio, video only). Recording of any other kind is strictly prohibited, unless authorized by Palin, and all personal recording devices, including cell phones, have to be turned off “at all events in which Speaker is present.” Only a campus photographer is permitted document to entire speech, and then only approved photos can be published.

– Autographs and photo ops: “Unless agreed to” early on, organizers “shall not permit or assist in the request for autographs while the speaker is on site.” Photo opportunities have to be pre-approved, and photos are for personal use only and can’t be re-printed. The contract provides very specific instructions, including a diagram, of how the photo opportunity should be conducted.

– Face-time: Paying the $75,000 for Palin’s visit won’t buy you access to the half-term governor. Palin, her “traveling party, and the plane crew will be the only passengers onboard the private jet.” And “[o]nly representatives of the Speaker or WSB are to meet the speaker at the arriving/departing airports.”

– Promotional material: All advertising, press releases, and promotional materials, such as flyers and posters, must be pre-approved, as must be sponsoring organizations.

– Receptions: A full list of all those attending (”including name, title, and affiliation”) must be provided in advance.

The tight restrictions on access reflect Palin’s media strategy, which insulates her as much as possible from tough questions by confining her to Facebook statements and Fox News. Palin, who cultivates a salt-of-the-earth image, got into trouble during the 2008 presidential campaign after Politico revealed that the RNC had shelled out $150,000 for Palin shopping sprees at Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale’s, among other high-end stores.

Palin’s black SUV was likely among this row of chauffeured black cars parked near the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday for Glenn Beck’s big “Restoring Honor” rally and fundraiser:

Iran State Media Calls France’s First Lady a Prostitute. Joe Miller Learned His Manners in Iran?

Jorge Barake — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 21:31:04 +0000

The Washington Post

The wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy has condemned the stoning sentence against Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, which Iran temporarily suspended but did not throw out after an international outcry.

Ashtiani, a 43-year-old mother of two, could still face execution by stoning or hanging after a final review of her case, her lawyer, Javid Houtan Kian, told The Associated Press Monday.

The Kayhan newspaper, whose editor is a representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, described Bruni-Sarkozy as a “prostitute” on Saturday in an article headlined “French prostitutes enter the human rights uproar.”

The state-owned news website inn.ir carried similar remarks on Monday.

“Although Bruni, the morally corrupt singer and actress of Italian (origin), was able to break the Sarkozy family and marry the French president, lately new reports have emerged about her affair with a singer,” said the weekend report in Kayhan.

That appeared to be a reference to rumors of infidelity in her marriage that Bruni-Sarkozy dismissed in April as “insignificant.” The rumors have since died down.

The French president’s office declined Monday to comment on the remarks in Iranian media.

The media attack was in response to an open letter Bruni-Sarkozy wrote to Ashtiani that was printed in several French news outlets last week.

“How to remain silent after learning of the sentence against you?” Bruni-Sarkozy wrote, adding that the stoning would “deeply wound all women, all children, all those who have feelings of humanity.”

“Deep within your jail cell, know that my husband will plead your cause tirelessly and that France will not abandon you,” she wrote.

Ashtiani was convicted in May 2006 of having an “illicit relationship” with two men after the murder of her husband and was sentenced to 99 lashes. Later that year, she was convicted of adultery and sentenced to be stoned, even though she retracted a confession she claims was made under duress.

Her lawyer denies Ashtiani was ever charged with murder or brought to trial in her husband’s killing.

Protesters in cities across the globe have denounced the stoning sentence. About 300 people from rights organizations demonstrated in Paris Saturday to urge Iran to lift her death sentence.

“The stoning verdict has only been delayed, not halted,” Kian, Ashtiani’s lawyer, said in a telephone interview Monday.

The woman’s previous lawyer, who brought the case to the world’s attention in his blog, fled the country and received asylum in Norway after Iranian authorities began to pressure him and his family.

Kian said he, too, was coming under pressure. He said authorities broke into his home Sunday.

“Intelligence agents beat the guard of the residential complex where I live and broke into my home in my absence,” he said. “They took my computer, which contained the files of my clients, including Ashtiani.”

Kian said authorities have stopped him and Ashtiani’s two children from meeting her ever since her purported confession.

“Authorities say I’m banned from meeting my client. And they have told Ashtiani’s two children that their mother didn’t want to see them,” he said.

Rand Paul’s Base: Racists or Corporations or Both?

Jorge Barake — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 20:37:49 +0000

Crooks and Liars

Rand Paul has spent the better part of a week ducking accusations that he harbors racist beliefs. By burying his racial attitudes under a veneer of libertarianism, he has almost convinced our worthless mainstream media that it’s possible to believe businesses should deny people the right to enter their establishment (and presumably their workforce) based upon their race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.

It isn’t difficult for me to understand how Rand Paul can hang his hat on libertarian beliefs until they don’t fit the narrative, but it’s surely another case of whitewashed truthiness on the part of the press.

Via Daily Kos (MinistryofTruth):

Strike #1. Rand Paul’s campaign spokesperson Chris Hightower was fired for posting “Happy Nigger day” with Lynching pics at Facebook along with posts describing how he liked to go to the local mall in KKK garb.

Strike #2. On The Rachel Maddow’s Show and NPR Rand Paul, repeatedly, objects to Title II of the Civil Rights Act, stating that Businesses should be able to discriminate based on race. Upon learning of the controversy he had stirred by airing his pro discrimination views, he backtracks and goes into hiding/damage control.

And now Strike #3. Rand Paul has received funds and promotion from white supremacists, Neo-Nazi’s and KKK leadership via Stormfront.org

Here’s a screenshot of Stormfront.org head Don Black’s tweet calling for Twitter followers to support Rand Paul’s money bomb in March:

As Dave Niewert pointed out last week, the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree, and now that seed has grown into the Kentucky choice for the Republican party’s Senatorial candidate.

Corporations were strong supporters of Rand Paul, especially toward the end of the primary race

Corporate PACs love Rand Paul too. Lots of last-minute corporate donations fell his way, in addition to some big money in earlier days. The medical establishment, insurance companies, telecommunications, defense industries, all the standard Republican donors were present and accounted for in Paul’s campaign disclosures.

It’s easier to argue a market-based justification for their support than it is for Neo-Nazis, however.

It’s time for Republicans to own their racist wing

All Republicans are not racists, but some Republicans are racists, and one way to identify those who are is by their attitudes, beliefs, public statements, associations, and public support. Rand Paul descends from theJohn Birch Society right-wing elite bear-hugged by his father in plain view of anyone who cares to look. Here are a few examples:

Little Green Footballs has photos of Ron Paul posing with Stormfront’s leader Don Black (author of the tweet pictured above), and his son Derek Black (who has actually been elected to office in Florida, by the way) at the 2007 Values Voters Conference. They look pretty friendly in those photos.
This post on the Campaign for Liberty website in Rand Paul’s defense. Campaign for Liberty is the Ron Paul organization created for his 2008 run for the Presidency, which now serves as a libertarian/Tea Party clearinghouse for the ultra-right parading as libertarians. Here’s their defense of Paul’s view of the Civil Rights Act:

How would things have turned out if businesses had been left free to discriminate? Well, does anyone today get into an uproar over the fact that people are free to discriminate in their homes? And yes, people get into an uproar over a Nazi march in Skokie, just as they get upset over the periodic burning of the flag, but how many people lose sleep over the fact that people have such rights?

The same thing would have happened if private businesses had been left free to discriminate. In fact, the likelihood is that the bigoted businesses would slowly but surely have lost market share to businesses that would sell to everyone, especially given the power of social ostracism, boycotts, moral condemnation, and the like.
Stormfront members’ own acknowledgement that Rand Paul’s walkback of his original statements on the Civil Rights Act was necessary to get elected. Member WhiteRights put it all in perspective:

We’re in a transitional period right now guys. We can’t just break out the SS uniforms and start goose-stepping our way into power right now.
Denunciation of Neo-Nazis on market-based principles, as Baby Paul does in the video at the top, is just patently absurd intellectually dishonest nonsense intended to mask the truth. He denies that he sympathizes with Nazis (I don’t believe he is a Nazi either, but I do personally believe he holds white supremacist views based upon his reply) Even Reason Magazine acknowledges the difference between actions of the state and actions of the markets, noting markets would not have likely to corrected the Jim Crow actions of the state on their own.

What about freedom of speech? Citizens United, all that?

Neo-Nazis have just as much right as anyone else to contribute to campaigns. I certainly do not begrudge them. It is their right to support candidates who they believe share their views, goals, and will represent them. Clearly, the expectation is for their guy to do right by them when he gets there, and frankly, there’s no reason for them to doubt that, based on the evidence.

However, it is equally fair for candidates who receive those funds to come under scrutiny for accepting (and keeping) contributions from those groups, particularly when the candidate in question has plainly stated that he would support modifications to the Civil Rights Act which would exempt businesses from a requirement to treat everyone equally.

Now, there are some who argue that it’s difficult to know who actually associated with Stormfront and gave to Paul’s campaign. Perhaps. However, when Ron Paul was confronted with the very same issue and indisputable evidence as to the source of a $500 contribution, he decided to keep it, saying if they chose to ‘waste their money’ on his campaign, he’d spend it in the name of liberty. Yet, we’ve see what the Pauls believe liberty is.

Liberty for them is the right for a business owner to refuse people from based on their race, religion, sexual orientation, or gender.

Liberty for them is living by the whim of the ‘free market.’

Liberty for them means property rights trump human rights.

Call it whatever you want. There is still a standing apologetic for discriminatory practice underneath the libertarian banner. Now Republicans, and their corporate courtiers own it. There’s clear evidence of racism inArizona’s state legislature, in Rand Paul’s beliefs about civil rights and the Civil Rights Act, in the signs held high at tea party rallies, in Sarah Palin’s dog whistles, and in Republicans’ cynical injection of race and gender-based wedge issues to their political campaigns.

There’s a name for it, but that name isn’t liberty.

Obama’s Political Death Greatly Exaggerated

Jorge Barake — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 20:20:25 +0000

Foreign Policy

I was having dinner with friends the other night and the subject turned to a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed by Fouad Ajami called “The Obsolescence of Barack Obama.” The subject of the piece — which I had not seen, but now have read — was essentially the decline and fall of the Obama presidency. Ajami wrote that “the Obama strategy has lost the consent of the governed.”

Ajami’s central assertion was that as far as this presidency is concerned, it is all over but the entropy. Due to mistakes already made, he suggested that the president had sealed his own fate, couldn’t recover and that he (and we) are doomed to a Carter-like descent into presidential impotence and irrelevance. “There is little evidence,” the professor writes, “that the Obama presidency could yet find new vindication, another lease on life. Mr. Obama will mark time, but henceforth he will not define the national agenda.”

It was a well-argued, quite passionate piece. The problem with it was that it was arrant nonsense. (I recognize that the term “arrant nonsense” should usually be reserved for gaunt English character actors playing the Sherriff of Nottingham but in this instance it fits, and if you heard me say it with my not-so-plummy Central New Jersey accent, you wouldn’t think it sounded half as pompous as it might appear in print.)

The fatal flaw in the piece was that its central thesis is dependent on the notion that all the events that will define the Obama presidency have already happened. Ajami pays lip service to the notion that “there remains the fact of his biography, a man’s journey.” But he is dismissive that the future can further define or revitalize this presidency. Obama, lacks “the suppleness” of Clinton, a term cleverly selected to imply both flexibility and sleaziness all at once — a nice nuance from the point of view of partisan political writing, showing this was the work of a pro.

While Ajami writes with the serious language of a scholar, it is clear that history is of little interest to him. The die has been cast: Obama’s character as president, his political viability and his future options will all be defined by how he has thus far handled the events of the first year-and-a-half of his presidency.

This is just silliness, of course. First of all, at this point in the presidencies of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush they had not defined themselves and indeed, each appeared very different from how we view them today.

Kennedy was still pretty much a work in progress and the Cuban Missile Crisis was still two months away. Johnson accomplished a great deal including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act and, if defined by his first 18 months, would have been regarded as a great success. It wasn’t until after 1966 that his political fortunes began to turn with the deepening involvement in Vietnam and spreading unrest in American cities. Nixon was years away from Watergate at this point. It was in August of his second year that the Camp David process began in the Carter presidency and a deal would not be struck until March of the following year. The “malaise” speech and the Iran hostage crisis were well over a year away.

Reagan, whom Ajami deeply admires and distinguishes from Obama because he allegedly believed in America more than the current president (setting aside Obama’s life story as testimony that argues to the contrary), was during the first two years of his presidency still trying to find his sea-legs. Yes, he had handled the air traffic controllers but the “evil empire” speech and the “Star Wars” proposal were still, at this point in his presidency, more than half a year away. And the Iran-Contra affair (which may have slipped Ajami’s mind) and the “tear down that wall” speech and the four Reagan-Gorbachev summits were all years away.

For George H.W. Bush, August of his second year in office saw Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. U.S. planning for the invasion began in the ensuing weeks. But arguably, for all his successes, Bush’s enduring image was shaped most by his missteps during the 1992 campaign. The supple presidency of Bill Clinton that began next really didn’t reach its full suppliciousness until the second term, both in terms of economic successes, foreign policy triumphs or the scandal that redefined it. Finally, similarly, while 9/11 offered George W. Bush his finest hour in the first year of his term, the invasion of Iraq that defined him did not take place until 2003 and the mismanagement of the war that defined it almost as much as its misconception took several years after that.

In other words, no recent president (I left out Gerald Ford due to the unique circumstances and tenure of his presidency) has been defined at this point in his presidency and most saw major swings in popularity and objective successes and failures throughout their terms. In short, recent history suggests that it is almost impossible to know a president or characterize a presidency at this point in a term of office.

Further, as we know, much of how these presidents are currently viewed was shaped in the yearsafter they left office. Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Clinton have all seen their reputations rebound considerably or at least be burnished by either post-presidential activities or the work of partisan or family-owned image-burnishing machinery.

Finally, the reality is that much of what defines a president is not within the control of even the most powerful individual on earth to conceive, design or implement. Much of it has to do with externalities. Tell me what the unemployment rate will be next year and the year after, and I’ll tell you whether Obama wins re-election. Unless there is a terror attack or natural disaster that intervenes, and then tell me how he responds to that — and we can formulate an idea as to how he will be viewed. (And don’t tell me he is responsible for the unemployment number and can fix it. He can influence it but most of the best economists in America haven’t a clue as to how to address our current labor crisis or whether or not anything we might do would be able to impact it in a lasting and positive way.)

In short, we have learned much about Obama and certainly, Ajami is right that the mystique of the campaign and early days in office has worn off and, as he writes, “good riddance.” But, the Obama presidency, if it is like any of those before, has yet to be defined. Indeed, it is how he deals with unexpected and unanticipated events that are yet to come — or to the unintended consequences of his initial policy moves — that is more likely to define his presidency than anything that has happened thus far.

Like Mother, Like Daughter: Bristol Palin Charging $14,000 to Speak to Single Mothers

Jorge Barake — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 19:48:46 +0000

Courier-Journal

Bristol Palin — the teen mother whose turbulent relationship with her son’s father has added a soap-opera subplot to her mother Sarah’s political career — will speak Sept. 8 on behalf of a home for single mothers in Louisville.

Palin, 19, will receive $14,000 to speak at a benefit at the Louisville Marriot Downtown on behalf of the Lifehouse, which was founded in 2007 and has operated in a brick house on Riedling Drive, a quiet street off Zorn Avenue.

The $125-per-person benefit will raise funds toward plans to double the home’s capacity, but it’s also intended to bring publicity to the program after its low-key startup, executive director Joan Smith said.

“We needed the community to know that we’re here,” Smith said. Until recently, “everything we’ve done has been by word of mouth,” she said.

To date, women staying at the program have given birth to 17 babies. Two of the mothers gave up their children for adoption, and the rest chose to raise them. Some of the clients leave the program while still pregnant, she said.

The non-denominational Christian program provides women with shelter, health care, counseling, classes in taking care of themselves and their children and aid toward their education.

“I’m one who believes if we’re going to say, ‘Don’t abort your baby,’ you have to offer alternatives,” said Smith, a registered nurse.

A team of volunteers has done everything to enovating the former four-unit house into a single-family residence so that the women can share meals, chores and other household life, she said. They also receive professional medical care.

She spoke in an interview with program director Sondra Warren in the basement office of the home, whose walls are adorned with Bible verses, paintings of the babies and an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Bibles share shelf space with the pregnancy bible, “What to Expect When You’re Expecting.” Cribs, play centers, baby gates and other staples of infant care serve as reminders of the home’s mission.

Smith said Bristol Palin, who has become a speaker advocating sexual abstinence before marriage, is relatively inexpensive compared to other speakers the group considered, such as conservative talk-radio host Laura Ingraham.

She said the goal of hosting Palin wasn’t to politicize the event, nor was it to hold her up as an ideal.

“A role model to me would be that young woman who chooses to complete her high school and go directly into college and remain chaste until she’s married,” Smith said.

But Palin’s life “is the reality,” she said. “She is a role model in the fact that she chose to have her child.”

Palin gave birth to her son, Tripp, in December 2008. Her pregnancy became known earlier that year when Sarah Palin, then governor of Alaska, was nominated as the Republican vice presidential candidate.

Bristol Palin and the child’s father, Levi Johnston, have twice announced their engagement and twice called it off, and Johnston has criticized the Palin family publicly.

“The fact that she’s in all this drama with the father of her child, it sends a message to these other young women” with similar dramas in their own relationships, Smith said. “They always think the father of their child is going to be there.”

Often they’re not, and the women need to prepare for the likelihood of single motherhood, she said.

“We have a lot of tears around here,” she said. “But when we experience the joy of being in the delivery room and hearing the baby take its first breath, we know it’s all worth it.”

The center presents the Christian faith through Bible studies and other means to the clients, who have included non-Christians girls.

“We sure don’t force, but we sure do expose,” Smith said.

Smith said four of the mothers served by the center also will speak at the benefit. Sarah Palin, who remains a headline speaker at religious and tea-party gatherings, also spoke in Louisville this year, addressing 16,000 women at a Christian inspirational gathering at Freedom Hall.

Glenn Beck’s Tea Party and Desecrating Honor Rally Attendees Get Into Bag Tax Altercation

Jorge Barake — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 19:39:00 +0000

The Washington Post

The George Washington University student newspaper reports that the first day of move-in for the fall semester went pretty smoothly Saturday, despite the campus’ proximity to the nearest Metro stop to the Lincoln Memorial. This was, of course, the site of Glenn Beck’s big “Restoring Honor rally” that drew tens of thousands of participants to Washington.

The day was not entirely without incident, unfortunately. From the GWU Hatchet:

Though the rally was a mostly peaceful gathering, two rally attendees got into a heated argument with an employee at the GW Deli over the D.C. bag tax, which ultimately resulted in one of the tea party members throwing a sandwich in the deli employee’s face. The GW Deli declined to comment on the issue.

The District of Columbia requires all shoppers to pay a 5-cent tax for plastic or paper bags to carry their purchases. The funds pay for cleanup of the polluted Anacostia River.

Simon Johnson: Self-Described Fiscal Conservatives Cannot Be Taken Seriously

Jorge Barake — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 16:25:42 +0000

New York Times

There are three main views of the financial crisis and the most recent recession. In the first two views, the debate over the fiscal deficit is quite separate from what happened in the crisis. But in the third view, the financial crisis and likelihood of fiscal austerity are closely linked.

The first is that something went wrong with the financial plumbing central to the world’s economy. Failed plumbing is a serious business, of course — great real estate can be ruined by a burst pipe. But it’s a technical issue; nothing deeper is at stake.

The Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation ended up addressing a myriad of technical issues. Clearly, “fix the plumbing” is Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s interpretation of what we need to do – he insists that making the system safer just requires “capital, capital, capital.” Note, however, that theleading global experts on capital think that the Treasury’s specific approach is wrong-headed, not making progress and likely to lead us into great danger.

The second view is that the financial system is more deeply broken.

Opinions vary in terms of the relative importance of various elements, including too-big-to-fail incentive problems that encourage banks to take on excessive risks — and to be supported by the credit markets when they do take on these excessive risks.

Both focus primarily on the nature of the financial system, somewhat in isolation from the rest of the economy. But a third view is increasingly emerging that implies both the first two views are too narrow.

The first and second views are mutually exclusive – either our financial system is badly broken, or it is not and technical fixes will suffice. But a third view increasingly challenges the first view even more deeply, and may end up incorporating or subsuming the second view.

This deeper critique is posed probably in its sharpest form by Arianna Huffington in her new book, “Third World America” (in the spirit of disclosure, let me note that I am a contributing business editor at The Huffington Post). Her point is that we should not think of the last financial crisis in isolation, but rather as the outcome of a longer-run pattern of behavior.

Excessive consumer debt is an outcome of prolonged inequality – in trying to remain middle class, too many people borrowed too much, while unscrupulous lenders were only too willing to take advantage of such people.

Raghu Rajan, the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, and Robert Reich, the former Labor Secretary, also have new books with related themes that link persistent inequality of income to the onset of financial crisis through various mechanisms. Mr. Rajan’s “Fault Lines” is more about the global economy (and overspending at the level of the American economy); Mr. Reich’s “Aftershock” focuses on the social and political impact of the crisis (and why, without addressing inequality, our financial problems will recur).

The distribution of income in the United States is undoubtedly becoming more unequal. Specifically, over recent decades, it has become harder for people with only a high-school education to build a secure middle-class future for their families.

We can argue about proximate causes, including the relative roles of new technology and globalization, but there is no question that unionized jobs, well-paying assembly-line work and prosperous small-business niches have all tended to disappear.

The financial crisis may be behind us, but the link to the likely intense debate this fall regarding fiscal policy is direct. We are told that fiscal austerity requires outright and immediate further cuts in the benefits previously promised to people at the federal, state and local level.

Never mind that this is simply not true — at least in the form currently presented (here are a primer on short-term issues and another on the longer-term perspective). A vocal class of people — including some at the upper end of the income distribution – incessantly insist that entitlements must be cut while refusing to address the real causes of both our recent surge in government debt (the financial crisis, caused by perverse incentives in the financial system) and the genuine longer-term issues we face (which are about controlling the future increase in health care costs, not cutting the level of benefits today).

The self-described fiscal conservatives really cannot be taken seriously. In the financial reform debate, they either didn’t show up or preferred to keep the existing system in place, and they refuse to put serious health cost control measures on the table.

If the “conservatives” don’t really want to reduce the shocks that have caused government debt to explode recently — or to deal with the underlying, longstanding health care cost issues in a reasonable fashion — what exactly is going on?

That’s a question they should answer for themselves, and hopefully they will be pressed on this in public debates during the campaign for November’s elections. But there is a striking similarity between the longstanding stated intention to “starve the beast” (meaning to press for reduction in government by creating binding constraints, like a perceived crisis) and what we are seeing play out today.

And there is very real danger that this strategy will work, in the sense that the contours of a coming “fiscal crisis” — what will be discussed and how the issues are framed — will largely be structured by scaremongers who wish to cut pensions and health care benefits for middle Americans in the years ahead and who will work hard to keep meaningful tax reform off the table.

People who push for this view are not being fiscally responsible, and they are well down the road to exacerbating developing world-type problems in the United States – and to creating the conditions for another financial crisis.

Beck: People Don’t Recognize ‘Obama’s Version of Christianity’ Beck Should Study Theology Before Making Comments. Beck’s Not Christian.

Jorge Barake — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 16:09:50 +0000

Source: Washington Post

Just one day after he drew a sea of conservative activists to see him speak on the National Mall, Fox News host Glenn Beck appeared on “Fox News Sunday” to discuss the event. Beck said his rally — at which former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin also spoke — drew “on the low end 300,000″ attendees up to “as many as 650,000.” Beck said there is ‘not a chance’ of a Beck-Palin GOP ticket in 2012. He said he has “zero desire” to run for president. “I don’t think I would be electable,” he said.

Beck explained that the gathering, which took place on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.‘s “I Have a Dream” speech in the same location, was intended to reclaim the mantle of the civil rights movement from politics for “people of faith.” Beck dismissed his critics who say that he has frequently engaged in racial politics by saying “race should not be in politics.”

Beck said he didn’t agree with King’s calls for economic justice. “The real agenda should be equal justice, an equal shot,” Beck said. “The dream was to judge man by the content of his character, not the color of his skin. I don’t know that we’ve done that.” He added that the Justice Department is “certainly not doing that” in the case of the New Black Panther Party, referencing an alleged incident of voter intimidation on Election Day in 2008 — a controversy driven in no small part to Beck’s television show that many on the left have cited as evidence of Beck’s willingness to stoke racial fear among white people. Beck said “African Americans should be equally outraged” over the incident.

The conservative commentator said he regretted his infamous comments that President Obama is a “racist” with a “deep-seated hatred of white people.” He said he was “miscasting as racism” the president’s “liberation theology” ideology, which he said relies on the lens of “oppressor and victim” to understand the world. Beck said Obama made the case in a speech to students that “your salvation is directly tied to collective salvation,” which Beck said was “a direct opposite of what the gospel talks about … Jesus came for personal salvation.” Beck said “people aren’t recognizing [Obama's] version of Christianity.”

To his critics who attack his wealth, Beck said the money doesn’t matter. “I think it’s going to be worthless,” he said, adding that he doesn’t know “if it’s going to be gold or acorns” that America will use as currency in the future.

Intolerance and Now Violence: Fire at Tennessee Mosque Building Site Ruled Arson

Jorge Barake — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 15:39:23 +0000

Source: CBS News

Construction Equipment at Site of Planned Islamic Center Torched; Vocal Protests Against Mosque Have Been Ongoing

Federal officials are investigating a fire that started overnight at the site of a new Islamic center in a Nashville suburb.

Ben Goodwin of the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department confirmed to CBS Affiliate WTVF that the fire, which burned construction equipment at the future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, is being ruled as arson.

Special Agent Andy Anderson of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told CBS News that the fire destroyed one piece of construction equipment and damaged three others. Gas was poured over the equipment to start the fire, Anderson said.

The ATF, FBI and Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office are conducting a joint investigation into the fire, Anderson said.

WTVF reports firefighters were alerted by a passerby who saw flames at the site. One large earth hauler was set on fire before the suspect or suspects left the scene.

The chair of the center’s planning committee, Essim Fathy, said he drove to the site at around 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning after he was contacted by the sheriff’s department.

“Our people and community are so worried of what else can happen,” said Fathy. “They are so scared.”

The fire was smoldering by the time Fathy and the center’s imam, Ossama Bahloul, had arrived. Fathy was told that responders had smelled gasoline near the fire.

Fathy was later contacted by members of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, who told him the incident was under investigation and to remain calm.

Digging had begun at the site, which was planned as a place of worship for the approximately 250 Muslim families in the Murfreesboro area, but no structure had been built yet, according to Saleh Sbenaty, a member of the planning committee and a professor of engineering technology at Middle Tennessee State University.

“This is a shock,” said Sbenaty. “We’ve had small act of vandals. But this is going to be a crime and whoever did it, they should be punished to the full extent of the law.”

The center had operated for years out of a small business suite. Planning members said the new building, which was being constructed next to a church, would help accommodate the area’s growing Muslim community.

“We unfortunately did not experience hostilities for the 30 years we’ve been here and have only seen the hostility since approval of the site plan for the new center,” said Sbenaty.

Opponents of a new Islamic center say they believe the mosque will be more than a place of prayer; they are afraid the 15-acre site that was once farmland will be turned into a terrorist training ground for Muslim militants bent on overthrowing the U.S. government.

“They are not a religion. They are a political, militaristic group,” Bob Shelton, a 76-year-old retiree who lives in the area, told The Associated Press.

Shelton was among several hundred demonstrators who recently wore “Vote for Jesus” T-shirts and carried signs that said “No Sharia law for USA!,” referring to the Islamic code of law.

Others took their opposition further, spray painting a sign announcing the “Future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro” and tearing it up.

Earlier this summer opponents criticized the planned mosque at hearings held by the Rutherford County Commission, as supporters held prayer vigils.

At one such prayer vigil, WTVF reported opponents speaking out against construction.

“No mosque in Murfreesboro. I don’t want it. I don’t want them here,” Evy Summers said to WTVF. “Go start their own country overseas somewhere. This is a Christian country. It was based on Christianity.”

Great Piece: Barack Obama is Down, but It’s Far Too Early to Count Him Out

Jorge Barake — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 01:44:38 +0000

Source: The Observer

Despite an impressive record by the president, discontented American voters are turning against the Democrats.

They won’t give him a break – literally so. Barack Obama has reached that point of his presidency when he can’t even join his fellow citizens in the all-American tradition of the August vacation without taking a hit. One group of critics attacks his choice of destination: Martha’s Vineyard on Cape Cod is too swanky for them. Another band of hecklers says he shouldn’t be on holiday at all. Chat-show host David Letterman wisecracked: “He’ll have plenty of time for vacations when his one term is up.”

This sounds ominous. Obama is becoming so unpopular that the kings of network light entertainment can suggest he will be a one-termer. Some of the panjandrums of punditry say the idea is no joke. In the midterm elections in November, the polls are currently predicting big gains for the Republicans who combine being furious and fired up with being hypocritical and nihilistic. The Republicans seem to have a very good chance of taking control of the House of Representatives and the possibility of seizing the Senate too. If the Democrats go down in big numbers, it will be seen as a referendum on the man in the White House.

How did this happen? Obama has many more positive entries in the ledger than negatives after 18 months in the Oval Office. He has delivered landmark change to healthcare. The reform may not be perfect, and it may not yet be very popular, but that is a big legislative legacy all by itself. Healthcare reform utterly defeated Bill Clinton in his first term. Other modern presidents didn’t even try to address one of America’s most intractable problems. In the face of ugly and unyielding opposition, Obama brought it home.

That’s one item in a long roll call of substantial delivery, including a $787bn stimulus for the economy, groundbreaking change to the regulation of Wall Street, an anti-age discrimination law, reform of the corrupted student loans system and a tax cut for 95% of Americans. Republicans bitterly fought most of it in Congress and lambast it to the voters. But even they, albeit quietly and grudgingly, agree that it is a record of legislative accomplishment unmatched since the Great Society programmes of Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s.

Obama has put America’s most effective general, David Petraeus, directly in charge of the conflict in Afghanistan and presided over a rethink after years of failed strategy. (Whether the new one will be any more successful remains to be seen.) He has ended major combat operations in Iraq to the schedule he promised. He has done so without peddling Bushesque delusions that Iraq is a mission accomplished. He has nominated two impressive women to the Supreme Court. His White House has been a dignified place. It has not been mired in the personal scandals that emasculated the Clinton presidency or riven with the infighting that riddled the Bush administration.

Flawless, he isn’t. But all in all, Obama has largely turned out to be what he promised to be: a creative, pragmatic reformer.

Abroad, he has also scored some successes. He has reset America’s relationship with Russia, partly in the hope of tightening the pressure on Iran. He will welcome the Palestinian premier and his Israeli counterpart to the White House on Tuesday to kick off the first face-to-face talks in 20 months. He has repaired America’s reputation and relationships with Europe. He has reached out to the Muslim world, sought to strengthen alliances in Asia and striven to work with, rather than against, other countries and international institutions. The world no longer lives on edge for fear that a crazy idea might pop into the head of the White House, a welcome change from the Bush years.

For what deserves to be regarded as an impressive start to a presidency, his reward has been a steep decline in his approval ratings and the threat of a drubbing for his party in the midterms. Part of the explanation is to do with him. He arrived in office on a high tide that was always going to ebb. He was not only the first black president, he was also supposed to be the liberator and transformer of his country. Obama, the candidate-messiah, set a benchmark that Obama, the actual chief executive, was never going to match however much he achieved. Some falling off was inevitable. And that was just with those who actually voted for him. It is worth remembering that most Americans didn’t have anything invested in Obama in the first place because they didn’t elect him. They stayed at home on polling day in 2008 or backed his opponent.

Another part of the explanation is about the Democrats. They could be revelling in their achievements, but they aren’t. Senator Christopher Dodd, a veteran Connecticut Democrat, says: “Democrats don’t know how to celebrate.” The left of the party has been churlish about Obama’s record, bemoaning the necessary compromises of power as betrayal. Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, complained that leftish critics of the president “ought to be drug-tested”. It was impolitic to say that in public, but he was correct. The rest of the party has been cowed by the aggressiveness of their rightwing opponents. Democrats have become defensive about the size of the deficit and the controversies over health reform, with the result that many are not talking about either the stimulus or their most important legislative achievement in many years.

Weeks before the election, Democrat strategists are agonising in public about what went wrong and generating a cacophony of contradictory advice for Obama. Be more populist, cry some. Be more serious, aver others. Do more to woo the swing voters, say some; talk more to your base, say others. Be more bipartisan, advise some; beat on the Republicans, say others. They are conducting the postmortem before they have seen the body.

The most important component of the explanation is the Americans. They are not a happy people. The main cause of their discontent is a limping economy. For all the billions poured into stimulus, the unemployment rate is around 9.5%, nearly two points higher than when Obama took office. That official statistic masks a real level of joblessness that is greater still.

The Democrats can and do say that the Great Recession was inherited from the Republicans. Bush is still an unpopular figure, but he is of diminishing use to the Democrats as an alibi. A recent poll has about three-quarters of voters saying Obama should take responsibility for the state of the economy. Memo from America to David Cameron and Nick Clegg: in modern politics, blaming the last lot starts to lose effectiveness after about 18 months. It is the economy above all else that has put Americans in a mood which is one part sullen, one part insecure and one part angry. The obvious place to dump all that bad feeling is in the trash can marked government.

Americans don’t actually hate government quite as much as they think they do. In the summer, they flock to the superb national parks, which are run by the government. Those Americans who go on vacation to Washington, the capital they are all supposed to despise, will reverentially queue to tour Congress and the White House and pay their respects to the Jefferson, FDR and Lincoln Memorials. They have spent this summer cursing the traffic jams which are the result of the Obama administration’s spending on repairs and improvements to infrastructure, but they will love it when they have better roads and bridges to drive along in the SUVs manufactured by GM and Chrysler, the motor giants saved by government.

But in straitened times, government is the default target for Americans’ discontent. It is from this that the rightwing and racist-tinged Tea party insurgency, which is feeding off the anti-incumbency mood, has prospered.

Midterm, the prognosis does not look at all good for Obama and his party. In the longer term, the outlook is more encouraging. The Tea partyists are destroying moderate Republicans or forcing Republicans previously considered to be centrists – John McCain is the best known example – to move to the right in order to save their skins. The Republicans will ultimately suffer from being dragged further away from the centre.

The economy will not stay this way forever. All bets are off in the event of a double-dip, but if a reasonable level of prosperity has returned by the time of the next presidential election, Americans will be feeling better about themselves. That will put them in more of a mood to appreciate a generally impressive president whom the world regards as a credit to their country. Three of the last four presidents were re-elected having been in dire positions – much worse than the slump affecting Obama now – during their first term.

My money is still on Obama winning a second term and probably handsomely. And if he doesn’t? He has already accomplished more in half a term than many presidents manage to achieve in two.