Tag: Politics

NPR | There’s No Going Home For Iraqi Squatters

This sounds like the same cycle of poverty that allowed the Taliban to rise to power in Afghanistan; will we have a new set of excuses to occupy Iraq if (when) the current regime falls apart? 

From NPR:

Nadia Karim Hassan says she stayed in her Baghdad neighborhood as long as she could, but by the height of the sectarian war in 2007, too many fellow Shiites were getting killed, and she had to leave the area and move into an abandoned building. 

As American troops prepare to pull out of Iraq, one of the most striking consequences of the war remains unresolved today: the issue of people who were forced out of their homes and still can’t go back. Relief organizations estimate there are some 2 million displaced people inside Iraq.

People’s World | Republican Extremism Goes Too Far

The continued attack on the working class in this country simply amazes me. What is it going to take to get people to see that Republicans are merely pandering to their religious biases, and they do not actually serve their interests?

From People’s World, today:

With double-digit unemployment, losing more manufacturing jobs than any other state and new jobs almost non-existent, the state legislature passed a retroactive 48-month lifetime limit on welfare cash assistance. Almost 40,000 people, the majority children, have been cut off. In addition, unemployment benefits have been cut from 26 week to 20 weeks. Other legislation will cut the amount jobless workers are eligible to collect. 

One of the first acts of Republican Gov. Rick Snyder was to lower the corporate tax rate by almost $2 billion. The loss in revenue was made up by taxing seniors’ pensions, slashing the earned income tax credit for low-income workers and cutting funding of public schools.

People’s World | Despite attack ads, Elizabeth Warren gains steam

WORCESTER, Mass. – Elizabeth Warren’s campaign to defeat tea-party darling Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., has surged to frontrunner status, even as Karl Rove’s shadowy corporate-backed super committee PAC pours millions of dollars into attack aids on behalf of the current senator. 

A UMass-Boston Herald poll released Dec. 7 showed Warren opening a hefty seven-point lead against Sen. Brown, the first time her campaign has been ahead. Warren’s supporters argue that the numbers went up as more people came to know the candidate. 

http://www.peoplesworld.org/despite-attack-ads-elizabeth-warren-gains-steam-with-video/

It’s time to be scared of the Republicans again

This is among the best explanations why I left the two-party, “lesser of two evils” system when I left the Democratic Party in 2001. We’re never going to get parties that represent our interests as Leftists if we keep funding the Democrats as the only “realistic” choice.

The message is clear: You might be achingly disappointed by the first three years of the Obama presidency–by the bailout of Wall Street while millions of homeowners face foreclosure, by the failure to push for a real jobs program, by the betrayal of the promise of universal health care, and by the capitulation to the Republicans’ deficit hysteria, even while the Bush-era tax cuts for the super-rich were preserved. But it’s time to set that aside, and be scared of the Republicans again–and work for Obama and the Democrats in order to stop the “greater evil.”

http://socialistworker.org/2011/12/07/republican-creeps-democratic-enablers 

Can we move past the Bush-era construction about Aljazeera, please?

I’m continually impressed by the scope of Aljazeera English reporting on the spreading pro-democracy/revolutionary uprisings throughout the Middle East (and now, with Lybia, Northern Africa).

Perhaps somewhat ironically, as I was listening to Macbreak Weekly today, Alex Lindsay made the cogent point that the news organization we bombed at the start of the Iraq war has been chiefly responsible for making the spreading populist uprising even possible, by continuing to report on it.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/201122445420412325.html

The Week in Sharia: Mama Grizzly Edition | Mother Jones

Um. Really? Banning Sharia law from United States courts? What’s next? Banning consideration of the Vulcan High Command?
No state court in the United States of America is bound by Sharia law. That being said, that so many conservatives seem to think that (theocratic) Sharia law is in some magical danger of bearing on court decisions here really should tell you something about what these same folks think about the separation of church and state here at home.

The Week in Sharia: Mama Grizzly Edition | Mother Jones: Legislators in Wyoming, South Carolina, and Arkansas introduced proposals to ban Islamic Law from state courts, bringing the total number of states that have moved on the issue to 11. Of note: State rep. Gerald Gay, who introduced the Wyoming measure, ran for office last fall on a platform of shooting abstract theories with high-powered weaponry; the Arkansas bill, meanwhile, was sponsored by state senator Cecile Bledsoe, who you may remember as one of Sarah Palin’s ‘Mama Grizzlies.’

TPM: Mitt Romney Wins New Hampshire GOP Straw Poll

Of course it’s far too early to read much into this, but Romney wins the New Hampshire straw poll…I can’t help but wonder what this means for the 2012 Republican field.

The leaders of the New Hampshire Republican Party have spoken, and they have given Mitt Romney the early presidential lead in the Granite State. In the first-of-its-kind straw poll of members of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee, Romney drew 35% of the total vote. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) came in second with 11%.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/01/mitt-romney-wins-new-hampshire-gop-straw-poll.php?ref=fpa

Does this mean Romney’s more moderate positions he held as Governor of Massachusetts will get pushed even further to the side? Can we hope that he’ll tack more toward the center to try and win swing democratic votes?

Mother Jones Mojoblog on the administration’s gun control efforts

From Mojo: 

The Tucson massacre has prompted gun-control advocates to promote several measures to regulate certain firearms or ammo. But it has not moved the Obama White House to propose any such initiatives. And the White House appears to have no plans to do so.

Well, not to ask the obvious question, but why not? 
As Rachel Maddow’s (Jan 13th show, MP3) been saying since the shootings happened, what the NRA has to say on gun control isn’t the last word in anything. 

It’s what they say, not how they say it

Spot on analysis of calls for the “new civility” in the political landscape in the wake of the Arizona shootings.

It’s what they say, not how they say it | SocialistWorker.org http://bit.ly/frmpqh

The central point is important:

Obama didn’t refer directly to Palin or the controversy about the extent to which the right wing’s hate-filled rhetoric should be held responsible for what happened. He didn’t have to–most people who heard Obama’s call for ” a more civil and honest public discourse” would have filled in that blank for themselves. 

But what he did say directly was telling – that Americans should rise above their differences and unite around “all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together.” 

That begs the question: How are Sarah Palin’s “hopes and dreams” for the world bound together with those of the targets of her bigotry? Why should people whose lives are being ruined by the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression “rise above their differences” with Republicans like Palin – or with Democrats like Obama? 

This is the whole issue. Civility is nice, but not if it’s an excuse for inaction. Bipartisanship, the administration’s mantra-like refrain, is a tool for getting policy done, not a goal of being in office.