ONE NATION – WORKING * TOGETHER

by: toniD
September 3rd, 2010

A New Movement has sprung up for the Left. ONE NATION. Gauging from one of our bloggers here, this movement may still be a bit uncoordinated. He tried to find out about a meeting near where he lives that was to have taken place last night, but no one got back to him. Still, it’s worth looking into because of the people and organizations involved. God only knows we need a movement like this and have for a long time. Here’s the info:

ONE NATION
IS ABOUT REORDERING OUR NATION’S PRIORITIES TO INVEST IN OUR MOST VALUABLE RESOURCE
— OUR PEOPLE.

Event Date: October 2, 2010

Location: Washington, D.C.

On Saturday, October 2, 2010, hundreds of thousands of Americans from across the country will gather at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. to demonstrate our re-commitment to change. The One Nation March will feature human and civil rights leaders, labor leaders, environmental and peace activists, faith leaders, celebrities and sports figures – all marching together to help Put America Back to Work and to Pull America Back Together. And to help reorder our national priorities so that investments in people come first.

We believe everyone deserves the opportunity to achieve the American Dream — a secure job, a safe home, and a quality education — but banksters and corporate lobbyists have made off with trillions of public dollars while small businesses can’t get loans and cities are laying off teachers, police, and firefighters.

In this time of economic crisis, it is easy for fear-mongerers to pit groups against each other and to find convenient scapegoats for the problems that plague us.

ONE NATION seeks to transcend our superficial differences and bring us together in a common quest for equal opportunity and justice for all.

ONE NATION HAS A NEW STORY TO TELL AND WE WANT YOU TO BE A PART OF IT.

This movement includes human and civil rights organizations, unions and trade associations, nonprofit organizations, youth and student groups, religious and other faith groups, educational, peace, environmental, and ethnic associations, and any other groups and individuals who are committed to pulling our country back together now. As of late August 2010, there are more than 150 ONWT organizational partners and tens of thousands of individuals.

See a list of endorsing organizations here. Some examples:

NAACP

Communications Workers of America (CWA)

AFL-CIO

National Council of La Raza

CodePink

Watch here:

UPDATE: Ed Schultz of MSNBC’s the ED Show has been invited to speak at this rally. He announced it on his show just now and will be talking about it until the event. We need to get other Media involved as well.

Open Topper Day

by: toniD
September 2nd, 2010

Here, have at it....

I’m taking a break, have fun!

***

Another Rig Explosion off Louisiana
Just now from MSNBC- more news on this when available!

***

If News Breaks, there will be a new topper!
toniD :)

Cartoon of the day, by Lalo Alcaraz:

60th sez…

The Panera posts got me hungry for panini-styled, so I busted out the George Foreman countertop grill and put some multigrain bread brushed with olive oil with sliced turkey and Havarti cheese in it.

Then I fried an egg and two bacon strips in the iron skillet, sliced some tomato, red onion, escarole,
added mustard, mayo, horseradish, Tobasco, salt, pepper, combined everything in the sandwich and served it with a side of Tabasco’d and salt/pepper’d avocado slices…and NOM!

Did I forget the carrot/apple/cran-raspberry juice and giant cuppa French roast? That, too.

Put that in yer topper!

..and so I did!

From Winding Down Iraq to Middle East Peace

by: toniD
September 1st, 2010

Last night Obama spoke from his newly remodeled Oval Office. The speech was to be about the end of the war in Iraq. Today all the opinionators are writing for papers and blogs and appearing on the TV News shows criticizing the speech. Criticism came from both sides on both the speech and the remodeled Oval Office.

Adam Serwer of the American Prospect, blogging at Plum Line writes:

The message the White House wants you to take away from President Obama’s Iraq speech last night is that the president is respectful and grateful for the troops’ sacrifice. In hindsight, it was probably a mistake to view this speech through an ideological prism — while the president made sure to remind everyone that he kept his campaign promise to end the war, most of the speech was focused on honoring those who fought it.

That’s appropriate. While much of the public discourse recently has focused on whether the president has done enough to inspire or placate his base, the end of combat operations in Iraq was not the right time to emphasize that Iraq was a “dumb war” that he opposed from the beginning. It was not a time to say I told you so.

Conversely, while conservatives are busy angrily denouncing the president for not giving more credit to Bush for implementing the surge — by which they mean not acknowledging that conservatives were right — that wouldn’t have been appropriate either. This speech was about the commitment of those who actually served, not the better part of valor displayed by those who sat in front of their keyboards and hammered out empirical or ideological arguments for or against the war.

Steve Benen of Washington Monthly writes:

It reminded me of a mini State of the Union, balancing out talk of foreign and domestic policy. That probably wasn’t widely expected in this Oval Office address — at least not by me — but it’s an acknowledgement of the larger political environment.

The Political Cartoon on this subject is from Mike Luckovich:

Today Obama meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to have another go at Mid East Peace. He’s not the first President to attempt this and may not be the last. I sincerely wish him luck with this since yesterday 4 Israelis Killed In West Bank; Hamas Claims Responsibility and West Bank settlers have pledged to resume building from 6pm tonight, in defiance of the Israeli government’s freeze on construction and in direct response to last night’s killing of four people by Hamas gunmen.

Sam Stein at Huffington Post writes:

The administration has insisted that getting the two parties to attend the first direct talks in more than 18 months is a major victory in its own right. The parameters of the negotiations are relatively undefined, however, and may be largely negotiable. Failed past talks may serve as a basis for a future agreement, but there is no set framework — and the ambiguity is deliberate.

“What we’ve tried to do is to avoid a slavish adherence to the past while trying to learn what might have been improved in the past, what worked, what didn’t work,” Special Envoy for Middle East Peace Senator George Mitchell told reporters on Tuesday. “And so we have avoided deliberately any specific label or identification that this is a continuation of process A or B or C.”

Obama will speak soon about this meeting and later there will be a newser with Netanyahu and Abbas.

What are your thoughts about Obama’s Oval Office speech last night and what do you think about this meeting today re Mid East Peace?

Another Robert Gibbs Remark Sets Off Economists

by: toniD
August 31st, 2010

I sees a DFH in the 3rd row

Maybe Obama needs to muzzle him. First he insults the Progressive base and now this:

Asked if the stimulus bill was too small, [White House press secretary Robert] Gibbs says: “I think it makes sense to step back just for a second. … Nobody had, in January of 2009, a sufficient grasp of … what we were facing.” He adds that any stimulus was “unlikely to fill” the hole the financial meltdown created.

“What the Recovery Act did was prevent us from sliding even into a deeper recession with greater economic contraction, with greater job loss than we have experienced because of it,” he says.

The key, here, was the question, “was the Stimulus too small”? And his answer that “any stimulus was “unlikely to fill” the hole the financial meltdown created.”

This comment set off many bloggers and Paul Krugman. And I am sure there will be more economists chiming in.

First Booman: Wrong Answer

This answer has the dubious distinction of being erroneous and stupid. Plenty of people had a sufficient grasp of the situation to recommend a much bigger stimulus bill. The no one could have predicted line of argument is not a political winner under any circumstances but it really stinks when it isn’t true.

From ql of Eschaton:

Not an economist, but I think Ruth has it about right. The financial system is like a house of cards that is teetering on the brink of collapse. Sooner or later all the assets held by the banks will have to be valued at market rates instead of the inflated values currently assigned to them. I suppose our betters are hoping that either the housing market will re-inflate or that they can spread the losses out over several years for a soft landing. Either way, it’s not very comfortable knowing that we’re so close to having the whole house collapse.

And Paul Krugman: Nobody

The truth is that some of us were practically screaming back in January 2009 that the administration was proposing too small a program. Start with this post and work forward. And no, the point isn’t that I’m so smart — it is that given the forecasts we had at the time, and given historical experience of recessions after financial crises, it wasn’t at all hard to see that the plan was too small. Things have been worse than expected — but not that much worse.

And why does this matter? Because the best chance Obama et al have to change things now is to make the case that we need to do more, and that Republicans stand in the way. Yet here they are, apparently trying to run on the claim that they had it right all along, or something. Is this just boneheaded political strategy? Is it about the egos of the advisers who called it wrong? I don’t know — but it fills me with despair.

So does this mean, with what Gibbs said, that Obama will not fight for a second Stimulus?

Here’s more on the Obama Admin “plans” for the economy and what the GnOP will do to stop it:

What Obama said yesterday: The President on the Economy: “Pushing This Economy Forward” vs. “The Blockade”

“So, as Congress prepares to return to session, my economic team is hard at work in identifying additional measures that could make a difference in both promoting growth and hiring in the short term, and increasing our economy’s competitiveness in the long term. Steps like extending the tax cuts for the middle class that are set to expire this year. Redoubling our investment in clean energy and R&D. Rebuilding more of our infrastructure for the future. Further tax cuts to encourage businesses to put their capital to work creating jobs here in the United States. And I’ll be addressing these proposals in further detail in the days and weeks to come.

From Ruth Calvo at Firedoglake: She calls our Economy a House of Cards.

The stranglehold the right wing has had on our nation’s economics has been a boon, you would think, to updating working knowledge of what works, and most strongly, what doesn’t, for economic health. To the morbid fascination of those of us who actually studied, and have working knowledge of, economics as a science there is an incredible tenacity of the right wing that insists its disproved theories actually work.

It looks like the Republicans will gain seats in the House this year. enough to take the majority? Very Possible. If so, with subpoena power, look for stalling on anything to help the economy and all the GnOP energy into investigating the Obama Admin. Whatever happens, we’re in for a rough ride til 2012. I don’t see much getting done unless the Dems and the Obama admin Steps It Up against the opposition.

Ya Think? 8-30-2010

by: toniD
August 30th, 2010

Citizen Panelist Discussing Politics, Food, Movies, Animals, and whatever happens to come up as a subject

Panelists:
Michele
Steve
Bibi Mimi
Zeek (When he calls in)
Sandy
60th Street
Cent
toniD
Kate Anne
Craig
Jmach1P
Rick Staggenborg
Sunny Jim

And Call ins
Chris