The debate among progressive activists and commentators in recent weeks has tended to range from the leave-Obama-alone-and-he'll-fix-everything position to the stage-a-protest-at-Obama's-house-for-the-next-month position, including numerous stances in between those extremes. What all these positions share is acceptance of the incredible shift of power from Congress to the White House that we have seen in just the last eight years.
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Statement from the Steering Committee for the Prosecution for War Crimes of President Bush and His Subordinates
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Servers affected: mandela
Date: 2008-11-24
Due to excessively high loads, we allocated a new CPU and restarted
Mandela. The machine was offline from about 3:00 pm to 3:05 pm.
Dingell Loses to Waxman and Auto Stocks Dive Call It What It Is: CorruptionBy Joshua Holland, AlterNet Posted on November 21, 2008 AlterNet In a functional democracy -- one where lawmakers pursue the public interest -- the stock prices of politically connected companies or industries shouldn't be impacted by the changing fortunes of politicans with whom they're cozy. [...]
Honeymoon: Left Cuts Obama Slack for NowBy: Ryan Grim and Glenn Thrush November 21, 2008 02:41 PM EST As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama boasted of opposing the Iraq War from the start.But as president-elect, he has come to the rescue of surge supporter Joe Lieberman and flirted with the idea of keeping on Bush administration Defense Secretary Robert Gates - and now he seems poised to nominate war- authorizing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to serve as his secretary of state. [...]
'White Trash' Aren'tBy Stan Hister November 21, 2008 rabble.ca A couple of months ago, as the [Canadian] election campaign was getting started, I got a flyer in the mail, one of these mail-outs that MPs get to make at taxpayer expense.This one (from a Tory) got my attention. It had a picture of a man in his twenties, bearded and with unkempt hair. He was slouched on a couch, legs splayed apart, in an undershirt and with a beer in his hand. Punctuating the picture was a single word: Jail? [...]
The Lame-Duck EconomyBy PAUL KRUGMAN November 21, 2008 Everyone's talking about a new New Deal, for obvious reasons. In 2008, as in 1932, a long era of Republican political dominance came to an end in the face of an economic and financial crisis that, in voters' minds, both discredited the G.O.P.'s free-market ideology and undermined its claims of competence. And for those on the progressive side of the political spectrum, these are hopeful times. [...]
1 World Leaders Won't Shake George Bush's Hand 2 Sarah Palin Pardons a Turkey 3 Charlie Chaplin's Thanksgiving Meal 4 Does that Get Me Fired -- Lieberman and Stevens?World Leaders Won't Shake George Bush's HandCNN commentator speculates whether G20 leaders think that George Bush now has cooties, or was it that a bully got fake respect and friendship in the past? [...]
Nadler Introduces Resolution Opposing Possible Bush Pardons of His Own Subordinates for Crimes He Authorized
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Sun sets on US power: report predicts end of dominance- US intelligence: 'We can no longer call shots alone' - European Union will be 'hobbled giant' by 2025 - Triumph of western democracy not certainBy Julian Borger, diplomatic editorNovember 21 2008, The Guardian/UKhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/20/barack-obama-president-intelligence-agencyThe country Obama inherits, the report warns, will no longer be able to 'call the shots' alone in an increasingly multipolar world. Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters [...]
Naomi Klein on the Bailout Profiteers and the Multi- Trillion-Dollar Crime SceneNovember 17, 2008, Democracy Now!http://www.democracynow.org/2008/11/17/naomi_klein_on_the_bailout_profiteers'The more details emerge, the clearer it becomes that Washington's handling of the Wall Street bailout is not merely incompetent. It is borderline criminal,' says Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine.
Foreclosure Freeze Movement Takes on Wall StreetBy Scott SabatiniNovember 19, 2008, BeyondChron.orghttp://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=6312Earlier this summer, Countrywide Financial's most famous troubled customer received an altruistic bailout that saved his home. Now months later, despite attention from the highest levels of government, hundreds of thousands of anxious homeowners are still waiting for their reprieve. [...]
Flunking the Electoral CollegeEditorialNovember 20, 2008, The New York timesOn Dec. 15, the United States will endure a quadrennial ritual born in the economics and politics of slavery and the quill-pen era. Members of the Electoral College are scheduled to meet in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia to formally choose the next president. [...]
ENVIRONMENT: Where That "Recycled" E-Waste Really GoesBy Stephen LeahyNovember 21, 2008, Inter Press Service News Agencyhttp://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44707UXBRIDGE, Canada, Nov 14 (IPS) - Is your old TV poisoning a child in China? Or your old computer contaminating a river in Nigeria?
Politics behind the pictureWould Harvey Milk be happy with San Francisco today?By Steven T. Jones and Tim RedmondSan Francisco BayGuardian http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=7521&volume_id=398&issue_id=406&volume_num=43&issue_num=08&l=1The new Harvey Milk movie, which opens later this month, begins as a love story, a sweet love story about two guys who meet in a subway station and wind up fleeing New York for San Francisco. But after that, the movie gets political - in fact, by Hollywood standards, it's remarkably political. [...]
Tidbits: November 19, 20081. Makeba presente (Ricardo Levins Morales) 2. Re: Prop 8 is Not About Black Homophobia (David Pease) 3. Obama's foreign policy (Stanley Aronowitz) 4. Re: Obama needs a protest movement (Gregory Wonderwheel, Peter Belmont) 5. Re: The Bumpy Road Ahead (Duane Campbell, Zwarich)===Makeba presenteDear friend, Miriam Makeba passed away on November 10 at a concert in Italy. The link below is to a poster I made in tribute to Makeba as soon as I heard the news. [...]
Coca-Cola, Columbia and the International Labor OrganizationSTOP KILLER COKE NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER 19, 2008 http://www.killercoke.orgEXPOSING COKE'S LIES ABOUT ILO COLOMBIAN PROBE
Left MarginPrescription for an 'Ailing' Industry: Take it Over.Submitted to Portside By Carl BloiceIt is hemorrhaging fast and no end to the bloodletting seems to be insight. No question something has to be done about the auto industry. But what? As usual, the preferred answer depends your vantage point. As usual, when courses of action are proposed on matters like this the people be adversely affected are passed off as mere numbers. Bankruptcy on the part of any of the Big Three automakers would cost the U.S. economy $175 billion the first year after it went into [...]
A My Lai a MonthBy Nick Turse The Nation December 1, 2008Research support for this article was provided by the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute. Research assistance was provided by George Schulz of the Center for Investigative Reporting, Sousan Hammad and Sophie Ragsdale.
Tidbits - November 18, 2008* The Yes Men's New York Times spoof (Alfredo Lopez) * Re: Obama's New Deal (Cyril D. Robinson) * "American Politics in the Age of Obama: A New Era?" - New York City forum - Nov. 21, 2008 * Re: Prop 8 is Not About Black Homophobia (Ethan Young, Paul Gilman) * Fr. Roy Bourgeois Faces Excommunication by the Vatican (School of the Americas Watch) * Re: Rewind - A Week of Quotes & Toons (Jack Radey) * Re: Can Barack Obama Save Capitalism? (John Manning) * Odetta Hospitalized, "The Voice of the Civil Rights [...]
